These are some of the stories I found for tonight’s digest:
- Biden promises new Ukraine aid, warns Russia on chem weapons
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Rich countries getting new COVID vaccine before poorer ones
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Man in Gov. Whitmer kidnap plot: No one twisted our arms
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NATO agrees to bolster eastern flank, increase aid to Ukraine
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Moldova pursues neutrality, EU membership amid Ukraine war
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War’s Toll on Ukraine’s Once Vibrant Environmental Movement
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Climate change will make spring hell for Northeast allergy sufferers, study says
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School cafeterias, already on the brink of collapse, brace for end of COVID-era free meals
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Jobless claims hit another 50-year low
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Rep. Brad Schneider Faces Challenge Over Highland Park Residency
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New Plant-Derived Sustainable ‘Plastic’ is Tough as Bone and Hard as Aluminum
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
20 Days in Mariupol: The Team That Documented Agony
The Russians were hunting us down. They had a list of names, including ours, and they were closing in.
We were the only international journalists left in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, and we had been documenting its siege by Russian troops for more than two weeks. We were reporting inside the hospital when gunmen began stalking the corridors. Surgeons gave us white scrubs to wear as camouflage.
Suddenly at dawn, a dozen soldiers burst in: “Where are the journalists, for fuck’s sake?”
I looked at their armbands, blue for Ukraine, and tried to calculate the odds that they were Russians in disguise. I stepped forward to identify myself. “We’re here to get you out,” they said.
Biden promises new Ukraine aid, warns Russia on chem weapons
President Joe Biden and Western allies pledged new sanctions and humanitarian aid on Thursday in response to Vladimir Putin’s assault on Ukraine, but their offers fell short of the more robust military assistance that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pleaded for in a pair of live-video appearances.
Biden also announced the U.S. would welcome up to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees — though he said many probably prefer to stay closer to home — and provide an additional $1 billion in food, medicine, water and other supplies.
The Western leaders spent Thursday crafting next steps to counter Russia’s month-old invasion — and huddling over how they might respond should Putin deploy chemical, biological or even a nuclear weapon. They met in a trio of emergency summits that had them shuttling across Brussels for back-to-back-to-back meetings of NATO, the Group of Seven industrialized nations and the 27-member European Council.
Arizona lawmakers vote to restrict trans athletes, surgeries
The Arizona Legislature passed bills Thursday to prohibit gender reassignment surgery for minors and ban transgender athletes from playing on girls sports teams, joining a growing list of Republican-controlled states attempting to restrict transgender rights as they gain more visibility in culture and society.
Republican Gov. Doug Ducey has not said whether he will sign either bill. Two GOP governors this week bucked conservatives in their party and vetoed bills in Indiana and Utah requiring trans girls to play on boys sports teams.
Republicans have said blocking transgender athletes from girls sports teams would protect the integrity of women’s sports, claiming that trans athletes would have an advantage.
Rich countries getting new COVID vaccine before poorer ones
The company behind a COVID-19 vaccine touted as a key tool for the developing world has sent tens of millions of doses to wealthy nations but provided none yet to the U.N.-backed effort to supply poorer countries, a sign that inequity persists in the global response to the pandemic.
A quarter-million doses from the company were supposed to be available to the vaccine-sharing initiative, called COVAX, by March. But the U.N. agency in charge of deliveries says the first shipments now likely won’t be made until April or May.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. The company, Novavax, got $388 million from one of the organizations leading COVAX to fast-track the vaccine’s development and help make the shot available in poorer countries
New rules aim to decide US asylum cases in months, not years
The Biden administration on Thursday unveiled new procedures to handle asylum claims at the U.S. southern border, hoping to decide cases in months instead of years.
The rules empower asylum officers to grant or deny claims, an authority that has been limited to immigration judges for people arriving at the border with Mexico.
Until now, asylum officers have only done initial screenings for asylum and other forms of humanitarian relief for border arrivals.
Man in Gov. Whitmer kidnap plot: No one twisted our arms
A second insider in a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer told jurors Thursday that the group was prepared to use a grenade launcher and machine gun to fight security officers at her vacation home.
Kaleb Franks, who pleaded guilty in February, backed up many points offered a day earlier by Ty Garbin, another man who admitted a role in a wild scheme to abduct Whitmer and somehow take her by boat out to Lake Michigan.
Franks, 27, said an alleged leader, Adam Fox, believed Whitmer’s COVID-19 restrictions were “tyrannical” and that the U.S. Constitution gave the men a right to strike back. He said no one was forced to stick with the plan and many people had dropped away by late summer 2020.
Al Jazeera News
NATO agrees to bolster eastern flank, increase aid to Ukraine
NATO allies have agreed to bolster the alliance’s eastern flank with four additional battle groups and to send further support to Ukraine as it battles the Russian invasion.
“Today, NATO leaders agreed to reset our deterrence and defence for the longer term to face a new security reality,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters on Thursday following an extraordinary meeting in Brussels.
Stoltenberg, whose mandate was renewed for a year in response to the security crisis, said the invasion launched by Russian President Vladimir Putin was “the biggest threat to our security in a generation,” to which the alliance must respond decisively.
Lawsuit seeks to prevent Marjorie Taylor Greene from re-election
A group of Georgia voters on Thursday asked state officials to block Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene from running for re-election, alleging she is unfit for office because of her support of rioters who attacked the United States Capitol.
In a legal challenge filed with the Georgia secretary of state, the voters claim Greene has violated a provision of the US Constitution known as the “Insurrectionist Disqualification Clause”.
The clause, passed after the 19th-century American civil war, prohibits politicians from running for Congress if they have engaged in “insurrection or rebellion” against the United States, or “given aid or comfort” to the nation’s enemies.
Moldova pursues neutrality, EU membership amid Ukraine war
After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last month, neighbouring Moldova, a nation of about 2.6 million, submitted a bid to join the European Union along with Georgia and Ukraine.
Moldova’s government has condemned Russia’s war in Ukraine and sought the European Union’s support in handling the influx of refugees coming across its borders, while signalling its continued desire to be part of the European bloc.
“This is a very important symbolic step for the country to reaffirm its European identity,” Janis Mazeiks, the head of the EU delegation to Moldova, told Al Jazeera.
Inside Climate News
Here Are The People Who Break Solar Panels to Learn How to Make Them Stronger
Solar panels sit in the elements for decades, dealing with whatever nature has to offer.
Despite the challenges of being outside all the time, many panels come with 25-year warranties, and manufacturers say the equipment is capable of operating at a high level for 30, 40 or even more years into the future.
When I see numbers like this, I get skeptical. Solar panels are made of silicon, a material that cracks easily, and their main protection is a thin sheet of tempered glass.
War’s Toll on Ukraine’s Once Vibrant Environmental Movement
In war torn Ukraine, Russia’s month-long invasion has already resulted in thousands of deaths—including more than 900 civilians—and has left some of the nation’s biggest cities in ruins. Nearly a quarter of Ukraine’s 44 million residents have been forced from their homes, with some fleeing west, away from the harshest fighting, and others leaving the country altogether.
For many of those who have fled, the war has been a story of what they were forced to leave behind: husbands who remained to fight, homes that have been passed down for generations and careers to which many have dedicated their lives.
Among them is Natalia Gozak, executive director of Ecoaction, one of Ukraine’s largest environmental nonprofits and a staunch advocate for renewable energy as a way to combat climate change.
Saving Starving Manatees Will Mean Saving This Crucial Lagoon Habitat
Not long ago, seagrass spanned the 156-mile Indian River Lagoon like a vast underwater meadow nourished by sunlight that reached through the crystalline water.
The lagoon, an estuary on Florida’s east coast, is among the most biodiverse on the continent, and has been a crucial habitat for manatees. But today its underwater meadow is gone.
Decades of nutrient pollution flowing from fast-growing communities and farm lands along the lagoon’s shores have left the water cloudy with harmful algal blooms, which can prevent sunlight from reaching the seagrass below. In parts of the lagoon, as much as 96 percent of the seagrass has been lost, leading to a record die-off of some 1,100 manatees in Florida last year.
Gothamist.com News
Climate change will make spring hell for Northeast allergy sufferers, study says
“Itchy water eyes, runny nose, coughing, sneezing, wheezing, shortness of breath, scratchy throat, congestion…”
That is what Brooklynite Amy Grech, 49, experiences with the first plant buds of spring, and she said since she was 14 years old, her allergies have worsened in severity as well as lengthened in duration.
“My eyes will get really red. You would think that I was high,” said Grech, who spent the worst days of allergy season indoors with the windows shut. “Every day I'm doing this saline nose spray; the Zaditor [eye drops] first thing when I wake up; allergy pill right after breakfast; Nose spray throughout the day.”
ABC News
School cafeterias, already on the brink of collapse, brace for end of COVID-era free meals
For some kids, it was the chocolate chip cookies. For others, the sloppy Joes. For Thresa Thomas, daydreams of lunch centered around coffee cake.
Thomas says she would hustle as soon as the bell rang. Since her Los Angeles school's lunch was first-come, first-serve, time was of the essence to ensure she'd get the fluffiest slice with the biggest hunk of brown sugar streusel. If Thomas was lucky, she says she'd get the lunch lady who'd let her pick out that slice, even if it was buried way in the back.
That's when Thomas realized her calling. "I wanted to be the lunch lady who makes [kids'] day," she told ABC News. For 14 years, Thomas has been living that dream at her old stomping grounds -- even on days when the Culver City, California, morning blurs in a frantic effort to get her famous orange chicken ready before the kids stampede into the cafeteria.
CBS News
Jobless claims hit another 50-year low
Fewer Americans applied for unemployment aid last week than at any time in the last 50 years, a sign employers are retaining workers amid a tight labor market.
Some 187,000 workers filed for jobless aid in the week ended March 19, the Labor Department said on Thursday. The numbers, adjusted for seasonal factors, are the lowest since 1969. First-time applications for unemployment are closely watched by economists as they generally track layoffs.
Meanwhile, 1.3 million Americans were collecting jobless aid in the week that ended March 12 — a more than 50-year low.
Patch.com News
Rep. Brad Schneider Faces Challenge Over Highland Park Residency
A pair of Lake Forest residents say U.S. Rep. Brad Schneider filed a false statement of candidacy and should not be able to appear on the ballot in the upcoming primary election because his nominating paperwork includes an address where he does not live.
Schneider, who is running unopposed in the Democratic Party primary, said he and his wife, Julie Dann, have begun the process of relocating from their longtime Deerfield house to a recently completed custom-built home in Highland Park.
Lake County property records show they own both residential properties and have claimed homestead property exemptions on both properties simultaneously. According to treasurer's office staff, the second exemption has led to a nearly $1,000 reduction in the Highland Park home's property tax bill over the past two years.
Good News Network
New Plant-Derived Sustainable ‘Plastic’ is Tough as Bone and Hard as Aluminum
The strongest part of a tree lies not in its trunk or its sprawling roots, but in the walls of its microscopic cells.
A single wood cell wall is constructed from fibers of cellulose—nature’s most abundant polymer, and the main structural component of all plants and algae. Within each fiber are reinforcing cellulose nanocrystals, or CNCs, which are chains of organic polymers arranged in nearly perfect crystal patterns. At the nanoscale, CNCs are stronger and stiffer than Kevlar. If the crystals could be worked into materials in significant fractions, CNCs could be a route to stronger, more sustainable, naturally derived plastics.
Now, an MIT team has engineered a composite made mostly from cellulose nanocrystals mixed with a bit of synthetic polymer. The organic crystals take up about 60 to 90 percent of the material—the highest fraction of CNCs achieved in a composite to date.