Vox Sentences: Where in the world is Vladimir Putin?

1. Where in the world is Vladimir Putin?

Russian President Vladimir Putin with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi on March 5, the last day before the apparent disappearance. (Sasha Mordovets/Getty Images)

• Russian president Vladimir Putin has not made a confirmed public appearance in over a week.

  [NYT / Neil MacFarquhar]

• Putin failed to appear at a meeting of the Federal Security Service (FSB, the modern successor to the KGB) and postponed a trip to Kazakhstan.

  [Bloomberg / Ilya Arkhipov]

• The Kremlin insists he's fine and released an image of him meeting with the governor of the region Karelia, as well as footage of him meeting with the head of the Russian Supreme Court, both meetings which it claimed happened this week; but the Karelia governor meeting actually happened last week, and the timing of the Supreme Court meeting hasn't been confirmed.

  [Washington Post / Adam Taylor]

• A Kazakh official told Reuters, "It looks like he has fallen ill."

  [Reuters / Raushan Nurshayeva and Dmitry Solovyov]

• But naturally, the disappearance has prompted more fanciful theories, including speculation Putin was deposed in a coup.

  [NYT / Neil MacFarquhar]

• Putin's spokesman was forced to deny rumors that Putin is in Switzerland attending the birth of his love child with Alina Kabaeva, the Olympic gold medal gymnast and former member of parliament he's widely believed to be dating.

  [Slate / Joshua Keating]

• Joshua Keating: this is probably nothing, and there's a long history of dictators disappearing from view to hide illnesses.

  [Slate / Joshua Keating]

• Amanda Taub: even if false, the rumors and the fear motivating them suggest that Russia's government has become exceedingly fragile and lacks a backup plan should Putin die or become incapacitated.

  [Vox / Amanda Taub]

2. Bougie Down Productions

Bougie Herzog and Tzipi Livni have some beers. (Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images)

• Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's conservative Likud party is trailing the center-left Zionist Union party according to the last polls published ahead of elections this Tuesday (Israel bans the publication of polls close to an election).

  [Haaretz]

• According to Ha'aretz's poll average, Zionist Union is set to get 24 seats to Likud's 21.

• But 61 seats are required to form a government, and there are enough other popular right-wing parties that Netanyahu might have an easier time assembling a coalition even if he gets fewer seats.

  [Vox / Zack Beauchamp]

• Zionist Union is a partnership between the Labor Party, led by Isaac "Bougie" Herzog, and Hatnuah, a relatively new party led by former foreign minister Tzipi Livni; Herzog and Livni would alternate as prime minister if elected.

  [FT / John Reed]

• The Joint List, a coalition of Arab-Israeli parties, is performing surprisingly well, but has also suggested it won't participate in a coalition.

  [The Daily Beast / Shira Rubin]

• The election is being dominated by economic issues, and even if Zionist Union wins, the odds of a revived peace process with the Palestinians aren't particularly high.

  [Reuters / Nidal al-Mughrabi and Ali Sawafta]

• Natan Sachs: the most likely outcome is a national unity government between Likud and Zionist Union, perhaps a short-lived one that tries to fix Israel's messed up electoral system and then hold new elections.

  [Brookings Institution / Natan Sachs]

3. Just voting, lottery tickets, and porn, then

I cannot confirm that this stock photo model is over 21. (Shutterstock)

• A new Institute of Medicine report suggests that raising the smoking age to 21 from 18 would prevent 4.2 million years of lost life due to smoking for Americans born between 2000 and 2019.

  [CNN / Joseph Netto]

• Put another way, that cohort would see a quarter million fewer premature deaths due to smoking.

• Some municipalities, most notably New York City, already ban tobacco sales to people under 21, but it's relatively rare.

  [WSJ / Tripp Mickle]

• The big success story advocates point to is Needham, MA, which has an age limit of 21 and a smoking rate less than half that of Massachusetts as a whole.

  [Slate / John Kruzel]

• But more action would still be needed to stamp out smoking entirely; Kenneth Warner and Harold Pollack suggest stricter regulations, higher taxes, inducements toward less dangerous tobacco products, and limits on nicotine content so that addiction can't be sustained.

  [The Atlantic / Kenneth Warner and Harold Pollack]

4. Misc.

• Jeopardy! head writer Billy Wisse explains what thinking up questions for the show entails. 14 to 21 a day is the norm.

  [AV Club / Alex McCown]

• The radical accomplishment of SimCity was that it was about systems, not people, and ridiculously fun nonetheless.

  [The Atlantic / Ian Bogost]

• One way to deal with racist fraternities and sororities: strip them of their tax-exempt status.

  [Slate / David Herzig and Samuel Brunson]

• I didn't realize this, but apparently, there's no evidence human sex pheromones even exist.

  [Vox / Joseph Stromberg]

5. Verbatim

• "Get ready for 'My Clitoris Deals Solely in Truth' T-shirts."

  [Washington Post / Carlos Lozada]

• "Oh, my goodness, I intend to stay until the lights go off. Why would I miss a single second of this?"

  [Valerie Jarrett to NYT / Jim Rutenberg]

• "Running against Hillary Clinton is like running against Jerry Brown in California."

  [Jerry Brown via Reid Wilson]

• "Rutherford B. Hayes was alive at the same time as John Adams and at the same time as Dwight Eisenhower."

  [Washington Post / Philip Bump]

• "Roar feels like Walt Disney decided to make a snuff version of Swiss Family Robinson. It may be the single most irresponsible thing I've ever seen as a movie, and I have seen it three times now. I may watch it again tonight."

  [Hitfix / Drew McWeeny]

• "The driving force behind the creation and abandonment of execution methods is the constant search for a humane means of taking a human life."

  [The Atlantic / Matt Ford]

• "The biggest challenge now was keeping the penguins interested."

  [New Yorker / Ed Yong]