Vox Sentences: Terror returns to Indonesia

Seven killed in a multistage terror attack in Indonesia; another flipping Republican debate; #OscarsStillSoWhite.

TOP NEWS

Terror in Indonesia, past and present

Oscar Siagian/Getty Images

• A terrorist attack hit Jakarta, Indonesia, on Thursday, killing seven people in a series of explosions and leading to a four-hour siege.

  [NBC News / Alastair Jameson, Ed Flanagan, and Suci Landon]

• Investigators suspect the attack was designed to be a coordinated multisite effort like the 2015 Paris attacks. Thankfully, it was far less successful.

  [Washington Post / Fred Barbash and Brian Murphy]

• Islamic State–affiliated media outlets report that ISIS is claiming credit for the attack.

• Hundreds of Indonesian militants have gone to Syria to fight with ISIS, and the Indonesian government started cracking down on the group at home at the end of last year.

  [The Diplomat / Luke Hunt]

• The question — if this was ISIS's doing — is whether the organization is coordinating with Indonesia's older militant groups.

  [Vox / Zack Beauchamp]

• The Indonesian government was gaining momentum against Islamist militant groups after the 2002 nightclub bombing in Bali and a 2009 attack in Jakarta.

  [The Hindu]

• But it's possible that, seeing the older generation of militants rounded up, the new generation has decided to stay in small, independent groups — making them hard to track or apprehend.

  [BBC ]

There they go again

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

• Are you ready for yet another Republican presidential debate? No? Too bad, there's one happening tonight (9 pm EST on Fox Business) anyway!

  [Vox / Andrew Prokop]

• Donald Trump is widening his lead in national polls over Ted Cruz. But Cruz beats Trump in a head-to-head matchup.

  [NBC News / Mark Murray]

• The national polling situation lends extra importance to the Iowa caucuses on February 1, where Cruz and Trump are neck and neck.

  [Vox / Andrew Prokop]

• Going for Trump: the fervor that leads to things like this strangely captivating dance number, which appeared at a rally in Phoenix today.

  [Fox 10 Phoenix via YouTube]

• Going for Cruz: the absolutely shambolic state of Trump's Iowa field-organizing efforts, including a precinct captain who doesn't agree with Trump's anti-Muslim rhetoric because he believes 9/11 was an inside job.

  [NYT / Trip Gabriel]

• But as beatable as Trump sometimes looks, the party's donor class is still totally uninterested in trying to beat him, because they still assume — after months of evidence showing otherwise — that he'll beat himself.

  [BuzzFeed / McKay Coppins]

• As a result, the most attacked candidate on stage tonight will likely be neither Trump nor Cruz, but distant third-placer Marco Rubio.

  [Vox / Matthew Yglesias, Andrew Prokop, and Laura McGann]

Better make that Oscar statuette *white* gold

Kevin Winter/Getty Images

• The Oscar nominations are out! And before you ask, yes, they are still super, super white.

  [Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences]

• The biggest individual snub of a film about people of color? Creed, which got a nomination for white supporting actor Sylvestor Stallone but not for Best Picture or for its black lead actor, Michael B. Jordan, or its black director, Ryan Coogler.

  [Slate / Aisha Harris]

• But the problem is broader than just one film. Rather, Academy voters ignored a whole bunch of movies featuring performances by people of color.

  [Vox / Todd VanDerWerff]

• Just as the nomination slates for the four acting categories are totally white, you could easily make up alternative slates for each that are totally nonwhite. The Academy just ignored those actors.

  [Decider / Joe Reid]

• Representation matters. The Academy voters are old, white, and male.

  [The Atlantic / Derek Thompson]

• But the gap between the Oscars and other film awards, which have honored films about people of color in recent years, is getting more noticeable and embarrassing.

  [Awards Daily / Sasha Stone]

• You should expect Chris Rock, who's hosting the 2016 Oscars, to make a joke about how white they are. The question is whether Hollywood will think laughing at itself is enough.

  [Syreeta McFadden via Twitter]

MISCELLANEOUS

A viral image ostensibly of a male kangaroo comforting a dying female actually shows the male "trying to mate with the dead female – and it's possible he even caused her fatal injuries." [Washington Post / Rachel Feltman]

• The best detail from this fantastic piece about the disruption Queen Elizabeth II's death will cause is that Prince Charles can apparently name himself "King Arthur" if he wants.

  [Business Insider / Rob Price]

• Out of the top 200 grossing films of the past 20 years, 53 percent of those written exclusively by men fail the Bechdel test, while 100 percent of those written exclusively by women pass.

  [Polygraph / Lyle Friedman, Matt Daniels, and Ilia Blinderman]

• DJ Khaled posted a picture of his credit card to Snapchat, lost $80,000 in 30 seconds, and says he plans to pursue criminal charges against people who used it, in what must be the strangest sting operation by a private individual ever.

  [Vice]

• San Francisco's high minimum wage has made restaurant owners seek out more and more experienced staff, and now serving is close to being treated as a real career like any other.

  [Washington Post / Lydia DePillis]

VERBATIM

"Fredric Baur dreamed up the original Pringles can. Now he's buried in one." [Time / Jeremy Caplan]

• "The group also discovered a deeper problem: No one was very motivated to make his or her thinking more accurate."

  [NYT Mag / Jennifer Kahn]

• "What differentiates me from many of the Trump supporters I met this weekend is that their concerns for our future have led to an overwhelming need to see all of our problems as someone else’s fault."

  [The Guardian / Kaddie Abdul]

• "A memorable part of this movie is when you see the trucks drive out to deliver the paper with an explosive story in it, almost as memorable as the part in Mad Max: Fury Road where a character named the Doof Warrior rides behind a GIANT WALL OF SPEAKERS on a huge truck playing sick guitar solos."

  [Washington Post / Alexandra Petri]

• "According to data compiled by The Washington Post, of nearly 1,000 people shot and killed by police officers in the United States in 2015, 25 percent displayed signs of mental illness. And about 14 percent of individuals in American jails and prisons have a serious mental illness, which means that, for most officers, interacting with individuals with mental illness is an almost daily occurrence."

  [NYT / Matthew Epperson]

WATCH THIS

The Oscars' voting process awards bland movies [YouTube / Estelle Caswell and Todd VanDerWerff]

Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images