Vox Sentences: Texas is flooding, and it's only going to get worse

The flood

Vehicles are left stranded on Texas State Highway 288 in Houston, Texas on May 26, 2015. (Aaron Sprecher/AFP/Getty Images)

• At least ten people in Oklahoma and Texas have died following massive storms over the weekend.

  [Reuters / Kristen Hays and Amanda Orr]

• As many as five people have died in Houston alone, where mass transit service has been suspended and authorities have told residents that emergency crews may not be able to rescue drivers.

  [NYT / Manny Fernandez and Richard Pérez-Peña]

• 2,000 or more Texans have been forced to flee their homes, and Central Texas near the Blanco River, especially San Marcos and Wimberley, was particularly hard hit. Authorities estimate that 350 to 400 homes in Wimberley have been destroyed.

  [The Guardian / Amanda Holpuch]

• Wimberley is known as a popular vacation spot; one vacation home where two families were set to spend the holiday weekend was swept away onto the Blanco during the storm.

  [AP / Paul Weber]

• The damage is not limited to the US, as a severe tornado hit the Mexican border city of Ciudad Acuna, killing at least 13.

  [BBC]

• More severe thunderstorms and tornados are expected to be coming to the area over the next few days.

  [NBC News / Erin McClam and Elisha Fieldstadt]

• Texas relies more on federal disaster funding than any other state, but its relationship with FEMA is often strained.

  [CityLab / Kriston Capps]

We can't wait / we must wait

Activists calling for federal judges to reject challenges to President Obama's 'Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents' (DAPA) program protest outside the Jacob K. Javits Federal building, where naturalization ceremonies take place, on May 19, 2015 in New York City. (Andrew Burton/Getty Images)

• A federal appeals court upheld a lower court ruling preventing the Obama administration's deportation relief plans for undocumented immigrants from going into effect.

  [Vox / Dara Lind]

• In February, district court Judge Andrew Hanen ruled that the policy had to be placed on hold while he weighed its constitutionality; two Republican-appointed judges on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the decision.

  [NYT / Julia Preston]

• Texas and 25 other states are suing to block Obama's plan.

  [Christian Science Monitor / Patrik Jonsson]

• Neither Hanen nor the Fifth Circuit ruled on the merits of Texas's suit; they merely moved to delay the program's implementation until those merits are considered in the courts.

  [Christian Science Monitor / Warren Richey]

• The program in question provides deportation relief and work permits for immigrants who arrived before 2010 and either (a) were under 16 or (b) have a child who is a citizen or legal resident of the US.

  [Vox / Dara Lind]

Misc.

• Until the 18th century, high heels were fashionable for men as well. Then the Enlightenment happened.

  [NYT / Elizabeth Semmelhack]

• Meet the Doof Warrior: not the hero the world deserves, but the hero it needs.

  [Yahoo! / Kevin Polowy]

• This 16-year-old's opinions on computer-based standardized tests are spectacularly wrongheaded. Computer tests are great! Ask anyone who's taken both the SAT and the GRE and they'll tell you the same.

  [Slate / Rebecca Castillo]

• Nope, pop music isn't getting dumber.

  [NY Mag / Jesse Singal]

• Elton John, Melinda Gates, and more explain the one change they'd make to save the world.

  [Vox]

• Meet Maria the "Gentle Whisperer," whose videos of herself whispering have gotten over 120 million views on YouTube as of this writing.

  [Washington Post / Caitlin Gibson]

Verbatim

• "This is the time we live in: Thousands of people have signed a petition to unseat a woman they’ve never heard of from a position they don’t understand at a school they’ve never visited over a tweet they’ve never seen."

  [Slate / Amanda Hess]

• "If you compare the murder rate among police officers with the murder rate in several American cities, you find that it is far safer to be a NYPD officer than an average black man in Baltimore or St. Louis."

  [Slate / David Feige]

• "An attack on Josh Duggar is not an attack on all of Christianity: it’s an attack on the fundamentalist sects that continue to condone or even help to create this behavior in the first place."

  [Gawker / Jennifer Martin]

• "Everything I learned about Iranians I learned working in the pool room. I met a lot of liars, and I know Iranians are liars."

  [BBC / Anthony Zurcher]

• "Mad Men … told us hard truths about what it means to be human, believing you’re moving in a straight line when it’s more likely a stumbling, semi-conscious, serpentine progression, or worse, a wheel of experience that keeps returning you over and over again to the same images and situations."

  [NY Mag / Matt Zoller Seitz]

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