The Guardian, US
Pennsylvania’s supreme court ruled on Monday that a lower court must hear a case challenging a ban on the use of government-funded healthcare to pay for abortions, raising hopes among reproductive rights advocates for an expansion of abortion access in the state and the establishment of a constitutional right to the procedure.
The case, brought by abortion providers in the state, challenged a decades-old state law barring Medicaid from covering abortions, arguing that it should be overturned because it violates the broader rights guaranteed by the state constitution’s Equal Rights Amendment.
Monday’s 3-2 ruling both overturns a lower court decision to dismiss the case and puts aside a 1985 state supreme court court decision that upheld the law banning the use of state Medicaid dollars for abortion, except in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother.
This is an open thread where everyone is welcome, especially night owls and early birds, to share and discuss the happenings of the day. Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.
CNET
Tax Season 2024 starts today. You should be receiving your important tax documents from employers, mortgage companies and more over the past and coming weeks, so you can file with all the necessary paperwork. (Here's what to do if don't have your W-2 yet.) Below, we'll tell you about this tax season's deadlines for filing and paying your taxes.
When it comes to state taxes, a majority of states adhere to the federal government's timetable, but some have their own schedule. (See more below.)
Here are the dates you need to know to get you through this tax season. For more on taxes, here's how to set up an account on the IRS website and what to know about this year's child tax credit.
BBC
More countries have halted funding to the largest UN agency operating in Gaza, as the crisis deepens over the alleged role of some staff in the 7 October Hamas attacks on Israel.
Japan and Austria said they were suspending payments to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.
The US, UK, Germany and Italy are also among those who have suspended funding.
UNRWA has told the BBC it is "extremely desperate" and that "the humanitarian needs in Gaza are growing by the hour".
The agency has sacked several of its staff over allegations they were involved on 7 October, when Hamas gunmen infiltrated Israel, killing about 1,300 people - mainly civilians - and taking about 250 others back to Gaza as hostages.
BBC
US authorities have charged three men with plotting to murder an Iranian defector living in Maryland.
Naji Sharifi Zindashti, 49, who lives in Iran, allegedly asked Canadian Damion Ryan to help with an assassination.
Mr Ryan, a member of the Hells Angels motorcycle club, then enlisted associate Adam Pearson, who is currently in prison.
They are also accused of targeting the defector's female companion.
Mr Zindashti - who US and UK officials say operates a criminal network targeting Iranian dissidents around the world on behalf of the Iranian government - agreed to pay Mr Ryan, 43, and Pearson, 29, a total of $350,000 (£275,000) plus $20,000 (£15,750) in travel expenses for the murder-for-hire, according to an indictment released Monday.
NPR
In the far, far suburbs of Houston, Texas, three teenagers are talking at a coffee shop about a clandestine bookshelf in their public school classroom. It's filled with books that have been challenged or banned.
"Some of the books that I've read are books like Hood Feminism, The Poet X, Gabi, A Girl in Pieces," says one of the girls. She's a 17-year-old senior with round glasses and long braids. The books, she says, sparked her feminist consciousness. "I just see, especially in my community, a lot of women being talked down upon and those books [were] really nice to read."
NPR
From the outside, the Hospital for the Negro Insane of Maryland, which opened in Crownsville, Md., in 1911, looked like a farm, with patients harvesting tobacco, constructing gardens and working with cattle.
But Peabody award-winning NBC journalist Antonia Hylton says the hospital's interior told a different story. Inside, Crownsville Hospital, as it became known, had cold, concrete floors, small windows and seclusion cells in which patients were sometimes left for weeks at a time. And the facility was filthy, with a distinctive, unpleasant odor.
"There was a stench that emanated from most of the buildings so strong that generations of employees describe never being able to not smell that smell again, never being able to fully feel they washed it out of their clothes or their hair," Hylton says.
Deutsche Welle
German doctors at 23 state-owned university hospitals are expected to walk out on Tuesday after hospital managers and union leaders failed to reach an agreement in collective bargaining talks.
Several thousand doctors are expected to rally in the northern German city of Hanover to demand wage increases and restrictions on rotating shifts, which entail irregular working hours.
The Marburger Bund trade union, which represents the doctors, is demanding a 12.5% pay increase as well as higher bonuses for regular night, weekend and on public holiday shifts for the more than 20,000 doctors at the university hospitals, which are financed by Germany's 16 federal states.
Union leader Andreas Botzlar told the dpa news agency that the federal states "do not want to face the fact that university hospitals are falling further and further behind – in terms of doctors' salaries as well as working conditions."
Deutsche Welle
French President Emmanuel Macron is set to push for changes to European Union (EU) legislation to address grievances being expressed by farmers in France and across the bloc, the country's farming minister Marc Fesneau said on Monday amid ongoing protests.
Farmers set up chokepoints along major arteries into Paris on Monday afternoon, with the government ordering the deployment of 15,000 police and paramilitary gendarmes in response.
The farmers attached signs to their tractors that read "no food without farmers" and "the end of us would mean famine for you."
"This is the final battle for farming. It's a question of survival," one farmer in the southwestern Lot-et-Garonne department told the AFP news agency.
Al Jazeera
Qatar’s prime minister has said “good progress” was made during a meeting between intelligence officials from Egypt, Israel and the United States over the weekend to discuss a possible deal to secure a truce in the Israel-Hamas war and the release of captives held by Palestinian groups in Gaza.
Spy chiefs from the three countries, which have been leading negotiations on agreements to pause fighting since the start of the war on October 7, met over the weekend in the French capital Paris.
The sides discussed a potential deal that would include a phased truce that would see women and children released first and humanitarian aid entering the besieged Gaza Strip, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al Thani confirmed on Monday.
“We are hoping to relay this proposal to Hamas and to get them to a place where they engage positively and constructively in the process,” the prime minister said during an event hosted by the Atlantic Council in Washington, DC, the US.
Al Jazeera
The United States military announced on Sunday that three US soldiers were killed and at least 34 were wounded in a drone attack targeting Tower 22, a remote logistics outpost near the Jordan-Syrian border.
The attack has elicited a strong reaction from Washington with President Joe Biden pledging to hold the attackers to account.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of Iran-backed armed groups in the region, claimed the attacks, saying it was in response to US support to Israel’s war on Gaza, which has killed more than 26,000 people.
Here is what we know about the drone strike and the attack site:
The Guardian, UK
Rishi Sunak’s troubled Rwanda deportation plan has been condemned by Conservative peers, historians and bishops in an indication that the House of Lords could demand changes that might delay its implementation.
Ken Clarke, the Conservative former chancellor and former lord chancellor, joined the archbishop of Canterbury and the historian Peter Hennessy on Monday evening in opposing the government’s plan to overturn a ruling by the UK’s highest court and send asylum seekers to the central African country.
The draft legislation seeks to block the supreme court’s findings of fact that Rwanda was not a safe destination for asylum seekers because they would be at risk of refoulement.
The Guardian, UK
Ukrainians who have moved to the UK have highlighted the lack of dentists as among the most astonishing aspects of British life, according to a report on the experiences of people granted humanitarian visas.
Access to medical care is free of charge on the NHS for Ukrainians, but researchers at Birmingham University heard notably outspoken accounts about the difficulty of securing dental treatment.
The provision of dentistry services under the NHS was even negatively compared with that in Ukraine, which was a popular destination for dental care tourists before the war thanks to low charges and good availability.
One woman in her 30s, Boyka, told the researchers: “We don’t have a dentist. It’s crazy. For us, it’s, like, impossible! In Ukraine the dentist industry is huge, you know, everywhere, and because it’s everywhere you just go and it’s like £10, £8, and you can clean it, whiten it like [a] Hollywood smile!
The Guardian, Europe
Officials in Brussels have reportedly drawn up a secret plan to sabotage Hungary’s economy if Viktor Orbán decides this week to again block a €50bn support package for Ukraine.
The plan, reported by the Financial Times, reflects the fury mounting across European capitals at what one diplomat called the “policy of blackmail” being pursued by the Hungarian prime minister, who leads the bloc’s most pro-Russia state.
The FT said the strategy involved targeting Hungary’s economy, weakening its currency and reducing investor confidence.
Reuters
Jan 29 (Reuters) - The U.S. government in recent months launched an operation to fight a pervasive Chinese hacking operation that successfully compromised thousands of internet-connected devices, according to two Western security officials and one person familiar with the matter.
The Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation sought and received legal authorization to remotely disable aspects of the Chinese hacking campaign, the sources told Reuters.
The Biden administration has increasingly focused on hacking, not only for fear nation states may try to disrupt the
U.S. election in November, but because ransomware wreaked havoc on Corporate America in 2023.
The hacking group at the center of recent activity,
Volt Typhoon, has especially alarmed intelligence officials who say it is part of a larger effort to compromise Western critical infrastructure, including naval ports, internet service providers and utilities.
Reuters
WASHINGTON, Jan 29 (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Monday vowed the U.S. would take "all necessary actions" to defend its troops after a deadly drone attack in Jordan by Iran-backed militants, even as President Joe Biden's administration stressed it was not seeking a war with Iran.
"Let me start with my outrage and sorrow (for) the deaths of three brave U.S. troops in Jordan and for the other troops who were wounded," Austin said at the Pentagon.
"The president and I will not tolerate attacks on U.S. forces and we will take all necessary actions to defend the U.S. and our troops," Austin added at the start of meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the Pentagon.
The attack on Sunday killed three U.S. soldiers and wounded more than 40 troops. It was the first deadly strike against U.S. troops since the Israel-Hamas war erupted in October and marks a major escalation in tensions that have engulfed the Middle East.
USA Today
Kaitlin Armstrong was successfully hiding in Costa Rica for weeks when she responded to an ad for a yoga teacher – a mistake authorities say led to her arrest and eventual conviction for the murder of professional cyclist Anna Moriah "Mo" Wilson.
Armstrong, 36, was convicted and sentenced to 90 years in prison in 2023 after the fatal shooting of 25-year-old Wilson over a love triangle involving Armstrong's boyfriend, Colin Strickland, another pro cyclist. Wilson's body was discovered on May 11, 2022.
Shortly after the killing, Armstrong used a fake passport to flee to Costa Rica where she was believed to be hiding in one of the country's many hostels, detectives with the U.S. Marshals Service told CBS’ “48 Hours” in a first-time interview over the weekend.
The crew of the Overnight News Digest consists of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, jeremybloom, Magnifico, annetteboardman, Rise above the swamp, Besame and jck. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) eeff, 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.