Vox Sentences: 737 Max-ed out

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Boeing is going to stop making the 737 Max

  • Aerospace company Boeing announced that it will suspend production of its 737 Max jetliner in January following two crashes of the model that were linked to poor safety standards. [Wall Street Journal / Andrew Tangel, Doug Cameron, and Alison Sider]
  • An ongoing Department of Justice investigation into deadly crashes earlier this year

“Witch hunt!”: the history of Donald Trump’s favorite attack on Robert Mueller, explained

Everything is a witch hunt to President Donald Trump.

First it was Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian collusion and obstruction of justice. Now it’s impeachment.

In a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday, objecting to the impeachment proceedings that will culminate in a House floor vote Wednesday, Trump wrote: “More due process was afforded to those accused in the Salem Witch Trials.”

It might sound outlandish — people, mostly young women, were literally executed in Salem in the late 17th century — but this is one of Trump’s favorite tropes. In his telling, he is the subject of …

Trump vents about impeachment in wild letter to Nancy Pelosi

President Donald Trump seems angry.

On Tuesday, the eve of the House’s historic impeachment vote, the president sent a rambling, exclamation point-laden letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in which he rages at her and House Democrats, accusing them of pursuing an “invalid” and partisan impeachment inquiry against him.

The six-page letter reads a bit like a compilation of Trump’s greatest Twitter hits.

“The Articles of Impeachment introduced by the House Judiciary Committee are not recognizable under any standard of Constitutional theory, interpretation or jurisprudence,” Trump writes. “They include no crimes, no misdemeanors, no offenses whatsoever. You have cheapened …

Sex workers are in danger. Warren and Sanders are backing a bill that could help.

When Congress passed sweeping legislation aimed at curbing sex trafficking in 2018, one group was largely excluded from the debate: sex workers themselves.

No sex workers or sex worker rights groups testified in hearings on the laws, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), one of the few members in Congress to vote against the legislation, told Vox in a recent interview. “It’s just that their perspective was defeated, it’s that their perspective wasn’t even considered,” he said.

The end result, sex worker rights groups say, was legislation that hurt them rather than helped. They say FOSTA-SESTA — a combination of two …

Pete Buttigieg’s latest plan is an appeal to Latino voters

Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg released a plan Monday appealing to Latinos, voters who have been slow to warm to his campaign compared to his competitors.

The South Bend, Indiana, mayor says he would invest in Latino-owned businesses, reduce the cost of college, expand protections for Latino workers, create a path to citizenship for unauthorized immigrants, and improve access to housing, safe drinking water, and the ballot box.

Buttigieg’s campaign has been criticized in recent months for not doing enough outreach to Latinos, including failing to meet with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) and community organizers trying to mobilize Latino …

Vox Sentences: Climate talks left in the cold

Vox Sentences is your daily digest for what’s happening in the world. Sign up for the Vox Sentences newsletter, delivered straight to your inbox Monday through Friday, or view the Vox Sentences archive for past editions.

UN climate talks end without strong commitments

  • UN climate talks ended Sunday without a full agreement of world powers on how to address the imminent threat of global warming. [AP News / Frank Jordans and Aritz Parra]
  • While the negotiations were meant to shore up the Paris agreement and define the terms on which the signatory countries would reduce their greenhouse

“All I Want for Christmas Is You” finally hit No. 1 on Billboard, 25 years after its release

Mariah Carey, queen of Christmas, is finally getting the recognition she deserves. Her holiday anthem “All I Want for Christmas Is You” just reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the first time, 25 years after it was first released — and in doing so, it’s brought Carey one step closer to making history.

“All I Want for Christmas Is You,” first released in 1994, was an instant classic, and remains one of the only post-’60s releases to make it into the holiday songbook canon. But it was first released as a noncommercial single, which …

As impeachment looms, Rudy Giuliani’s Ukraine conspiracies are getting more outlandish

During a moment in which President Donald Trump appears to be days from being impeached, his personal lawyer is boldly promoting more of the sort of conspiracy theories around the Biden family and Ukraine that has led the president into impeachment proceedings in the first place.

Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, gave an interview with the conservative One America News Network (OAN) that aired Saturday and Sunday, in which he pushed increasingly convoluted conspiracy theories about the Biden family and Ukraine.

And he brought along men he presented as witnesses able to verify his claims, including Andrii

The law that’s helping fuel Delhi’s deadly air pollution

Yet another cloud of choking smoke and dust descended this year upon the 20 million residents of Delhi as winter crept in, reaching “severe” or “emergency” levels throughout the region. The dangerous, dirty air arose from a mix of weather conditions, urban emissions, and rural smoke converging over India’s capital region.

In November, Delhi’s Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal turned to Twitter to describe his city as a “gas chamber.”

5 questions about Watchmen’s season one finale

As far as I (Vox critic at large Emily VanDerWerff) am concerned, “See How They Fly,” Watchmen’s first (and perhaps only?) season finale, was a near-perfect way to end a near-perfect season of television.

Like the season it caps, “See How They Fly” begins with a heady dip into both the past and present, filling viewers in on the backstory of Lady Trieu and Adrian Veidt’s eventual escape from Europa. The two are linked — Trieu is Veidt’s daughter, though he had no idea she existed until she showed up at his doorstep in Antarctica. (Sidebar: The way the …