Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, current leader Neon Vincent, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, Doctor RJ, Magnifico, annetteboardman and Man Oh Man. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) wader, palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse, ek hornbeck, ScottyUrb, Interceptor7, BentLiberal, Oke and jlms qkw.
OND is a regular community feature on Daily Kos, consisting of news stories from around the world, sometimes coupled with a daily theme, original research or commentary. Editors of OND impart their own presentation styles and content choices, typically publishing each day near 12:00 AM Eastern Time.
Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.
I’m Chitown Kev and I am subbing for the jetlagged side pocket this evening.
And the question of the evening:
Guardian: Gavin Long, named as Baton Rouge gunman, was marine with online alias by Jon Swaine
Gavin Long, the man identified on Sunday as the deadly shooter of police officersin Baton Rouge, left behind an online trail to web pages featuring complaints about the treatment of African Americans by police.
Using the pseudonym “Cosmo Setepenra”, Long, 29, railed in a series of videos, photographs and online writings at perceived injustices against black people.
“You gotta fight back,” he urged viewers in a video recorded a week ago.
Describing the fatal shooting of five police officers in Dallas, Texas, earlier this month as “justice”, Long urged black men to make sacrifices for their race.
Styling himself as a life coach and “spiritual advisor,” Long distanced himself, however, from well-known groups campaigning for African American rights.
“I thought my own thoughts, I made my own decisions – I’m the one who’s gotta listen to the judgment,” he said in another clip.
Long was shot dead by responding officers on Sunday, his 29th birthday, after allegedly shooting three officers dead and wounding three others, one critically.
Chicago Tribune: Trump excuses Mike Pence's Iraq War vote but not Hillary Clinton's by Sean Sullivan (Washington Post)
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has routinely assailed Democratic rival Hillary Clinton for voting in 2002 to authorize military intervention in Iraq, but in a television interview broadcast Sunday night, he gave his running mate, Mike Pence, a pass for doing the exact same thing.
The interview on CBS's "60 Minutes" highlighted a challenge Trump will face now that has put the Indiana governor on the GOP ticket: dealing with questions about where the two have disagreed. On trade, foreign policy and other areas, the two have parted ways many times.
In in the interview, Trump was confronted with Pence's vote to authorize force in 2002 as a member of the House.
"I don't care," Trump responded.
"What do you mean you don't care?" asked Lesley Stahl, who conducted the interview.
"It's a long time ago. And he voted that way, and they were also misled. A lot of information was given to people," Trump said.
The real estate mogul said Pence was "entitled to make a mistake every once in a while."
But Clinton?
"No. She's not," Trump said.
Just in case you would like to have a little hilarity to end the day, you are more than welcome here(yes, I am pimping my own diary in...my own diary!).
New York Times: A Civil Start to Protests, but Cleveland Is Bracing for Worse by Yamiche Alcindor and Alan Rappeport
CLEVELAND — The barricades were up and the police were ready, but the rowdy protests expected to descend this week on Cleveland for the Republican National Convention were contained to small pockets of unrest amid largely peaceful demonstrations across the city.
At the height of the protests early Sunday evening, about 200 demonstrators marched down Euclid Avenue in the heart of downtown, stopping traffic and shouting, “No justice, no peace, no racist police!” as they neared Quicken Loans Arena, the site of the convention. The crowd, which was also directing its ire at Donald J. Trump, was circled by police officers in cars and on bicycles and horseback.
Some protesters said they had been handled roughly by the police, and there were reports of people being detained.
“They pushed us against the wall and said, ‘We are going to search your bags,’” said Cloud Kallisti, 43, of Akron.
The protesters were animated by both Mr. Trump, the presumptive presidential nominee, and recent violence between the police and civilians. While some protesters spilled into the streets, there were few signs of the violence or mass arrests that the authorities had feared, giving the day a feeling of relative calm before a potential storm, with the convention beginning Monday.
Reuters: Exclusive: U.S. curtails federal election observers by Julia Harte
Federal election observers can only be sent to five states in this year’s U.S. presidential election, among the smallest deployments since the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965 to end racial discrimination at the ballot box.
The plan, confirmed in a U.S. Department of Justice fact sheet seen by Reuters, reflects changes brought about by the Supreme Court’s 2013 decision to strike down parts of the Act, a signature legislative achievement of the 1960s civil rights movement.
Voting rights advocates told Reuters they were concerned that the scaling-back of observers would make it harder to detect and counter efforts to intimidate or hinder voters, especially in southern states with a history of racial discrimination at the ballot box.
The Supreme Court ruling undercut a key section of the Act that requires such states to obtain U.S. approval before changing election laws. The court struck down the formula used to determine which states were affected.
By doing so, it ended the Justice Department’s ability to select voting areas it deemed at risk of racial discrimination and deploy observers there, the fact sheet said.
Eleven mostly Southern states had been certified as needing federal observers by the department.
Federal observers can still be sent to monitor elections but only when authorized by federal court rulings. Currently, courts have done so in five states: Alabama, Alaska, California, Louisiana, and New York, according to the Justice Department.
The New Yorker: Racism, Stress, and Black Death by Clint Smith
The stream of names of those who have been killed at the hands of the police feels endless, and I become overwhelmed when I consider all the names we do not know—all of those who lost their lives and had no camera there to capture it, nothing to corroborate police reports that named them as threats. Closed cases. I watch the collective mourning transpire across my social-media feeds. I watch as people declare that they cannot get out of bed, cannot bear to go to work, cannot function as a human being is meant to function. This sense of anxiety is something I have become unsettlingly accustomed to. The familiar knot in my stomach. The tightness in my chest. But becoming accustomed to something does not mean that it does not take a toll. Systemic racism always takes a toll, whether it be by bullet or by blood clot.
According to a study by the American Psychology Association, “more than three in four black adults report experiencing day-to-day discrimination and nearly two in five black men say that police have unfairly stopped, searched, questioned, physically threatened or abused them.” Living under the perpetual and pervasive threat of racism seems, for black men and black women, to quite literally reduce lifespans. Black people face social and economic challenges—often deriving from institutionalized racism—in the form of disparities in education, housing, food, medical care, and many other things. But the act of interfacing with prejudice itself has profound psychological implications, resulting in the sorts of trauma that last long beyond the incidents themselves.
Fusion.net: I went back home to Louisiana to meet a black televangelist pastor who’s voting for Trump by Luna Malbroux
Now Isaiah was curious about what could have brought me to Opelousas, and Opelousas Life Church at that. After hours of church, it was finally time for a confession: I was here to find out why Pastor Kerney Thomas—former televangelist and larger-than-life black pastor of a small Louisiana congregation—was now an avid supporter of Donald Trump.
I haven’t been fazed by the white faces at Trump rallies this past year. But I’ve been positively dumbfounded by the occasional black and brown supporters, like Diamond and Silk, two sisters who went viral stumping for Trump, or Omarosa, a bombastic former contestant on Donald Trump’s reality TV show, The Apprentice. It’s hard for me to grasp how any black person could look at Trump’s KKK endorsements, see the way black people are handled at his rallies, or hear him talk for, like, five minutes and not be utterly offended. Trump has mostly directed his ire toward Latinos and Muslims, but the “Again” in “Make America Great Again” signifies the past, and “America” + “Past” + “Black” is not a campaign agenda I’d like to see put forth in my lifetime. Judging by the 99% of black voters not voting for Trump, I’m hardly alone.
I don’t have to go back to the Jim Crow South to be reminded of its misogyny, racism, and xenophobia. No, my childhood growing up in rural Louisiana is far back enough. It’s the Louisiana of David Duke—another enthused advocate for Donald “Fear The Other” Trump. It’s apparently also the Louisiana where prominent black pastors feel free to support a man who has voiced the type of bigotry that, up until recently, was uncouth to acknowledge in public.
As my Granny would say, “Lawd, have mercy Jesus,” while shaking her head…and on a related note…
Mic.com: Gay Republicans React to Mike Pence Selection With Mix of Resignation and Depression by Luke Brinker
In a conventional presidential election, it would raise few eyebrows if the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party selected a staunch social conservative as his vice presidential running mate.
This is not, of course, a conventional presidential election — and Donald Trump, who's slated to formally accept the GOP nomination in Cleveland next week, has occasionally bucked conservative convention on no less a hot-button issue than LGBT rights: Celebrating Elton John's marriage, embracing Caitlyn Jenner, pronouncing himself a "real friend" of the community and promising continued progress on LGBT equality under a Trump administration.
Gay supporters have touted Trump as "the most pro-gay Republican nominee ever," hailing what they see as an opportunity to substantially shrink the Democratic Party's advantage with LGBT voters. But with his announcement Friday that he'd tapped Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana as his vice presidential running mate, Trump has stirred feelings of resignation and disappointment among many gay Republicans.
"The talk of Mike Pence as a vice presidential nominee, what we've been seeing and hearing in terms of the [GOP] platform, underscore for me — not just as an LGBT American, but as an American — the need for a new way forward," said Chrys Kefalas, who mounted an unsuccessful GOP primary bid for the U.S. Senate from Maryland earlier this year, and says he will not be voting for Trump in the fall.
Village Voice: Report: City Hall Knew About Plan to Convert AIDS Hospice Into Luxury Condos by Alexandra Neason
A Department of Investigation report released yesterday found that senior City Hall staffers knew about a plan to turn a Lower East Side health facility for AIDS patients into luxury condos, despite Mayor Bill de Blasio’s assurances that no one within his administration was aware of the deal.
The report details a "complete lack of accountability within City government regarding deed restriction removals and significant communication failures between and within City Hall and DCAS," the agency charged with lifting the usage restrictions on Rivington House.
Village Care sold Rivington House to the Allure Group for $28 million in February of 2015. Allure subsequently paid the city $16.1 million to lift the two deed restrictions from the building, which mandated that it be used solely for nonprofit, residential health services. Allure flipped the property to the Slate Group, luxury condo developers, for a $116 million in February after the restrictions were lifted.
San Diego Union-Tribune: Homeless relieved after suspect’s arrest by Pauline Repard
SAN DIEGO — Herman Quillion, an out-of-work welder from Georgia, wasn’t worried about a serial killer striking homeless men in San Diego “until it was time to lay down to sleep.”
“I was sleeping with a bat,” said Quillion, 41, who made his way to San Diego two months ago in hopes of finding work. “Sometimes I couldn’t sleep, when I first heard about it.”
His was a familiar story of homeless men, several of whom on Saturday expressed relief that a suspect was in custody.
Homicide investigators on Friday arrested Jon David Guerrero, 39, of San Diego, saying he is the man behind the attacks.
Kenneth Moyd, 62, resting on a trolley station bench, said the arrest meant “one less thing to worry about” on San Diego’s streets, where he has lived since 1980.
One man stopped rummaging in trash cans at C Street and Fifth Avenue long enough to acknowledge he’d been using “the buddy system” for safer sleeping. “My hat’s off to SDPD for catching him,” he said before moving on.
Joshua Jones, 22, spent three months traveling to San Diego from Maine, arriving about the time the killings started. He and six to 10 other homeless have been bedding down near each other in a parking lot, with the business owner’s permission.
Bloomberg: Trump VP Pick Raises Legal Questions for Some Wall Street Donors by Zachary Mider
In choosing Mike Pence as his running mate, Donald Trump went with a champion of free markets who boosts the ticket's appeal to the Republican donor class.
But since Pence is the sitting Indiana governor, his selection may also raise complex legal questions for some Trump supporters who've managed money for the state, including the billionaires Wilbur Ross, Stephen Feinberg, and Tom Barrack.
All three run private-equity firms that are listed as vendors in the Indiana Public Retirement System's 2015 annual report. A Securities and Exchange Commission rule sets limits on contributions to political candidates who control investment decisions, either directly or indirectly.
The "pay to play" rule was put in place in 2010 after a series of scandals in which money managers were accused of trying to improperly influence state officials to win investment management business, including by arranging political contributions.
In an e-mail message on Saturday, Ross said "I will abide by the rules" and that he's currently researching the matter "to be sure that whatever I do going forward will continue to be in compliance." Representatives for Feinberg and Barrack had no immediate comment.
The Atlantic: The Mystery of Urban Psychosis by Vaughan Bell
Southwyck House in South London is a block of flats so intimidating that it is often mistaken for a prison. Locally known as the Brixton ‘barrier block,’ it has a stark exterior of brick and concrete that literally looms over you, giving the impression that unseen people are staring down through the sparse rectangular windows.
It was built as a social housing project, designed to shield its residents from the noise of a phantom motorway that was intended to run from Blackheath to Battersea. The road was never built due to petty political squabbles, but the building now stands as a seven-story barricade against its illusory traffic.
If you’re not used to the built-up environment of the inner city, the block can certainly feel unsettling. But here, urban alienation may run deeper than mere architecture. The area was found to have the highest rate of diagnosed schizophrenia in a large study of South London, even when compared with directly adjacent neighborhoods.
AFP: Attacker staked out Nice site, accomplice suspected
The Nice truck attacker staked out the seafront for two days before striking, it emerged Sunday as investigators pieced together details of the Islamic State-claimed massacre and questioned possible accomplices.
A source close to the investigation told AFP that Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, a 31-year-old Tunisian, sent a text message just before the attack in which he "expresses satisfaction at having obtained a 7.65-millimetre pistol and discusses the supply of other weapons".
He also took a selfie at the wheel of the 19-tonne truck in the days before he ploughed it into a crowd of people who had been enjoying a fireworks display on Bastille Day, France's national day, killing 84 and injuring about 300.
Mangled bodies were left strewn across the Riviera city's seafront in the grisly attack by a man described by those who knew him as a loner with a history of violence and depression.
While some relatives and friends described the delivery driver as someone who drank heavily and never attended the local mosque, others questioned by investigators spoke of "a recent shift to radical Islam", said a police source.
BBC: Sturgeon: Second independence referendum could be next year
Nicola Sturgeon has said she would consider a second referendum on Scottish independence in the first half of next year if necessary.
The first minister told the BBC that could happen if the UK government started the formal process of leaving the EU without Scotland's position being safeguarded.
She has also suggested that Scotland could stay in the UK and the EU.
The UK minister responsible for Brexit said he did not think this would work.
But earlier, the prime minister Theresa May said she would listen to any options brought forward by the Scottish government.
Following a meeting with Ms Sturgeon on Friday, Mrs May appeared unwilling to consider a second referendum on Scottish independence, saying people in Scotland sent a "very clear message" in 2014.
Mrs May also said she would not trigger article 50 - the formal process of the UK leaving the EU - until there was a "UK approach and objectives".
Hürriyet Daily News: 6,000 detained from Turkish army, judiciary in probe into failed coup attempt
A crackdown on the military and the judiciary in the wake of a failed coup attempt has led to the detention of thousands of soldiers and judges and prosecutors, including commanders and top court members.
Justice Minister Bekir Bozdağ on July 17 said around 6,000 suspects, including at least 2,839 soldiers and thousands of judiciary members, have been detained as part of a wide-scale operation launched following the deadly coup attempt initiated by a group of soldiers late on July 15.
“There are currently around 6,000 detentions. It will surpass 6,000. The legal process on these will continue,” said Bozdağ.
Suspects are being charged with “membership of an armed terrorist organization” and “attempting to overthrow the government of the Turkish Republic using force and violence or attempting to completely or partially hinder its function.”
The Ankara Governor's Office also announced on July 17 that 149 police personnel were suspended from their duties for having links to the coup attempt.
The terrorist organization is allegedly led by the U.S.-based Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, a friend turned foe of the Turkish government.
The arrest warrants target two members of the Constitutional Court, Alparslan Altan and Erdal Tercan, 48 members of the Council of State, and 140 members of the Supreme Court of Appeals.
The detention of 2,745 judicial and administrative judges and prosecutors was ordered after they were suspended from duty by the Supreme Council of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK) early on June 16.
Many commanders have also been detained and some of them were later arrested.
AlJazeera: Turkey demands extradition of Fethullah Gulen from US
US-Turkish tensions have grown after government forces put down an attempted coup on Friday night.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused exiled Turkish businessman and cleric Fethullah Gulen of orchestrating the violence and is demanding that the US extradite him.
Gulen, who lives in Pennsylvania, denied any involvement and condemned the coup attempt.
Secretary of State John Kerry told his Turkish counterpart in a phone call that Turkey needs to respect due process as it investigates those it believes were involved in the plot.
At least one senior Turkish official has directly blamed the US for the attempt to topple Erdogan. That prompted Kerry to tell Turkey's foreign minister that "public insinuations" about a US role are "utterly false" and harmful to US-Turkish relations.
The exchange comes against the backdrop of Turkey closing its air space, effectively grounding US fighter jets that have been targeting Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) forces in neighbouring Syria and Iraq.
New York Times: Posters in Pakistan Urge a General to Take Control of the Government by Salman Masood
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Posters urging the Pakistani Army chief to take over the country in a military coup sprouted suddenly across Pakistan this week, with a photograph of Gen. Raheel Sharif, a burly man with a thick mustache, and an emphatic, pleading request: “For God’s sake, take over.”
They had been posted on the main thoroughfares of major cities by an obscure political party called Move On Pakistan, which believes that civilian leaders cannot be trusted.
The posters immediately sparked all-too-familiar speculation. Is the military planning a coup? Are the powerful generals tired of prodding the civilian government, saddled by one crisis or another?
“There’s no direct evidence of the involvement of the army and its intelligence agencies in the posters,” Ejaz Haider, a prominent political analyst and talk show host, said in an interview. “That said, past experience tells us that one or the other intelligence agency can quietly push certain disgruntled elements to start such campaigns in the physical and virtual worlds.”
Rumors about an impending coup are nothing new in Pakistan, which has had four periods of military rule, direct or indirect, since its founding in 1947. Public patience with civilian rulers, who are seen as corrupt and inefficient, wears out quickly. The military, which controls the levers of power, sees itself as the savior.
Variety: Pakistani Social Media Star Qandeel Baloch is Murdered by Patrick Frater
Pakistani model and social media starlet Qandeel Baloch has been murdered in the city of Multan, in an apparent ‘honor killing.’ Local media report Pakistan police as saying that she was killed by her younger brother, Daniyal Jugnnoo, aka Wasim, who is now on the run.
Reports differ as to whether Baloch was strangled or shot dead. They are also unclear as to whether her murder took place on Friday night or on Saturday.
Baloch, 26, real name Fouzia Azeem, had stoked controversy in the country by openly living a Westernized lifestyle and posting her exploits on social media including Facebook and Twitter. Divorced from her husband, she had been nicknamed ‘Pakistan’s Kim Jardashian,’ and ‘Pakistan’s first social media star.’
Her death divided online media on Saturday. Many celebrated the death of a woman who they said brought shame to Muslims as a whole and to her family in particular. Others mourned the passing of a modernizer and force for societal change.
BBC: Qandeel Baloch case: Brother held for Pakistan celebrity's murder
The brother of Pakistani social media celebrity Qandeel Baloch has been arrested for her murder.
The brother, Waseem, 25, was arrested in Dera Ghazi Khan in central Pakistan on Saturday night.
The Dawn newspaper said he had confessed to the murder, saying he drugged and strangled her "for dishonouring the Baloch name".
Qandeel Baloch, 26, became a household name for posting sometimes raunchy photographs, comments and videos.
She recently caused controversy by posting pictures of herself alongside a Muslim cleric.
Dawn quoted her brother as saying: "She wasn't aware I was killing her. I gave her a tablet and then strangled her."
Speaking after his arrest, he said: "I am not ashamed. We are Baloch and as Baloch we cannot tolerate [this]".
He pointed to videos his sister had made, and specifically the images taken with the cleric, Mufti Abdul Qavi.
Eurasia Review: Saudi’s Star Prince Goes To Washington – OpEd by Khaled Alaswad
Since elderly King Salman took the throne in Saudi Arabia last year, favorite son Mohammed bin Salman has put the lie to his position as “Deputy” Crown Prince. Technically the third most powerful man in the Saudi court and subservient to his father Salman and his cousin Mohammed bin Nayef, the young prince has instead been increasingly open about rewriting the political rulebook in Riyadh. Now directly responsible for both the military and the nation’s struggling economy, Mohammed bin Salman’s rise to the top marks a sea change in Saudi politics and a once-unimaginable jump from one generation to the next.
The extent of that unexpected rise was made abundantly clear during the prince’s visit to the United States in June. Instead of photo ops, soft-focus interviews and decorative dinners, Mohammed instead sat down for a one-on-one meeting with President Obama and high-level meetings with Secretary of State John Kerry, House Speaker Paul Ryan, Defense Secretary Ash Carter, and CIA Chief John Brennan in Washington. He also sat down with key economic policymakers, including Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew and Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker. Amid a series of reports that both his father and his cousin were seriously ill, American policymakers are clearly acknowledging the possibility that Mohammed could become the supreme authority in Saudi Arabia and are preparing accordingly. In a departure from the traditional Saudi focus on the defense, security, and energy aspects of its relationship with the United States, however, the prince looked beyond Washington and traveled to both Silicon Valley and Wall Street to meet with the American business class.
Guardian: Why theatre is set for greater diversity as publishing lags behind by Danuta Kean
British publishing and the stage have a problem with diversity. But when it comes to action rather than words, the theatre leaves book publishing standing. I have been commissioned by Andrew Lloyd Webber to lead research into why few black and Asian actors make it to the stage as he is “deeply concerned” about the lack of diversity, as he said last week.
Though book publishers echo the composer’s concern, no individual or company of similar stature has put their hand in their pocket in the same way. It took the tiny writers’ development agency Spread the Word to pay for a report – Writing the Future, which I edited last year – that blew the lid on why many black and Asian novelists are being failed.
Of course there are overlaps between the two sectors: an automatic default to white norms when casting leads or commissioning books where race is not relevant; over-representation of the white, upper-middle class at every level from drama schools and creative writing courses to casting directors and literary agents; and reliance on a white literary canon that excludes black and Asian actors, audiences and readers.
Phys.org: Longest maths proof would take 10 billion years to read
An Anglo-American trio presented the prize-winning solution to a 35-year old maths problem Friday, but verifying it may be a problem in itself: reading it would take 10 billion years.
"Boolean Pythagorean Triples" is not a shameful contagious disease, but a long-unsolved enigma within a field called Ramsey Theory.
It was such a brain-teaser that nearly 30 years ago fabled American mathematician Ronald Graham offered a cash prize to anyone who could solve it.
It was only $100, but still.
The self-declared winners—Marijn Heule, Oliver Kullmann and Victor Marek, of the universities of Texas, Swansea and Kentucky, respectively—unveiled their proof at the international SAT 2016 conference in Bordeaux, France.
By their own account, they cracked the puzzle "using Cube-and-Conquer, a hybrid satisfiability testing (SAT) method for hard problems."
As one would.
But colleagues, they acknowledged, needed to see the proof in the pudding, so to speak.
Don’t forget that Hunter is hosting an open thread for night owls this evening.
Everyone have safe and restful evening!