These are some of tonight’s stories:
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Montana puts Yellowstone wolves in the crosshairs
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COP26: Document leak reveals nations lobbying to change key climate report
- House votes to hold Trump ally Steve Bannon in contempt
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Minneapolis cop gets nearly 5 years in killing of 911 caller
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Why no tusks? Poaching tips scales of elephant evolution
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US: More threats, more desperate refugees as climate warms
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S Korea test launches 1st domestically made space rocket
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US stocks rise to all-time high lifted by solid corporate results
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Barbados elects first-ever president, replacing British monarchy
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Now hiring: US weekly jobless claims hit 19-month low
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Too hot to handle: can our bodies withstand global heating?
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Benton Harbor, already dealing with lead crisis, now entirely without water after main break
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Nebraska Teen Runner Helps Competitor Finish Race After He Collapsed, Forfeiting His Own District Medal Hopes
Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, eeff, Magnifico, annetteboardman, Besame and jck. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) Interceptor 7, Man Oh Man, wader, Neon Vincent, palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse (RIP), ek hornbeck (RIP), rfall, 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.
Wild Earth Guardian.org
Montana puts Yellowstone wolves in the crosshairs
Starting today, iconic Yellowstone wolves crossing the boundary of Yellowstone National Park into the state of Montana face slaughter by trophy hunters with high-powered rifles, including within federally-designated Wilderness areas. Wolves living in Glacier National Park face a similar fate when they exit the national park.
Last month, Montana not only eliminated any cap on the number of wolves that can be killed in hunting and trapping zones bordering Yellowstone National Park and Glacier National Park, but individuals can now kill a total of 10 wolves per season. New regulations also allow unethical baiting for wolves statewide, including within federal public lands and Wilderness areas. Night hunting with artificial lights or night vision scopes is also allowed on private lands statewide.
“Despite a groundswell of public opposition from individuals across Montana, the nation, and world, Montana has declared open season on wolves in the state, clearing the way for nearly 50% of the state’s wolf population to be decimated in the upcoming hunting and trapping season,” said Sarah McMillan, the Montana-based conservation director for WildEarth Guardians.
BBC News
COP26: Document leak reveals nations lobbying to change key climate report
The leak reveals Saudi Arabia, Japan and Australia are among countries asking the UN to play down the need to move rapidly away from fossil fuels.
It also shows some wealthy nations are questioning paying more to poorer states to move to greener technologies.
This "lobbying" raises questions for the COP26 climate summit in November.
The leak reveals countries pushing back on UN recommendations for action and comes just days before they will be asked at the summit to make significant commitments to slow down climate change and keep global warming to 1.5 degrees.
The leaked documents consist of more than 32,000 submissions made by governments, companies and other interested parties to the team of scientists compiling a UN report designed to bring together the best scientific evidence on how to tackle climate change.
AP News
House votes to hold Trump ally Steve Bannon in contempt
The House voted Thursday to hold Steve Bannon, a longtime ally and aide to former President Donald Trump, in contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the committee investigating the violent Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection.
In a rare show of bipartisanship on the House floor, the committee’s Democratic chairman, Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, led the floor debate along with Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, one of two Republicans on the panel. Still, the vote was 229-202 with all but nine GOP lawmakers who voted saying “no.”
The House vote sends the matter to the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, where it will now be up to prosecutors in that office to decide whether to present the case to a grand jury for possible criminal charges. It’s still uncertain whether they will pursue the case — Attorney General Merrick Garland would only say at a House hearing on Thursday that they plan to “make a decision consistent with the principles of prosecution.”
White House, Dems hurriedly reworking $2 trillion Biden plan
The White House and Democrats are hurriedly reworking key aspects of President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion domestic policy plan, trimming the social services and climate change programs and rethinking new taxes on corporations and the wealthy to pay for a scaled-back package.
The changes come as Biden more forcefully appeals to the American public, including in a televised town hall Thursday evening, for what he says are the middle-class values at the heart of his proposal. As long-sought programs are adjusted or eliminated, Democratic leaders are showing great deference to Biden’s preferences to swiftly wrap up talks and reach a deal in the narrowly held Congress.
Even a new White House idea abandoning plans for reversing the Trump-era tax rates in favor of a approach that would involve taxing the investment incomes of billionaires to help finance the deal appears acceptable to top Democrats. The leadership is racing to finish negotiations, possibly by week’s end.
Minneapolis cop gets nearly 5 years in killing of 911 caller
A Minneapolis police officer who fatally shot an unarmed woman after she called 911 to report a possible rape happening behind her home was sentenced Thursday to nearly five years in prison — the most the judge could impose but less than half the 12½ years he was sentenced to for his murder conviction that was overturned last month.
Mohamed Noor was initially convicted of third-degree murder and manslaughter in the 2017 fatal shooting of Justine Ruszczyk Damond, a 40-year-old dual U.S.-Australian citizen and yoga teacher who was engaged to be married. But the Minnesota Supreme Court tossed out Noor’s murder conviction and sentence last month, saying the third-degree murder statute didn’t fit the case because it can only apply when a defendant shows a “generalized indifference to human life,” not when the conduct is directed at a particular person, as it was with Damond.
Fed imposes sweeping new limits on policymakers’ investments
The Federal Reserve is imposing a broad new set of restrictions on the investments its officials can own, a response to questionable recent trades that forced two top Fed officials to resign.
The Fed announced Thursday that its policymakers and senior staff would be barred from investing in individual stocks and bonds. They would also have to provide 45 days’ advance notice of any trade and receive prior approval from ethics officials. And they would have to hold the investments for at least a year.
These senior officials will also have to sell any individual stocks or bonds they now own, as well as any category of securities, such as municipal bonds, that the Fed is buying as part of its economic support programs.
Moscow closing schools, many businesses as virus deaths soar
Restaurants, movie theaters and many retail stores in Moscow will be closed for 11 days starting Oct. 28, along with other new restrictions, officials said Thursday, as Russia recorded the highest numbers of coronavirus infections and deaths since the pandemic began.
The government coronavirus task force reported 36,339 new infections and 1,036 deaths in the past 24 hours. That brought Russia’s death toll to 227,389, by far the highest in Europe.
President Vladimir Putin has voiced consternation about Russians’ hesitancy to get vaccinated and urged them to get the shots, but firmly ruled out making them mandatory.
He responded to the rising infections and deaths by ordering Russians to stay off work from Oct. 30 to Nov. 7, when the country already is observing a four-day national holiday, and Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin followed up by introducing new restrictions in the capital, starting even earlier.
Why no tusks? Poaching tips scales of elephant evolution
A hefty set of tusks is usually an advantage for elephants, allowing them to dig for water, strip bark for food and joust with other elephants. But during episodes of intense ivory poaching, those big incisors become a liability.
Now researchers have pinpointed how years of civil war and poaching in Mozambique have led to a greater proportion of elephants that will never develop tusks.
During the conflict from 1977 to 1992, fighters on both sides slaughtered elephants for ivory to finance war efforts. In the region that’s now Gorongosa National Park, around 90% of the elephants were killed.
The survivors were likely to share a key characteristic: half the females were naturally tuskless — they simply never developed tusks — while before the war, less than a fifth lacked tusks.
Like eye color in humans, genes are responsible for whether elephants inherit tusks from their parents. Although tusklessness was once rare in African savannah elephants, it’s become more common — like a rare eye color becoming widespread.
US: More threats, more desperate refugees as climate warms
The Earth’s warming and resulting natural disasters are creating a more dangerous world of desperate leaders and peoples, the Biden administration said Thursday in the federal government’s starkest assessments yet of security and migration challenges facing the United States as the climate worsens.
The Defense Department for years has called climate change a threat to U.S. national security. But Thursday’s reports by the departments of Defense and Homeland Security, National Security Council and Director of National Intelligence provide one of the government’s deepest looks yet at the vast rippling effects on the world’s stability and resulting heightened threats to U.S. security, as well as its impact on migration.
They include the first assessment by intelligence agencies on the impact of climate change, identifying 11 countries of greatest concern from Haiti to Afghanistan.
Biden bill would put US back on path of reducing uninsured
The Democrats’ social spending and climate change bill would put the United States back on a path to reducing its persistent pool of uninsured people, with estimates ranging from 4 million to 7 million Americans gaining health coverage.
Those getting covered would include about one-third of uninsured Black Americans, according to an analysis by the Urban Institute and the Commonwealth Fund, nonpartisan research groups that support the goal of expanding health insurance. Other estimates from the Congressional Budget Office and the center-right American Action Forum project a similar overall trend.With the legislation, the number of uninsured people under age 65 would drop from about 28 million to less than 24 million in a decade, according to the budget office, which provides nonpartisan analysis for Congress. That 28 million starting point is roughly in line with the current count of uninsured people, so the nation would see a holding pattern if lawmakers do nothing.
Billions in environmental justice funds hang in the balance
Tens of billions of dollars for U.S. environmental justice initiatives originally proposed in a $3.5 trillion domestic spending package now hang in the balance as Democrats decide how to trim the bill down to $2 trillion.
Investments in a wide range of these projects were proposed in the Build Back Better plan, but Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona demanded that the bill be reduced, with Manchin asking for it to be cut by as much as half.
Now, Democratic leaders are trying to bridge divergent views of progressive and moderate lawmakers over the size and scope of the bill. With Republicans in lockstep against President Joe Biden’s proposal, Democrats must hold together slim House and Senate majorities to pass it. Leaders have set an Oct. 31 voting deadline, but that may slip as they struggle for consensus.
S Korea test launches 1st domestically made space rocket
South Korea’s first domestically produced space rocket reached its desired altitude but failed to deliver a dummy payload into orbit in its first test launch on Thursday.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who observed the launch on-site, still described the test as an “excellent accomplishment” that takes the country a step further in its pursuit of a satellite launch program.
Live footage showed the 47-meter (154 foot) rocket soaring into the air with bright yellow flames shooting out of its engines following blastoff at Naro Space Center, the country’s lone spaceport, on a small island off its southern coast.
Lim Hye-sook, the country’s science minister, said Nuri’s first and second stages separated properly and that the third stage ejected the payload – a 1.5-ton block of stainless steel and aluminum – at 700 kilometers (435 miles) above Earth.
Al Jazeera News
Judge says US held Afghan man unlawfully at Guantanamo Bay
A United States judge has ruled the United States has no legal basis for holding an Afghan man at the notorious US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, setting the stage for his potential release, his lawyer told Al Jazeera.
Asadullah Haroon Gul, an Afghan national, has been held at Guantanamo since June 2007 after he was captured in the eastern city of Jalalabad by Afghan forces and turned over to the US military.
US District Court Judge Amit Mehta, ruling on a petition of habeas corpus, has rejected the US government’s arguments for continuing to hold Gul in detention at Guantanamo.
I hope president Biden is able to close that place!
US stocks rise to all-time high lifted by solid corporate results
U.S. stocks rose to the first all-time high since Sept. 2, powered by a spate of strong corporate results and positive news on the fight against the virus.
The mood soured after the cash session, when Snap Inc. plunged more than 25% after reporting results that missed estimates. The owner of the Snapchat app was weighed down by Apple Inc.’s new data collection restrictions and their effect on digital advertising measurements. The main exchange-traded fund tracking the Nasdaq 100 lost 06.%, as other social media stocks slumped in afterhours, with Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. each down 6%. Alphabet Inc. slid almost 3%.
Intel Inc. also sank after reporting results, helping to overshadow a late-session rally that had lifted the S&P 500 0.3% for a seventh straight gain, the longest streak since July. Shares in stocks that benefit from a strong economy rallied after better-than-expected earnings at Tesla Inc., Pool Corp. and Tractor Supply Co.
Barbados elects first-ever president, replacing British monarchy
Barbados has elected its first-ever president to replace the United Kingdom’s Queen Elizabeth as head of state in a decisive step towards shedding the Caribbean island’s colonial past.
Sandra Mason was elected late on Wednesday by a two-thirds vote of a joint session of the country’s House of Assembly and Senate, a milestone, the government said in a statement, on its “road to republic”.
A former British colony that gained independence in 1966, the nation of just less than 300,000 had long maintained ties with the British monarchy. But calls for full sovereignty and homegrown leadership have risen in recent years.
Internal docs detail alleged abuses by US immigration agents: HRW
Human Rights Watch has obtained more than 160 internal reports from United States immigration authorities documenting alleged abuses against asylum seekers by federal agents.
The rights group detailed the incidents in a report released on Thursday. They include allegations of physical, sexual and verbal abuse, as well as due process violations and discriminatory treatment that took place between 2016-2021.
Clara Long, the associate US director of the group, called the conduct detailed in the reports “jaw-dropping”.
“These internal government documents make clear that reports of grievous abuses – assaults, sexual abuse, and discriminatory treatment by US agents – are an open secret within DHS,” she said in a statement on Thursday.
Now hiring: US weekly jobless claims hit 19-month low
The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits dropped to a 19-month low last week, pointing to a tightening labour market, though a shortage of workers could keep the pace of hiring moderate in October.
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits fell 6,000 to a seasonally adjusted 290,000 for the week ended October 16, the Labor Department said on Thursday. That was lowest level since the middle of March in 2020, when the nation was in the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was also the second straight week that claims remained below 300,000 as employers hold on to workers in the face of an acute labour shortage.
Economists polled by the Reuters news agency had forecast 300,000 claims for the latest week. Claims have declined from a record high of 6.149 million in early April 2020. A 250,000-300,000 range for claims is seen as consistent with a healthy labour market.
‘Immense bravery’: Kremlin critic Navalny wins EU rights prize
Jailed Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny was awarded the European Parliament’s annual human rights prize on Wednesday for his efforts to challenge President Vladimir Putin’s grip on power.
Navalny, 45, who was poisoned in August 2020 by what Western nations said was a nerve agent, is serving a two-and-a-half-year sentence for parole violations he calls trumped up.
The EU has imposed sanctions on Russian officials over Navalny’s poisoning and imprisonment.
Moscow has denied any wrongdoing and accuses the EU of interfering in its domestic affairs.
Patch.com News
Human Remains Identified As Brian Laundrie: FBI
Human remains found at two Sarasota County parks Wednesday are confirmed to belong to Brian Laundrie, the FBI's Denver office said in a news release Thursday evening.
Dental records were used to confirm the skeletal remains, which included part of a human skull, were his, authorities said.
After more than a month of searching, the remains were found at the Carlton Reserve and Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park near items, including a notebook, that belonged to Laundrie, a person of interest in the strangulation death of his fiancée, Gabby Petito.
Activist Dad Of Parkland Shooting Victim Joins Anti-Gun Group
The father of a 14-year-old girl killed during the 2018 Parkland school shooting announced Thursday that he has joined a leading anti-gun group. Fred Guttenberg will serve as a senior adviser to Brady PAC.
"After his daughter Jaime was murdered in Parkland, Fred became a tenacious advocate for electing leaders who will stand for change," Brady PAC tweeted following the announcement. "We're proud to join forces in honor of Jaime."
Guttenberg said he is honored to join the anti-gun violence group to help pass gun safety legislation and promote like-minded political candidates around the country ahead of next year's midterm elections.
Boston Celtics Games Banned In China After Political Controversy
Celtics games are no longer airing in China after a player expressed his support for the people of Tibet and denounced what he said was Chinese oppression overseas.
Boston center Enes Kanter released a two-minute video calling China's leader a "brutal dictator" before showing up to Wednesday night's season-opener with "Free Tibet" written on his shoes.
"I'm here to add my voice and speak out about what is happening in Tibet," Kanter said in the video. "Under the Chinese government's brutal rule, Tibetan people's basic rights and freedoms are nonexistent."
The Guardian
Too hot to handle: can our bodies withstand global heating?
The impact of extreme heat on the human body is not unlike what happens when a car overheats. Failure starts in one or two systems, and eventually it takes over the whole engine until the car stops.
That’s according to Mike McGeehin, environmental health epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “When the body can no longer cool itself it immediately impacts the circulatory system. The heart, the kidneys, and the body become more and more heated and eventually our cognitive abilities begin to desert us – and that’s when people begin fainting, eventually going into a coma and dying.”
Between 1998 and 2017, more than 166,000 people died due to heat, according to the World Health Organization, and countries around the world are experiencing a year on year rise in record-breaking high temperatures. For many people, unendurable heat is becoming the new normal. It is most likely to disproportionately affect the poor, the sick – those with chronic conditions, or heart and kidney disease in particular – and older people.
NBC News
Boys, nonbinary student suspended over long hair sue school district for gender bias
Students in the Magnolia Independent School District in suburban Houston must adhere to several requirements when it comes to their hairstyles. Those include keeping their locks "clean, well-groomed, and worn out of the eyes," maintaining "appropriate hygiene at all times" and having a "natural hair color."
For males, the districtwide policy is even stricter: no beards, mustaches or long sideburns; hair can't be pinned up in a bun or held in a ponytail; and its length shouldn't be longer than the bottom of the ear.
For at least six boys, and one student assigned male at birth who identifies as nonbinary, having hair longer than permitted has come at a steep cost this school year: They've been suspended.
ABC News
Benton Harbor, already dealing with lead crisis, now entirely without water after main break
The rupture in the major artery for the city's water supply -- which officials warned can allow disease-causing bacteria to enter the tap water -- comes as the predominately Black community was already told not to drink the city's water due to a crisis of toxic lead that residents have been grappling with for years.
The mounting issues afflicting Benton Harbor's drinking water have raised allegations of environmental injustice in the town where some 45% of residents live in poverty and 85% are Black, according to most-recent Census data. It has also shined a harsh spotlight on the real-world impacts of the nation's dilapidated infrastructure as lawmakers in the nation's capital are mulling over the Biden administration's "Build Back Better" infrastructure plans.
Benton Harbor Mayor Marcus Muhammad tweeted Thursday morning that the burst in the 89-year-old water main "is taking longer than expected to address."
"The contractors are still working on getting the water level down in order to repair the water main," Muhammad added. "Thank you for your patience and understanding. We will continue to provide you with updates."
Good News Network
Nebraska Teen Runner Helps Competitor Finish Race After He Collapsed, Forfeiting His Own District Medal Hopes
In the sport of track and field, athletes compete not only with one another but against themselves, as with each race, they strive to achieve a new personal best.
For one Nebraska teen running in what would likely be his final cross country outing before graduating high school, that personal best turned out not to be about marking the fastest time but something that held a much deeper meaning.
Although it was a long shot when he came out of the blocks last Thursday, Bellevue East senior Brandon Schutt knew if his time was good enough that day, he still had the potential to qualify for the upcoming state meet.
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