these are the stories I found for tonight
- Biden administration sues Texas over new voting restrictions
-
US mandates vaccines or tests for big companies by Jan. 4
-
Countries pledge to cut heavily polluting coal, with caveats
-
Arbery death trial dominated by race before it even begins
-
US submarine commander fired after South China Sea crash
-
Indonesia signals about-face on COP26 deforestation pledge
-
US judge dismisses Rittenhouse juror over Blake shooting remark
-
An asteroid barely missed Earth last week, and no one knew it was coming
-
Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance convenes new special grand jury to investigate Trump Organization: Sources
-
Newest high-speed passenger train leaves NY manufacturer and heads for Northeast Corridor
-
The ‘Sioux Chef’ Brings Indigenous Food Back to the Forefront of American Diets
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.
AP News
Biden administration sues Texas over new voting restrictions
The Biden administration on Thursday sued Texas over new election laws that outlasted a summer of dramatic protests by Democrats, who remain unable in Congress to pass legislation they say is needed to counteract a year of Republicans adding restrictive voting measures nationwide.
The lawsuit does not go after the entirety of a sweeping bill signed in September by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in Texas, which already has some of the nation’s toughest voting rules. Instead, the challenge filed in a San Antonio federal court targets provisions surrounding mail-in voting requirements and voter assistance, which the Justice Department argues violate federal civil rights protections.
It now puts two of the Texas GOP’s biggest conservative victories this year in court against the federal government, as the Justice Department is simultaneously trying to stop a new Texas law that has banned most abortions since September.
US mandates vaccines or tests for big companies by Jan. 4
Tens of millions of Americans who work at companies with 100 or more employees will need to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by Jan. 4 or get tested for the virus weekly under government rules issued Thursday.
The new requirements are the Biden administration’s boldest move yet to persuade reluctant Americans to finally get a vaccine that has been widely available for months — or face financial consequences. If successful, administration officials believe it will go a long way toward ending a pandemic that has killed more than 750,000 Americans.
First previewed by President Joe Biden in September, the requirements will apply to about 84 million workers at medium and large businesses, although it is not clear how many of those employees are unvaccinated.
Countries pledge to cut heavily polluting coal, with caveats
In the fight to curb climate change, several major coal-using nations announced steps Thursday to wean themselves — at times slowly — off of the heavily polluting fossil fuel.
The pledges to phase out coal come on top of other promises made at the U.N. climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, that the head of an international energy organization said trimmed several tenths of a degree from projections of future warming. But outside experts called that “optimistic.”
Optimism also abounded in relation to the promises on coal, which has the dirtiest carbon footprint of the major fuels and is a significant source of planet-warming emissions.
Arbery death trial dominated by race before it even begins
The trial hasn’t even started and yet issues of race are dominating the case in which three white men are charged with murder for chasing and killing Ahmaud Arbery.
The 25-year-old Black man’s slaying has become part of the broader reckoning on racial injustice in the U.S. legal system. Greg and Travis McMichael, a father and son, and their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan weren’t charged for more than two months until a cellphone video of the shooting leaked online.
And Arbery’s family and their supporters had their faith rattled after 2 1/2 weeks of jury selection ended Wednesday with the judge agreeing to seat a panel of 11 whites and one Black man.
Al Jazeera News
US submarine commander fired after South China Sea crash
The US Navy has fired the commanding officer, executive officer and top enlisted sailor of a nuclear-powered submarine that crashed into an underwater mountain on October 2, saying the accident was preventable.
Commander Cameron Aljilani and two others were removed from their positions on Thursday following an investigation into the crash in the disputed South China Sea.
The USS Connecticut was forced to sail on the surface for a week to reach Guam.
“Sound judgement, prudent decision-making and adherence to required procedures in navigation planning, watch team execution and risk management could have prevented the incident,” the western Pacific-based 7th Fleet said in a statement.
Indonesia signals about-face on COP26 deforestation pledge
Indonesia’s environment minister has dismissed as “inappropriate and unfair” a global plan to end deforestation by 2030, days after her country, home to a third of the world’s rainforests, joined 127 other nations in making the deforestation pledge.
“Forcing Indonesia to [reach] zero deforestation in 2030 is clearly inappropriate and unfair,” she said on Twitter on Wednesday.
The agreement late on Monday at the COP26 climate crisis summit was at odds with Indonesia’s development plans and the global goals should be fine-tuned, said Siti Nurbaya Bakar, who attended the summit in Glasgow.
“The massive development of President Jokowi’s era must not stop in the name of carbon emissions or in the name of deforestation,” she said, referring to Indonesian leader, Joko Widodo by his nickname.
US judge dismisses Rittenhouse juror over Blake shooting remark
The judge presiding over Kyle Rittenhouse‘s murder trial in the United States has dismissed a juror after a court security officer reported that the man told a joke about the police shooting of Jacob Blake.
Blake, who is Black, was shot multiple times by a white police officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last year and left partially paralysed, setting off a wave of anti-police brutality protests in the city, at which Rittenhouse shot three demonstrators.
Kenosha County Circuit Judge Bruce Schroeder on Thursday called the juror into the courtroom to discuss what he said, but the juror said he did not want to repeat his comments.
Live Science
An asteroid barely missed Earth last week, and no one knew it was coming
An asteroid about the size of a refrigerator shot past Earth last week, and astronomers didn't know the object existed until hours after it was gone.
It was a close call (from a cosmic perspective); the space rock's trajectory on Oct. 24 carried it over Antarctica within 1,800 miles (3,000 kilometers) of Earth — closer than some satellites — making it the third-closest asteroid to approach the planet without actually hitting it, CNET reported.
Scientists were unaware of the object, dubbed Asteroid 2021 UA1, because it approached Earth's daytime side from the direction of the sun, so the comparatively dim and small visitor went undetected until about 4 hours after passing by at its closest point, according to CNET.
ABC News
Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance convenes new special grand jury to investigate Trump Organization: Sources
Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance has convened a new special grand jury to hear evidence in the investigation of former President Donald Trump and his eponymous company, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
The new grand jury was convened as the time limit on the original special grand jury is about to expire.
The new six-month special grand jury allows the case to continue beyond Vance's tenure if needed. He leaves office in early January, when District Attorney-elect Alvin Bragg takes office. In a historic victory, Bragg was elected as Manhattan's first Black district attorney on Tuesday.
The Evening Tribune
Newest high-speed passenger train leaves NY manufacturer and heads for Northeast Corridor
A new era for passenger rail in America is just around the bend.
The Acela, the nation’s first line of high-speed trains, departed the Hornell Alstom campus Wednesday morning bound for delivery to Amtrak.
The Acela stretched its legs with a short jaunt past the Erie Depot Museum on Loder Street, then headed back through the Alstom campus on its way to Canisteo, Painted Post and beyond. The trainset will be deployed in the Northeast Corridor in the coming months.
Wednesday’s departure marked a milestone, the first time a completed Acela left the Hornell shop. A pair of test trains were previously shipped out of the Hornell facility, with the first hitting the tracks to much fanfare on Feb. 17, 2020.
Good News Network
The ‘Sioux Chef’ Brings Indigenous Food Back to the Forefront of American Diets
If you’re like me, you never learned how to spell “sous chef” in school. Sean Sherman, on the other hand, has an altogether different meaning for the words.
Known on social media as The Sioux Chef, Sherman, who grew up on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and is a member of the Oglala Lakota, is reconnecting the denizens of North America with native flavors and ingredients, and working to inspire a generation of indigenous chefs to reclaim their culinary past.
Pine Ridge in South Dakota contains some of the poorest communities in the country, and its out of that environment that Sherman got his first job in the restaurant industry as a dishwasher at a local steakhouse.
This is An Open Thread