Vox Sentences: A gyrocopter lands on the Capitol lawn

Welcome to Vox Sentences, our news bulletin breaking down the day's biggest stories.

1. Gyrocopter drama

A member of the US Capitol Police bomb squad checks out the gyrocopter. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images News)

• A Florida man landed his gyrocopter on the Capitol lawn and was promptly arrested.

  [Vox / Andrew Prokop]

• Appropriately for a mailman, 61-year-old Doug Hughes, the copter's pilot, was carrying letters — 535 of them, for each member of Congress, pleading for campaign finance reform.

• The Secret Service visited Hughes months ago, tipped off about his plans by a member of Hughes's inner circle.

  [Tampa Bay Times / Ben Montgomery]

• "My flight is not secret. Before I took off, I sent an email to info@barackobama.com."

  [Washington Post / Hunter Schwarz]

• Here are 40 charts that explain the issue Hughes was upset about: money in politics.

  [Vox / Andrew Prokop]

2. The tax man cometh

It's tax time. (Andrew Burton / Getty Images News)

• Here are nine charts that explain how Americans pay taxes.

  [Vox / Dara Lind]

• Sweden, Denmark, and Spain all fill out their citizens' tax forms for them, but in the US, lobbying from the maker of TurboTax has stalled any effort to make taxes easier.

  [Vox / Ezra Klein]

• How bad is American stress on tax day? Car accidents are slightly more likely to happen, and researchers surmise it's because people are stressed out.

  [Los Angeles Times / Karen Kaplan]

• Forget what you've heard — the poor do pay a lot of taxes in the US.

  [Vox / Dylan Matthews]

• The "marriage penalty" on taxes disproportionately hits couples with near-equal incomes.

  [The Upshot / Amanda Cox]

• And yes, if you're getting a refund, you technically gave the government an interest-free loan — here's how much more money you'd have if you'd saved it, invested it, or paid off debt instead.

  [FiveThirtyEight / Ben Casselman and Reuben Fischer-Baum]

• But still, Americans are much more proud of being taxpayers than you'd expect.

  [The Atlantic / Vanessa Williamson]

• Haven't done your taxes yet? File. File something. The IRS needs to hear from you.

  [The Awl / Choire Sicha ]

3. More on Eric Harris, shot by police on April 2

• Eric Harris was shot when a reserve sheriff's deputy pulled his gun instead of his Taser — but Tasers can kill, too, and some experts think police are too trigger-happy.

  [Vox / German Lopez]

• Police shootings are leading to more calls for body cameras, which would provide incentives for them to behave well in addition to evidence if something goes wrong.

  [Vox / Dara Lind]

• "Peel back the layers of most of the recent police shootings that have captured attention and you will find a broad societal problem that we have looked at, thrown our hands up, and said to the criminal-justice system, 'You deal with this.'"

  [The Atlantic / Ta-Nehisi Coates]

• The shooting was captured on video, and for some, the most shocking part is when one of the officers yells, "Fuck your breath."

  [Washington Post / Peter Holley]

4. Misc.

• The direct and indirect costs of gun violence cost every person in the US more than $700 per year, according to an investigation and research by Mother Jones.

  [Mother Jones / Mark Follman, Julia Lurie, Jaeah Lee, and James West]

• Former New England Patriots player Aaron Hernandez was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole.

  [The New York Times / Ken Belson and Victor Mather]

• Television has been preparing America for a potential Hillary Clinton presidency — sometimes unknowingly.

  [Vox / Todd VanDerWerff]

• America leads the world in making it difficult for the poor to get access to basic bank accounts.

  [Vox / Matt Yglesias]

• As more anonymous accounts of sexual assault go public, the more they're treated like blind items in gossip columns, creating witch hunts for perpetrators or doxxing campaigns against victims.

  [BuzzFeed / Jessica Testa]

5. Verbatim

• "They want to know when her birthday is. Cheryl gives them a list of 10 possible dates."

  [Vox / Libby Nelson]

• "Even if I have to drive to Lindström, and paint the umlauts on the city limit signs myself, I’ll do it."

  [Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton]

• "She nicknamed the letters 'papillons,' in reference to the messages distributed by French resistance fighters during the Second World War."

  [The Telegraph / Peter Spence]

• "Marco Rubio’s campaign logo looks like it’s for a discount lingerie store."

  [Tweet quoted by Vox / Danielle Kurtzleben]

• "I’m your friend, and if I see a bus coming at you, I have to push you out of the way."

  [Susan Miller to The Verge / Devon Maloney]

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