Vox Sentences: Turkey offers refugees a brutal deal

Turkey drives a hard bargain with the EU; a poorly timed wave of attacks in Israel; why Maria Sharapova's doping scandal is rare in tennis.

Vox Sentences is written by Dylan Matthews and Dara Lind.

TOP NEWS

A "safe third country"?

Guido Bergmann/Bundesregierung via Getty Images

• The European Union and Turkey are currently trying to hammer out a deal regarding what to do with refugees and migrants entering the continent. Turkey has proposed a new — and very bold — plan.

  [Politico Europe / Matthew Karnitschnig and Florian Eder]

• Turkey wants to set up a one-for-one swap: It will accept, en masse, the migrants currently in Greece. But for every Syrian it takes, one Syrian refugee in Turkey has to be resettled elsewhere in the EU.

  [European Council]

• The deal is still being negotiated (for one thing, Turkey wants the EU to pay it a lot of money), but it could be ratified during a summit next week.

  [Politico Europe / Matthew Karnitschnig and Florian Eder]

• That doesn't necessarily mean it will happen. In theory, there's been a migrant-sharing agreement between Greece and Turkey since 2002 that's never been enforced.

  [The Guardian / Patrick Kingsley and Jennifer Rankin]

• And the United Nations and human rights groups point out that mass deportation of refugees to a "third country" (neither the one they left nor the one they arrived in) is illegal under EU law.

  [BBC]

• The EU claims Turkey is a "safe third country." Human rights groups deny that such a term exists, and Turkey's record with Syrian refugees certainly raises questions.

  [The Guardian / Constanze Letsch]

• As negotiations continue over what to do with refugees who've arrived by sea, EU countries are hurrying to close borders over the Balkans route into the continent; Slovenia is expected to close its border Tuesday night.

  [AP]

Sorry, Joe Biden, bad timing

Ilia Yefimovich/Getty Images

• An American grad student was killed by a Palestinian knifeman in a terrorist attack in Israel today — one of many such attacks over the past six months.

  [Reuters / Rami Amichay]

• It was part of a wave of attacks in the country today. The only other death was of a Palestinian assailant in the city of Petah Tikva (who was killed with his own knife).

  [Times of Israel / Raoul Wootliff]

• The attacks over the past six months have followed a pattern: Palestinians and Israeli Arabs going after seemingly random civilians in Israeli cities, often with knives.

  [Vox / Zack Beauchamp]

• But the latest wave comes as Vice President Joe Biden is in Israel — reportedly trying to lay the groundwork for a new wave of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks to start before President Obama leaves office.

  [WSJ / Carol E. Lee and Rory Jones]

• That might be tricky. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu canceled a visit to meet with Obama later this month (and the White House found out through the press).

  [CNN / Kevin Liptak]

• Netanyahu has increasingly favored the GOP in US politics. That could be a problem for him, as the GOP's most likely presidential nominee — Donald Trump — isn't as pro-Israel as many of his peers.

  [Vox / Zack Beauchamp]

Justice for PEDs!

Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

• Yesterday, tennis star Maria Sharapova announced that she tested positive in January for the supplement meldonium, which is banned as a performance-enhancing drug in tennis as of 2016.

  [BBC]

• (Sharapova's failed test occurred during the Australian Open, where she lost in the finals to Serena Williams.)

• Sharapova says she's been taking meldonium since 2006 for low magnesium. Nutrition experts told Julia Belluz that explanation is more or less bunk.

  [Vox / Julia Belluz]

• Arguably, Sharapova hurt her own cause by admitting proactively to using the supplement rather than challenging the test results. Tennis has been relatively short of doping scandals — thanks in part, many suspect, to a practice of quietly suspending players but telling the public they've been injured.

  [New Yorker / Louisa Thomas]

• Such a practice would have allowed Sharapova to keep her sponsorships — she's already been dropped by Nike and TAG Heuer.

  [Reuters / Emma Thomasson and Ben Klayman]

• Alternatively, tennis — and other sports — could just acknowledge that science is a human accomplishment worth celebrating along with genetic athletic abilities, and legalize PEDs across the board.

  [Vice / Zoltan Istvan]

MISCELLANEOUS

When Charla Roberts was 10, she pulled down the pants of a male classmate as part of a prank. She was changed with "indecency with a child," put on a sex offender list for 10 years, and barred from living close to children. [New Yorker / Sarah Stillman]

• Pro-gun legislators are pushing a bill in Congress to make it much, much easier to buy silencers. It's called the "Hearing Protection Act."

  [Reuters / Andy Sullivan]

• Searches for information about how to abort one's own baby — through illegally acquired pills, douching with bleach, or using a coat hanger — are way up in the past few years as abortion restrictions have spread.

  [NYT / Seth Stephens-Davidowitz]

• Yes, money does buy happiness. But it's complicated.

  [80,000 Hours]

• There's negative campaigning. There's slimy campaigning. And then there's what Ted Cruz campaign manager Jeff Roe did to Missouri state Auditor Tom Schweich.

  [Rolling Stone / Andy Kroll]

VERBATIM

"'What’s your favorite My Little Pony?' Cruz asks his tiny supporter, a little girl who is wearing a Rainbow Dash beanie. 'Twilight,' she says. 'I have two daughters, and they love Twilight,' Cruz says, before adding, with a grin: 'My favorite, though, is Applejack. I just think she’s funny.'" [Ozy / Nick Fouriezos]

• "Of Rubenstein, he said, 'It’s great that he’s helping out with the Washington Monument. But, if we had a government that was better funded, it could probably fix its own monuments.'"

  [Victor Fleischer to New Yorker / Alec MacGillis]

• "Google’s intense data collection and number crunching have led it to the same conclusions that good managers have always known. In the best teams, members listen to one another and show sensitivity to feelings and needs."

  [NYT Mag / Charles Duhigg]

• "Last week, I put up a fake book on Amazon. I took a photo of my foot, uploaded to Amazon, and in a matter of hours, had achieved 'No. 1 Best Seller' status, complete with the orange banner and everything."

  [Observer / Brent Underwood]

• "The average girl starts having her period at age 12 and bleeds for up to seven days a month until she is about 50 years old, according to the womenshealth.gov website."

  [Reuters / Barbara Goldberg]

WATCH THIS

Why voting in 2016 could be nearly impossible for some Americans [YouTube / Liz Scheltens and Sarah Turbin]

Vox / Liz Scheltens, Sarah Turbin

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