Vox Sentences: Why the president’s going to Cuba now

Where we are in US-Cuba relations; a fight between Donald Trump and the pope because why not; everyone's favorite artificial-island-induced territory dispute just got serious.

Vox Sentences is written by Dylan Matthews and Dara Lind.

TOP NEWS

POTUS: Havana Nights

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

• President Obama plans to travel to Cuba next month.

  [ABC News / Jim Avena, Serena Marshall and Arlette Saenz]

• It will be the first visit by a sitting president in 88 years.

  [Vox / Michelle Hackman]

• The president's not going anywhere other people won't be able to go soon: Earlier this week, the US and Cuba announced a deal to allow commercial flights between the two countries.

  [Wall Street Journal / Susan Carey]

• But the thaw in relations isn't going perfectly, which is part of why the president's going — to appease Cuba's frustration that the trade embargo is still officially in place.

  [USA Today / Roger Yu]

• Obama has been trying mightily to find ways he can expand trade with Cuba through executive action. But only Congress can lift the embargo.

  [US News / Sabrina Rodriguez]

The Vicar of Christ is a Trump-certified loser

Buda Mendes/Getty Images

• Pope Francis made headlines today for appearing to condone the use contraception rather than risk giving birth to babies affected by the Zika virus.

  [Catholic News Service / Cindy Wooden]

• Like a lot of things this pope makes headlines for, this is a lot less radical if you read it in context — he's mostly saying that aborting a Zika-affected baby would be an "absolute evil," and that "avoiding pregnancy" (by unspecified means) is not an absolute evil.

  [Catholic News Agency]

• Francis was much less ambiuguous in his condemnation of Donald Trump: "A person who only thinks about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian."

  [Huffington Post / Christina Wilkie]

• Trump's perfectly Trumpian response, posted quickly after the story of the pope's remarks came out, claims that when ISIS attacks the Vatican, Pope Francis will wish Trump were president.

  [Donald J. Trump for President / Donald J. Trump]

• The weirdest part of this is NOT that Trump thinks ISIS will attack the Vatican — they've been threatening to do that for years.

  [Newsweek / Madeline Grant]

• The weirdest part is that Trump's statement assumes that Donald Trump will not be president in the future.

• Maybe Trump is reacquainting himself with the trait he said in 2013 he and the pope had in common: humility.

  [Vox / Libby Nelson]

SOS in the SCS?

Jay Directo/AFP/Getty Images

• The government of Taiwan reported earlier this week that China has mounted surface-to-air missiles on one of its artificial islands in a disputed region of the South China Sea.

  [BBC]

• (China, for its part, dismissed the claims, saying the US was hyping up the "China threat" for political reasons.)

  [The Guardian / Oliver Holmes]

• China has slowly been expanding into the South China Sea for a while, by building artificial islands — then claiming all sea within a 12-mile radius of those islands as "Chinese waters."

  [BBC]

• The region has rich oil and gas reserves, but given its location, a military installation there could be an even bigger deal.

  [Vox / Katy Lee]

• China's neighbors are worried. Fifty-six percent of Filipinos are not only aware of the dispute, but very concerned about it.

  [Statista / Dyfed Loesche]

• And the timing could be more crucial, but not much. The Hague is set to rule this spring on whether China's expanded territorial claims in the South China Sea are kosher.

  [Foreign Policy / Dan De Luce and Keith Johnson]

MISCELLANEOUS

No one makes worse predictions than Bill Kristol. But he says he has no intent on stopping now. [Washington Post / Paul Farhi]

• British supermarket giant Tesco is making its croissants straight because British people couldn't handle having to spread jam on a curved pastry.

  [Telegraph / Sophie Jamieson]

• If you've been on SSRIs — and consider that Kanye West raps about going off his Lexapro on his new album — West's recent behavior starts to look a lot less funny and a lot more concerning.

  [MTV / Molly Lambert]

• The UK Labour Party is considering endorsing a basic income. Your move, Bernie Sanders.

  [Independent / Hazel Sheffield]

• Getting cash out of China is tough for millionaires, but one has figured out an innovative new approach: suing himself.

  [Boing Boing / Cory Doctorow]

VERBATIM

"L.A. Was Built Too Recently; Your Family Has To Have Lived Somewhere For At Least Six Generations Otherwise You’ll Just Do Murder With No Compunction." [The Toast / Mallory Ortberg]

• "Perhaps it’s possible that at a certain point in history—in fact quite recently—young painters decided to cease the now age-old quest for art historical significance and instead focus on the simple pleasures of decorating well for a living."

  [Observer / Ryan Steadman]

• "Fucking Marco Rubio got a third place in Iowa and a fifth place in New Hampshire and he's trying to drive us out of the campaign. It's ludicrous."

  [Anonymous Jeb Bush source to The Hill / Jonathan Swan]

• "There's something called Chartbeat—it shows you how many people are reading a specific article in any given moment, and how long they spend on that article. That's called 'engagement time.' We have a giant flatscreen on the wall that displays it, a lot of publications do.'" "What you just said is the worst thing I ever heard."

  [Gothamist / Christpher Robbins (first quote) and Robert Caro (second)]

• "Having spent several years among teens who have freely laid bare their inside jokes, their Facebook messages, and their deepest thoughts, I think there are three phases of understanding the teens. At first you loathe the teens, because you know nothing about them and think they’re idiots, beneath you. Then you love the teens because you figure out they are smarter than you, and you make peace with the death of your cultural relevance, because you know you’ll be in good hands. Finally, you recognize the shape of the adults they’ll become, corrupted by money and vanity and hubris just like everyone else. And you’ll see yourself in them because they’re relatable: That moment you realize the teens are just like you."

  [New Republic / Elspeth Reeve]

WATCH THIS

Why aren't all the primaries on the same day? [YouTube / Liz Scheltens, Joe Posner, Carlos Waters]

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