Vox Sentences: The horrific damage of Nepal’s earthquake

1. Quake

Bhutanese Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay walks by one of the collapsed temples at Basantapur Durbar Square on April 27, 2015 in Kathmandu, Nepal. (Omar Havana/Getty Images)

• More than 4,000 people have been killed in a devastating earthquake in Nepal.

  [AP / Katy Daigle and Binaj Gurubacharya]

• The quake set off an avalanche on Mount Everest, killing at least 18 people near base camp.

  [NYT / Chris Buckley and Nida Najar]

• The devastation is most acute in villages around the capital of Kathmandu, many of which are "surrounded by landslides that make them inaccessible even to the country’s armed forces."

  [NYT / Thomas Fuller and Ellen Barry]

• The capital was also hard hit: "Many of Kathmandu's one million residents have slept in the open since Saturday, either because their homes were flattened or they were terrified that aftershocks would bring them crashing down."

  [Reuters / Gopal Sharma, Rupam Jain Nair, and Ross Adkin]

• There are reports of additional fatalities outside Nepal in India, Bangladesh, and Tibet.

  [Vox / Lauren Williams and German Lopez]

• Just last week, 50 scientists visited Kathmandu to figure out how to make it better prepared for an earthquake, since it was judged to be poorly equipped to deal with one.

  [Vox / German Lopez]

• We know how to reduce earthquake deaths, but poor countries often can't muster the resources, or corrupt and ineffective governments can't get their acts together.

  [Vox / Brad Plumer]

• Doctors Without Borders is working in Nepal, and would be an excellent choice for donations.

  [Doctors Without Borders]

• GiveWell recommends Doctors Without Borders, as well as local Red Cross groups, as the best general choices in disaster relief situations.

  [GiveWell / Holden Karnofsky]

• You can't earmark money specifically for Nepal, but that's for the best; earmarking ties charities' hands and makes them less effective.

• Also consider giving to fight malaria, worm infections, and poverty; these aren't causes that make the news often, but there's potential to save a lot of lives and relieve a lot of suffering.

  [GiveWell]

2. It's Baltimore, gentlemen. The gods will not save you.

With Baltimore Police officers in riot gear lining the street, a man stands at the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and North Avenue , April 27, 2015, in Baltimore, Maryland. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

• Violence broke out between demonstrators and riot police in Baltimore following the funeral of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man who died in police custody.

  [Vox / Jenee Desmond-Harris]

• While investigators haven't confirmed that police inflicted the the spinal cord injury that killed Gray, bystander videos "showed officers dragging Gray, who is screaming in apparent pain, to a police van."

  [Vox / German Lopez]

• Some witnesses allege police slammed Gray to the ground while making the arrest; it's unclear what, if anything, was done to Gray while he was transported in the van.

  [MSNBC / Trymaine Lee]

• Police also ignored Gray's pleas for medical assistance, and Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony Batts admitted there were many occasions when medics should have been called for Gray but were not.

  [Baltimore Sun / Justin Fenton and Jessica Anderson]

• Six police officers involved in the arrest have been suspended with pay.

  [Baltimore Sun / Justin George]

• That's drawn criticism from protesters who describe it as a "paid vacation."

  [NYT / Sheryl Gay Stolberg]

• Seven police officers were injured in the clashes: "Demonstrators pelted officers with rocks, bricks and bottles and assaulted a photojournalist, and officers fired back with tear gas and pepper balls."

  [Baltimore Sun / Erica Green and Scott Dance]

• According to the Baltimore police, a number of gangs — notably the Black Guerrilla Family, the Bloods, and the Crips — are teaming up to harm law enforcement officers.

  [Baltimore Sun / Justin Fenton]

• Gray's funeral drew 3,000 mourners, including US Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), who spoke and declared, "We will not rest until we address this and see that justice is done. We will not fail you."

  [WSJ / Scott Calvert]

• David Simon, creator of The Wire: "Yes, there is a lot to be argued, debated, addressed … But now — in this moment — the anger and the selfishness and the brutality of those claiming the right to violence in Freddie Gray’s name needs to cease."

  [David Simon]

3. Equal protection under the law

(Alex Wong/Getty Images)

• The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments on the constitutionality of bans on same-sex marriage Tuesday.

  [Reuters / Lawrence Hurley]

• In 2013, the Court struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act, but that ruling left state bans intact.

  [Washington Post / Dylan Matthews]

• That same year, the Court issued a ruling that effectively struck down California's ban but didn't make any judgments as to the constitutionality of bans in general.

  [Washington Post / Dylan Matthews]

• Same-sex marriage is currently legal in 37 states and the District of Columbia; in many cases, it's legal because of rulings from lower courts, which will be bound by the Supreme Court's decision on the matter this term.

  [Vox / German Lopez]

• The conventional wisdom is that the Court will legalize same-sex marriage nationwide. The four liberal justices are locks, and Anthony Kennedy has a long history of support for LGBT rights.

  [Washington Post / Robert Barnes]

• But such a ruling could either strike down all bans or just force states to recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere; gay-rights activists are hoping for the former, stronger ruling.

  [NYT / Adam Liptak]

4. Misc.

• Stewart Brand argues against the thesis — most notably made by Elizabeth Kolbert's Pulitzer-winning The Sixth Extinction — that a human-caused "mass extinction event" is on its way.

  [Aeon / Stewart Brand]

• I generally don't put a lot of purchase in cultural-conservative declarations that modern Western society is corrupt and decadent and doomed to collapse. But the fact that "preschool for adults" is a thing in Brooklyn is making me reconsider.

  [Quartz / Sarah Fader]

• There's an actual movie that's showing in actual theaters in which (SPOILER) a little boy drops a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima through the power of prayer. That exists.

  [IndieWire / Sam Adams]

• Introducing Crystal, a scarily effective web app that uses public data to generate the best phrases to use when emailing with someone.

  [Wired / Kyle VanHemert]

• This is a very compelling mathematical explanation of why the "beautiful women marrying ugly men" stereotype isn't true.

  [Slate / Gayle Laakmann McDowell]

5. Verbatim

• "New York is the rat’s ideal habitat. Our idea of what a park or public space should look like mirrors its native environment, which, contrary to the animal’s common name, was almost certainly the grassy Asian steppe."

  [NYT / Ryan Bradley]

• "Johnson imagines a society where the man or woman alone is ideal … 'My vision is no more fantastic than colonies on Mars, solar grids in space, heat transfer from the oceans, impregnable vaults for nuclear waste, carbon-dioxide storage under the Great Plains or any of hundreds of proposals our politicians and research institutions and media take seriously.'"

  [New Republic / Amanda Palleschi]

• "Vanilla Ice added that he does see both sides, saying he is part Native American."

  [Time / Alexandra Sifferlin]

• "Walking in New York is not Mick Jagger. It is James Brown."

  [NYT / Steve Duenes]

• "I will burn this fucking place to the ground before I get rid of that mirror."

  [Proprietor, Cigars and Stripes, to Jezebel / Karyn Polewaczyk]

• "Ms. Swift regularly poses with, and posts about, her two Scottish fold cats — Meredith Grey and Olivia Benson — with unabashed pride. She posts their pictures on Instagram and has been featured in commercials where she is swarmed by fluffy cats."

  [NYT / Julia Baird]