The Atlantic Daily: Turkey's Strikes Continue, the Louisiana Shooting, the A.D.A. Anniversary
A shifting strategy in Syria, more information on the killer, and the anti-discrimination law turns 25.
What's Happening: Turkey Continues Its Charge Against ISIS
One day after allowing the U.S. to use its military base to launch air attacks against the Islamic State, Turkey has continued its offense against the terrorist group. On Friday, F-16 planes struck ISIS targets in Syria as the government cracked down on suspected militants within the country. The movement against ISIS marks an about-face for Turkey, whose Syria policy had focused on ousting President Bashar al-Assad from power. Ahmet Davotoglu, Turkey’s Prime Minister, indicated that the air attacks would continue.
A portrait of a killer emerges: Police in Lafayette, Louisiana, provided more information about John Russell Houser, the 59-year-old man who shot and killed two people in a movie theater, wounded nine, then took his own life. An active member of antigovernment message boards, Houser expressed a hatred of liberals and feminists and praised Hitler, Oklahoma City-bomber Timothy McVeigh, and the Westboro Baptist Church. Investigators are still trying to determine how the Phenix City, Alabama, native obtained the gun he used in the assault.
Rethinking discipline for students with disabilities: Sunday will mark 25 years since the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. This week, educators and school administrators convened with officials at the White House to discuss one area where disparities persist: school discipline. According to a recent report from UCLA, students with disabilities are two to three times more likely to be suspended than their non-disabled peers.
Snapshot
Quoted
- James Hamblin: “GMO-free does not mean fair trade, and it does not mean sustainable, and it does not mean monoculture-averting, and it does not mean rainforest-enabling, and it does not mean labor-friendly, and it does not mean healthy, though it puffs its chest and carries itself alongside those claims.”
- Gillian B. White: “Journalism certainly isn’t the only field that is notoriously and historically homogenous. But this is a big problem for an industry whose ambition is to serve and inform an increasingly diverse public.”
- Cari Romm: “Since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973, poor and minority women have come to represent a growing share of the abortions performed in the U.S. each year, in part because low-income women are at higher risk of unintended pregnancy than their wealthier peers.”
News Quiz
1. Bill Clinton’s charitable foundation, later named The Clinton Foundation, was established in ______________.
(See answer or scroll to the bottom)
2. In the new movie ____________, Adam Sandler, Josh Gad, Kevin James, and Peter Dinklage star as friends that are tasked with saving the world from arcade game characters.
(See answer or scroll to the bottom)
3. This week, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Italy is obligated to legalize _____________.
(See answer or scroll to the bottom)
Weekend Read
Simon Cottee on why disillusioned Westerners join the Islamic State:
ISIS’s caliphate project, because it offers a bracing utopian alternative to Western secular society, speaks directly to those who feel their lives are worthless, spiritually corrupted, empty, boring, or devoid of purpose and significance, and who see no value in their own societies. It promises, in short, salvation and ultimate meaning through total commitment to a sacred cause. “I don’t think there’s anything better than living in the land of Khilafah,” or caliphate, said one British jihadist in a video, “Eid Greetings from the Land of the Khilafah,” released last summer by ISIS’s media arm. “You’re not living under oppression. ... You’re not living under kuffar [unbelievers]. ... We don’t need any democracy. … All we need is shariah.”
Similar themes come out strongly in a recent report on female Western migrants. Based on the social-media postings of self-identified migrants apparently within ISIS-controlled territory, the authors found that estrangement from Western society and anger at perceived injustices against Muslims worldwide, together with a strong sense of religious calling and an unwavering faith in the rectitude of the newly emerging caliphate, form the basis for why these women journey to ISIS.
Verbs
Obama’s Kenya trip begins, Chris Brown freed, Hulk Hogan dropped, theater gunman’s background examined, and Hillary Clinton’s emails questioned.
Answers: 1997, “Pixels,” same-sex marriage