Vox Sentences: A comprehensive guide to the horrific events in Charleston

9 lost in Charleston

Tamara Holmes and her son, Trenton Holmes, lay flowers in front of Emanuel. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

• Nine people, including a prominent state senator, were killed in a shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, last night.

  [Vox / Timothy B. Lee and German Lopez]

• The church has long been a center of civil rights activism since its1816 founding. Denmark Vesey, a leader in the church, launched a failed slave rebellion that saw the church building burn to the ground.

  [Vox / Jenée Desmond-Harris]

• Both Booker T. Washington and Martin Luther King Jr. spoke at Emanuel.

  [Washington Post / Sarah Kaplan]

• There is a long, dark history of white supremacist attacks against black churches.

  [Vox / German Lopez]

• You can read a list of the Emanuel victims here.

  [Post and Courier / Andrew Knapp]

• The leading suspect, 21-year-old Dylann Roof, has been captured by police.

  [NYT / Jason Horowitz, Nick Corasaniti, and Richard Pérez-Peña]

• His roommate, Dalton Taylor, said Roof was "big into segregation" and that "He said he wanted to start a civil war. He said he was going to do something like that and then kill himself."

  [ABC News / Emily Shapiro]

• In an already-famous Facebook photo, Roof is seen wearing the flags of apartheid-era South Africa and of Rhodesia, the predecessor state to Zimbabwe that had white minority rule.

  [Vox / Zack Beauchamp]

• During the shooting, Roof reportedly shouted, "You rape our women, and you’re taking over our country, and you have to go."

  [Slate / Jamelle Bouie]

• Historically, white anti-black violence like Roof's has been the main form of terrorism in the United States.

  [Vox / Dara Lind]

• The federal government is launching a hate crime investigation.

  [Ryan Reilly]

• While the federal government can bring hate crime charges, South Carolina is one of only six states to not have a hate crime statute for race.

  [Vox / German Lopez]

• The Confederate flag outside the statehouse in Columbia was left at full mast today.

  [Vox / Zack Beauchamp]

• Ta-Nehisi Coates: "Roof’s crime cannot be divorced from the ideology of white supremacy which long animated his state nor from its potent symbol — the Confederate flag."

  [The Atlantic / Ta-Nehisi Coates]

• President Obama commented on the shooting, saying, "I've had to make statements like this too many times … At some point we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries."

  [Vox / Libby Nelson]

• Clementa Pinckney, the state senator killed in the shooting, was known as the conscience of the South Carolina legislature. He was only 27 when he was elected to the State Senate in 2000; he was 41 at his death.

  [Vox / Libby Nelson]

• Still have questions about the shooting? We have a comprehensive explainer that hopefully answers them.

  [Vox / Timothy B. Lee and German Lopez]

Cool Pope further burnishes Cool Pope image

Cool pope. (Franco Origlia/Getty Images)

• A new 184-page encyclical from Pope Francis calls for swift, global action against climate change.

  [NYT / Jim Yardley and Laurie Goodstein]

• You can read the whole thing in English here.

  [Vatican]

• Bizarrely, Francis goes out of his way to condemn things that would actually, y'know, fight global warming. He denounces cap-and-trade systems, saying they "could give rise to a new form of speculation and would not help to reduce the overall emission of polluting gases."

  [The Guardian / Stephanie Kirchgaessner and John Hooper]

• He also attacks technological solutions and regulations: "Attempts to resolve all problems through uniform regulations or technical interventions can lead to overlooking the complexities of local problems."

  [Vatican]

• He doesn't talk about carbon taxes, so who knows if there's literally any intervention he'd support.

• He does appear to support world government, calling for a "world political authority" that would aim "to manage the global economy."

  [Vox / Brad Plumer]

• The big theological question is what it means for God to give man "dominion" over nature. Does that mean we have free rein — or that we need to protect it?

  [ThinkProgress / Jack Jenkins and Emily Atkins]

• Not sure what an "encyclical" is? Here's a good explanation.

  [ThinkProgress / Jack Jenkins]

• The Pope's attack on science and technology is pretty off-target, given the potential for technical breakthroughs to help us lower emissions and prevent catastrophic warming.

  [FT / Nick Butler]

• The encyclical puts Catholic Republican presidential candidates — Jeb Bush (who converted), Marco Rubio, Rick Santorum, Bobby Jindal, Chris Christie — in an awkward position. Jeb has already distanced himself from it, saying he doesn't "get economic policy from my bishops or my cardinals or my pope."

  [NYT / Coral Davenport]

• Want to learn more? Check out Brad Plumer's explanation of the encyclical.

  [Vox / Brad Plumer]

The tiniest of trade victories

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), the top Democrat on the Finance Committee, which deals with trade issues. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

• The House passed a bill giving President Obama authority to negotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and get an up-or-down vote on it in Congress.

  [Vox / Timothy B. Lee]

• The plan is to get the Senate to pass this measure — known as Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) — have Obama sign it, and then have the House and Senate pass a bill renewing Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA), which helps people who lose jobs due to trade.

  [Vox / Jonathan Allen]

• The original plan was to pass the two together, but that failed in the House, in large part due to Democratic opposition to TPP as a whole.

  [Vox / Timothy B. Lee]

• Now the idea is that the Senate will pass TPA, the White House will sign it, and House Democrats will change their minds and pass TAA, once it's no longer tied to a trade deal they hate.

• But TPA only passed in the Senate due to Democratic support, and Democrats are now suggesting that the House needs to promise to pass TAA, and perhaps give more concessions, if fast track is going to make it past the Senate again.

  [NYT / Jennifer Steinhauer]

• Want to learn more? Check out our card stack explaining TPP, TPA, and TAA, among other acronymed trade policies.

  [Vox / Timothy B. Lee]

Misc.

• France's foreign ministry warns French tourists to not make too many sex jokes around Americans, given that we're all uptight prudes here.

  [Bloomberg / Gregory Viscusi]

• Jamelle Bouie argues that Hillary Clinton needs to embrace her inner Leslie Knope.

  [Slate / Jamelle Bouie]

• It's obviously unjust for a 14-year-old who stole a Snickers bar to be charged as an adult. But what about a 14-year-old who killed somebody?

  [Marshall Project / Dana Goldstein]

• Key & Peele averages about 2 million viewers, according to traditional ratings. But its last season generated 298 million streams on YouTube, Facebook, Hulu, and video on demand.

  [NYT / Jonah Weiner]

• Upworthy's laying off staffers and rethinking its strategy. What went wrong?

  [The Awl / John Herrman]

Verbatim

• "That’s how you pass the nut test: by admitting you could be wrong."

  [BuzzFeed / Dan Vergano]

• "People like to come down here, enjoy the sunset, enjoy the air of exclusivity."

  [Martin Howell to the Awl / Brendan O'Connor]

• "No architect, knowing what we know today, would sit down and design the system we have. But it wasn’t designed, it was scribbled — in a single moment of fear and trembling in New York."

  [Franklin Zimring to Marshall Project / Eli Hager]

• "Taylor Swift slowed down is a young, male, equally catchy pop star."

  [Laura Olin]

Song of the day

• Kacey Musgraves, "Biscuit"

  [YouTube]

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