Vox Sentences: Yet another deadly hurricane is set to hit North America

Vox Sentences: Yet another deadly hurricane is set to hit North America

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The first female Supreme Court justice announces she’s been diagnosed with dementia; Hurricane Willa is set to make landfall in Mexico.


O’Connor withdraws from public life

 Karen Bleier/AFP/Getty Images
  • Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor said Tuesday she will withdraw from public life after being diagnosed with early stages of dementia, likely Alzheimer’s disease. [AP / Jessica Gresko]
  • She was highly influential during her Supreme Court tenure, including casting the decisive vote in Bush v. Gore, the ruling that made George W. Bush president in 2000. [AP / Jessica Gresko]
  • O’Connor was only the ninth woman ever to serve on the federal bench of any court, and she shattered a glass ceiling when she was confirmed to the Supreme Court in 1981 by a vote of 99-0. [NYT / Linda Greenhouse]
  • She later said she regretted that the Supreme Court tackled Bush v. Gore at all. [New Yorker / Jeffrey Toobin]
  • Since her retirement, O’Connor has worked to promote civics education, and in her statement announcing her diagnosis, she emphasized the importance of “deepening young people’s engagement in our nation.” [SCOTUSBlog / Amy Howe]
  • This is not the first time O’Connor has publicly discussed health issues: In 1994, she spoke about the mastectomy she’d undergone six years earlier in an “extraordinarily personal speech.” [AP via NYT archives]

Hurricane Willa to make landfall Tuesday

  • Hurricane Willa, which briefly reached Category 5 strength before weakening to a Category 3 rating, is set to bring life-threatening storm surge to the Pacific coast of Mexico when it makes landfall Tuesday. [AP / Marco Ugarte]
  • Mexico’s coast has already been hit by deadly storms and rains this hurricane season. The area is also threatened by Vicente, a tropical storm tracking south of Willa that’s also primed to make landfall Tuesday. [Al Jazeera / Kevin Corriveau]
  • The northeastern Pacific is more prone to hurricanes than the Atlantic. Three Category 5 storms have formed in the northeast Pacific this year, probably due to a combination of favorable atmospheric conditions and warm ocean waters. [The Verge / Rachel Becker]
  • Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto has instructed the National Emergency Committee to take the necessary preventive measures to safeguard the population of the affected areas. In the meantime, low-lying areas have been evacuated and schools in coastal cities have closed. [CNN / Matt Rehbein and Brandon Miller]

Miscellaneous

  • Starbucks opened its first American Sign Language location Tuesday in Washington, DC, near Gallaudet University, a liberal arts school for the deaf and hard of hearing. [CNN / Lilit Marcus]
  • This week, Christie’s in New York will for the first time auction off a computer-generated artwork. The print, which depicts a man against a dark background, is part of a Parisian trio’s exploration of the interface between art and artificial intelligence. [NPR / Vanessa Romo]
  • The New York Times has created a satirical infomercial and hotline in response to white people calling the police when they witness black people performing everyday activities. The hotline’s number: 1-844-WYT-FEAR. [Twitter Moments]
  • A Canadian rapper died Saturday after attempting to film a stunt for a music video on the wing of a flying plane. [Time / Raisa Bruner]

Verbatim

“The president of the United States says it’s OK to grab women by their private parts.” [A man accused of groping a woman on an airplane said Donald Trump has justified this behavior in the past / BBC]


Watch this: Apollo 11’s journey to the moon, annotated

The moon landing was accomplished through the careful deconstruction of the Saturn V rocket and Apollo spacecraft. [YouTube / Coleman Lowndes]


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Author: Stavros Agorakis


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