Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, eeff, Magnifico, annetteboardman, Besame, jck, and JeremyBloom. 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.
This one… hurts.
Robbie Robertson, 1943-2023
” I want to come when you call
I'll get to you if I have to crawl
They can't hold me with these iron walls
We got mountains to climb, to climb
Who else is gonna bring you a broken arrow
Who else is gonna bring you a bottle of rain
There he goes moving across the water
There he goes turning my whole world around?
Robbie Robertson, the string-bending guitarist and principal songwriter of The Band, has died at 80, a representative confirmed to CBC News.
...With The Band, Robertson was credited with writing or co-writing the band's signature songs, including The Weight, The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, Up on Cripple Creek, The Shape I'm In and Chest Fever.
...The Band were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994, five years after receiving a similar honour at Canada's Juno Awards. Robertson won an additional five Junos in a solo recording career that began in the mid-1980s and included popular radio songs Showdown at Big Sky, Somewhere Down the Crazy River and What About Now?.
….Robertson was one of the first Indigenous rock stars, though few in the white-dominated music press took much notice. He received a lifetime achievement award at the Native American Music Awards in 2017.
He was born Jaime Robertson in Toronto on July 5, 1943 to a mother with Mohawk and Cayuga blood, growing up in homes in Scarborough and Cabbagetown neighbourhoods. While visiting relatives on the Six Nations of the Grand River near Brantford, Ont., he became entranced by the music played by his uncles and older cousins and was given advice by elders he kept close to his heart as he progressed early in his career: "Be proud you are an Indian, but be careful who you tell."
...George Harrison and Eric Clapton were among the early high-profile fans, and critics hailed September 1969's The Band album as well. In a rarity of a rock group at the time, The Band made the cover of Time Magazine in January 1970, heralded as the "future of country rock."
...The original lineup bowed out from live performances with an all-star 1976 concert in San Francisco captured on screen two years later in the iconic The Last Waltz, featuring Dylan, Van Morrison and Canadians Neil Young and Joni Mitchell.
...Robertson produced and appeared in 1980's Carny with Jodie Foster… More lasting was the relationship with Scorsese, as he worked as a music supervisor on several of the director's films. Robertson had recently finished writing the musical score for the director's upcoming film, Killers of the Flower Moon.
"Robbie Robertson was one of my closest friends, a constant in my life and my work. I could always go to him as a confidant. A collaborator. An adviser. I tried to be the same for him," Scorsese wrote in a statement that was shared with CBC News.
"Long before we ever met, his music played a central role in my life — me and millions and millions of other people all over this world. The Band's music, and Robbie's own later solo music, seemed to come from the deepest place at the heart of this continent, its traditions and tragedies and joys."
"It goes without saying that he was a giant, that his effect on the art form was profound and lasting. There's never enough time with anyone you love. And I loved Robbie," the director wrote.
This hurts too. We are losing our history, our home, our lives.
LAHAINA (HawaiiNewsNow) - Six people have been confirmed killed in the raging wildfires that have decimated entire Maui communities, but authorities feared that number could rise as flames are slowly beaten down and emergency responders are able to move in.
The fires are still active and out of control, which means a full picture of the devastation hasn’t yet come into view. But officials say at least 20 people sustained serious injuries, thousands of people are displaced, and the county’s emergency response is near a breaking point.
Acting Gov. Sylvia Luke said it could take months to assess the full scope of the damage from the fires — and that recovery will take years. “This is the entire state coming together to assist our family on Maui,” she said, at a news conference Wednesday.
Richard Olsten, a helicopter pilot who flew over Lahaina town on Wednesday morning, said much of the historic town appears gone. “It’s like an area was bombed. It’s like a war zone,” he said.
Eyewitnesses described an apocalyptic scene Tuesday in Lahaina town, where residents were forced to jump into the harbor waters to avoid fast-moving flames from a massive brush fire that’s destroyed much of the historic area — and continues to burn.
Residents say an overwhelmed fire force — fighting flames all day amid powerful winds — could do little as flames ripped through the historic community, destroying dozens of homes and businesses in what onlookers believe is the worst natural disaster in Hawaii’s history since Hurricane Iniki.
...Lahaina resident Tiare Lawrence compared the scene to something out of the apocalypse, with people running for their lives.
“It’s just so hard. I’m currently Upcountry and just knowing I can’t get a hold of any of my family members. I still don’t know where my little brother is. I don’t know where my stepdad is,” she said.
“Everyone I know in Lahaina, their homes have burned down.”
As the indigenous capital of Hawaii was reduced to ash, the UN marked Indigenous Peoples Day:
Violations of the rights of the world's Indigenous Peoples have become a persistent problem, sometimes because of a historical burden from their colonization backgrounds and others because of the contrast with a constantly changing society.
In response to this problem, let’s remember every August 9 that Indigenous Peoples have the right to make their own decisions and carry them out meaningfully and culturally appropriate to them.
In this context of demand for self-determination, Indigenous youth are working as agents of change at the forefront of some of the most pressing crises facing humanity today.
For instance, Indigenous youth are harnessing cutting-edge technologies and developing new skills to offer solutions and contribute to a more sustainable, peaceful future for our people and planet.
But their future depends as well on the decisions that are made today. Their representation and participation in global efforts towards climate change mitigation, peacebuilding, and digital cooperation are crucial for the effective implementation of their rights as indigenous.
And while we burn… the culprits try to make us look the other way:
The United Arab Emirates has hired a strategic communications firm to “counteract all negative press and media reports” about its role in hosting the next United Nations climate summit, known as COP28, according to federal disclosure filings reviewed by The Climate 202.
The contract with First International Resources comes as the UAE faces a barrage of negative headlines over its decision to name an oil industry executive as president of the global climate gathering. Activists have called the move to appoint Sultan Al Jaber, who runs the state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., “tantamount to putting the head of a tobacco company in charge of negotiating an anti-smoking treaty.”
...“You don’t pay over $100,000 to a PR firm when you’re confident about your public image,” Henn told The Climate 202. “You pay that much when you want to spin the public to believe the impossible, which in this case is that the UAE and Dr. Al Jaber are really committed to transitioning away from fossil fuels.”
In happier news, President Biden has protected the region around the Grand Canyon once and for all from unnecessary and egregious uranium mining.
On Tuesday, President Joe Biden formally designated nearly 1 million acres of public land surrounding the Grand Canyon as a national monument, an action that permanently bans new uranium mining in the area.
Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni—Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument, as it’s called, means “where Indigenous peoples roam” in the Havasupai language and “our ancestral footprints” in the Hopi language, the White House said in a statement. The monument, which includes three regions just south, northeast, and northwest of Grand Canyon National Park, will protect thousands of Native American cultural sites.
The designation also comes with some serious environmental muscle. By establishing the area as a national monument, Biden effectively blocked all new uranium mining in the region, an action Native American tribes have supported for decades, the Associated Press reports. Uranium is typically used as fuel for nuclear energy, and mining it can contaminate the environment.
“It’s really the uranium we don’t want coming out of the ground because it’s going to affect everything around us—the trees, the land, the animals, the people,” Havasupai Tribal Councilwoman Dianna Sue White Dove Uqualla told the AP. “It’s not going to stop.”
Mining in the area had been temporarily banned under former President Barack Obama, with restrictions set to expire in less than a decade, in 2032. But even with the moratorium, uranium companies had maintained hundreds of active mining claims in the hope it would eventually be lifted, according to the Grand Canyon Trust, an Arizona-based environmental non-profit.
As the New York Times reports, those restrictions are now permanent. “The mining is off limits for future development in that area,” Ali Zaidi, the president’s national climate adviser, told reporters on Air Force One, according to the Times. “It’s focused on preserving the historical resources.”
A lawyer allied with President Donald J. Trump first laid out a plot to use false slates of electors to subvert the 2020 election in a previously unknown internal campaign memo that prosecutors are portraying as a crucial link in how the Trump team’s efforts evolved into a criminal conspiracy.
The existence of the Dec. 6, 2020, memo came to light in last week’s indictment of Mr. Trump, though its details remained unclear. But a copy obtained by The New York Times shows for the first time that the lawyer, Kenneth Chesebro, acknowledged from the start that he was proposing “a bold, controversial strategy” that the Supreme Court “likely” would reject in the end.
...The false electors scheme was perhaps the most sprawling of Mr. Trump’s various efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. It involved lawyers working on his campaign’s behalf across seven states, dozens of electors willing to claim that Mr. Trump — not Mr. Biden — had won their states, and open resistance from some of those potential electors that the plan could be illegal or even “appear treasonous.”
In the end, it became the cornerstone of the indictment against Mr. Trump.
Top Republicans went all out to avoid a contentious primary in Montana’s Senate race by urging GOP Rep. Matt Rosendale to stay in the House.
It’s not working.
...Rosendale remains publicly undecided about a Senate bid. But the private steps he’s taking threaten to complicate his party’s carefully laid plans to unseat Sen. Jon Tester, one of the chamber’s most endangered Democrats.
GOP leaders launched a concerted campaign to box out Rosendale and clear the path for Tim Sheehy, a Navy SEAL-turned-business executive who launched a Senate bid in June. Their fear was that Rosendale would prevail in a primary, given his statewide name recognition, but flub a general election against Tester — just as he did in 2018. With a narrow deficit in the Senate, winning in Montana is a linchpin in the party’s broader 2024 strategy.
… In recent weeks, he has received encouragement to jump in from Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah), as well as members of the House Freedom Caucus. And he has secured vows of support from DeMint and members with a slew of allied groups, including Heritage Action and Turning Point Action. Senate Conservatives Fund, a PAC founded by DeMint, is also expected to back Rosendale should he enter the race, according to two people familiar with those conversations.
Kari Lake, the failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate who still refuses to concede defeat to Governor Katie Hobbs in last fall’s election, appears to be gearing up for another run—this time for the US Senate, where she could, if elected, inflict her brand of MAGA extremism not only on her home state but the entire country. “When [Donald Trump] gets back in the White House he’s going to need fighters like Kari Lake in Washington, DC,” Lake senior adviser Caroline Wren told Axios, which first reported the former newscaster’s potential campaign. “Kari Lake is seriously considering a run for the United States Senate and will be making a final decision this fall.”
It’s unclear whether Lake—who has publicly hinted at her candidacy—would fare better in a Senate race than she did in the governor’s race last November. But her entrance could set up a complicated three-way race for the seat currently occupied by Kyrsten Sinema, who is facing a challenge from her left from Democratic congressman Ruben Gallego. Sinema has yet to officially announce her re-election campaign, but reported close to $11 million in cash-on-hand last quarter and is expected to run again as an Independent after leaving the Democratic Party in 2022.
...But a three-way race also introduces an extra degree of unpredictability to the contest, which is not only key to Republicans’ efforts to gain back the Senate for the first time since 2018, but could also elevate another dangerous MAGA figure into the upper chamber. Lake—like Sheriff Mark Lamb, who has already declared his candidacy for Sinema’s seat—is perfectly emblematic of the radicalism that has taken over the GOP: She's denied the threat of COVID, which allowed the public health crisis to spin out of control; she's denied the 2020 and 2022 election results, which imperiled the democratic process; and she's denied climate change, which has hamstrung key environmental initiatives, despite extreme heat in Arizona and beyond.
Asked by The Weather Channel in an interview that aired Wednesday about whether he was prepared to declare a national climate emergency, Biden responded that he had “already done that.”
“We’ve conserved more land. We’ve … rejoined the Paris Climate Accord,” he said, also appearing to allude to legislative accomplishments.
Pressed on whether he had declared it, Biden responded “in practice” and “practically speaking.”
The White House has not actually announced any such declaration. Biden appeared poised to do so last year when it appeared that talks over his climate, tax and health care bill had stalled.
Many climate activists have called for the climate emergency declaration, both in recognition of the seriousness of the problem and so more tools could be used to combat it.
There should be more conversation about the environmental impact of AI, says Sasha Luccioni, a researcher in ethical and sustainable AI at Hugging Face, which has become the de facto conscience of the AI industry. (Meta recently released its Llama 2 open-source large language model through Hugging Face.)
...we need to rethink AI’s use – and fast. Technology analysts Gartner believe that by 2025, unless a radical rethink takes place in how we develop AI systems to better account for their environmental impact, the energy consumption of AI tools will be greater than that of the entire human workforce. By 2030, machine learning training and data storage could account for 3.5% of all global electricity consumption. Pre-AI revolution, datacentres used up 1% of all the world’s electricity demand in any given year.
So what should we do? Treating AI more like cryptocurrency – with an increased awareness of its harmful environmental impacts, alongside awe at its seemingly magical powers of deduction – would be a start.
Keep doing the work… There are more of us. When we work, we win!
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