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We have more on those stories below. But first, we have an update on the floods: More rain is expected, and the death toll has passed 100. One of our colleagues in Texas writes about the particular horror of a disaster at a summer camp.
American summer
Camp is a sacred American rite. More than 20 million children attend each summer, according to the American Camp Association. It’s a ritual of personal growth, of community building, of communing with nature. And, for the parents and grandparents and siblings of campers, it is suddenly a harrowing prospect, turned upside down by the floods in Texas that took 27 children and counselors at Camp Mystic in Hunt, Texas. After this, what will it feel like to drop your children off for a spell in the woods, trusting that they will come home safe? My daughter had recently returned from her first sleepaway camp when an editor called me early on the Fourth of July and asked me to look into reports of flash flooding along the Guadalupe River in Central Texas. (See how fast floodwaters rose here.)
I remember how I felt when my daughter left. I was excited for her but also vibrating with tension, obsessively refreshing the private webpage where the camp posted photographs daily. (Here is another technological innovation that is both a blessing and a curse.) Was she happy? Would she ride a horse? Was that curly-haired seatmate a new friend? Those worries suddenly felt frivolous as I began to report. In Texas, like so many parts of the country, everyone seems to have a summer camp story. Friends of my family have attended Camp Mystic and many other spots like it in the Texas Hill Country and beyond. In conversations with me this week, people have sometimes struggled to articulate exactly what made Mystic, an all-girls program, so special. But much of it revolved around the water, including Mystic songs like “There’s a Camp on the Guadalupe River” and fishing lessons with Dick Eastland, the camp’s director. He ran the camp for decades with his wife and was reportedly swept away by floodwaters. Mystic has its own particular flavor. Texas political royalty, including the daughters of Lyndon Johnson, favored the Christian program. Many families in Texas’ big cities have sent generations of their daughters, breaking tradition only if they are unlucky enough to bear sons. A friend who was a counselor at another all-girls camp near Mystic in the 1990s put it this way: In Texas especially, camp is a place where “in a somewhat male-dominated Southern culture, girls can be wild and be leaders and be fun and independent and be with nature.” Summer camp molds young people into the adults they will become, giving many of them their first sustained taste of independence. But that’s not the only reason so many alumni still reminisce about summer fun well into middle age. The paradox of camp is that it’s not just a place to grow up, but also a place to be a kid: happy, free and safe. More on the floods
Elon Musk is done with Democrats and Republicans. “Today, the America Party is formed,” he wrote online over the weekend. He said it would disrupt the other parties’ hold on the federal government. Reid Epstein, a Times political correspondent, explains the effort. Americans are hungry for political alternatives. But despite Musk’s skill with start-ups, U.S. history is littered with failed attempts to craft a third way in Washington. Here are a few of the hurdles: Rules in each state are hard to follow. The laws governing ballot access and campaign finance are very technical. Congressional candidates face a labyrinthine system of signature requirements that vary from state to state. In Georgia, for instance, congressional candidates outside the two major parties must gather about 27,000 signatures from their district. That’s why no third-party candidate has been on a congressional ballot there since the law was enacted in 1943. Even the name America Party could be a problem. New York State forbids the word “American” — or any variant — in party names. Who would run it? President Trump has punished Republican consultants who have joined or even tenuously linked arms with his opponents. Musk might have to rely on the mercenary types who populate the world of minor parties and ballot-access campaigns, and who may be willing to suffer reputational damage with the G.O.P. if the paycheck is big enough. They usually don’t last, aside from minor parties like the Libertarians and Greens, which have qualified for ballots and occasionally affected general-election outcomes. The Reform Party, created by H. Ross Perot after he ran for president in 1992, petered out within a decade even though Perot had won 19 million votes in that race. Unite America, a 2010s project to put forward centrist candidates, stopped backing candidates after the 2018 election. Another much-discussed group, No Labels, never got around to putting forward a candidate in 2024. Related: Tesla shares plunged yesterday.
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Other Big Stories
During the 13-year Syrian civil war, Bashar al-Assad’s regime killed tens of thousands of civilians to stamp out opposition. Charlie Smart, a graphics reporter, visited the place where many of them were buried. Al-Assad’s victims included protesters, activists, journalists, students, loyalists who fell out of favor and members of rebel factions. The government buried many of them at the Najha cemetery, about five miles south of Syria’s capital, Damascus. I went there in February, two months after rebels overthrew the Assad regime.
I interviewed former grave workers and people who lived nearby. My colleagues and I analyzed satellite imagery, too. A grave worker said he saw refrigerated trucks dumping hundreds of bodies into pits. See our full investigation, with 3-D recreations of the trenches and tombs in Najha.
The spending cuts in the Republican budget bill are both cruel and stupid because they will lead to expensive hospital bills and the closing of rural hospitals, Lawrence Summers writes. Here’s a column by Michelle Goldberg on a Senate campaign in Nebraska. Everything The Times offers. All in one subscription. Morning readers: Save on unlimited access to The Times with this introductory offer.
Focus challenge: Once a month, we invite you to spend a few minutes with one piece of art. Today’s is a painting from the Himalayan foothills. |
