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 (RIP), ek hornbeck, ScottyUrb, Interceptor7, 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.
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The Guardian
At Zion national park, a popular trail has been closed since 2010. At the Grand Canyon, a rusting pipeline that supplies drinking water to the busiest part of the park breaks at least a half-dozen times a year. At Voyageurs, a historic cabin collapsed.
The National Park Service is the protector of some of America’s greatest environmental and cultural treasures. Yet a huge funding shortfall means that the strain of America’s passion for its parks is showing. Trails are crumbling and buildings are rotting. In all there is an $11bn backlog of maintenance work that repair crews have been unable to perform, a number that has mostly increased every year in the past decade.
“Americans should be deeply concerned,” said John Garder, senior director of budget and appropriations at the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA). The National Park Service, he argued, is hamstrung by a lack of resources and is in “triage mode”.
Today the Guardian is announcing a major expansion of This Land is Your Land, our series investigating the threats facing America’s public lands.
US NEWS
The Guardian
Andrew McCabe, the deputy director of the FBI, stepped down on Monday in a widely anticipated move that nevertheless reflected a further deterioration in relations between the White House and authorities investigating Donald Trump’s Russia ties.
The move came after months of attacks on McCabe by the president, who implied that McCabe had been compromised by a political donation made in 2015 to McCabe’s wife.
Sarah Sanders, the White House press secretary, sought to distance the administration from McCabe’s departure.
“We’ve seen the numerous reports, as all of you have,” she said. “I can tell you none of this decision was made by anyone at the White House.”
Sanders added: “We don’t have any specific comments and I would refer you to the FBI for any specifics on the things taking place today.”
Bloomberg
President Donald Trump’s frustrations with the Russia investigation boiled over on Air Force One last week when he learned that a top Justice Department official had warned against releasing a memo that could undercut the probe, according to four people with knowledge of the matter.
Trump erupted in anger while traveling to Davos after learning that Associate Attorney General Stephen Boyd warned that it would be “extraordinarily reckless” to release a classified memo written by House Republican staffers. The memo outlines alleged misdeeds at the FBI and Justice Department related to the Russia investigation.
For Trump, the letter was yet another example of the Justice Department undermining him and stymieing Republican efforts to expose what the president sees as the politically motivated agenda behind Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe.
Reuters
The research firm behind the so-called Trump “dossier” accused U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley on Monday of endangering its employees by ignoring “multiple” requests not to publicly disclose their names.
In a letter to Grassley, which also criticized Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, lawyers for Washington-based Fusion GPS said the firm had twice reported unspecified “threats” to the police and had tried to keep its employees’ names confidential “because of well-founded concerns about their public safety.”
Fusion hired former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele to compile the “dossier” that included allegations about contacts between then-presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign, his advisers and Russia. The document has since become the focus of attacks by Trump and his supporters.
NPR
Authorities are calling the emergency landing that took place on State Route 55 in Costa Mesa, Calif., a "miracle."
Izzy Slod, 25, and a passenger were flying back to Van Nuys from San Diego on Sunday evening following a business trip, authorities told NPR. The two men were heading to John Wayne Airport, with Slod in the pilot's seat.
But trouble struck. The plane was over open ocean about two miles from the coast when Slod noticed that the plane was descending.
"They said their engine went out without any warning signs," said Costa Mesa Fire Department Capt. Chris Coates.
Slod tried to restart the engine, but to no avail. At that point, he decided he had no other option but to land the plane on the freeway.
Washington Post
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said President Trump will not address the ongoing investigation into collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia because no Americans care about the issue.
At Monday's White House briefing, Sanders said: “We spend more time on that than we do any other topic despite the fact that time and time again, poll after poll says that frankly no one cares about this issue, and it's certainly not the thing that keeps people up at night.”
Sanders did not cite a poll showing that “no one” cares about the Russia investigation. It is highly unlikely that a reliable poll exists with results showing that zero people care about the Russia investigation.
The Guardian
Steven Anderson, from the Faithful World Baptist Church in Tempe, said he was about to board a flight to Kingston when he was informed he would not be allowed into Jamaica.
Anderson, who once prayed for the death of Barack Obama, has previously been denied entry to South Africa, Canada, the United Kingdom and Botswana.
“The decision was made by the chief immigration officer because the pastor’s statements are not conducive to the current climate,” said spokesperson for the Ministry of National Security on Monday.
The University of the West Indies, where Anderson was slated to speak, also rescinded its invitation.
Discrimination and the threat of violence against gay people in Jamaica remains pervasive, but activists hoped that the ban could represent a shift in attitudes in a country well-known for its homophobic attitudes.
The Guardian
It launched to a fanfare two weeks ago: the first privately funded US express passenger railway in decades, a new start for long delayed plans, and a “green” alternative to Florida’s increasingly congested highways.
Yet for executives of Brightline, an ambitious $3bn venture that will eventually ferry travellers from the theme parks of Orlando to the beaches of Miami in just three hours, the champagne moment soon lost its fizz.
Even before passengers left the station at Fort Lauderdale on opening day, a pedestrian was struck and killed at a road crossing by a Brightline train meant to showcase a high-speed link to journalists and dignitaries. Two further crossing strikes in the next seven days, one of them fatal, reignited a contentious safety debate, even though the victims had all passed barriers.
Now, with environmental concerns also lingering over the final construction phase of the 235-mile line, from Palm Beach county to Orlando, lawmakers are seeking greater oversight of the private railway. One US congressman, Brian Mast, has called to shut down work altogether, pending an inquiry, and US senators Bill Nelson and Marco Rubio are demanding a federal review.
WORLD NEWS
Agence France Presse
The River Seine peaked Monday at more than four metres above its normal level, heralding a lengthy mop-up job for Parisians after days of rising waters that have put the soggy city on alert.
This December and January have been France's wettest for 50 years, the national weather agency said -- and the saturated ground in the Paris region means that even though the waters are now set to recede, the clean-up will be slow.
"Lessons need to be learned from this," said top Paris official Michel Delpuech. "We know this type of phenomenon will happen again."
Some suburbs of the capital have been turned into lakes, with residents forced to don waders and get around by canoe.
Agence France Presse
Delegates on Monday arrived in Russia for talks aimed at ending the Syrian conflict, but hopes of progress were dimmed after the main opposition group and the Kurds said they would boycott the event.
Regime-backer Moscow has invited 1,600 people to the talks in the Black Sea resort of Sochi as part of a broader push to consolidate its influence in the Middle East and start hammering out a path to a political solution to end the seven-year war.
The aim of the Tuesday congress is to bring Syria closer to creating a post-war constitution, after two days of separate UN-backed talks in Vienna last week closed with the warring sides not even meeting face to face to discuss the groundwork for the document.
Deutsche Welle
It seems as if there is no end in sight to the spate of deadly attacks occurring relentlessly in Afghanistan, killing scores and throwing lives in disarray. Is the new US strategy responsible for this spike in terror?
A string of brutal attacks over the past several weeks, killing and injuring hundreds of innocent Afghans, have shown the world the fragile and worsening state of security in Afghanistan and made it once again a staple of international headlines.
The incidents have plunged war-weary Afghan citizens into a state of despair and highlighted the limitations faced by the government in Kabul in ensuring public security.
Both the Taliban and the so-called "Islamic State" (IS) have claimed responsibility for the violence.
Al Jazeera
Governments around the world are increasingly shutting down internet access in an apparent attempt to silence discontent and dissent, activists say.
In 2017, internet access was cut off more than 80 times around the world, up from 56 times the year before, drawing concerns from digital rights activists.
"We do see this as evidence for a global trend in the wrong direction," Peter Micek of Access Now told Al Jazeera.
One of the countries that have seen several shutdowns in the past year is Cameroon. People in the Anglophone region of the West African nation erupted in protests against the imposition of the French language, which is spoken by the majority of the population.
NPR
Ever since the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union, the big question has been what departure will actually look like in March 2019, when the breakup kicks in.
Hard Brexit? Soft Brexit? Delayed Brexit?
Now, Britain has asked for an extension of sorts, a "transition period" to ease out of the EU without an abrupt impact on businesses. And the European Union has agreed to a temporary plan that you might sum up as:
Brexit? What Brexit?
Under instructions for the EU negotiator just approved by the other member countries, the United Kingdom would spend March 2019 through December 2020 acting just like an EU member ... minus the voting power.
Deutsche Welle
Humans were exposed to the toxic fumes in experiments requested by a group funded by German carmakers, according to media reports. The shocking revelation came after tests on monkeys became public over the weekend.
Reports by German newspapers Stuttgarter Zeitung and Süddeutsche Zeitung said humans had been exposed to a gas found in diesel fumes during an experiment "sometime between 2012 and 2015" requested by a group funded by German carmakers.
The tests were requested by the European Research Group on Environment and Health in the Transport Sector (EUGT) — a now defunct organization founded by German carmakers Volkswagen, Daimler and BMW.
The experiments focused on "short-term nitrogen dioxide inhalation by healthy people," according to the newspapers. An Aachen-based university hospital then examined 25 people after they inhaled varying amounts of the gas over several hours.
THE ENVIRONMENT, SCIENCE, HEALTH AND TECHNOLOGY
Bloomberg
Donald Trump cast doubt on the science of climate change even while saying he’d be open to keeping the U.S. in the Paris climate accord, partly because of his warm relationship with French President Emmanuel Macron.
“The ice caps were going to melt, they were going to be gone by now, but now they’re setting records,” Trump said in excerpts of an interview with Piers Morgan on the U.K. television network ITV that will be broadcast later on Sunday. Trump didn’t specify the data behind his statement about setting records.
Agence France Presse
As Paris began mopping up after the rain-gorged river Seine overflowed for the second time in two years, researchers warned Monday that Europe faces a flood-filled future due to global warming.
Flood damage from rivers in Europe will more than double to about 15 billion euros ($19 billion) per year, even under the most optimistic planet-warming forecast, said a study published in the journal Climate.
In the best-case scenario, average warming is contained to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), and the number of people affected by floods rises 86 percent to an estimated 650,000 per year, said the authors.
Reuters
The top U.S. communications regulator, wireless companies and some lawmakers oppose an idea by members of President Donald Trump’s national security team for the government to build a 5G wireless network to counter China spying on phone calls.
The Trump administration has taken a harder line with China on policies initiated by predecessor President Barack Obama on issues ranging from Beijing’s role in restraining North Korea to Chinese efforts to acquire U.S. strategic industries.
The option of a nationalized 5G network was being discussed by Trump’s national security team, an administration official said on Sunday.
Reuters
Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) on Monday opened a rainforest-like office space in Seattle that it hopes will spark new ideas for employees.
While cities across North America are seeking to host Seattle-based Amazon’s second headquarters, the world’s largest online retailer is still expanding its main campus. Company office towers and high-end eateries have taken the place of warehouses and parking lots in Seattle’s South Lake Union district. The Spheres complex, officially open to workers on Tuesday, is the pinnacle of a decade of development here.
The Spheres’ three glass domes house some 40,000 plants of 400 species. Amazon,famous for its demanding work culture, hopes the Spheres’ lush environs will let employees reflect and have chance encounters, spawning new products or plans.
Reuters
U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has ordered a review of security protocols, officials say, after fitness tracking devices broadcast patterns of movement at military facilities around the world, including in war zones.
Nathan Russer, a student at the Australian National University in Canberra, drew attention to data when he wrote on Twitter about the images after stumbling upon GPS tracking company Strava's Global Heatmap. It can be viewed at bit.ly/2DLOHZ5
“Once you look at Syria you can see a bunch of bright spots,” Russer said.
His discovery prompted others to scour the heat map, turning up other possible locations of U.S. and other mostly Western personnel who typically use high-tech fitness devices, including elsewhere in the Middle East and in Africa.
NPR
A couple of years ago, at the peak of my children's reluctance to eat vegetables, I decided to try an experiment.
When the kids arrived home from daycare one afternoon, I had bowls of colorful vegetables cut up and ready to go: crunchy red and yellow peppers, bushy little florets of broccoli, tomatoes and mushrooms and olives. I gave them each a cheese pizza base to "decorate" for dinner, and they gleefully complied. My older daughter made a face with olive eyes, broccoli hair, and a bright, red-pepper mouth. My younger daughter loaded on veggies by the fistful.
It felt like a parenting win! And I smugly patted myself on the back as the pizzas cooked in the oven, as we inhaled that toasty pizza smell, and as we sat down to eat. And I kept patting myself on the back right until the moment the freshly-baked pizzas made it back to their creators, who both — without hesitation — removed every speck of vegetable matter before happily consuming the "just cheese pizza" left behind.
NPR
It was the tiny streams of slime that stood out.
As a microbiologist who studies the rinds of cheeses like Stilton, Gruyere and Taleggio, Benjamin Wolfe had done plenty of experiments on bacteria, yeast and mold. But he'd never seen anything like this.
He wasn't actually running a lab test when he noticed those slimy streams — he was working with a photographer to document the microbes of a Saint-Nectaire rind. He expected to show the photographer what he normally saw from cheese microbes: fungal molds that branched out in many directions, like a plants' roots, and bacterial colonies camped out in dots and blobs. But there was something else, too: little rivulets running along the branches of a swath of fungus.
ECONOMIC NEWS
Bloomberg
Sexual harassment allegations swirling around casino magnate Steve Wynnin the U.S. are causing ripples and headaches for Wynn Resorts Ltd. on the other side of the world in Macau.
The government of the Chinese territory has talked with Wynn management and wants to make sure major shareholders, directors and key employees meet suitable qualifications, the Gaming Inspection & Coordination Bureau said in an email. Wynn shares tumbled Monday for a second straight trading day, falling as much as 7.6 percent.
The scandal threatens to complicate Wynn’s plans for the world’s largest gambling hub, since regulators in Macau are set to outline the process for casino-license bidding later this year, with permits up for renewal beginning in 2020. The Asian gaming enclave now accounts for more than three-quarters of Wynn’s earnings, and the casino operator has
big plans for a further expansion after opening the Wynn Palace there in August 2016.
SPORTS AND ENTERTAINMENT
Al Jazeera
The Cleveland Indians baseball team will get rid of its team logo, after a longstanding campaign argued it is offensive and insulting to Native Americans, Major League Baseball (MLB) announced.
Cleveland's "Chief Wahoo" logo - a caricature of a Native American man with a feather in his cap - will be removed from the team's uniforms before the start of the 2019 season, the team confirmed on Monday.
"Major League Baseball is committed to building a culture of diversity and inclusion throughout the game," Rob Manfred, the league's commissioner, said in a statement announcing the decision.
"Over the past year, we encouraged dialogue with the Indians organisation about the club's use of the Chief Wahoo logo ... The club ultimately agreed with my position that the logo is no longer appropriate for on-field use," Manfred said, as reported by MLB.com.
The Guardian
Bruno Mars pulled off a clean sweep of album, record and song of the year categories at the 2018 Grammy awards on Sunday night, upsetting odds-favorites Kendrick Lamar and Jay-Z to take home the evening’s three most prestigious awards.
The 24K Magic singer won all six awards he was nominated for, while Lamar went home with five and Jay-Z, who had the most nominations of any performer with eight, was left empty-handed.
The night reached a towering emotional summit when Kesha, joined by Cyndi Lauper, Camila Cabello, Andra Day, Julia Michaels and members of the Resistance Revival Chorus, performed her ballad Praying.