Vox Sentences: Bernie Sanders gets it over with already

Bernie Sanders throws in the towel; his British equivalent faces a primary fight; China gets shut down in international court.

Vox Sentences is written by Dylan Matthews and Dara Lind.

TOP NEWS

Let us toast to the Bern we feel, the Berns that were felt, and the Berns yet to come

Darren McCollester/Getty Images

• Our month-long national nightmare is finally over: Bernie Sanders has finally endorsed Hillary Clinton.

  [Vox / Andrew Prokop]

• He made the announcement at a campaign stop in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. His remarks stressed the importance of defeating Donald Trump, and his similarities with Clinton on universal health care, college affordability, and climate change.

  [Vox / Brad Plumer]

• He deserves some credit for pushing her, and the Democratic Party as a whole, to the left on those issues. The announcement came after Clinton reaffirmed her support for a public option in Obamacare and changed her college plan to provide most families tuition-free access to in-state public schools…

  [WSJ / Laura Meckler and Siobhan Hughes]

• …and his representatives on the committee drafting the Democratic platform succeeded in adding planks calling for a $15-an-hour federal minimum wage and carbon pricing.

  [CNN / Eric Bradner]

• Sanders's endorsement was expected and inevitable. For all his criticisms of other Democrats as corporate-controlled and beholden to Wall Street, his interests are furthered by Clinton winning, not least because it'd probably mean he gets to chair the Senate Budget Committee.

  [Vox / Matt Yglesias]

• But his sloth in getting behind Clinton hurt him. Behind the scenes, Democrats in Congress were fuming about his refusal to drop out, diminishing his ability to influence them going forward.

  [Bloomberg Business / Joshua Green]

• Whatever else can be said for the Sanders campaign, it ignited an interest in mass, left-wing politics of a kind not seen in America since the 1970s or maybe even the 1930s.

  [TPM / John B. Judis]

Fly like an Eagle

Carl Court/Getty Images

• Just after the Conservative Party wrapped up its leadership contest, the UK Labour Party is beginning one of its own, its second in less than a year.

  [Vox / Dylan Matthews]

• The process began on Monday when Angela Eagle, a longtime MP who served in Gordon Brown's Cabinet, announced she would challenge incumbent left-wing leader Jeremy Corbyn, who's been on the ropes since MPs overwhelmingly backed a no confidence motion against him weeks ago.

  [The Guardian / Peter Walker]

• The no confidence motion itself came after dozens of members of Corbyn's shadow Cabinet resigned. Corbyn has a long history of bashing the European Union on left-wing grounds, and his campaign against Brexit was viewed as weak and halfhearted, infuriating Labour MPs and sparking the resignations. But Corbyn's hard-left proposals like renationaliizing railroads were also angering MPs well before the Brexit vote.

  [Vox / Dylan Matthews]

• It was an open question whether Corbyn would have to gain the support of 51 MPs to run in the leadership election against Eagle. A ruling that he needed that much support would have effectively doomed his campaign, given how unpopular he is in Parliament.

  [NYT / Sewell Chan and Russell Goldman]

• But on Tuesday, Labour's National Executive Committee (NEC) voted to let Corbyn onto the ballot automatically, setting up a contest between him and Eagle. Other anti-Corbyn MPs, like Wales's Owen Smith, might run too, but there will be pressure to unify behind Eagle as the sole anti-Corbyn contender.

  [The Guardian / Heather Stewart and Rajeev Syal]

• Corbyn is the favorite to win; the most recent polling a few weeks back had him beating Eagle among Labour members, 50 points to 40. If he does win again, Labour will be stuck in a kind of purgatory, with a leader basically no one in the parliamentary party trusts or likes.

  [YouGov / Chris Curtis]

South China Sea Change

Dondi Tawatao/Getty Images

• The Permanent Court of Arbitration, a tribunal in the Hague meant to settle disputes between countries, ruled in favor of the Philippines in a case regarding the South China Sea.

  [NYT / Jane Perlez]

• The ruling, which you can read here, stated that China's claims to sovereignty in the area have no legal basis and that China does not enjoy historic rights over the South China Sea.

  [Permanent Court of Arbitration]

• China is rejecting the ruling; while it's legally binding, there is no enforcement mechanism, and China is not likely to stop its activities in the South China Sea just because of the ruling.

  [BBC]

• Those activities include building artificial islands and increasing its naval presence, both for strategic gain and as a way to more readily claim oil and gas resources.

  [Vox / Katy Lee]

• The ruling creates a problem for the Philippines's new populist president, Rodrigo Duterte, who wants to repair ties with China but also fears appearing weak in the wake of a major Filipino victory over the country.

  [WSJ / Trefor Moss]

MISCELLANEOUS

A new study suggests that dinosaurs did not roar but in fact cooed. Your entire childhood is a lie. [Gizmodo / Ria Misra]

• Inside Hillary Clinton's shockingly on-point social media team.

  [Elle / Mattie Kahn]

• Journalists have basically always relied on the expertise of academics. What happens when you try to cut out the middleman?

  [The Drum / Ian Burrell]

• One reason being childless in middle age is stigmatizing: Advertisers basically act like you don't exist.

  [Slate / Elissa Strauss]

• A very calm, well-reasoned review of The Legend of Tarzan.

  [Emily Writes]

VERBATIM

"My services are simple: I will walk around in 1-4 hour shifts signed in to your account capturing every single Pokémon I come into contact with, activating every Poké Stop I pass and walking nonstop to help hatch your eggs." [Craigslist / IvyStIve]

• "I return to my desk to see that a hysterically cheerful blue turtle with glazed-over eyes has taken residence in the office. Its ability to vomit large quantities of water at will is astounding, if not outright alarming."

  [McSweeney's / Allen Zhang]

• "Under Obama, the average number of police intentionally killed each year has fallen to its lowest level yet — an average of 62 deaths annually through 2015."

  [Washington Post / Christopher Ingraham]

• "For better or for worse, the Pokémon Go player is a new kind of flâneur—that French literary term for those who stroll city streets with no aim but to observe."

  [CityLab / Laura Bliss]

• "Brenner’s test confirmed that she had XX chromosomes, and she was given what was commonly called a 'femininity card' to prove she was the gender she claimed to be."

  [NYT Mag / Ruth Padawer]

WATCH THIS

Why no aquarium has a great white shark [YouTube / Joss Fong and Dion Lee]

Vox / Joss Fong, Dion Lee