Migrants, World Cup, Turkey: Your Tuesday Briefing

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/18/briefing/migrants-world-cup-turkey.html

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Good morning.

Germany’s migration truce, Britain’s supposed Brexit dividend and Turkey’s education battle. Here’s the latest:

• “We still do not have a grip on the whole migration issue.”

That was Horst Seehofer, Germany’s interior minister, speaking after he and Chancellor Angela Merkel, above, agreed to a two-week cooling period in a standoff over migration — avoiding a government collapse, for now.

If Ms. Merkel fails to make a migration deal with European allies by July, Mr. Seehofer has vowed to reverse her open-door policy toward migrants.

President Trump attacked Germany’s refugee policy on Twitter, saying it was responsible for an increase in crime (actually, crime has fallen) and could bring about the downfall of Ms. Merkel’s coalition. He also called it a “big mistake” for Europe to admit large numbers of refugees. We fact-checked his comments.

Meanwhile, Mr. Trump defended his administration’s policy of separating children from their parents at the border with Mexico, but also falsely blamed Democrats for the practice.

The public outcry against the separation policy has grown intense, with the former first lady Laura Bush and top members of Mr. Trump’s own party joining the criticism. The U.N. human rights chief on Monday condemned the practice as abuse.

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• World Cup victories for Europe.

England defeated Tunisia, 2-1, in a hard-fought contest that, for England, introduced a new coach, a new mind-set and a new generation of players (and also swarms of insects). In other matches, a penalty awarded by video review gave Sweden a 1-0 win against South Korea, and Belgium dispatched Panama, 3-0.

Here’s the full schedule. (For updates and analysis, subscribe to our Offsides newsletter. You can also sign up here to get direct messages from our team.)

Not exactly a soccer fiend? Our guide to rookie questions can help.

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• That “Brexit dividend.”

Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain on Monday promised that its exit from the European Union would free up $26 billion a year for the country’s strained National Health Service, reviving a claim made before the 2016 Brexit referendum that was long ago dismissed as bogus. (Only later did she acknowledge that taxes would have to rise to fund health care.)

She based the pledge on the fact that Britain will stop paying around $12 billion annually to the bloc once it leaves. But that money will be swallowed up by a divorce payment of about $52 billion that Britain has agreed to make.

Meanwhile, artists in Scotland are mourning after a fire ripped through the Glasgow School of Art, the second blaze to hit the building since 2014.

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• “Raise a pious generation.”

A campaign by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey to erode the country’s secular education system has become a tumultuous issue as he seeks re-election on Sunday.

Mr. Erdogan hopes to open thousands of Islamic religious schools, even as standards slip in public ones. His push has galvanized activists nationwide who are opposed to the changes, which include lessons about demons and teaching girls to cover everything but their eyes, hands and feet.

“They are stealing the children’s future,” one concerned parent said. Above, parents in Istanbul last month hung posters protesting the changes.

• Rupert Stadler, the chief of Audi, Volkswagen’s luxury car division, was arrested and jailed in Germany in connection with emissions cheating. Mr. Stadler, above, is the highest-ranking Volkswagen executive still in his job to have been identified as a suspect in the case.

• President Trump said the U.S. may impose tariffs on an additional $200 billion worth of Chinese goods, escalating his trade fight with China.

• As Mr. Trump tries to tilt global trade in America’s favor, he has largely focused on saving legacy sectors — coal and steel, for example — that have been hurt by globalization, automation and innovation.

• Google’s search engine has been blocked in China for years, but the Silicon Valley company never stopped looking for a way into the market. A $550 million investment in the Chinese online retailer JD.com should help. (Shares in both companies rose on the news.)

• Here’s a snapshot of global markets.

• A 6.1-magnitude earthquake struck Osaka, Japan, killing three people and injuring hundreds. “I could barely stand,” one resident said. “I was very scared.” [The New York Times]

• The U.S. Supreme Court sidestepped a decision on gerrymandering, rejecting two challenges to partisan voting districts on technical grounds. [The New York Times]

• Iran executed a man by hanging, three months after he was convicted of using a bus to run over and kill three police officers during a protest by Gonabadi Dervishes, followers of a mystical Sufi strain of Islam. [The New York Times]

• A black felt hat believed to have been worn by Napoleon Bonaparte at the battle of Waterloo sold at auction for over $400,000 in France. [The New York Times]

• Italy’s hard-line interior minister, who ignited a multinational standoff by refusing entry to a migrant rescue ship, said that he wants a “registry” of the country’s Roma minority, prompting criticism that he was reviving Italy’s fascist history. [Associated Press]

Tips, both new and old, for a more fulfilling life.

• Here are five cheap(ish) things to help ensure bike commuting bliss.

• We reviewed 73 books worthy of your summer reading list.

• Recipe of the day: Banish memories of bland fish dinners with citrus salmon.

• What weighs 650 tons and floats? The artist Christo’s latest work, above, made from thousands of stacked oil barrels on a lake in London. (The cost: about $4 million.)

• A new view of old trees. (Very old trees.) After a three-year, $40 million restoration project, a grove of giant sequoias in Yosemite National Park in California has reopened. Here’s our report, complete with breathtaking photographs.

• And the possibility of video game addiction has the World Health Organization worried. The U.N. health body is adding “gaming disorder” to its compendium of medical conditions.

“The time has come for equality of opportunity in sharing in government, in education, and in employment. It will not be stayed or denied. It is here!” the Republican leader of the U.S. Senate, Everett Dirksen, said to a packed chamber.

Just over a week later, on this day in 1964, the Senate passed the Civil Rights Act — one of the most momentous pieces of legislation in the country’s history.

Drafted by President John F. Kennedy, and pressed by President Lyndon Johnson after Mr. Kennedy’s assassination, the bill made many forms of discrimination illegal at the federal level. The central issue was race.

The measure had to overcome overwhelming opposition by Democrats from the South, where racist policies had been enshrined in law for decades after the end of the Civil War and the banishment of slavery.

Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina insisted that “no men of any race can legislate their way to a more abundant life,” and that “they must earn such a life by their own achievements, sacrifices, and exertions.”

The bill prevailed. The Senate vote, 73 to 27, cleared the way for final congressional approval. President Johnson signed the act into law on July 2, with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in attendance.

Nancy Wartik wrote today’s Back Story.

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