The Atlantic Daily: Europe’s Migrant Crisis, NSA Spying, Disgraced Archbishop Dies
Authorities revealed details about the bodies of Syrian migrants found in Austria, a U.S. appeals court handed the NSA a win, a Vatican official accused of sex abuse was found dead, and more.
What We’re Following: More on Europe’s Migrant Crisis
On Thursday, Austrian officials discovered the bodies of 50 migrants in an abandoned truck. Now, the body count has risen to 71, and authorities say the migrants, who were Syrian, likely suffocated. Related reading: There’s a big difference between refugees and migrants, and it has to do with their reasons for leaving home.
Court Upholds NSA Spying: Well, sort of. A U.S. appeals court threw out a federal judge’s ruling that would have ended one of the National Security Agency’s mass surveillance programs. The decision is a win for the agency, but it doesn’t address the question of whether the agency’s spying is constitutional.
Death of an Archbishop: Jozef Wesolowski, the first person to be tried by a Vatican criminal court for child sex abuse charges, was found dead at the residence where he was awaiting trial.
Hello, again: Notes, our brand-new section of TheAtlantic.com, is in full swing. Go here to read what it’s all about, and tell us what you think at hello@theatlantic.com.
Snapshot
Quoted
Francine Patterson, the researcher who taught Koko the gorilla to “talk” in sign language: “Uncontaminated by humans, [gorillas] are definitely closer to living in the now. Our problem is that we live in the past and we live in the future, but we very rarely dwell in the now. They are so much in harmony with nature, we surely could use them as a model.”
Greg Rosenbaum, chairman of the National Jewish Democratic Council, which supports the Iran deal: “I’ve never seen an issue this divided within the Jewish community in the United States and between the United States and Israel. … I look at it and say, the day after this deal goes into effect, I gotta figure out how I put Humpty-Dumpty together again.”
Kamala Harris, the attorney general of California: “This issue of truancy is a public safety issue, it is an economic issue, and I think we can solve it.”
News Quiz
1. The CEO of ______________ stepped down in the wake of a data breach that affected millions of registered users of his company.
(See answer or scroll to the bottom.)
2. Twitter announced new goals to increase female representation of its workforce by the year _______.
(See answer or scroll to the bottom.)
3. ___________ is making firefighting harder.
(See answer or scroll to the bottom.)
Evening Read
Megan Garber on the life and death of the American lawn:
A lawn of American Dream Perma-Green requires, generally, more water than natural rainfall provides. It requires soil whose nutrients content is plumped up by fertilizer. It requires, in some cases, pesticides. And yet symbiosis is on the turf’s side, despite and because of all that, because we need the grasses as much as they need us. We spend our money and our natural resources and our time cultivating our carpets of green not just because we want to, but because we are expected to. It is the tribute we pay to our fellow Americans, the rough equivalent of taxes and immunizations and coughing into our arms rather than into the air. To maintain a lawn is—or, more specifically, has been—to perform a kind of fealty to the future we are forging, together.
Verbs
Nobel laureate assailed, a possible Nazi treasure train located, and a letter from Pope Francis posted.
Answers: ASHLEY MADISON, 2016, HOARDING