Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, current leader Neon Vincent, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, Interceptor7, Magnifico, annetteboardman and Besame. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) Man Oh Man, wader, palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse (RIP), ek hornbeck, 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: Emanuel to push for constitutional amendment to solve pension crisis by Fran Spielman
Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Wednesday will put his waning — but still formidable — political muscle behind a constitutional amendment to ease a $1 billion spike in pension payments that will confront his successor.
Sources said Emanuel will also urge the City Council to start debate on his stalled plan to borrow $10 billion to fund pensions — by setting up the legal structure that will allow bonds to be sold if aldermen decide the move could minimize the need for another punishing round of post-election tax increases.
Mayoral candidate Paul Vallas has portrayed the pension borrowing as a financial “straight jacket” that will expose taxpayers to even greater risk.
Standard & Poor’s has warned that pension obligation bonds “in environments of fiscal distress or as a mechanism for short-term budget relief” could threaten Chicago’s BBB+ bond rating.
“There’s a lot of volatility and uncertainty on investment returns. … If you borrow at 5 percent and only earn 3, you’ve made the problem bigger,” a municipal finance expert, who asked to remain anonymous, said Tuesday.
Jackson Free Press: Mississippi Towns Hit Hard Financially by Rising Sea Levels, Study Finds by Ashton Pittman
JACKSON — Homes on the Mississippi Gulf Coast lost more than $263 million in value due to rising sea levels, an analysis by the First Street Foundation and Columbia University found.
Rising sea levels hit Bay St. Louis hardest in the 12 years between 2005 and 2017, with the city losing $95.4 million in home values.
"In Bay St. Louis, the average impacted home would be worth 49 percent more if tidal flooding were not a risk, and in Kiln, 41 percent more," First Street data science head Steven A. Alpine said. "These are the hardest-hit neighborhoods in Mississippi because homes and roads are at low elevations, and sea-level rise is increasing the frequency of flooding along the Jourdan River."
Rising sea levels also sharply affected home values in other Gulf Coast towns and cities over the same period: Pass Christian lost $26.8 million in home values; Kiln lost $24.8 million; Waveland lost $15.2 million; Biloxi lost $10.2 million; Gautier lost $9.2 million; Gulfport lost $8.8 million; Pearlington lost $6.4 million; Moss Point lost $6.2 million; and unincorporated coastal areas lost $25 million.
Sacramento Bee: Trump rolls back wetlands protections. What it means for California farmers, developers by Dale Kasler and Kate Irby
It all started when California farmer John Duarte plowed a wheat field in Tehama County, about two hours north of Sacramento, and wound up paying a $1.1 million fine to the federal government for his efforts.
On Tuesday, Duarte, who was embraced by conservatives nationwide as a victim of government over-reach, got vindication of sorts.
In a victory for farmers and land developers throughout the West, the Trump administration announced a broad rollback of rules designed to protect wetlands and other small bodies of water. The decision means regulations put in place in 2015 by the Obama administration will fall by the wayside.
Andrew Wheeler, acting administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, said the new rules will give property owners greater flexibility to manage their lands without having to worry about federal intervention.
Columbus Dispatch: Ohio’s gun-death rate rises in 2017 to highest since records began in 1999 by Randy Ludlow
An ever-increasing number of Ohioans are dying at the end of a gun.
Ohio’s gun-death rate in 2017 was the highest since state-by-state numbers were compiled beginning in 1999, according to new figures released Tuesday by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Of the 1,589 gun deaths in Ohio last year, 918 were by suicide, and 621 were homicides. In addition, 19 people died in accidental shootings, and 21 died from “legal intervention” — shootings by police. Ten gun deaths were unclassified.
Ohio’s homicide gun rate of 5.3 deaths per 100,000 residents last year was its highest in recent years; the number of deaths was 64 more than the prior high, in 2016 (4.8 deaths per 100,000 residents).
Also, Ohio’s homicide gun-death rate was 18 percent higher than national rate of 4.5 deaths per 100,000.
The fewest gun homicides on record in Ohio occurred in 2000, when 253 people were killed, a rate of 2.2 deaths per 100,000 residents. The rate has more than doubled since.
Columbus contributed to Ohio’s record gun-homicide rate. The city witnessed a record 143 homicides in 2017, and of those victims, 119, or 83 percent, were shot to death. The pace of homicides in Columbus has slowed this year, and 67 of the 97 recorded deaths, or 69 percent, were caused by shootings. Nationally, more than 7 in 10 homicides involved firearms.
New York Daily News: NYC congressional delegation comes out against receivership for NYCHA by Greg B. Smith
Nearly the entire city congressional delegation argued Tuesday against placing the city’s troubled Housing Authority into federal receivership — a clear message to the federal judge who will soon hear what NYCHA wants to do.
In a letter sent Tuesday to U.S. Housing & Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, the delegation’s 11 Democrats came out against that extreme option of receivership for NYCHA. They cited problems in housing authorities in two Illinois cities that continued even after HUD took them over.
“We write to you today to express our adamant opposition to that direction,” the lawmakers wrote in a show of clout that included all but one member of the city delegation, outgoing Republican Rep. Dan Donovan of Staten Island, who last month lost his job to a Democrat.
The letter sends a signal to Manhattan Federal Judge William Pauley, who last month shot down a plan proposed by NYCHA, Mayor de Blasio and federal prosecutors to fix the authority’s broken management.
ProPublica: Stung by Controversies, Police Chief Resigns in Elkhart, Indiana by Christian Sheckler, South Bend Tribune and Ken Armstrong, ProPublica
This article was produced in partnership with the South Bend Tribune a member of ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network.
Elkhart, Indiana, Police Chief Ed Windbigler announced his resignation Monday after recent reports by the South Bend Tribune and ProPublica about disciplinary issues in the city’s Police Department and a video that showed two officers beating a handcuffed man.
In a letter addressed to members of the Elkhart Police Department, Windbigler said Mayor Tim Neese contacted him on Sunday and asked him to resign.
“I admit that I am not perfect and have made mistakes, but I always tried to make sure we were making decisions that would be best for the department,” Windbigler said in the letter.
Last month, the mayor suspended Windbigler for 30 days without pay after the release of a video showing two officers repeatedly punching a handcuffed man in the police station after he tried to spit on one of them. Windbigler downplayed the severity of the incident at an oversight commission meeting in June and reprimanded the officers. But after the Tribune requested a copy of the video, the officers were criminally charged with misdemeanor battery.
ProPublica: How the IRS Was Gutted by Paul Kiel and Jesse Eisinger
This story was co-published with The Atlantic.
In the summer of 2008, William Pfeil made a startling discovery: Hundreds of foreign companies that operated in the U.S. weren’t paying U.S. taxes, and his employer, the Internal Revenue Service, had no idea. Under U.S. law, companies that do business in the Gulf of Mexico owe the American government a piece of what they make drilling for oil there or helping those that do. But the vast majority of the foreign companies weren’t paying anything, and taxpaying American companies were upset, arguing that it unfairly allowed the foreign rivals to underbid for contracts.
Pfeil and the IRS started pursuing the non-U.S. entities. Ultimately, he figures he brought in more than $50 million in previously unpaid taxes over the course of about five years. It was an example of how the tax-collecting agency is supposed to work.
But then Congress began regularly reducing the IRS budget. After 43 years with the agency, Pfeil — who had hoped to reach his 50th anniversary — was angry about the “steady decrease in budget and resources” the agency had seen. He retired in 2013 at 68.
After Pfeil left, he heard that his program was being shut down. “I don’t blame the IRS,” Pfeil said. “I blame the Congress for not giving us the budget to do the job.”
Buzzfeed: Stormy Daniels Has Been Ordered To Pay President Trump $293,000 In Legal Fees by Claudia Rosenbaum
A federal judge ruled Tuesday that adult film star Stormy Daniels must reimburse President Trump for roughly $293,000 in legal fees he incurred while defending himself against her failed defamation lawsuit.
Trump’s attorneys had asked for $800,000 — $389,000 in legal fees and $389,000 in sanctions — but US District Judge James Otero determined that the request was excessive.
Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, filed her lawsuit against Trump earlier this year, claiming he defamed her in a tweet after she spoke out publicly about the affair she alleges she had with Trump in 2006, along with the release of a composite sketch of a man she said threatened her five years later to keep quiet. In his tweet, Trump called the sketch a “total con job.”
But Otero ruled in October that the tweet was protected and not actionable because it involved the opinion of a public official and was not a statement of fact. In throwing out the case, Otero also ruled that Trump could recoup his legal fees.
Washington Post: Gap continues to widen between Trump and intelligence community on key issues by Greg Miller
President Trump continues to reject the judgments of U.S. spy agencies on major foreign policy fronts, creating a dynamic in which intelligence analysts frequently see troubling gaps between the president’s public statements and the facts laid out for him in daily briefings on world events, current and former U.S. officials said.
The pattern has become a source of mounting concern to senior U.S. intelligence officials who had hoped that Trump, as he settled into office, would become less hostile to their work and more receptive to the information that spy agencies spend billions of dollars and sometimes put lives at risk gathering.
Instead, presidential distrust that once seemed confined mainly to the intelligence community’s assessments about Russia’s interference in the 2016 election has spread across a range of global issues. Among them are North Korea’s willingness to abandon its nuclear weapons program, Iran’s nuclear and regional ambitions, the existence and implications of global climate change, and the role of the Saudi crown prince in the killing of a dissident journalist.
“There is extraordinary frustration,” a U.S. intelligence official said. The CIA and other agencies continue to devote enormous “time, energy and resources” to ensuring that accurate intelligence is delivered to Trump, the official said, but his seeming imperviousness to such material often renders “all of that a waste.”
Reuters: Trump says would intervene in arrest of Chinese executive by Steve Holland, Jeff Mason, and Roberta Rampton
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he would intervene with the U.S. Justice Department in the case against a Chinese telecommunications executive if it would help secure a trade deal with Beijing.
“If I think it’s good for the country, if I think it’s good for what will be certainly the largest trade deal ever made – which is a very important thing – what’s good for national security – I would certainly intervene if I thought it was necessary,” Trump said in a wide-ranging interview with Reuters in the Oval Office.
Trump expressed optimism that he could strike a trade deal with Chinese President Xi Jinping as the two countries struggle to resolve a dispute that has contributed to recent U.S. stock market declines and raised questions about whether economic turmoil could beset the president in the new year.
At the request of U.S. authorities, Huawei Technologies Co. executive Meng Wanzhou was arrested earlier this month in Vancouver on charges of violating U.S. sanctions against Iran.
Theresa May’s grip on power appears to be slipping as speculation grows at Westminster that she could face a vote of no confidence from Tory MPs exasperated at her last-minute decision to pull the meaningful vote.
While the prime minister took a whistlestop tour of European capitals on Tuesday in an effort to win fresh concessions from EU leaders, MPs were lobbying colleagues to submit letters of no confidence in her leadership to Graham Brady, the chair of the 1922 Committee of backbenchers.
Friends of Brady refused to deny reports he would meet May after her regular appearance at prime minister’s questions on Wednesday lunchtime. He would have to inform her first, before calling any no confidence vote.
There was fevered speculation at Westminster on Tuesday night that the threshold of 48 letters – which would trigger a vote – had finally been reached.
The former environment secretary Owen Paterson, a prominent leave campaigner who has been a trenchant critic of the prime minister’s approach, made his own letter of no confidence public. He said May’s deal represented a series of “broken promises” and was the culmination of “more than two years of poor government decision-making”.
DW: Hungary: Europe's champion of conspiracy theories by Keno Verseck
Deutsche Welle: Conspiracy theories are a bit of a niche in terms of research. How did you come to study them?
Peter Kreko: I have been researching them for years but have been doing so with greater intensity since the advent of the 2015 refugee crisis. Since then, conspiracy theories have become very influential in Hungarian politics, even establishing themselves as an official element of government policy. That is clearly illustrated in our opinion polling: 51 percent of those people we spoke with are convinced that US investment billionaire George Soros, a Hungarian-born Jew, has a plan to bring masses of refugees to Europe. That is something the Hungarian government has been officially propagating for years.
The Orban administration has invested a lot of money and energy into disseminating that theory over the past three years. So, would you say it has been successful?
Yes, because that theory has even found adherents among the country's opposition parties. Another example is the claim that Muslims have a secret plan to occupy Europe and slowly subject us to their culture. That, too, is something that many people who did not vote for Orban nevertheless believe.
Hindustan Times: Madhya Pradesh election results 2018: MP cliffhanger ends with Congress just two short of majority
The Congress, which was running neck and neck with the BJP in the Madhya Pradesh assembly election, ended up the single largest party with 114 seats, two short of a majority in the 230-member assembly. The BJP won 109. Both parties had almost the same vote share at around 41% and the difference of votes polled by the parties across the state was only 47,827.
With none of the two parties getting a majority at 116 seats, smaller parties and Independents will play a crucial role in deciding who forms the next government in the state, ruled by the BJP for the last 15 years. The Congress reached out earlier, said sources, to the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Samajwadi Party which won two and one seats. It also contacted regional player Gondwana Gantantra Party (GGP) and independents who won the remaining four seats.
Mayawati’s BSP said it will “try and ensure the BJP does not form government. Congress president Rahul Gandhi said, “The ideology of SP, BSP and the Congress is the same - different from that of the BJP.”
AFP: Gunman on run after killing three at Strasbourg Christmas market
A gunman killed at least three people and wounded a dozen others at the famed Christmas market in the French city of Strasbourg on Tuesday before fleeing the scene, authorities said.
A manhunt was under way after the killer opened fire at around 8pm (1900 GMT) on one of the city's busiest streets, sending crowds of evening shoppers fleeing for safety.
Soldiers patrolling the area as part of regular anti-terror operations exchanged fire with the suspect and wounded him, but could not stop him escaping, police sources said.
Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said early Wednesday the gunman had killed three people and wounded 12. Earlier Mayor Roland Ries had given a toll of "four dead and a dozen wounded".
Castaner also said France had raised its security alert level to "emergency attack" with "the implementation of reinforced border controls and tightened controls on all Christmas markets in France to avoid the risk of a copycat" attack.
AlJazeera: Items that survived devastating Brazil museum blaze recovered
Researchers from Brazil's National Museum said on Monday that they had recovered more than 1,500 pieces from the debris of the building following a massive fire.
The September 2 blaze, which gutted one of the world's oldest museums, destroyed much of the 20-million-piece collection, and recovering objects from the ashes has been a slow process.
"The work must be done very carefully and patiently," said Alexander Kellner, director of the museum.
The items recovered so far include indigenous arrowheads from Brazil, a Peruvian vase and a pre-Colombian funeral urn
In October, researchers recovered skull fragments and a part of the femur belonging to "Luzia", the name scientists gave to a woman who lived 11,500 years ago. The fossils are among the oldest ever found in the Americas.
The Earth is far more alive than previously thought, according to “deep life” studies that reveal a rich ecosystem beneath our feet that is almost twice the size of all the world’s oceans.
Despite extreme heat, no light, minuscule nutrition and intense pressure, scientists estimate this subterranean biosphere is teeming with between 15bn and 23bn tonnes of micro-organisms, hundreds of times the combined weight of every human on the planet.
Researchers at the Deep Carbon Observatory say the diversity of underworld species bears comparison to the Amazon or the Galápagos Islands, but unlike those places the environment is still largely pristine because people have yet to probe most of the subsurface.
“It’s like finding a whole new reservoir of life on Earth,” said Karen Lloyd, an associate professor at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. “We are discovering new types of life all the time. So much of life is within the Earth rather than on top of it.”
New York magazine: The Washington Redskins’ Interest in Colin Kaepernick Went Nowhere. Good. By Zak Cheney-Rice
Washington Redskins head coach Jay Gruden told reporters on Tuesday that his injury-racked team would not sign Colin Kaepernick to a contract. The news followed speculation that they were considering the out-of-work quarterback for a roster spot, after their starter and top backup — Alex Smith and Colt McCoy, respectively — each broke a leg within weeks of each other. “He’s been discussed [internally] but I think we will probably go in a different direction,” Gruden said.
Kaepernick has been a poster child for activism in sports since 2016. His refusal to stand during the national anthem before a preseason NFL game that summer — a protest against racism and police brutality, he explained— sparked a nationwide debate, continuing into the regular season and inspiring other players to kneel in solidarity. The demonstration also drew ire from jingoistic fans and the president of the United States, who called for protesting players to lose their jobs. The inability of Kaepernick to get work since, despite his on-field abilities, has prompted allegations of a conspiracy. In October, he filed a grievance against the NFL, accusing team owners of colluding to keep him unemployed due to his political beliefs. According to reports, Kaepernick would have gladly signed a deal with the Redskins last week, had the team offered one. “He’s a professional Super Bowl–caliber quarterback and in the best shape of his life and he would play if given the opportunity on any NFL team,” an anonymous source “close to” the quarterback told Yahoo! Sports.
I agree. Colin Kaepernick playing for the professional football team representing the Washington D.C. area would have been highly problematic.
Don’t forget that Meteor Blades is hosting an open thread for night owls tonight.
Everyone have a good evening.