Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, eeff, Magnifico, annetteboardman, Besame, jck, and JeremyBloom. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) Interceptor 7, Man Oh Man, wader, Neon Vincent, palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse (RIP), ek hornbeck (RIP), rfall, ScottyUrb, Doctor RJ, BentLiberal, Oke (RIP) 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.
Chicago Sun-Times: Gay-owned restaurant in Rogers Park targeted in suspected homophobic attack by Tom Schuba
A gay-owned restaurant in Rogers Park was targeted Monday evening in an alleged homophobic attack that left the front door glass shattered and sent some customers ducking for cover.
Couple Renee Labrana and Sandra Carter have owned R Public House for a decade, fashioning it as a “safe space for anyone who wants to come in,” according to Labrana.
But a low-key happy hour quickly spiraled out of control about 5:30 p.m., when a man started harassing two customers as they approached the bar and restaurant, Labrana said.
After the man followed them inside and called them a gay slur, he challenged them to a fight before being shouted out of the establishment, Labrana said. He then pulled out a hammer, shattered the glass of the front door and ran off. [...]
The Chicago Police Department reported 177 hate crimes last year, by far the most in at least 11 years, according to city records. The Rogers Park police district has recorded the second-most hate crimes over that period, and anti-LBGTQ incidents have been the most common citywide.
I believe that Rogers Park retains the title of the most diverse neighborhood in the city of Chicago.
Washington Post: Free speech or out of order? As meetings grow wild, officials try to tame public comment. By Karen Brulliard
A school board meeting in Greeley, Colo., kicked off this month with a newly restrictive public comment policy — the fourth iteration in a year marked by such vitriol over masks and books that one member suggested suspending comment altogether. Two opportunities for citizens to address the board for a total of four minutes had already been slimmed to one three-minute chance. Now speakers would have two minutes.
In Rochester, Minn., where public comment at city council meetings has featured personal attacks on the mayor and baseless accusations about the library promoting pedophilia, speakers since October have been permitted to comment just once a month — and the board is considering further restrictions.
And in Salem, Ore., the school board in September closed meetings to the public and began taking comments by Zoom, phone or in writing, following what the superintendent called an “escalation of disruptive behavior” that had turned in-person comment into a “public forum for political agendas.”
Across a polarized nation, governing bodies are restricting — and sometimes even halting — public comment to counter what elected officials describe as an unprecedented level of invective, misinformation and disorder from citizens when they step to the microphone. As contentious social issues roil once-sleepy town council and school board gatherings, some officials say allowing people to have their say is poisoning meetings and thwarting the ability to get business done.
New York Times: As Debt Limit Threat Looms, Wall Street and Washington Have Only Rough Plans by Jeanna Smialek and Joe Rennison
With days to go before the United States bumps up against a technical limit on how much debt it can issue, Wall Street analysts and political prognosticators are warning that a perennial source of partisan brinkmanship could finally tip into outright catastrophe in 2023.
Big investors and bank economists are using financial models to predict when the United States, which borrows money to pay its existing bills, will run out of cash. They are assessing what it could mean if the government is unable to pay some of its bondholders and the country defaults on its debt. And they are gaming out how to both minimize risks and make the most of any opportunities to profit that might be hiding in the chaos.
The need to start planning for a potential debt limit breach became more urgent last week, when Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen told Congress that the United States would hit its borrowing cap on Thursday. At that point, Treasury will begin using “extraordinary measures” to try to stay under the cap for as long as possible — but those options could be exhausted as soon as June.
NBC News: Jackson, Mississippi’s water crisis persists as national attention and help fade away by Char Adams
In the months since the most recent water woes began in Jackson, Mississippi, national attention has died down, donations have dwindled, and volunteers have been hard to come by.
Jackson’s already-frail water system suffered a dayslong outage over the summer, in a crisis that sparked national outrage and called attention to the decades of water struggles in the city of 150,000 residents, nearly 83% of them Black. Thanks to donations and the national attention, grassroots organizers were able to distribute hundreds of cases of bottled water to panicked residents after the O.B. Curtis Water Plant failed in August.
Now, some five months later, organizers say there aren’t many resources to go around to residents still in need.
BBC News: China's population falls for first time since 1961 by Kelly Ng
China's population has fallen for the first time in 60 years, with the national birth rate hitting a record low - 6.77 births per 1,000 people.
The population in 2022 - 1.4118 billion - fell by 850,000 from 2021.
China's birth rate has been declining for years, prompting a slew of policies to try to slow the trend.
But seven years after scrapping the one-child policy, it has entered what one official described as an "era of negative population growth".
The birth rate in 2022 was also down from 7.52 in 2021, according to China's National Bureau of Statistics, which released the figures on Tuesday.
In comparison, in 2021, the United States recorded 11.06 births per 1,000 people, and the United Kingdom, 10.08 births. The birth rate for the same year in India, which is poised to overtake China as the world's most populous country, was 16.42.
Deaths also outnumbered births for the first time last year in China. The country logged its highest death rate since 1976 - 7.37 deaths per 1,000 people, up from 7.18 the previous year.
AlJazeera: Serbia slams Russia’s Wagner Group for Ukraine recruitment
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has condemned Russian mercenary force Wagner for trying to recruit soldiers from his country after the group ran a local media advertisement for Serbs to fight in Ukraine.
The criticism marks a rare public rebuke from the Serbian leader towards Russia – a steadfast ally of the Balkan country.
Vucic slammed Russia’s websites and social media groups for publishing advertisements in the Serbian language, in which the Wagner Group calls on volunteers to join its ranks.
“Why do you do that to Serbia?” Vucic said during a televised interview late on Monday. “Why do you, from Wagner, call anyone from Serbia when you know that it is against our regulations?”
The controversial advertisement appeared earlier this month in the Russian state media outlet RT’s Serbian affiliate.
Guardian: Family of executed British-Iranian national ‘prevented from seeing body’ by Patrick Wintour
The Tehran-based family of the executed British-Iranian dual national Alireza Akbari have been prevented from seeing his body or burying him in the grave in which he had asked to be laid to rest in Shiraz, his birthplace, family members have told the Guardian.
Akbari was executed for spying for M16, charges he vehemently denied and for which there is no substantive evidence, save a confession extracted under torture.
In a final humiliation for the family, Akbari’s sister and daughter went to the Tehran cemetery where the officials had said he must be buried to collect the body, and to place him in the allocated grave site, only to be told by officials that a man with the same name and details had been buried at the cemetery on Thursday, and there was no body to collect.
Le Monde in English: French nun Sister André, world's oldest person, dies at 118
The world's oldest known person, French nun Lucile Randon, has died aged 118, on Tuesday, January 17. Ms. Randon, known as Sister André, was born in southern France on February 11, 1904, when World War I was still a decade away.
She died in her sleep at her nursing home in Toulon, spokesman David Tavella said. "There is great sadness but... it was her desire to join her beloved brother. For her, it's a liberation," Mr. Tavella, of the Sainte-Catherine-Laboure nursing home, told AFP.
The sister was long feted as the oldest European, before the death of Japan's Kane Tanaka aged 119 last year left her the longest-lived person on Earth. Ms. Randon was born in the year New York opened its first subway and when the Tour de France had only been staged once.
Have a good evening, everyone!