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, Besame, and annetteboardman. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) wader, planter, JML9999, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse, ek hornbeck, ScottyUrb, Interceptor7, BentLiberal, Oke, Man Oh Man, 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 (or sometimes slightly later).
Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.
Chicago Tribune: Pritzker apologizes for remarks on African-American politicians, says he wasn't 'my best self' on Blagojevich wiretaps by Rick Pearson, John Byrne and Monique Garcia
Democratic governor candidate J.B. Pritkzer apologized Tuesday for remarks he made in 2008 about African-American politicians with then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich during a discussion about filling Barack Obama’s U.S. Senate seat.
The apology came less than a day after the conversation, which had never before been publicly revealed, was published by the Chicago Tribune. The chat between Pritzker and Blagojevich came from from secret government wiretaps that were part of the federal corruption investigation of the now-imprisoned former governor.
During the conversation, Pritzker floats the idea of picking Secretary of State Jesse White for the Senate vacancy created by Obama’s election as president. Pritzker tells Blagojevich it will “cover you on the African-American thing” and that White is the “least offensive” among the potential candidates being discussed.
At an afternoon news conference Tuesday, Pritzker stood with White and said he was “not my best self” in the conversation with Blagojevich. Pritzker said he regretted portions of his remarks and offered an apology.
Here is the link to the Chicago Tribune story detailing Pritzker’s comments to Blagojevich in the 2008 phone call.
First of all, considering the depth and breadth of what was then alleged about Governor Blagojevich, practically everyone assumed that Blagojevich was being wiretapped, even, I suspect, Blago himself.
So...if you have political aspirations, why would you say something like what Pritzker said to Gov. Blago at that time?...because if you were following that entire sideshow, you had to be aware that it was likely that the conversation was being recorded by federal authorities.
Second of all, this is typically the way that I suspect most Democratic white politicians talk about black voters and even black politicians; as a bloc of votes to be won.
After all, Pritzker isn’t saying anything that Harry Reid wasn’t calculating at the time...and frankly, I think that Prtizker’s political calculations were correct; Jesse White could have won a statewide race for the U.S. Senate in 2010 and I have preferred White to Roland Burris...besides, the entire nation needs to be introduced to the Jesse White Tumblers...granted, White probably didn’t want the taint of Blagojevich on him.
So...no, I’m not particularly outraged or offended by Pritzker’s ccomments. He’s acting no different from any other white Democratic politician...even those that aren’t technically Democrats.
Macomb Daily: Nine hundred addicts seek help in first year of Hope Not Handcuffs by Jameson Cook
More than 900 drug addicts have gone to police to receive treatment for their addiction in the first year of a unique partnership.
Hope Not Handcuffs, started by Fraser-based Families Against Narcotics, marked its first year of existence last Thursday with a ceremony at Christ Church in Fraser, sponsored by Blue Cross Complete of Michigan.
The program started with 21 police departments in Macomb County and two in Wayne and Oakland counties and has expanded to 33 communities and two additional counties, Genesee and Lapeer, “with many more launching in the next couple of months,” said Katie Donovan, FAN executive vice president.
“A year ago … we launched a new initiative, having no idea if anyone would even have the courage to walk into a police department to get help, but we knew we needed to do something,” Donovan wrote on Facebook. “Kids were dying and damn it, we aren’t going to sit around waiting for someone else to solve this.
We were not prepared for the movement and explosion of love that occurred. … I have seen families heal, communities coming together in unity, those who struggle knowing we are a trusted program, EMS, law enforcement, courts all slowly removing the stigma of addiction. It’s been such a beautiful and unexpected journey.”
Spokesman Review: Washington will fight offshore drilling, Inslee says by Jim Camden
OLYMPIA – Although they believe there is not enough oil or gas off the Washington coast to be worth drilling, state officials vowed to do everything possible to thwart a plan by the Trump Administration to open the area to exploration.
Gov. Jay Inslee said the state may find ways to ban the ships that service off-shore rigs from Washington ports, and will encourage cities and counties along the coast to fight the proposed leasing.
Attorney General Bob Ferguson said the state could file a lawsuit arguing the administration did not follow federal laws for changing its regulations, and that it arbitrarily exempted Florida after including that state in its initial list of coasts for more oil and gas leasing.
Lands Commissioner Hilary Franz said she would assert Washington’s leasing authority over the shorelines and aquatic areas the state owns on the coast.
Seven Days VT: Racial Slurs Common at Vermont Psychiatric Hospital, Report Finds by Mark Davis
An African American employee was repeatedly subjected to racist comments and actions by both patients and staff at the Vermont Psychiatric Hospital, according to a state Human Rights Commission report.
Ismina Francois, a mental health specialist, made repeated complaints about the widespread use of racial slurs and racial insensitivities at the facility in Berlin but a culture of intolerance persisted, a commission investigator found.
For example — despite Francois' prior complaints — a hospital staffer assigned her to care for a racist patient with a swastika tattoo who had previously lunged at Francois and yelled "get that nigger away from me."
Traveling nurses who worked temporary stints at the hospital reported being surprised at how often patients used racial slurs. And other employees used terms like "nappy hair," "hood car," "fried chicken," "colored people" and speculated about Francois being on "welfare," according to the report.
"A reasonable person could conclude that the offensive jokes, slurs, epithets, name calling, insults and put-downs by patients and coworkers were pervasive," Human Rights Commission investigator Bor Yang wrote in the 35-page report finalized in January.
The Advocate: Is a tsunami possible in the Gulf? Yes, but a 'fairly distant' threat compared to hurricanes by Grace Toohey
On Tuesday morning, some residents from the East Coast down through the Caribbean, including folks along the Gulf Coast, received a push alert on their cellphones about a tsunami warning — an alert sent in error.
The National Weather Service sent out what they called a "routine tsunami test" about 9 a.m. The alert was incorrectly picked up by a computer algorithm for private company AccuWeather and pushed out as an actual tsunami warning, the company said.
But the inaccurate warning had some wondering if conditions in the Gulf Coast — the home of some of the world's most powerful and destructive hurricanes — could also generate a tsunami? Turns out, yes.
But don't be too alarmed yet.
"(Tsunamis) are going to be secondary to the hurricane, and it's a fairly distant second in my opinion," said Patrick Lynett, a coastal engineer and professor of civil engineering at the University of Southern California.
Weather Underground: Winter Storm Liam to Spread a Mess of Snow, Ice From the Plains Into the Midwest, Northeast Through Wednesday Night
Winter Storm Liam will spread another round of snow, sleet and freezing rain from the Plains to the Midwest and Northeast through Wednesday, leading to a mess of snowy and icy travel in over a dozen states and all of the major cities in the Northeast.
An area of low pressure has developed in the southern Plains and is expected to track from the southern Plains to the Ohio Valley and Northeast into Wednesday. Accumulating snow is likely north of where this low-pressure system tracks, although there will also be a narrow band of freezing rain and sleet.
Grand Island, Nebraska, picked up 3 inches of snow Tuesday while 2 inches fell at the National Weather Service office in Hastings, Nebraska.
Winter storm warnings stretch across the Northeast, including Syracuse, New York, Albany, New York, Burlington, Vermont, Bangor, Maine, and the north and west suburbs of Boston. Winter storm warnings are also in effect for parts of the Ohio Valley, including Cincinnati.
In addition, ice storm warnings have been issued for parts of southeastern Missouri and northern Arkansas. Power outages and tree damage are likely, and travel will be dangerous. Significant icing is expected in this area.
Mother Jones: Jeff Sessions Won’t Crack Down on Bad Policing, So California and Illinois Are Stepping Up by Brandon E. Patterson
The Department of Justice has rolled back federal oversight of local police departments under the leadership of Jeff Sessions, so state officials in California are stepping in to do the work the feds have abandoned.
On Monday, California’s Department of Justice announced it will be overseeing efforts by the San Francisco Police Department to implement nearly 300 reforms recommended in a 2016 federal DOJ report on the department’s practices. The agreement follows Sessions’ decision, in September, to end reform efforts by the federal DOJ’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), which was providing guidance and technical support to more than a dozen troubled police departments nationwide—including the SFPD.
“We made a promise to our residents and to our communities that we were going to transform our police department—and partnering with Attorney General Becerra will allow us to follow through on that pledge,” Mark Farrell, San Francisco’s interim mayor, said at a press conference.
Buzzfeed: Democrats Are Starting To Worry About The Georgia Governor’s Primary by Darren Sands
Democrats have begun to worry that a contentious and expensive primary in Georgia’s governor’s race could majorly disadvantage the eventual nominee — in a race that some believe is winnable, amid President Trump’s unpopularity.
Three months remain until Georgia’s May 22 primary and Georgia Democrats have two choices in the race for governor: Stacey Evans, a lawyer and former state legislator who hails from the northern part of the state, and Stacey Abrams, a tax attorney and former House minority leader of the Georgia state legislature.
Abrams advisers told BuzzFeed News worry that if the primary runs its full course, the harder it will get for the campaign to go into a potential general election at full strength. That’s in part because of a big gamble by Abrams: running an expensive, aggressive field campaign almost from the very start; the campaign so far has spent nearly everything they’ve taken in, but national Democrats say they understand the necessity. “She’s doing a November field campaign in January because she’s a black woman,” a campaign adviser told BuzzFeed News.
Bloomberg: Tronc Is Near Sale of L.A. Times to Local Billionaire by Gerry Smith
Tronc Inc. is close to selling the Los Angeles Times to billionaire investor Patrick Soon-Shiong in a $500 million deal, according to a person familiar with the matter, potentially opening a new chapter for the 136-year-old newspaper’s staff after an open rebellion against the current owner.
The transaction would solve two problems for Tronc, which also owns the Chicago Tribune and the New York Daily News. A new owner could appease the Times’ editorial workers, who voted last month to unionize and pressured Tronc into replacing editor-in-chief Lewis D’Vorkin. And a deal could end a standoff with Soon-Shiong, who had a public falling-out with Tronc Chairman Michael Ferro.
The transaction would put another major metropolitan paper in the hands of a billionaire who may be willing to stomach the industry’s advertising freefall to support local journalism. Jeff Bezos acquired the Washington Post in 2013, and John Henry agreed to buy the Boston Globe the same year.
FiveThirtyEight: Could A Stock Market Downturn Tank Trump’s Approval Rating? by Nate Silver
I’m someone who writes about politics, however — and in political terms, the decline in the Dow is potentially important. President Trump has spent lots of time bragging about the stock market over the past year, from dozens and dozens of references in his Twitter feed to a riff about it in last week’s State of the Union address. Moreover, the stock market is a highly visibleeconomic indicator. Sure, something like real disposable income per capitamight be a better overall measure of economic well-being. But the Dow gets mentioned a lot more often on the evening news.
Overall, the stock market still looks pretty good for Trump, with the Dow having gained 23 percent during his presidency so far. But could a further reversal in those gains harm his approval ratings, which have been improving lately? Trump’s approval rating is now 40.4 percent in FiveThirtyEight’s index — not good, but the highest it has been since May 15.
The short answer is, sure, there could be some risk to Trump. One should not necessarily expect there to be an obvious one-to-one correlation, however. After Black Monday in 1987, then-President Ronald Reagan’s Gallup approval rating actually improved to 51 percent from 49 percent two months earlier. The point is not that Black Monday helped Reagan — it probably didn’t — but that whatever effect it had was swamped by other news events, plus whatever random statistical noise there was in the polling average. My past research also suggests that stock market growth has historically been a fairly weak predictor of a president’s odds of being re-elected.
Talking Points Memo: What Happens If Trump Refuses To Be Interviewed By Mueller? by Allegra Kirkland
President Donald Trump has said he’s “looking forward” to the prospect of sitting down with Special Counsel Robert Mueller. But according to a New York Times report Monday, his private legal team is vehemently urging him to decline any invitation to talk to Mueller.
Negotiations are continuing. But constitutional law experts told TPM that if the White House does choose defiance and Mueller responds with a subpoena, it would likely set up a high-stakes legal showdown—one in which the special counsel might have the upper hand.
A decision by the White House to reject Mueller’s request for a voluntary interview would signal a clear shift in the Trump legal team’s game plan from cooperation to delay.
“If they’re sort of pushing Mueller into a corner where he has to file a subpoena and Trump refuses to comply with the subpoena, they’re switching tracks to a whole new strategy of delay,” said Jens Ohlin, an executive privilege expert at Cornell Law School. “They just want to prevent Mueller from completing his investigation. Which on the one hand is bad for Trump because it keeps the Russia investigation hanging over his head in perpetuity. But, on the other hand, it keeps Trump away from Mueller, and keeps him out of any kind of danger.”
Guardian: Passive, poor and white? What people keep getting wrong about Appalachia by Elizabeth Catte
During the 2016 presidential election, the national press branded Appalachia ground zero for America’s “forgotten tribe” of white working-class voters.
Well, the UK Guardian has been one of the worst offenders of ‘’Trump Country’’ journalism but at least they’re seeking to find new things to say about the overdone topic.
Taiwan News: 2 dead, 177 missing after magnitude 6.0 quake strikes eastern Taiwan
TAIPEI (Taiwan News) -- Two people have lost their lives, 177 are missing and 219 have been injured by a powerful and shallow magnitude 6.0 earthquake struck eastern Taiwan's Hualien County last night (Feb. 7) at 11:50 p.m.
After the magnitude 6.0 quake struck 18.3 kilometers northeast of Hualien County hall at a shallow depth of 10 kilometers, an intensity level of 7 was felt in Hualien County for a full 70 seconds, causing multiple buildings to collapse, trapping many inside as they slept. Of the 177 missing, 147 people are trapped in the 12-story Yun Tsui (雲門翠堤大樓) residential complex which partially collapsed and titled 45 degrees, reported Apple Daily.
The first three floors of the 11-story Marshal Hotel (統帥大飯店) collapsed, with two employees, who were believed to at the front desk when the quake struck, still missing. The two missing staff members have been identified as Chou Chih-hsuan (周志軒), 36, and Liang Shu-wei (梁書瑋), 26.
Taiwan News: Hualien quakes sign that Taiwan has entered 100-year earthquake cycle: Researcher by Keoni Everington
TAIPEI (Taiwan News) -- A geology professor at National Central University (NCU) theorizes that the recent cluster of earthquakes around Hualien indicate that Taiwan is now entering a 100-year earthquake cycle in which major temblors on a scale of a magnitude 8 could occur within a decade.
From Feb. 4 - Feb. 5, there were 71 earthquakes recorded coming from just off the coast of Hualien, with 12 occurring in a single hour, the largest of which was a magnitude 5.8 temblor.
In an interview with ETtoday, Lee Chyi-tyi (李錫堤), a professor at NCU's Graduate Institute of Applied Geology, said that earthquakes are cyclical and in the last century in Taiwan there were two quakes with a magnitude over 8: one in 1910, which was centered off the coast of Yilan and registered 8.3 on the Richter Scale, while and the other in 1920, which also registered a 8.3, was centered off the coast of Hualien. The country has already reached the centennial of one of the 1910 temblors and will soon reach the other in two years.
Lee told ETtoday, "For the next 10 years in Hualien, The probability of a magnitude 8 earthquake occurring is high, and I predict that there will be another earthquake (similar in size) in 2025."
Washington Post: A gruesome murder. A hate-filled shooting rampage. And a reckoning with immigration before Italy votes. by Griff Witte and Stefano Pitrelli
MACERATA, Italy — The sound was at once distressingly familiar and jarringly out of place.
Kofi Wilson had heard gunfire every day of the 15 months he spent in Libya during a harrowing journey to Europe — but never in more than a year since he arrived in Macerata, a tranquil little city of cobblestone streets and handsome blond-brick plazas nestled in the craggy central Italian hills.
“It’s not a gunshot, not here,” Wilson told a friend after hearing the first crack.
With the second, he was crumpled on the pavement, his chest and back spilling blood.
Wilson, a 20-year-old from Ghana, was one of six African immigrants shot here Saturday in drive-by attacks that have stunned both the city and the nation as Italy prepares to vote in elections next month.
Hindustan Times: HIV cases in Unnao: Were afraid of doctors, but Yadav was polite, his medicines cheap, say patients by Haidar Naqvi and Anupam Srivastava
Rajendra Yadav is not qualified to treat people. But for the poor in Bangarmau of Uttar Pradesh’s Unnao district, he was a “saviour” as he bicycled around the town and offered advice, pills and even injections to those seeking his help — all for a token fee of Rs 10.
Yadav, who is said to be about 35 years old, “treated” colds, coughs and other ailments. The quack is on the run after tests and investigation found he allegedly gave HIV to at least 38 people by injecting them with an infected syringe.
But people in the area hold doctors and staff at government hospitals responsible for the situation, alleging that they prescribe expensive medicines and treat them shabbily.
“Yadav used to give us respect and was polite. Doctors at the community health centre misbehave with us and scold us. We are afraid of visiting them. They never gave medicine for free but asked to get it from specific medical stores,” said Deendayal, one of Yadav’s many patients.
Jacob Zuma's scheduled State of the Nation Address in parliament has been postponed as pressure grows on him to step down as president of South Africa.
The announcement on Tuesday comes during a tumultuous week for the ruling African National Congress (ANC), which elected Cyril Ramaphosa as its new party leader in December.
Since then, a chorus of voices has called on Zuma, whose tenure has been dogged by a litany of corruption allegations, to quit ahead of national elections in 2019.
It is understood that the ANC's Working Committee had asked for the address, which traditionally marks the opening of parliament, to be postponed until Zuma resigned.
"The ANC is in a panic, and they are looking for options," Steven Friedman, director of the Centre for the Study of Democracy at the University of Johannesburg, told Al Jazeera.
Brazilian police have arrested 13 members of a religious sect on suspicion of enslavement, human trafficking and money laundering.
Sect leaders are accused of seizing the possessions of followers and making them work unpaid.
Police raided several businesses as part of an investigation into the sect, known as The Evangelical Community of Jesus, the Truth that Marks.
The church is estimated to have 6.000 followers.
Police are looking for nine more people including the leader of the sect, known as "Father Cícero".
Investigators said vulnerable and fragile people who attended a church in São Paulo were persuaded to leave their families behind to start a new life in the countryside.
They were told the sect was totally egalitarian and that they had to hand over all their possessions to the community.
Atlas Obscura: How the Design of Dice Evolved Over Time by Christina Ayele Djossa
THINK OF ALL THE GAMES that would be impossible to play without dice. Dungeons and Dragons, Yahtzee, craps, and backgammon are just a few examples. Whether its a dodecahedron or octahedron, a uniform die gives us a fair shot at winning a play or sadly losing another bet. Yet, a new anthropological study found that dice weren’t always all that uniform.
The earliest dice can be traced back to 6000 B.C. in Mesopotamia, and were often used to tell fortunes. Ancient Egyptians played one of the oldest known board games called Senet with dice, and during the Tang Dynasty in China, people gambled using dice. Back then, people carved the objects into conical or knucklebone-like shapes from horse hooves or bone. It was not until the Roman Empire that the predominance of cubic dice emerged.
Excavating dice is a matter of odds. They aren’t found in archaeological sites, like fossils or prehistoric tools are. Rather, dice are commonly found in the deep innards of trash bins or graveyards. For archaeologists, these are perfect places to find what people leave behind in the past.
Don’t forget that Mr. Meteor Blades is hosting an open thread for night owls tonight.
Everyone have a good evening!