Overnight News Digest, aka OND, is a community feature here at Daily Kos. Each editor selects news stories on a wide range of topics.
The OND community was founded by Magnifico.
Welcome to all, join us in the comment section to share a news articles and jump into the community chat. News is not required to pull up a chair and chat, just be kind to ceiling cat.
Pacific Northwest tribes eager to save lamprey from extinction
indianz.com
Tribes in the Pacific Northwest are working to save the lamprey, a prehistoric fish, from extinction. Tribes in Oregon, Washington and Idaho have long depended on the fish for food. But experts estimate only about 20,000 still cross through the Columbia River basin. "That's really sad," Aaron Jackson, who leads lamprey restoration efforts for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Reservation, told the Associated Press. "That something this old would just wink out in my lifetime—that's unfathomable to me."
What were two Republicans thinking, calling Obama 'tar baby' and 'boy'?
By Patrik Jonsson
African-American president, alternately a "tar baby" and "boy" gave new fuel to speculation on the left that, underneath much of the criticism of the president and his policies, lurks the shadow of racism.
Last week, Rep. Doug Lamborn (R) of Colorado, on a Denver talk radio show, said, “Even if some people say, ‘Well the Republicans should have done this or they should have done that,’ they will hold the president responsible. Now, I don’t even want to have to be associated with him. It’s like touching a tar baby and you get it, you’re stuck, and you’re a part of the problem now and you can’t get away.”
The term tar baby comes from the 19th century Uncle Remus stories, where B'rer Fox uses a doll made of a lump of tar to trap B'rer Rabbit, who gets more stuck the more he pummels and kicks the tar baby. In more recent parlance, tar baby is widely considered racial slur
Senate fails to end costly FAA shutdown
By JOAN LOWY
The government is likely to lose more than $1 billion in airline ticket taxes because lawmakers have left town for a month without resolving a partisan standoff over a bill to end the partial shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration.
The government already has lost more than $200 million since airlines are unable to collect taxes on ticket sales because the FAA's operating authority has expired.
The Senate recessed on Tuesday until September, erasing any possibility for quickly resolving the issue. The House left Monday night.
Justice Dept Sues Alabama Over Nation’s Harshest Anti-Immigrant Law
By Julianne Hing
The Obama administration is stepping in yet again to challenge a state immigration law, this time for the most far-reaching anti-immigrant state law yet, Alabama’s HB 56.
In its highly anticipated lawsuit filed late Monday, the Department of Justice said that Alabama’s recently passed HB 56, which is set to go into effect on Sept. 1, is in violation of the Constitution.
“[T]he United States Constitution forbids Alabama from supplanting the federal government’s immigration regime with its own state specific immigration policy—a policy that, in purpose and effect, interferes with the numerous interests the federal government must balance when enforcing and administering the immigration laws and disrupts the balance already established by the federal government,” read the complaint.
Woman claims 1971 hijacker D.B. Cooper was her uncle
A woman claiming to be the niece of the mysterious skyjacker dubbed D.B. Cooper, who bailed out of a jetliner 40 years ago with $200,000 in ransom, says she recalls her uncle plotting the sensational caper at a family gathering in 1971.
Marla Wynn Cooper, 48, of Oklahoma City, said on Wednesday that she was the person who furnished investigators new clues to a previously unknown suspect, sparking a renewed probe of a case the FBI counts as the only unsolved hijacking in U.S. aviation history.
The woman told ABC News that she gave the FBI a leather guitar strap made by her uncle, now dead for over a decade, along with a photo of him with the same strap, to be examined for fingerprints that might match those from the plane.
Massive global cyberattack hits US hard: Who could have done it?
By Mark Clayton
Cyberspies believed to be working for a national government for the past five years have stolen vast amounts of classified, sensitive, or proprietary information from at least 72 companies and government and nonprofit groups in 14 countries, with the bulk of the victims in the United States, a major cybersecurity firm is reporting.
“What we have witnessed over the past five to six years has been nothing short of a historically unprecedented transfer of wealth,” the report’s co-author, Dmitri Alperovitch, a vice president of Santa Clara, Calif.-based McAfee, wrote on his blog.
Targets of the information theft included the US federal and state governments, county governments, and Canadian, South Korean, Vietnamese, Taiwanese, and Indian governments. Among other targets: defense contractors, the United Nations, prodemocracy groups, and individual companies in the steel, energy, solar power, electronics, and computer security industries.
MLB investigating A-Rod for illegal poker games
Major League Baseball is investigating Alex Rodriguez for participating in illegal poker games and the Yankees slugger could face suspension, an anonymous MLB executive told ESPN.com.
The investigation stems from allegations published on RadarOnline.com that Rodriguez played in at least two underground games that took place at a record executive's Beverly Hills mansion.
According to the report, A-Rod was at one game that involved some people openly using cocaine and a fight over one player not wanting to cough up his $500,000 in losses.
New partnership brings fresh produce to food banks
By John Larson
A new partnership between L'Arche Tahoma Hope and St. Leo Food Connection will result in fresh fruit for clients of food banks and meal sites in the near future.
L'Arche is a small farm located south of Tacoma on Vickery Road East. Kevin Glackin-Coley, director of Food Connection, used to be on the board of L'Arche, which has a mission of providing opportunities to adults with developmental disabilities. He and Patrick Toohey, manager of the farm, had been talking about ways for the two organizations to collaborate when the idea of Sutherland Orchard was born.
"We wanted more fresh food for our clients and he said he had an available acre," Glackin-Coley said. The boards of both organizations reached an agreement to have Food Connection acquire this acre and be responsible for its upkeep.
Cargill recalls 36 million pounds of ground turkey
cnn.com
Cargill Meat Solutions Corporation announced Wednesday an immediate voluntary recall of approximately 36 million pounds of ground turkey meat because it may be contaminated with salmonella bacteria.
Cargill's plant in Springdale, Arkansas, processed the fresh and frozen ground turkey products between February 20 and August 2, the company said in a news release.
Federal health authorities said Tuesday that an outbreak of Salmonella Heidelberg that has killed one person and sickened 76 others in 26 states appears to have been traced to ground turkey products.
Naked Wall Street Art Piece Ends in Handcuffs
NBC-New York
Some artists got naked on Wall Street during a performance art piece — and then they got arrested.
The two men and a woman were arrested on charges of disorderly conduct Monday morning outside the New York Stock Exchange.
Artist Zefrey Throwell organized the 5-minute piece, which he said was a social critique of Wall Street and involved dozens of volunteers acting out the motions of people at work. He said it was a rehearsed performance "with the very specific aim of public education."
"The arrests happened at the end of the performance after everyone had already put on their clothes on, oddly enough," he said.
Woman survives 50-foot fall off wilderness cliff
cnn.com
A Oregon woman was in a Portland hospital Wednesday after falling 50 feet from a wilderness cliff, breaking her leg in two places and surviving more than three days on wild berries, caterpillars and creek water.
An Oregon National Guard helicopter pulled Pamela Salant, 28, to safety Tuesday afternoon, more than three days after she fell from the cliff after going on a hike in the Mount Hood National Forest, local media reported.
"She's beat up but she's alive, and she's going to be OK," Salant's boyfriend, Aric Essig, told CNN affiliate KATU-TV in Portland late Tuesday. "She had moments of being scared, but she said she had moments where she was just very determined. ... It was down to survival. She thought she was going to die."
Wild mustang roundup in Wyoming off for now
enn.com
Wild horses on the vast rangelands of Wyoming can continue to roam free, for now, after the U.S. government's Bureau of Land Management postponed a planned roundup, horse advocates said on Tuesday.
The bureau had planned to remove 700 wild mustangs in southwestern Wyoming and return 177 geldings or castrated stallions to the land, according to the lawsuit filed July 25.
The plaintiffs -- the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign, the Western Watersheds Project, a Wyoming couple and wildlife photographer Carol Walker -- accused the BLM of intending to "manage the wild horses to extinction."
Will Dam Removal in the West Restore Salmon?
A controversial plan to remove four dams from the Klamath River to save endangered salmon could make its way to Congress in the coming weeks.
Capitol Hill lawmakers will consider taking down California’s Iron Gate, Copco 2, Copco 1, and John C. Boyle dams at a cost of about $1 billion, half of that potentially funded with federal tax dollars.
The removal plan has the backing of several Native American tribes on the Klamath who rely on the river for salmon fishing, as well as farmers who depend on its water for irrigation. The plan also has the support of PacifiCorp, Warren Buffett’s power company, which owns the dams.
http://www.reuters.com/...
By Fatos Bytyci
The NATO mission in Kosovo said Wednesday that it had drafted an agreement with Serb representatives to move roadblocks in northern Kosovo, but the Pristina government said the deal was unacceptable.
NATO said all roadblocks would be removed and its soldiers would continue to control two border posts. Serb activists burned one of them last week and an ethnic Albanian policeman was shot dead.
"Roadblocks will be removed and freedom of movement will be re-established," a NATO statement said, adding that the agreement could be implemented in the days to come. Cars and trucks may pass after an identity check and a weapons search.
Somalia famine spreads to 3 new regions, U.N. says
By Robyn Dixon
Reporting from Johannesburg, South Africa—
With hunger in the Horn of Africa dramatically worsening, the United Nations on Wednesday added three more regions of Somalia to the list of areas it says are stricken by famine.
More than 12 million people are facing starvation, with children particularly vulnerable. The U.N. last month declared that two regions of Somalia were suffering from famine, and it said Wednesday that the famine was likely to spread across most of Somalia in coming months, as well as parts of Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia.
Somalia is struggling with its worst drought in 60 years, and 3.7 million Somalis are in crisis, mainly in the south — creating Africa's most serious hunger crisis in two decades. Refugee camps in the capital, Mogadishu, are now affected as well, U.N. agencies said.
THIS WEEKEND - FAMINE CRISIS FUNDRAISER
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Can You See East Africa?
East Africa Food Crisis: 48 hour Famine Fundraiser
This weekend, Daily Kos is participating in 48-hour Fundraiser hosted by environmental websites and nonprofit organizations to benefit the 12 million people struggling for survival in East Africa.
The UN, after declaring famine in two districts in Somalia, last week announced the entire region of southern-Somalia is in danger of slipping into famine.
Also participating in this weekend of action are 350.org, Oxfam International, WiserEarth,tcktcktck, deSmog Blog, MIT Climate CoLab, BPI Campus, Climate Change: The Next Generation, RedGreenAndBlue.org, and MedicMobile.
Over the course of the weekend, experts in the field of humanitarian assistance will join environmental writers to outline the history of the region and detail how geopolitics, colonialism, ongoing civil wars, climate change and geographic vulnerabilities have combined to create the perfect storm now ravaging East Africa.
Each participating organization is choosing its particular group for donated funds. Daily Kos is donating all monies raised to directly support the work of Médecins Sans Frontières in the Dadaab refugee camp. An anonymous donor has volunteered $5,000 in matching funds. Just click on the Médecins Sans Frontières button to go directly to the donation page, which will enable us to keep track of how much money we raise.
Schedule: Saturday-Sunday August 6-7 PST
6-8: (9-11 EST) Una Spencer: Introduction
8-10: (11-1) A Siegel: Out of Sight, Out of Mind
10-12: (1-3 EST) FishOutOfWater ?
12-3 (3-6 EST) rb137: MSF overview
3-6: 6-9 EST) wader:
6-9: 9-12 EST Jeremy Bloom:
9-12: 12-3: Oke:
Overnight: boatsie: Breaking News From East Africa/Roundup
Sunday, August 7
6-8 PST 9-11 EST ( blue jersey mom: Inadequacy of US Humanitarian Aide
8-10: (11-1) EST Guest Post
10-12: (1-3 EST) 350.org
12-2: (3-5 EST) Patriot Daily
2-4: (5-7) Ellinorianne
4-6: 7-9 JekyllnHyde
6-8: ( 9-11 EST) Jennifer Miller Smith
8-10: (11-1 EST) Jill Richardson
Overnight: Chacounne