Today’s comic by Jen Sorensen is Tips for holiday cheer:
• Justice Dept. lawyer tells en banc Ninth Circuit panel there’s no problem with toddlers representing themselves in immigration court: “So your view is there can be a fundamentally fair proceeding with a 2-year-old in front of an immigration judge with no representation at all,” U.S. Circuit Judge Andrew Hurwitz asked. ”Would an appointed lawyer ever be required?” DOJ lawyer Scott Stewart replied: “I can’t think of a situation.” According to statistics compiled by Syracuse University, as of 2014, 73 percent of unaccompanied minors who appeared in court with lawyers were allowed to stay in the United States compared with only 15 percent of those without lawyers. One of the 11 judges on the panel implied that maybe this was just coincidence not causation, saying that perhaps the immigration lawyers succeeded so often because they only took the easy cases.
• Evelyn Berezin, the woman who built the first true word processor, dead at 93:
In an age when computers were in their infancy and few women were involved in their development, Ms. Berezin (pronounced BEAR-a-zen) not only designed the first true word processor; in 1969, she was also a founder and the president of the Redactron Corporation, a tech start-up on Long Island that was the first company exclusively engaged in manufacturing and selling the revolutionary machines.
To secretaries, who constituted 6 percent of the American work force then, Redactron word processors arrived in an office like a trunk of magic tricks, liberating users from the tyranny of having to retype pages marred by bad keystrokes and the monotony of copying pages for wider distribution. The machines were bulky, slow and noisy, but they could edit, delete, and cut and paste text.
• City council in Lincoln, Nebraska, wants to limit ax-throwing customers to two beers:
In considering two applications for beer-only liquor licenses, the council Monday recommended the stricter rules — including no weapon throwing after midnight, no alcohol in the throwing lanes, no visibly intoxicated customer allowed to possess an ax and the two-beer limit.
• Open enrollment in the Affordable Care Act ends in most states on December 15: After today, there’s only four days left to enroll if you need insurance! Free help is available. Answers to your questions about signing up and trained professionals who can talk your through your options are just a phone call or click away. Call 1-800-318-2596 or visit localhelp.healthcare.gov to make a one-on-one appointment now.
MIDDAY TWEET
• The Senate Committee on Indian Affairs is holding a Wednesday hearing on the "silent crisis" of missing and murdered people in Indian Country: Among the witnesses will be federal law enforcement officials and Native woman. The hearing comes after the Senate passed S.1942, known as Savanna's Act. The bill is named for Savanna Marie Greywind, a 22-year-old woman from the Spirit Lake Nation who was murdered after she went missing in North Dakota last year. If the House approves the bill and it’s signed at the White House, the Department of Justice would be required to provide annual reports on how many Native women go missing and/or murdered each year. It also mandates improved access to national databases to make sure the cases of missing women don’t also go missing. The original sponsor of the act, Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, said, "As we remember the life of Savanna and the unimaginable pain of those eight days of friends and family searching for her, this legislation will help law enforcement agencies better collect and maintain data on those missing and help our criminal justice system take stronger action against those who traffic in exploitation, abuse, and murder."
• Computer modelling indicates extinction from global warming might be 10 times worse than current estimates, two scientists say.
• “Net-zero energy” homes make sense even in chilly Midwest: A report conducted by the Rocky Mountain Institute shows that, as the cost of solar installations and heat pumps fall, net-zero energy houses can pay for themselves in much of the Midwest in less than a decade, and less than 14 years in most of the 50 largest U.S. cities. In Detroit, for instance, net-zero energy houses pay off the investment in nine years. This is good news since housing is responsible for about 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions when their share of power plant emissions is included.
Zero-energy homes start with well-sealed and well-insulated attics, walls and basements or slabs. They often use triple-pane windows, especially in places with cold winters. Inside, energy-efficient appliances, highly efficient LED lighting and smart thermostats help avoid energy waste.
Their designs often take natural lighting into account, too, and position windows and overhangs for additional solar heating in the winter and shade in summer. Since the homes are sealed to avoid letting cold or hot air in—and cool or warm air out—they also have ventilation systems customized to maintain comfortable circulation.
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: Butina to cooperate, whatever that might mean for a spy. Could it wreck the ИЯA? Will we have a Trump wall shutdown? Will we have a WH chief of staff? Waking up to Ryan's fraud. What is Brexit, anyway? Can we all live in a yellow cheese submarine?