Vox Sentences: What we know about the enormous and deadly explosions in China

A northeastern Chinese city shaken by mysterious explosions; Pennsylvania's attorney general blames her upcoming trial on a porn conspiracy; and the NFL Deflategate scandal is in federal court.

Vox Sentences is written by Dylan Matthews and Dara Lind.

TOP NEWS

Deadly explosions in Tianjin, China

A man watches smoke bellow from the site of the explosion. (AFP Photo/Greg Baker)

• Massive explosions hit the city of Tianjin, China, earlier today, killing at least 17 people and injuring hundreds more.

  [Associated Press]

• Tianjin is a city of about seven million people in northeast China. It's a major port.

  [New York Times / Andrew Jacobs and Yufun Huang]

• How big were the explosions? Here's how they looked on seismographs.

  [Shanghai Morning Post via Reported.ly]

• They were so enormous they got picked up by an infrared camera on a weather satellite, in space.

  [Vox / Zack Beauchamp]

• We don't know exactly what caused the explosions, but the most likely explanation is that it was an industrial accident.

  [BBC ]

• The explosions appear to have started in a warehouse storing hazardous chemicals. Chinese state television is reporting a shipment of explosives blew up.

  [BBC ]

• An interesting, though not necessarily related, note: In May, thousands of people turned out in a nearby township to protest "alleged carcinogenic pollution from a nearby iron and steel plant."

  [Radio Free Asia / Yang Fan and Luisetta Mudie]

The bizarre grudges-and-porn scandal involving Pennsylvania's attorney general

Raising Kane. (PA Attorney General's office)

• Last week, Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane was charged with leaking confidential material from a grand jury investigation, and then lying about it under oath.

  [PennLive / Wallace McKelvey]

• Kane says the charges are ginned up by her political enemies. That wouldn't be surprising: Kane is the first Democrat to be elected attorney general in state history, having been elected by criticizing the outgoing administration for botching its investigation of Penn State coach and serial molester Jerry Sandusky. (This Philadelphia Magazine feature dramatizes it well.)

  [Philadelphia Magazine / Robert Huber]

• Not that Kane was blameless in the grudge matches: The investigation that led to the charges against her uncovered a year-long "war" (Kane's word) against "former staffers and others she believed were undermining her."

  [PennLive / Wallace McKelvey]

• At a press conference today, Kane went a little further, saying the charges are part of a "conspiracy to cover up a chain of pornographic and bigoted emails passed among judges, prosecutors and lawyers." That ... is more surprising.

  [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette / Jon Schmitz]

• The porn emails definitely happened. Several state officials resigned last year for sending them on state computers, including a state Supreme Court justice and the secretary of the Department of Environmental Protection.

  [StateImpact / Susan Phillips]

• No, what's surprising is that someone would go from a criminal arraignment to taking questions willy-nilly from the press about it. One defense lawyer's reaction to Kane's presser: "I threw up in my mouth a little."

  [Philly Voice / Kevin C. Shelly]

Tom Brady has a day in court

Brady leaves federal court. (Andrew Burton/Getty Images)

• Star NFL quarterback Tom Brady and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell were in federal court today.

  [New York Daily News / Michael O'Keeffe, Stephen Rex Brown, Gary Myers, and Larry McShane]

• Remember Deflategate? When the New England Patriots deliberately under-inflated several footballs before their playoff game against the Indianapolis Colts, won the game, and then got caught? (If you don't, here's the explainer — we'll wait...)

  [Vox / Joseph Stromberg]

• Patriots quarterback Tom Brady got suspended four games of this upcoming season for his role in the deflation (though all that's been proven is that he was "generally aware" of it). He appealed to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and got denied. So Brady (and the players union) went to federal court, saying that Goodell violated the "law of shop" — standard due process in arbitration agreements.

  [Sports Illustrated / Michael McCann]

• If you are a Patriots fan, you already know this. If you aren't, here are four reasons to care:

• 1) The federal judge hearing the case is already pissed off at both sides: "The earth is already sufficiently scorched, in the court's view."

  [Steph Stradley]

• 2) Most of the issues swirling around the NFL right now — from domestic abuse to concussions — come down to whether the league actually cares about misconduct or just cracks down when it thinks people are watching. [Vox / Amanda Taub]

• 3) For better or worse, most high-profile clashes between labor and management in this century are in professional sports, so if you care about unions this is probably relevant to you.

  [Edge of Sports / Dave Zirin]

• 4) This terrible Tom Brady courtroom sketch, which makes it look like you could pick him up by the cheekbones.

  [USA Today / Bryan Alexander]

MISCELLANEOUS

An eight-foot-long, 2,500-year-old Ancient Egyptian prenup. [Atlas Obscura / Kara Giaimo]

• Is Tinder ushering in a new golden age of promiscuity? Not really.

  [NY Mag / Jesse Singal]

• Get yourself somewhere without a bunch of streetlights tonight and check out the year's best meteor shower. Bring a friend.

  [Vox / Joseph Stromberg]

• Bees! Bees? BEES!?!

  [Washington Post / Leah Sottile]

• Speaking of bees, I was recently informed that not everyone knows this bee-related joke, which is sad, because it is the best joke in the whole world.

  [The Awl / Alex Balk]

VERBATIM

"Beneath the order of our cities and the fiction of our reason, there is another world, a world of chaos and fornication, of overwhelming and collective murder, a place where monsters live." [Scott Thomas as Werner Herzog via AV Club]

• "A poor black family, in short, is much more likely than a poor white one to live in a neighborhood where many other families are poor, too."

  [Washington Post / Emily Badger]

• "It is four and ten thousand years now since Jennifer Aniston spit out the Forbidden name of God and flew into the desert. Created from dust for the man Brad, she was unwilling to lie underneath him, claiming 'I was formed from the same clay as you, why then should I bear up under you?'"

  [The Toast / Mallory Ortberg]

• "It was August 7, 2012, and I was standing in my hotel room in Kansas City about to shotgun a beer for the first time in my life … Running for reelection to the U.S. Senate as a Democrat from Missouri, I had successfully manipulated the Republican primary so that in the general election I would face the candidate I was most likely to beat. And this is how I had promised my daughters we would celebrate."

  [Politico / Claire McCaskill]

• "One day we will kill him my brother yes my brother one day soon we will climb into the Serpent Supreme’s house and we will row our boat noisily across the floor of his dark dry hallways to where Zuckerberg the Serpent Supreme sits sleeping on his throne of lies and we will open our mouth wide yes my brother and we will lick our lips of course we will my strong brother and we will not even chew him we will simply swallow him whole yes my identical wet brother and he will disappear down our throat and we will have justice at last yes my brother and all iniquities shall be carried away like well-rowed boats on the river of time goodnight brother goodnight brother goodnight."

  [Clickhole]

WATCH THIS

Why alcohol makes so many Asians turn red [YouTube / Joss Fong]

Vox / Joss Fong

Explanatory journalism is a public good

At Vox, we believe that everyone deserves access to information that helps them understand and shape the world they live in. That's why we keep our work free. Support our mission and help keep Vox free for all by making a financial contribution to Vox today.

One-Time Monthly Annual

$95/year

$120/year

$250/year

$350/year

Other

$

Yes, I'll give $120/year

Yes, I'll give $120/year

We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via