Vox Sentences: Don't hire a guy to run your Super PAC who's under investigation for bribery

Rand Paul's Super PAC chief indicted in bribery scandal; why the murder of a photographer in Mexico is causing outrage; and what you need to know about Legionnaires' disease.

Vox Sentences is written by Dylan Matthews and Dara Lind.

TOP NEWS

"Everyone sells out in Iowa, why shouldn't I?"

Benton (right) with Ron Paul in 2011. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

• Jesse Benton, the head of the biggest pro-Rand Paul Super PAC, has been charged with conspiracy & campaign law violations for bribing an Iowa state official to support Ron Paul in 2011.

  [Vox / Andrew Prokop]

• The official, State Sen. Kent Sorenson, was Michele Bachmann's Iowa chair before he switched his allegiances.

• Bachmann, for what it's worth, immediately figured out what was going on and talked to press about it. She told reporters that Sorenson had told her, "Everyone sells out in Iowa, why shouldn't I?"

  [New York Times / Jeff Zeleny]

• Sorenson pled guilty to concealing $73,000 in payments from Paul's campaign last year. Now, Benton and two other Ron Paul 2012 staffers have been charged with trying to cover up that the payments were coming from inside the official campaign account.

  [Vox / Andrew Prokop]

• Benton knows something about managing loyalties: until he resigned after the Sorenson indictment, Benton managed the 2014 reelection campaign for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Rand Paul's Public Frenemy Number One.

  [Politico / Elizabeth Titus]

• Amazingly, Benton managed to keep the job for a year after he got caught on a call telling an activist he was "holding his nose for two years" for McConnell on behalf of Rand's 2016 hopes.

  [Politico / Elizabeth Titus]

• The Rand Paul campaign's reaction to the indictments: "it certainly appears suspiciously timed" right before the first GOP debate.

  [Rand Paul campaign via Twitter / Kelly O'Donnell]

• This makes sense if you think that the Obama administration is most worried about Paul, who is polling at about 4.8 percent.

  [RealClearPolitics]

Journalism, murder, and impunity in Mexico

Mexican photojournalists hold pictures of Espinosa during a demonstration at the Angel of Independence Square in Mexico City on Sunday. (Yuri Cortez/AFP/Getty Images)

• One suspect has been arrested in the murder of Mexican photojournalist Ruben Espinosa, who was murdered, along with three women he lived with and his housekeeper, on Friday.

  [Associated Press / Katherine Corcoran and Alberto Arce]

• Espinosa's body showed signs of torture when it was discovered by authorities Saturday. (Article 19, a nonprofit protecting Mexican journalists, had notified the authorities Espinosa was missing.)

• Espinosa had fled his home state of Veracruz in June because he feared for his safety. 13 journalists have been killed in Veracruz since Governor Javier Duarte de Ochoa took office in 2010; 1 suspect has been detained.

  [McClatchy / Tim Johnson]

• Duarte was reportedly angry with an unflattering photo of him (taken by Espinosa) on the cover of Proceso magazine in February.

  [First Look / Ryan Devereaux]

• While Mexico City is purported to be relatively safe for journalists and human-rights workers, Espinosa still felt under threat there — telling friends that strangers had approached him more than once to ask if he was the photographer who left Veracruz.

  [Associated Press / Katherine Corcoran and Alberto Arce]

• Mexico has multiple federal offices to investigate the murders of journalists. But many cases are still being handled at the local level — which "pretty much guarantees complete impunity," writes Alejandro Hope.

  [El Daily Post / Alejandro Hope]

• Article 19 is worried that this investigation will follow the same pattern. Mexico City prosecutors say they're considering all angles in the investigation — including robbery — and claimed that Espinosa came to the capital not for his safety, but for "professional opportunities."

  [Associated Press via the Guardian]

Legionnaires' lament

The South Bronx's big outbreak in one tiny chart. (Andrew Burton/Getty Images)

• As of Wednesday morning, an outbreak of Legionnaires' disease in the South Bronx had killed seven New Yorkers, and infected another 79.

  [Gothamist / Jen Chung]

• Legionnaires' can best be described as a "severe form of pneumonia"; it's generally not lethal, but, like pneumonia, it's more dangerous for people with compromised respiratory systems (like smokers) and the elderly.

  [Vox / Julia Belluz]

• For more on the disease, check out Julia Belluz's explainer.

  [Vox / Julia Belluz]

• The water-dwelling bacteria that cause Legionnaires' can be spread via hot tubs or pools, or via air conditioning. In New York's case, the culprits are a set of cooling towers in the South Bronx — and Mayor Bill de Blasio is responding by requiring cooling-tower inspections.

  [New York Times / Winnie Hu and Noah Remnick]

• You can do your part by making sure your hot tub is being properly maintained.

  [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention]

• Reported cases of Legionnaires' tripled from 2001 to 2012. But they're still fairly rare.

  [Journal of Public Health Management and Practice / Berkelman et. al.]

• Legionnaires' probably causes more anxiety than needed because of its high-profile discovery in Philadelphia in 1976 — an outbreak killed 34 attendees of the American Legion's convention, infected 134 more, and totally buzzkilled the July 4th bicentennial celebrations.

  [Philadelphia Reflections / George R. Fisher]

• No one could figure out what had caused the disease. "With few leads to guide them," Sarah Kaplan writes, "even the wildest theories [—] a madman with a squirt gun, a comic book villain dropping toxic pills into the hotel air vents — were given due consideration."

  [Washington Post / Sarah Kaplan]

• The Pennsylvania health secretary even contemplated seizing the state's hospitals to prepare for what he thought would be a massive epidemic.

  [New York Times / Lawrence K. Altman]

MISCELLANEOUS

Over 350 bills from the United States Congress, ranked by acronym quality. [Washington Post / Philip Bump]

• A map of the relationships between various "theories of everything" in physics.

  [Quanta / Natalie Wolchover]

• WHISKIES IN SPAAAAAAACE.

  [Forbes / Alex Knapp]

• Windows 10 is supposed to be the last version of the operating system ever — not because Microsoft is giving up on it, but because "versions" aren't always the best way of updating software.

  [Slate / Lily Hay Newman]

• This is the Human League's "Don't You Want Me" with all the lyrics replaced with "You were working as a waitress at a cocktail bar." It is beautiful and perfect.

  [Dangerous Minds / Christopher Bickel]

VERBATIM

"The United States is not a receptacle for twee Canadian garbage." [Deadspin / Albert Burneko]

• "We need to say that women have sex, have abortions, are at peace with the decision and move on with their lives."

  [NYT / Katha Pollitt]

• "'I glued my finger to the croc while attaching a transmitter with an instant glue,' Staniewicz, now a Ph.D. student at the University of Bristol, told me."

  [The Atlantic / Robinson Meyer]

• "You hold up 'The Wire' and you try to have an argument about gender studies, and you’re not going to have very much to argue with."

  [David Simon to Salon / Sonia Saraiya]

• "Its working title was ‘'You Say Tomato,’’'but his production company wanted to package it better for a black audience…The movie was eventually released as 'Soul Talkin’.’’

  [NYT Mag / Jenna Wortham]

WATCH THIS

Vox / Christophe Haubursin

• Science explains why people see faces where there are none

  [Vox / Christophe Haubursin]

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