Welcome to the Overnight News Digest
The OND is published each night around midnight, Eastern Time.
The originator of OND was Magnifico.
Current Contributers are ScottyUrb, Bentliberal, wader, Inerceptor7, rfall, JML9999 and NeonVincent.
Stories and Headlines
- Fight over illegals' tuition reaches high court (sfgate.com)
(10-05) 18:21 PDT FRESNO -- The issue of benefits for illegal immigrants landed at the state Supreme Court on Tuesday, as out-of-state students challenged a law allowing anyone who has graduated from a California high school to pay in-state tuition at a public university, regardless of immigration status.
The 2002 law, intended to encourage youngsters to attend college, enables undocumented students to pay the same lower fees as other state residents - at the University of California, $11,300 instead of $34,000 a year.
A lawyer for 42 non-Californians who pay the higher fees at UC, state university and community college campuses argued that the statute is discriminatory and violates federal immigration law.
"One of the privileges of U.S. citizenship is not being treated worse than an illegal alien," attorney Kris Kobach told the court at a hearing in Fresno. |
- California Supreme Court upholds unpaid furloughs for more than 200,000 state workers (latimes.com)
The California Supreme Court on Monday unanimously upheld unpaid furloughs for more than 200,000 state employees during the last fiscal year but ruled that a governor lacks unilateral authority to reduce work weeks and pay for state workers.
Although the ruling spares the state from having to reimburse workers for reduced pay during the first year of furloughs, it requires future governors to have the consent of the unions or the Legislature before forcing mandatory unpaid days off.
Both Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and labor unions declared a degree of victory in the decision. |
- Lawyer seeks new trial for Oscar Grant's killer
(10-04) 18:39 PDT LOS ANGELES -- Johannes Mehserle's lawyer asked a judge Monday to set aside the former BART police officer's manslaughter conviction for shooting an unarmed passenger and order a new trial, saying new evidence of a similar shooting by a Kentucky policeman undercuts the prosecution's case.
Mehserle, 28, is to be sentenced Nov. 5 for involuntary manslaughter in the shooting death of Oscar Grant. The 22-year-old Hayward man was fatally shot while he was facedown on the platform at the Fruitvale Station in Oakland on Jan. 1, 2009.
A Los Angeles jury acquitted Mehserle of murder in July but convicted him of the lesser charge, which required proof that the killing was grossly negligent. |
- Indonesia cancels Netherlands visit over arrest threat
Indonesia's President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, has called off a state visit to the Netherlands because of a threat that he could be arrested.
A separatist group, the Republic of South Moluccas (RMS), has asked a court to order his detention in connection with alleged human rights violations. |
- Guantanamo detainee in NYC trial
The first civilian trial of a former Guantanamo Bay detainee is set to open in a New York courtroom on Wednesday. |
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Tonight's Feature - The Horror!
There's a reason that some OND editors will sometimes proudly declare their diaries to be "AP-free." It's headlines like this one from an AP story, that was based on a story originally in the LA Times, that often do it:
$69 MM in California welfare money spent out of state
Cash withdrawn in Vegas, Hawaii, on Cruise ships
In Hawaii, $387,908 was used or withdrawn at more than a thousand big-box stores, grocery stores, convenience shops and ATMs on all the major islands. At least $234,000 was accessed on Oahu, $70,626 on Maui, $39,883 on Hawaii and $22,170 on Kauai.
http://www.vcstar.com/...
Without much thinking, they add in quotes like this:
If it's on Lanai, that should trigger an investigation," said Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. "California taxpayers, who are struggling to keep their own jobs, are subsidizing other people's vacations. That's absurd."
It takes a bit of reading (and a little math) to get down to the details (which were paragraph 18 of the original story:
The investigation showed out-of-state spending on state-issued aid cards was less than 1 percent ...
The spending in Hawaii? Even less than that.
The more likely reality? From the L.A. Weekly:
As Kevin Drum notes at Mother Jones, "Vegas/Hawaii/Miami accounts for about 0.11% of total welfare expenditures."
...
When you consider that at least some of the money spent out of state is legitimate (should a welfare recipient be able to visit a sick relative?) and that in some cases no doubt the welfare cards were stolen, we're talking about a tiny group of recipients spending taxpayer money in glamorous locales. Even among these reprobates, the 1996 federal welfare reform law imposed time limits, meaning their little joyrides won't last.
The fact remains, the vast majority of people on welfare are extremely destitute, and their measly checks barely improve upon that. But you won't hear from them in today's Times story.
The Horror!
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Other News
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