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 Tribune: Back to school, from home: CPS begins a new school year with a return to remote learning, successes and frustrations by Hannah Leone
Surrounded by four computer monitors, Nightingale Elementary teacher Lauren Kullman joked that she felt like she was producing the Emmys. But it was just the first day of school.
As Chicago Public Schools on Tuesday began fall quarter with remote learning, most educators were teaching from their homes, though some streamed lessons from their school classrooms. Families around the city reported a range of successes and frustrations as the watershed day came to a close.
Kullman is married to a special education teacher, and the couple has a 5-year-old in kindergarten along with a younger child.
“Our house is embracing the chaos,” she said Tuesday. “... We are just so grateful that we are remote. The challenges we will face are nothing compared to what we could have faced in an unsafe environment.”
San Diego Union-Tribune: Chief calls Valley fire a ‘sleeping giant,’ says it has potential to burn when winds pick up by Karen Kucher and Gary Warth
EAST COUNTY —While skies were overcast and temperature cooler in East County Tuesday morning, officials warned that a wildfire that has scorched more than 17,000 acres and destroyed nearly a dozen homes and 25 other structures is not letting up and is expected to flare up again tonight.
“I want to be very clear in my message,” said Cal Fire San Diego Chief Tony Mecham at a news conference at Viejas Casino and Resort. “We have a sleeping giant in the backcountry.”
The National Weather Service has issued a red flag fire weather warning for most of San Diego County through 8 p.m. Wednesday.
Santa Ana winds blowing up to 50 miles an hour were expected to hit around 8 p.m. — pushing the fire from east to the west — and Mecham and other officials warned residents to be prepared.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch: No masks allowed in Jefferson County gun store, an example of the US divide by Leah Thorsen
JEFFERSON COUNTY — Charleen Shakman arrived at a Jefferson County gun shop thinking she was about to buy hard-to-find bullets.
Instead, she was met that Saturday last month by a sign on the door of Modern Weapon Systems stating no masks were allowed in the store. “Masks are for cry babies, Democrats and robbers,” the sign said, in part.
”I’d never seen anything like that,” said Shakman, a gun hobbyist from Wildwood who enjoys target shooting with her husband. Shakman, after a heated argument with the store’s owner, left in a huff, without the bullets.
The disagreement, which spilled online, gaining vitriol and attention, highlights the divide between maskers and anti-maskers playing out here and nationally. The fight has been especially contentious in Jefferson County. At a July 28 protest outside the county’s health department, one woman held a sign that read, “Hitler required compliance too.” One month later, the county health department board voted to put a mask mandate in place, only to revoke it a day later after residents complained that the board had not properly notified the public.
NOLA.com: Hurricane Laura-related death toll now at 26 after man dies in Calcasieu Parish house fire by Katelyn Umholtz
Hurricane Laura's death toll in Louisiana rose to 26 victims on Tuesday after a man in Calcasieu Parish was killed in a house fire, according to the state Department of Health.
The 45-year-old victim died of smoke inhalation and burns. Health Department officials said the house fire started because of lit candles or lanterns used for lighting as hundreds of thousands of Louisianans are still left without power.
This is the first fire-related death from Hurricane Laura confirmed by LDH. Carbon monoxide poisoning has claimed the most lives, with nine.
At least one death has been reported in Vernon, Jackson, Acadia, Allen, Calcasieu, Rapides, Grant, Natchitoches and Beauregard parishes.
The Department of Public Health has suspended COVID-19 testing at Orig3n, a Boston laboratory, after a state investigation revealed that at least 383 samples the lab found to be positive for the virus were actually negative.
Since April, Orig3n has worked with approximately 60 nursing homes in Massachusetts to screen for the coronavirus. But a state investigation launched in August found that poor management, lack of proper testing materials, and failure to meet systems requirements including properly documenting sanitization "put patients at immediate risk of harm,” according to a statement by a DPH spokesman.
“In early August, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health became aware of an unusually high positivity rate of tests that were reported by the COVID-19 testing laboratory, Orig3n, and opened an investigation,” the statement said. “The Boston lab is required to respond with a written plan of correction, and if action is not taken it can face sanctions.”
Orig3n halted its Massachusetts COVID-19 testing on Aug. 8, shortly after DPH opened its investigation. The state handed down the official suspension on Friday, Sept. 4, and gave the company until Sept. 14 to show it has addressed all deficiencies in its process.
Buzzfeed: Judges Confirmed Under Trump Are Splitting With Other Republican Appointees In Cases Against Police by Zoe Tillman
WASHINGTON — In October 2010, police officers responded to a report that a teenager was walking through a neighborhood in Garland, Texas, with a handgun. When officers found the 17-year-old, he was holding the gun to his head.
The teenager’s family and police disagree about what happened next, but the encounter ended with officers shooting the young man; he was hit twice, and one shot caused him to involuntarily pull the trigger and shoot himself as well, according to court records. The teen survived but has permanent injuries that include paralysis and brain damage.
The teen and his family sued, accusing the officers of using excessive force and fabricating evidence. They argued that even though the young man was armed, the circumstances didn’t justify deadly force, and they accused one officer of lying about the teen aiming a gun at the police. In August 2019, the US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit denied immunity to the officers, meaning the case would go to a jury.
The decision was one of a growing number of cases reviewed by BuzzFeed News where judges tapped for lifetime appointments by President Donald Trump split not only with colleagues appointed by Democratic presidents, but also those confirmed under previous Republican administrations. The 5th Circuit judges who ruled against the officers included Reagan and George W. Bush appointees. The judges who dissented — they would have granted police immunity against the family’s claims — included four of Trump’s appointees.
Washington Post: Trump employs images of violence as political fuel for reelection fight by Michael Scherer
President Trump has reverted to using graphic depictions of violence as a centerpiece of his reelection campaign strategy, using his Twitter account, his stump speech and even the White House podium as platforms for amplifying domestic conflict.
His 2016 focus on radical Islamist terrorism and undocumented-immigrant crime, which he credited with helping him win the Republican nomination, has been replaced by warnings of new threats as he elevates gruesome images of Black-on-White crime, street fights involving his supporters and police-misconduct unrest nationwide.
The pattern continued over the holiday weekend, when he tweeted video of a melee in Texas between protesters and security officers during an event for a Trump-affiliated group and two celebratory videos of a protester in Portland, Ore., with his feet on fire. One of the videos was scored to the Kenny Loggins song “Footloose,” and the second featured mocking play-by-play commentary by a mixed-martial-arts announcer.
Reuters: Trump's ex-lawyer Cohen links Falwell’s endorsement in 2016 to suppression of racy photos by Aram Roston
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In his book released today, Michael Cohen, the former fixer for U.S. President Donald Trump, ties for the first time the 2016 presidential endorsement of Trump by American evangelical leader Jerry Falwell Jr to Cohen’s own role in helping to keep racy “personal” photographs of the Falwells from becoming public.
As Reuters reported last year, the Falwells enlisted Cohen to keep “a bunch of photographs, personal photographs” from becoming public, Cohen said in a recording, made surreptitiously by comedian Tom Arnold. “I actually have one of the photos,” he said, without going into specifics. “It’s terrible.”
In “Disloyal: The Memoir,” Cohen describes thinking that his involvement in the Falwell photo matter would be a “catch and kill” — the practice of American tabloids to obtain and then suppress unfavorable stories about celebrities — “but in this case it was just going to be kill.”
He later writes: “In good time, I would call in this favor, not for me, but for the Boss, at a crucial moment on his journey to the presidency.”
New York Times: The Fed Enabled a Record Expansion. Trump Is Taking Credit. By Jeanna Smialek and Jim Tankersley
WASHINGTON — President Trump is using the prepandemic economy to make a case for his re-election, highlighting time and again that unemployment rates fell to record low levels for Black and Hispanic workers in 2019, and that wages were climbing steadily under his watch.
He is also seeking to convince voters that he is rapidly returning America to that prosperous place following waves of pandemic-wrought job loss — fostering what he labeled a “Super V” rebound on Sunday — and that Joseph R. Biden Jr. would “destroy” the economy if he wins in November.
But Mr. Trump’s story line about his economic track record, particularly what he showcased during his Republican National Convention speech last month, leaves out a crucial detail. Lucky timing and a patient Federal Reserve was pivotal in driving the strong labor market of the late 2010s, economists said. The Trump administration’s tax cuts and higher government spending temporarily nudged the economy, but the trade wars cooled it off, so the administration’s track record was mixed.
BBC News: Coronavirus: Oxford University vaccine trial paused after participant falls ill
Final clinical trials for a coronavirus vaccine, developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University, have been put on hold after a participant had an adverse reaction in the UK.
AstraZeneca described it as a "routine" pause in the case of "an unexplained illness".
The outcome of vaccine trials is being closely watched around the world.
The AstraZeneca-Oxford University vaccine is seen as a strong contender among dozens being developed globally.
Hopes have been high that the vaccine might be one of the first to come on the market, following successful phase 1 and 2 testing.
Its move to Phase 3 testing in recent weeks has involved some 30,000 participants in the US as well as in the UK, Brazil and South Africa. Phase 3 trials in vaccines often involve thousands of participants and can last several years.
South China Morning Post: Departure of Australian journalists from China seen as ‘terrible blow to mutual understanding’ by John Power
For nearly 50 years, Australian media maintained an uninterrupted presence in mainland China. On Tuesday, that run – which began soon after Canberra and Beijing normalised ties in December 1972 – came to a sudden and dramatic conclusion after the last two journalists working for Australian media fled the mainland in fear of their safety.
The abrupt exit of correspondents Bill Birtles and Michael Smith following a days-long diplomatic stand-off between the two governments marks a new low in the downward spiral of Sino-Australian relations, closing one of a dwindling number of channels for engagement and understanding between the two countries.
“The Australian government was right to fear for their safety,” said Richard McGregor, a former China correspondent for The Financial Times who is now a senior fellow at the Sydney-based Lowy Institute. “Their effective expulsion means the Australian media now has no accredited journalists in China, for the first time since 1973, and it is hard to see when any might be allowed back in – or, more to the point, when their organisations will feel safe about sending them back in.”
AlJazeera: India, China accuse each other of firing shots at tense border
China and India have accused each other of firing shots on their flashpoint Himalayan border in a further escalation of military tension between the nuclear-armed Asian rivals.
The relationship between the two countries has deteriorated since a hand-to-hand combat clash in the Ladakh region on June 15 in which 20 Indian troops were killed.
Experts fear the latest incident will intensify a months-long standoff between the Asian giants that erupted in late April.
Beijing's defence ministry accused India of "severe military provocation", saying soldiers crossed the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the western border region on Monday and "opened fire to threaten the Chinese border defence patrol officers".
"According to the Chinese side, Chinese troops approached the India side for negotiations, and then they say some Indian troops fired at the Chinese side," Al Jazeera's Katrina Yu reported from Beijing.
DW: Russia summons German envoy over Navalny poisoning allegations
On Tuesday, Russia's Foreign Ministry called on Germany's ambassador to Moscow to attend talks regarding accusations that Alexei Navalny had been poisoned.
Officials in Berlin say they have evidence to support their claim. Russian authorities say Germany's government is "bluffing."
The opposition figure Navalny was airlifted to Berlin last month after he fell ill on a domestic flight in Russia. Medics in Berlin say evidence indicates that he was poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok, a statement supported by German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas.
Hollywood Reporter: Film Academy Sets Inclusion Requirements for Oscars, Will Take Full Effect in 2024 by Scott Feinberg
"To encourage equitable representation on and off screen in order to better reflect the diversity of the movie-going audience," films will have to meet minimum requirements pertaining to representation and inclusion to be eligible for the best picture Oscar beginning with the 96th Oscar race (which will recognize achievements from 2024 and be held in 2025), the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced Tuesday.
In the meantime, an Academy Inclusion Standards form will have to be submitted to the Academy for a film to be considered for the 94th Oscars (recognizing films from 2021 released after Feb. 28) and 95th Oscars (recognizing films from 2021), although meeting inclusion thresholds will not yet be a requirement. And no action will be required for films wishing to compete for the 93rd Oscars, which are to be held on April 25.
The new requirements — which were announced just shy of the five-year anniversary of the #OscarsSoWhite controversy, and three months after the Academy announced its Academy Aperture 25 initiative — were determined by a task force headed by Academy governors DeVon Franklin and Jim Gianopulos and were modeled after a template inspired by the British Film Institute (BFI) Diversity Standards, which are used to determine certain funding eligibility in the UK and eligibility in some categories of the British Academy of Film and Television (BAFTA) Awards.
Science: Why COVID-19 is more deadly in people with obesity—even if they're young by Meredith Wadman
This spring, after days of flulike symptoms and fever, a man arrived at the emergency room at the University of Vermont Medical Center. He was young—in his late 30s—and adored his wife and small children. And he had been healthy, logging endless hours running his own small business, except for one thing: He had severe obesity. Now, he had tested positive for COVID-19 and was increasingly short of breath.
He was admitted directly to the intensive care unit (ICU) and was on a ventilator within hours. Two weeks later, he died.
“He was a young, healthy, hardworking guy,” recalls MaryEllen Antkowiak, a pulmonary critical care physician who is medical director of the hospital’s ICU. “His major risk factor for getting this sick was obesity.”
Since the pandemic began, dozens of studies have reported that many of the sickest COVID-19 patients have been people with obesity. In recent weeks, that link has come into sharper focus as large new population studies have cemented the association and demonstrated that even people who are merely overweight are at higher risk. For example, in the first metaanalysis of its kind, published on 26 August in Obesity Reviews, an international team of researchers pooled data from scores of peer-reviewed papers capturing 399,000 patients. They found that people with obesity who contracted SARS-CoV-2 were 113% more likely than people of healthy weight to land in the hospital, 74% more likely to be admitted to an ICU, and 48% more likely to die.
Everyone have a good evening!