Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, Interceptor7, Magnifico, annetteboardman, Besame and jck. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) Man Oh Man, wader, Neon Vincent, 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: Cops in Anjanette Young raid assigned to desk duty, while 2 more Law Department employees out by Sam Charles
Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Monday announced that the Chicago police officers involved in the botched 2019 raid on Anjanette Young’s home have all been assigned to desk duty as the CPD’s watchdog agency investigates.
Lightfoot said CPD Supt. David Brown ordered the officers taken off the street as the Civilian Office of Police Accountability continues its inquiry. COPA Chief Administrator Sydney Roberts said during the Chicago Police Board meeting last week that she expected the investigation to conclude early next year.
Addressing the media a day after she received the resignation of Corporation Counsel Mark Flessner, Lightfoot announced Celia Meza, the mayor’s counsel and senior ethics adviser, would lead the Law Department on an interim basis.
Philadelphia Inquirer: In a reversal, Pa. Supreme Court says police can’t search cars without a warrant by Samantha Melamed
Police can no longer search cars without a warrant unless there is both probable cause to believe a crime occurred and emergency circumstances that require immediate action, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled in an opinion published Tuesday. That’s a reversal for the court, which in a 2014 opinion in the case Commonwealth v. Gary had cleared the way for warrantless searches.
The ruling will likely require the Philadelphia Police Department and others across the state to rewrite their policies on vehicle searches. Philadelphia’s current directive permits warrantless searches whenever police have reason to believe contraband is present.
Last year, an Inquirer analysis found that Philadelphia police were searching more than 2,000 people a month, on average, based on that policy. About 80% of those searches involved Black drivers — but police found such contraband as guns or drugs in their cars only 12% of the time.
NOLA.com: You can now video chat 911 in New Orleans when having an emergency, city officials say by Jessica Williams
New Orleans residents and visitors having emergencies can now talk to first responders by video when they call or text 911, thanks to a program city officials say will be a big help for people in crisis.
The Orleans Parish Communications District, which handles the city's emergency dispatches and 911 calls, will also be able to better determine a person's location using upgraded software from its private partner, Carbyne, a call handling platform.
The program, officials said during a press conference Tuesday, provides a more sophisticated path to help than traditional calls.
Oftentimes during 911 calls, operators and dispatchers ask specifics that callers don't always know, such as exactly where they are, or in the case of health emergencies, the seriousness of their condition. But using location sharing or allowing video and pictures, the operators will be able to gather a lot of that information even if the caller doesn't know it.
Sacramento Bee: Alex Padilla Senate pick makes history but leaves California with $34 million bill by Sacramento Bee Editorial Board
As expected, Gov. Gavin Newsom picked Secretary of State Alex Padilla to replace Kamala Harris in the United States Senate. The historic choice makes Padilla, 47, California’s first Latino senator.
“The son of Mexican immigrants — a cook and house cleaner — Alex Padilla worked his way from humble beginnings to the halls of MIT, the Los Angeles City Council and the State Senate, and has become a national defender of voting rights as California’s Secretary of State,” Newsom said in a press release. “Now, he will serve in the halls of our nation’s Capitol as California’s next United States Senator, the first Latino to hold this office.”
The historic nature of Padilla’s appointment — he’s the first Latino U.S. senator in California’s 170-year history — cannot be overlooked. Padilla’s rise will rightly be celebrated as a milestone for Mexican-Americans, who have endured a history of prejudice and racism in this nation. Such anti-Latino attitudes are not just relics of the past, as President Donald Trump proved by constantly targeting Latinos with his racist policies and comments.
Reuters: U.S. under siege from COVID-19 as hospitals overwhelmed before holidays by Susan Heavey and Gabriella Borter
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Americans were warned again on Tuesday not to travel for Christmas as the latest COVID-19 surge left hospitals struggling to find beds for the sick and political leaders imposed restrictions to try to curb new infections, making for a grim holiday season.
A new, even more contagious variant of the coronavirus quickly spreading across Britain caused more fear in Americans already weary from nine months of the pandemic and prompted talks among top U.S. officials to ban travel from the United Kingdom
The new coronavirus variant has emerged as the United States grapples with a nationwide spike in infections that added more than a million new cases in just six days, according to a Reuters tally, a total of more than 18 million since the pandemic began.
In California, an epicenter of the latest surge, intensive care unit (ICU) beds were scarce and hospitals said they lacked enough doctors and nurses to care for patients.
New York Times: Justice Dept. Accuses Walmart of Fueling Opioid Crisis by Katie Benner and Michael Corkery
The Justice Department sued Walmart on Tuesday for what it said was the company’s role in fueling the nation’s opioid crisis by allowing its network of pharmacies to fill millions of prescriptions for opioids, thousands of which authorities said were suspicious.
The 160-page civil complaint alleges that Walmart knew its system for detecting questionable prescriptions was inadequate and details numerous instances when employees warned federal authorities and company managers about suspicious prescriptions.
“As one of the largest pharmacy chains and wholesale drug distributors in the country, Walmart had the responsibility and the means to help prevent the diversion of prescription opioids,” Jeffrey Bossert Clark, acting assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s civil division, said in a statement. “Instead, for years, it did the opposite — filling thousands of invalid prescriptions at its pharmacies and failing to report suspicious orders of opioids and other drugs placed by those pharmacies.”
Washington Post: Tucked into Congress’s massive stimulus bill: Tens of billions in special-interest tax giveaways by Yeganeh Torbati
Congress on Monday unveiled a 5,593-page spending bill and then voted on it several hours later, with lawmakers claiming urgent action was needed to rescue an ailing economy ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic.
But tucked in the bill was over $110 billion in tax breaks that strayed far from the way the bill was marketed to many Americans. These giveaways include big tax cuts for liquor producers, the motorsports entertainment sector and manufacturers of electric motorcycles.
These measures, added onto the broader spending bill, are known as “tax extenders” — tax breaks targeted at specific, sometimes niche industries. And routinely extending these “temporary” measures has become something of a year-end tradition, despite loud complaints from some lawmakers who allege the votes largely benefit special-interest groups who stand to gain financially from the outcome. (President Trump threatened to upend all the tax breaks Tuesday night, however, when he posted a video suggesting he might not sign the bill into law).
Reuters: Europe crosses 500,000 COVID-19 deaths as new variant spreads - Reuters tally by Anurag Maan and Shaina Ahluwalia
(Reuters) - Europe became the first region worldwide to cross 500,000 COVID-19 deaths on Tuesday, according to a Reuters tally, as a new variant of the coronavirus discovered in Britain threatened the region’s prevention measures to curb the pandemic.
Reports of the mutated variant out of England prompted a pre-Christmas lockdown and have forced dozens of countries close their borders to British travelers this week.
Italy, the nation with the highest death toll in Europe, on Sunday detected a patient infected with the new variant as have Denmark and France.
To curb the spread, European countries are considering screening passengers on flights from UK and obligating quarantine for travelers upon arrival.
Earlier this month, the United Kingdom became the first nation to approve the Pfizer Inc - BioNTech vaccine followed by the United States, European Union and other countries.
BBC News: Israel election: New poll due after unity government crumbles
Israel is to hold its fourth elections in two years after the two main parties in its unity government failed to meet a deadline in a row over state budgets.
Voters will return to the polls in March, just 12 months after the last round.
Two previous elections were inconclusive, resulting in a rare government of national unity.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on trial for alleged corruption, is hoping to return to office for a sixth time.
He denies the criminal charges against him, dismissing them as politically motivated.
At midnight (22:00 GMT Tuesday), Israel's parliament, the Knesset, was automatically dissolved as required by law after a deadline to pass the 2020 state budget expired.
An 11th-hour attempt to avoid this failed after a bill to allow more time was voted down, against expectations.
Guardian: Japan and South Korea scramble jets to track Russian and Chinese bomber patrol by Justin McCurry
Japan and South Korea have scrambled fighter jets to track Russian and Chinese bombers which flown a joint patrol mission over the western Pacific in a show of increasingly close military ties between Moscow and Beijing.
The Russian military said a pair of its Tu-95 strategic bombers and four Chinese H-6K bombers flew over the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea on Tuesday.
Japan’s air self-defence forces scrambled fighter jets to track the bombers, which flew over the disputed Takeshima/Dokdo islands in the Sea of Japan, the Kyodo news agency said, quoting the defence ministry.
The islands are controlled by South Korea but also claimed by Japan. The Russian and Chinese planes also flew over the Tsushima Strait separating Japan and the southernmost point of the Korean peninsula, as well as an area near the southern island of Okinawa, home to tens of thousands of US troops.
Don’t forget that Meteor Blades is hosting has a Tuesday night owls thread tonight.
Everyone have a good evening!