“I approached to see if I could help and they did not need help — they appeared to be dead. They were bloody and unconscious, with some limbs hanging,” he added. “It was gruesome. It was grisly. It was surreal. These people were gone. I’m in shock. I’m looking at dead bodies.” From the NYT: Mangled School Bus, Bodies Everywhere in Manhattan; ‘It Was Surreal’.

+ “He did this in the name of ISIS. He appears to have followed almost exactly to a T the instructions that ISIS has put out in its social media channels before with instructions to their followers on how to carry out such an attack.” Authorities say the NYC truck attacker had been planning his rampage for weeks. And from a hospital bed, he’s now bragging about the attack. From Vox, New York City terror attack: what we know so far.

+ “Through the decades — despite job changes, marriage, children, moves to far-flung corners of the world — they remained close friends. And on Saturday, eight of the former classmates gathered to fly to the United States to celebrate their 30th graduation anniversary.” From WaPo: Old friends from Argentina reunited in New York. Five died together in a terrorist attack.

+ You keep waiting for a rock bottom to the depravity from the Oval Office. But Trump is a bottomless pit. WaPo’s Amber Phillips explains Trump’s modus operandi at moments like this, when real leadership is called for: “He watches cable news and comments on it … He jumps out ahead of the publicly stated facts to come to a conclusion … He comes to a conclusion that is politically beneficial to him … He seeks to cast blame elsewhere … He plucks theories directly from right-wing media and states them as fact … He says stuff that gins up his base.” (After that warm-up, he called our justice system a joke and a laughing stock. It turns out that’s the right description, but the wrong branch of government…)