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: COVID-19 cases are spiking in states across the country. How does Illinois compare? By Joe Mahr and Jonathon Berlin
Across the country, states have either delayed reopening or reimposed restrictions amid surges in COVID-19 cases that have begun packing hospitals.
Waiting on the sidelines, at least for now, is Illinois, where health officials are watching daily statistics uneasily as the state continues to allow its residents more freedom to travel, visit and shop.
Those statistics offer some good news for Illinoisans, at first blush: We’re far below peak case levels, and not even close to being as bad as the most struggling states. For example, Arizona’s rate of new cases, relative to the state’s population, is more than seven times Illinois’.
The bad news: Illinois’ big drops of late May and early June are history — and some daily metrics are increasing. As the state continues to uncover hundreds of new cases a day, at least one researcher said the state should consider adding more restrictions until it’s clear what’s going on.
Given that a) Cases were rising nationwide even before Illinois went into Phase IV of its reopening plan and b) a further reopening could very well produce a spike (as they had in South Korea and other countries) I was a bit uncomfortable moving into Phase IV when we did. But...so far, so good...for now. But, as the story shows, the case are rising across the state, not simply in Cook County.
Chicago Sun-Times: Extreme heat prompts city to open cooling centers, other facilities by David Struett
With temperatures expected in the mid-90s through Friday, Chicago residents are urged to use resources the city announced Tuesday, offering the public a break from the punishing heat.
The relief includes:
- Six designated cooling centers open through Friday
- Dozens of air-conditioned CTA buses stationed at Chicago Public Schools
- More than 75 public libraries and 30 park district buildings open to the public.
- Water features, or “splash pads,” turned on at several city parks
A full list of where residents can cool down can be found online or by calling 311. A separate list of parks with splash pads is on the park district’s website.
To prevent the spread of COVID-19, the city’s heat plan includes measures to ensure social distancing. Besides continual disinfection, cooling centers will require visitors to stay 6 feet apart and wear masks.
Tulsa World: Contact tracers 'inundated' as virus spikes locally, with possible influx from rally evident this week by Corey Jones
Epidemiologists and contact tracers have their hands full in a figurative sense — no touching; remember it’s COVID-19 — but those who come into close contact with a confirmed case hold very real concerns.
In the weeks after a presidential campaign rally and with other, smaller gatherings being held around Tulsa, an influx of cases means even more close-contacts to inform, help and monitor.
Each confirmed case on average has approximately 36 close-contacts, with 3,680 cumulative cases reported since March, according to the Tulsa Health Department. Local health officials say bars, gyms, funerals, weddings, faith-based activities, house gatherings and other small events are dubbed the “serious seven” and are driving the current surge as younger people return to normal affairs in atypical times.
Houston Chronicle: What does a more contagious COVID-19 strain mean for Houston? A top doctor weighs in. by Alison Medley
After new research was released showing that the novel coronavirus strain in Houston is potentially more infectious than the original strain, a top Houston doctor and researcher is offering more insight on what the new information means.
"This virus has been in Houston since March," Dr. Joseph Petrosino, chairman, Department of Molecular Virology and Microbiology at the Baylor School of Medicine. "It has better fitness than the original. It can outcompete the original strain. It's associated with 78% and 80% of the cases we see in Houston and Europe. It's a mutation that is present all over Europe and the world. One thing we see for sure, this virus is more prevalent."
In a peer-reviewed paper published in the medical journal Cell last week, scientists reported that novel coronavirus strains spreading quickly Europe and the U.S. have a mutated spike which is potentially stronger and more infectious. Researchers at Houston Methodist also gathered data for a preliminary study in May that concluded most strains in the Houston area are actually mutations from Asia and Europe.
"Viruses are mutating all the time. It's part of their natural replication cycle," Petrosino said. "The strain that has the beneficial mutations will be able to replicate faster. It will enable it to spread more quickly."
Miami Herald: Florida still not reporting how many hospitalized with COVID. DeSantis won’t say why. by Samantha J. Gross
Under pressure last week as COVID-19 hospitalizations soared in Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office said the state would start reporting daily hospitalization data for all 67 counties.
DeSantis on Tuesday, however, refused to address the fact that the state has yet to make good on its promise when asked by a Miami Herald reporter.
“Obviously not everything is presented in this report but just an unbelievable amount of data is available,” DeSantis said at an indoor press conference held at Florida’s 12th COVID-only nursing facility near Miami International Airport.
He did not respond to a follow-up question from CNN correspondent Rosa Flores as to why the state does not publish daily hospitalization data.
Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez, who sat next to DeSantis at the Tuesday event, ordered hospitals in the county to report patient admissions, ICU capacity, ventilator inventory and other data every day starting on April 4. The number of people entering hospitals each day for COVID-19 is key data that public health experts monitor to measure the potential strain on hospital systems and the seriousness of the disease’s resurgence.
Philadelphia Inquirer: Philly-area charter, private schools receive millions in federal PPP loans by Mannie Hanna
Dozens of private and charter schools across the region received millions of dollars in emergency federal loans in the pandemic, amid wider questions nationally about who received the money and why.
The recipients of the Paycheck Protection Program loans range from exclusive private schools on the Main Line like the all-girls Agnes Irwin and Baldwin schools, and the George School in Newtown, where tuition for boarding students tops $63,000, to the Independence Mission Schools, a network of Catholic schools in Philadelphia that laid off 180 teachers and staff this spring.
The list also includes charters like Chester Community Charter, Franklin Towne Charter High School, and Mastery Charters, whose funding streams from home school districts have not been disrupted by the coronavirus.
The loans to charters drew immediate criticism, based on the schools’ status as publicly funded but independently run organizations. Despite the financial pressures brought on by the pandemic, Pennsylvania school districts are obligated to keep paying charters.
Nevada Independent: As COVID-19 Cases Rise in Nevada, contact tracing lags, two union members tell health panel by Megan Messerly
When someone tests positive for COVID-19, the goal is for the local health district to make contact with them within 24 hours and then contact all of their contacts in the next 24 hours, state health officials have said.
But two members of the Culinary Union told the Patient Protection Commission on Monday that it took them more than a week and a half to be contacted by a contact tracer after receiving their positive results. The commission has been soliciting feedback from patients and members of the health care community as part of a review of the state’s health care system in the time of coronavirus.
Juston Larsen, a barista with HMS Host at McCarran International Airport, told commission members that he went to an urgent care after he came down with a cough and a fever and received his positive results eight hours later. But Larsen said that he didn’t hear from health district officials until more than a week later.
“It took the health district 10 days after I tested positive for COVID-19 to reach out to me,” Larsen said. “When I was trying to find testing through the health district website, it was hard to navigate, I kept getting redirected to the CDC's website. As a COVID patient. I think we really need better information and resources.”
Buzzfeed: Trump’s Consumer Watchdog Just Allowed Payday Lenders To Give Loans To People Who Can’t Afford Them by Paul McLeod
WASHINGTON — The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released a final rule Tuesday that makes it easier for payday lenders to give out high-interest loans to people who may not be able to repay them.
The CFPB rule undoes an Obama-era requirement that payday lenders must first assess whether someone taking out a loan can actually afford to repay it. Essentially, it would have put the same onus on payday lenders that banks have for giving out long-term loans like mortgages.
Democrats and consumer advocates have accused the Trump administration of gutting protections for the most vulnerable consumers in the midst of a pandemic-induced economic crisis.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren said the rule makes a mockery of the CFPB’s mission to protect consumers and gives the industry free rein to trap vulnerable communities in cycles of debt.
Short-term payday loans regularly come with interest rates that top 300%; depending on state laws, they can top 500% or even 600%. Lenders often allow people to roll over their loans by paying a fee to delay repayment.
ProPublica: The Airline Bailout Loophole: Companies Laid Off Workers, Then Got Money Meant to Prevent Layoffs by Justin Elliot and Jeff Ernsthausen
Three airline industry companies slated to receive $338 million in public money designed to preserve jobs in the hard-hit industry have laid off thousands of workers anyway, according to Treasury disclosure filings and public layoff data.
The largest company, Gate Gourmet, is a global preparer of airline meals and part of a Swiss conglomerate owned by the private equity firm of wealthy Malaysian businessman Richard Ong. Gate Gourmet is scheduled to get $171 million from the federal program to bail out the airline industry even after it reported laying off thousands of workers at airports in half a dozen states, including California, Georgia, New York and Illinois, in recent months, according to public filings. The exact number of workers who lost their jobs is not clear.
“These grants are meant to save jobs and only to save jobs,” said Rep. Katie Porter, D-CA, who has supported the aid program for aviation workers. Every payment Treasury makes “despite clear indications that the recipient company is firing workers or cutting hours is an abuse of the program and taxpayer money.”
Washington Post: Chief Justice John Roberts was hospitalized last month after injuring his head in a fall by Robert Barnes
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. suffered a fall at a Maryland country club last month that required an overnight stay in the hospital, a Supreme Court spokeswoman confirmed Tuesday night.
The 65-year-old chief justice was taken by ambulance to a hospital after the June 21 incident at the Chevy Chase Club, which was serious enough to require sutures. He stayed at the hospital overnight for observation and was released the next morning.
Roberts has twice experienced seizures, in 1993 and in 2007, but Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathleen Arberg said doctors ruled out that possibility in the latest incident. Doctors believe he was dehydrated, she said.
Roberts did not publicly disclose the matter, and the court’s confirmation came in response to an inquiry from The Washington Post, which received a tip.
The scene was apparently witnessed by some at the club, whose list of politically connected members includes another justice, Brett M. Kavanaugh. The person who told The Post about the incident said Roberts’s head was covered in blood.
Reuters: Exclusive: U.S. probing allegations TikTok violated children's privacy - sources by Diane Bartz
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. Justice Department are looking into allegations that popular app TikTok failed to live up to a 2019 agreement aimed at protecting children’s privacy, according to two people interviewed by the agencies.
The development is the latest bump in the road for the short video company, which is popular with teens. TikTok has seen scrutiny, including from the national security-focused Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, rise sharply because of its Chinese parent corporation.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Monday that the United States is “certainly looking at” banning TikTok, suggesting it shared information with the Chinese government, a charge it denied.
A staffer in a Massachusetts tech policy group and another source said they took part in separate conference calls with FTC and Justice Department officials to discuss accusations that TikTok had failed to live up to an agreement announced in February 2019.
I’m just cynical enough to believe that this has a lot to do with the videos of George and KellyAnne Conway’s daughter, Claudia.
New York Times: Trump Leans on Schools to Reopen as Virus Continues Its Spread by Peter Baker and Erica L. Green
WASHINGTON — President Trump demanded on Tuesday that schools reopen physically in the fall, pressing his drive to get the country moving again even as the coronavirus pandemic surged through much of the United States and threatened to overwhelm some health care facilities.
In a daylong series of conference calls and public events at the White House, the president, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and other senior officials opened a concerted campaign to lean on governors, mayors and others to resume classes in person months after more than 50 million children were abruptly ejected from school buildings in March.
Mr. Trump and his administration argued that the social, psychological and educational costs of keeping children at home any longer would be worse than the virus itself. But they offered no concrete proposals or new financial assistance to states and localities struggling to restructure academic settings, staffs and programs that were never intended to keep children six feet apart or cope with the requirements of combating a virus that has killed more than 130,000 Americans.
Guardian: Europe faces deep recession and UK will shrink by 10%, says EC by Jennifer Rankin
Europe is facing a deeper-than expected recession in 2020, while the UK economy is forecast to shrink by almost 10% this year, the European commission has said.
Brussels is forecasting an 8.3% drop in GDP for the 27 economies of the European Union in 2020 followed by a 5.8% rebound in 2021. The eurozone is forecast to contract by 8.7% this year, with 6.1% growth in 2021. Both are worse declines and weaker rebounds than the historic downturn that the commission had forecast in May.
The UK economy will shrink by 9.75% in 2020, putting it among the worst-hit economies in Europe, although France, Spain and Italy are facing even steeper falls in output (10.6%, 10.9% and 11.2% respectively). Germany, facing a 6.3% fall in GDP in 2020, and the Netherlands (-6.8%) confront less severe downturns, while Poland is forecast to escape with the shallowest recession (-4.6%).
AlJazeera: Fake MENA experts published on US right-wing sites, probe reveals
The articles were published in US conservative outlets such as the Washington Examiner, RealClear Markets, American Thinker and The National Interest.
The Middle East-based websites that also published these pieces include Al Arabiya, The Arab News, and The Jerusalem Post.
Following The Daily Beast's publication of its findings, Twitter suspended 16 accounts involved in spreading the propaganda.
BBC News: Coronavirus: The tenants enduring Australia's toughest lockdown
Amid a second wave of coronavirus, the entire city of Melbourne has just been ordered back into lockdown for six weeks.
But for 3,000 people living in public housing tower blocks, an even stricter lockdown was imposed on Saturday.
Unlike other Melburnians, residents of the nine towers cannot leave for any reason - they are subject to a police guard.
It's the toughest lockdown seen in Australia so far.
The "detention directions" in suburbs of Flemington and North Melbourne are designed to contain a cluster of infections found in some of the buildings.
Hundreds of police were sent to the sites immediately after the order was announced live on TV by Victoria's Premier Daniel Andrews.
Many residents were caught unaware. When they tried to leave the building, they were stopped.
DW: Can free press in Hong Kong survive national security law? By William Yang
Just days after Beijing passed the contentious national security law for Hong Kong, activists say there are already signs that freedom of expression in the city is under threat.
Hong Kong authorities said last Thursday that chanting the "Liberate Hong Kong, the revolution of our times" slogan is tantamount to the subversion of state power. The following day, the government filed terrorism charges against a 23-year-old biker who used a now-banned slogan.
The government of the semi-autonomous Chinese territory said Tuesday it will "vigorously implement" the controversial security law. The new legislation targets what authorities in mainland China define as secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces. Those violating the law could face up to life in prison.
"I forewarn those radicals not to attempt to violate this law, or cross the red line, because the consequences of breaching this law are very serious," Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam told a press conference Tuesday.
The new law has drawn international condemnation for jeopardizing Hong Kong's civil liberties enshrined under the "one country, two systems" framework, including the freedom of speech and assembly.
As many of you know, the South China Morning Post, one of my favorite news links, is out of Hong Kong and yes, I’ve seen very different news coverage there since the Hong Kong security law has come into effect.
Everyone have a good night!