Vox Sentences: The UK gets its second woman leader before the US gets its first

Theresa May is the UK's next prime minister; arrests around the country after protests over police deaths; Pokémon Go.

Vox Sentences is written by Dylan Matthews and Dara Lind.

TOP NEWS

May Day

Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

• As of Wednesday, when current UK Prime Minister David Cameron resigns, Theresa May will become the new head of the Conservative Party and the second woman prime minister in the country's history.

  [Vox / Zack Beauchamp]

• Profiling May for the Guardian, Gaby Hinsliff says she lacks "grand political vision" but has "calm consistency," which might be a good combination of traits for a country that just unexpectedly voted to leave the European Union.

  [The Guardian / Gaby Hinsliff]

• Brexit hasn't officially happened yet, and — since May supported remaining in the EU — there's been hope that her prime ministership will avoid it entirely. But in a speech Monday morning, she made it clear that she intends to follow through.

  [The Independent / Ashely Cowburn]

• Domestically, May's agenda is reminiscent of a certain strain of American conservatism — as home secretary (roughly the equivalent of attorney general), she ramped up deportations of immigrants, pushed for greatly expanded government surveillance, and crusaded against child porn.

  [New Scientist / Jacob Aron]

• When May ascends to the PMship on Wednesday, two of the world's top five economies (Germany and the UK) and two of its most powerful financial institutions (the International Monetary Fund and the US Federal Reserve) will be headed by women. If Hillary Clinton is elected in November, that will rise to three of five (plus two of two).

  [Sydney Morning Herald / Anne Summers]

• How desirable a job May's getting is more debatable. Cameron, for his part, is so enthusiastic to be out of government that he literally burst into song after announcing the date of his resignation Monday.

  [Vox / Zack Beauchamp]

• There's a business phenomenon called the "glass cliff" — companies are more likely to select women leaders when they're in dire straits, and then blame them for failing to rescue the company. We're not saying this is Theresa May's inevitable destiny, but it seems like a useful concept to bear in mind.

  [Inc. / Larry Kim]

Protested, arrested

Mark Wallheiser/Getty Images

• At least 198 people were arrested over the weekend while participating in protests after the deaths last week of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile at the hands of police.

  [CNN / Ashley Fantz and Steve Visser]

• The protests were uniformly peaceful; at their most aggressive, in Baton Rouge, protesters blocked a highway. But police were not having it.

  [NBC News / Phil Helsel, Elisha Fieldstadt, Matthew Grimson, and AP]

• DeRay Mckesson, an activist and arguably the most recognizable member of the movement against police racism, was arrested in Baton Rouge, in what the arresting officers clearly knew was going to be a great photo op for him and the movement and a crappy photo op for them.

  [NYT / Yamiche Alcindor]

• Several journalists were also arrested in Baton Rouge, and in Rochester, two black journalists were picked out of a group of journalists and arrested (their white colleagues were unmolested).

  [Poynter / Benjamin Mullin]

• The mood of the protests — nonviolent protest met with aggressive response — was reminiscent of many of the nights of protests in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014. This photo of a protester in Baton Rouge is as iconic as any the movement has produced.

  [Vox / Victoria M. Massie]

• But in a pattern that's been seen time and time again since 2014, media devotes much less attention to nonviolent protests (even with aggressive police responses) than tense or violent ones.

  [Baltimore Sun / Leah Eliza Balter]

• That is not a good look for democracy. It also sends a very strong message to would-be activists about what sort of tactics are effective in getting the public's attention.

  [Vox / Dara Lind]

Be the very best like no one ever was

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

• You have probably heard of Pokémon Go. (You are probably playing it right now.) If you haven't, Vox's German Lopez explains what exactly it is.

  [Vox / German Lopez]

• There is no explaining just how ridiculously popular the augmented reality game has gotten in the days since its release. We're talking nearly as big as Twitter, more intense than Snapchat.

  [Vox / Alvin Chang]

• Some of this is in the DNA of the franchise — this eerily prescient review of the 1999 Pokémon movie contains a line about how in 2015 Pokémon will be such a generational touchstone that young reporters will just use "Charizard-like" as an adjective (which thankfully did not quite happen).

  [NYT / Anita Gates]

• The joyful serendipity of the augmented reality format — which is causing strangers to strike up cheerful conversations with each other about how to catch 'em all — is helping fuel the craze.

  [Imgur]

• The ubiquity of the Pokéworld isn't always a plus, though. For one thing, careless location selection means that people's houses (and even worse places) have been swarmed with trainers using them as Pokémon Gyms.

  [BuzzFeed / Stephanie McNeal]

• For another, Pokémon Go sucks up a ginormous amount of phone data — both in the "bad for your phone plan" sense and in the "wtf surveillance" sense.

  [BuzzFeed / Joseph Bernstein]

• And augmented reality can't help but build on some of the flaws of current reality, as this Medium post about how using Pokémon Go as a black man is a death sentence points out.

  [Medium / Omari Akil]

• In fact, go back and reread that "serendipity" anecdote. Is it as heartwarming as the poster thinks it is? Or is it a story of how a credible white dude saved a case of incipient racial profiling?

Hillary Clinton: The Vox Conversation

Vox / Joe Posner, Carlos Waters, Julia Wall

• Vox's Ezra Klein interviewed presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. You can watch (or read) their full conversation here.

  [Vox / Ezra Klein]

• After talking to Clinton, Klein wondered why there's such a gap between the way the public sees her (cold and boring) and the way her colleagues see her (anything but). So he asked a bunch of people. Here's what he found.

  [Vox / Ezra Klein]

• One clue might be something Clinton pointed out to Klein herself: When she's running for office, people don't like her much. When she's in the job, people love her.

  [Vox / Libby Nelson]

• She's about to take a big step from the first to the second phase, as Bernie Sanders is appearing with her on the campaign trail tomorrow (and is expected to endorse her then).

  [CNN / Sophie Tatum]

• Sanders's long-in-the-making concession comes after he (and the party's progressive wing) won some important victories on the party's platform, which is arguably the most liberal Democratic platform since the 1970s.

  [Washington Post / David Weigel]

• But the platform is an aspirational statement, and Clinton is not an aspirational politician. She is, above all, dedicated to what Max Weber called the "strong and slow boring of hard boards."

  [Vox / Matt Yglesias]

MISCELLANEOUS

Do you love Vox Sentences? Want to work on it and other newsletter projects with us? Good news — we're looking for a senior email editor. [Vox]

• One year ago, President Obama granted clemency to 46 nonviolent drug offenders. Here's how they're adjusting after a year of freedom.

  [Washington Post]

• Some of the biggest, deadliest diseases in rich countries — like heart disease, colon cancer, and dementia — are becoming less and less common, and no one really knows why.

  [NYT / Gina Kolata]

• Florida hasn't held a single employer liable for violating the minimum wage since 2011.

  [The Nation / Spencer Woodman]

• Inside the small but passionate world of American defenders of North Korea.

  [BuzzFeed / Beimeng Fu]

VERBATIM

"The researchers presumably thought they were doing solid science, but actually they’re trying to use a bathroom scale to weigh a feather — and the feather is resting loosely in the pouch of a kangaroo that is vigorously jumping up and down." [Andrew Gelman]

• "The staffer said that the campaign feared that engaging black media might expose Sanders’ weakness in articulating how his economics-heavy platform would benefit black voters."

  [Fusion / Terrell Jermaine Starr]

• "So, what’s a Jonah Lehrer book without the fibs and cheats? It’s just like every other Jonah Lehrer book, but less fun to read."

  [Slate / Daniel Engber]

• "I have trained myself, through dedicated practice on and off the mat, to find enough inner strength not to burst out laughing when the instructor ends the class by declaring 'let the light in me honor the light in you.' The instructor is a very nice person who smiles all the time like a drunk kindergarten teacher and could probably kill me with her abs alone, so I have refrained from informing her that the light in me is sometimes a government building on fire."

  [The Baffler / Laurie Penny]

• "It’s true that a lot of American crime transpires at night, although not as much as one might presume: Per the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 67.5 percent of violent crimes actually occur during the daytime, between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m."

  [VQR / Amanda Petrusich]

WATCH THIS

Hillary Clinton: The Vox Conversation [YouTube / Ezra Klein, Joe Posner, Carlos Waters, and Julia Wall]

Vox / Joe Posner, Carlos Waters, Julia Wall

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