The Overnight News Digest is a nightly series dedicated to chronicling the eschaton. Please recommend and add stories or items of import or interest.
I’m trying out a different digest format tonight.
BBC News (UK)
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg says the US is "not experiencing the best of times" - but the "pendulum" will swing back…
"I read the Washington Post and the New York Times every day, and I think that the reporters are trying to tell the public the way things are," she said…
Asked what most concerns her about the current climate she said, in an apparent reference to longstanding congressional gridlock: "Our legislature - which is the first branch of government - is right now not working." […]
Justice Ginsburg said she was encouraged by the Women's March, which saw millions in the US and around the world take part in anti-Trump protests.
"I've never seen such a demonstration - both the numbers and the rapport of the people in that crowd. There was no violence, it was orderly. So yes, we are not experiencing the best times but there is there is reason to hope that that we will see a better day."
Bosnia has formally asked the UN's top court to review its ruling which cleared Serbia of genocide in the 1990s, Bosnia's Muslim leader has said. Bakir Izetbegovic, a member of Bosnia's tripartite presidency, said he was seeking "truth and justice".
Bosnian Serb officials warned the move would trigger a "serious crisis" in the country. In 2007, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) cleared Serbia of direct responsibility for genocide.
Russia's military has admitted for the first time the scale of its information warfare effort, saying it was significantly expanded post-Cold War.
Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said that Russian "information troops" were involved in "intelligent, effective propaganda", but he did not reveal details about the team or its targets.
The admission follows repeated allegations of cyberattacks against Western nations by the Russian state. Nato is reported to be a top target.
House Republicans next week plan to derail a Democratic resolution that would have forced disclosure of President Donald Trump's potential ties with Russia and any possible business conflicts of interest, according to multiple House sources.
Seeking to avoid a full House vote on the so-called “resolution of inquiry” — a roll call that would be particularly embarrassing and divisive for the right — Republicans will send proposal by Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) to the House Judiciary Committee for a panel vote on Tuesday, two Democratic sources said. The GOP-controlled committee is expected to kill the resolution.
The Guardian (UK)
A retired Navy Seal who was an architect of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden has warned that Donald Trump’s attack on the press as an enemy of the American people “may be the greatest threat to democracy in my lifetime”.
Retired admiral William McRaven, the former commander of the Joint Special Operations Command and later the US Special Operations Command, issued his defense of the media during a Tuesday late-afternoon lecture to journalism students at the University of Texas, where he serves as chancellor.
A huddle of seven worlds, all close in size to Earth, and perhaps warm enough for water and the life it can sustain, has been spotted around a small, faint star in the constellation of Aquarius.
Battlefield defeats in Iraq and Syria continued to splinter Islamic State’s hold on both countries on Thursday, with Mosul airport seized by advancing Iraqi forces and the town of al-Bab finally falling to Syrian rebels.
The former Gambian president Yahya Jammeh stole far more money from the state than previously thought, the new government has alleged, leaving the country with a “monstrous debt” of more than $1bn.
The autocratic former leader of the small west African country siphoned off at least $50m from social security, the country’s ports, and the national telecoms company, according to two senior ministers in new president Adama Barrow’s government.
The Washington Post (US)
This week’s congressional town halls have repeatedly found Republicans hedging their support for the new president’s agenda — and in many cases contradicting their past statements. Hostile questions put them on record criticizing some of the fights Trump has picked or pledging to protect policies such as the more popular elements of Obamacare. And voters got it all on tape, promising to keep hounding their lawmakers if they falter.
For the first time, after years of appeasing certain Islamist militant groups for political and religious reasons, the government has reluctantly agreed to allow the armed forces to enter Punjab province, authorized with special powers to hunt down, arrest and shoot suspected militants.
New satellite images show the Chinese military shoring up its defenses on a disputed island chain in the South China Sea, adding what appears to be reinforced launch sites for surface-to-air missiles on at least three atolls.
The Huffington Post (US)
As a team of elite U.S. commandos found themselves under unexpectedly heavy fire in a remote Yemeni village last month, eight time zones away, their commander in chief was not in the Situation Room.
It’s unclear what he, personally, was doing. But his Twitter account was busy promoting an upcoming appearance on the Christian Broadcasting Network.
… My relatives who stayed in Eastern Europe died. Those who moved to America lived. Every single one of my great-grandparents was a first- or second-generation Eastern European immigrant to St. Louis. If you’ve been following the news this week, you probably know where this story is going: Almost all of my immigrant ancestors are buried in the Chesed Shel Emeth cemetery, where nearly 200 graves were vandalized this past weekend.
“It’s a non-starter,” a Mexican official familiar with the situation said, switching to English for emphasis. The rest of the conversation took place in Spanish. “I don’t see a scenario in which Mexico accepts this solely because an executive order from the United States says so.”
A critically ill woman from El Salvador who was awaiting emergency surgery for a brain tumor was forcibly moved from a Texas hospital to a detention center by federal agents, raising concerns about President Trump’s directive to more aggressively pursue people living in the country illegally.
Sara Beltran-Hernandez, 26, a mother of two young children, was bound by her hands and feet and removed by wheelchair from Huguley Hospital in Fort Worth late Wednesday by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who brought her to a detention facility in Alvarado, Texas.
A retired CIA officer has been taken into custody in Portugal and faces extradition to Italy within days to serve a four-year sentence for her role in the 2003 kidnapping of a radical Muslim cleric.
Sabrina De Sousa, 61, was among 23 Americans convicted in absentia in 2009 for the kidnapping of Egyptian-born cleric Hassan Osama Nasr, known as Abu Omar, as he walked to a mosque in Milan, Italy, on Feb. 17, 2003. He was taken to Egypt and later said he was tortured. He was imprisoned until 2007.
Sean Spicer suggested Thursday that the Trump administration will enforce federal marijuana laws in states where recreational pot is legal…
Though Spicer drew a connection between opioid use and marijuana, there is no known connection between the two. According to the Centers for Disease Control, in 2015 more than 33,000 people died from opioid overdoses, which includes both heroin and prescription painkillers, "more than any year on record." […]
Still, Spicer said, "There is still a federal law that we need to abide by...when it comes to recreational marijuana and other drugs of that nature."
Reduced to their weakest state in a generation, Democratic Party leaders will gather in two cities this weekend to plot strategy and select a new national chairman with the daunting task of rebuilding the party’s depleted organization. But senior Democratic officials concede that the blueprint has already been chosen for them — by an incensed army of liberals demanding no less than total war against President Trump.
A Philippine court on Thursday ordered the arrest of a senator who had been the leading domestic critic of President Rodrigo Duterte and his bloody antidrug campaign, on charges that she took bribes from imprisoned drug traffickers.
The senator, Leila de Lima, has denied the charges, saying they amount to political persecution. After spending several hours at her Senate office, where she has immunity from arrest, Ms. de Lima said Thursday night that she would go home to say goodbye to her family.
As a new round of peace talks convened Thursday in Geneva, Syrians interviewed at a randomly selected camp in the Bekaa Valley this week offered a unanimous reality check. Their old homes are either destroyed or unsafe, they fear arrest by security forces and they know that despite recent victories by pro-government forces, the fighting and bombing are far from over. They are not going anywhere.
About 1.5 million Syrians have sought refuge in Lebanon, making up about a quarter of the population, according to officials and relief groups, and there is a widely held belief in Lebanon that refugees are a burden on the country’s economy and social structure.
Women in the Turkish armed forces have been given the right to wear Islamic head scarves in a move that represents a significant cultural shift within an institution seen historically as the guardian of Turkey’s secular identity.
Xinhua (China)
Most giant pandas around the world are on loan from China, and cubs born abroad have to be sent to the Chinese breeding program to expand the gene pool before they turn four. […]
Unique to China and adored around the world, giant pandas have played an important role in China's diplomacy, or "Panda Diplomacy" as some experts call it. […]
From 1984 to 1988, zoos in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York and several other cities of the United States managed to rent giant pandas from China. The rent money, which ranges from tens of thousands to millions of U.S. dollars, was used to fund the conservation and breeding programs of the endangered species.
Reuters (UK)
President Donald Trump said on Thursday he wants to ensure the U.S. nuclear arsenal is at the "top of the pack," saying the United States has fallen behind in its weapons capacity.
In a Reuters interview, Trump also said China could solve the national security challenge posed by North Korea "very easily if they want to," ratcheting up pressure on Beijing to exert more influence to rein in Pyongyang's increasingly bellicose actions.
The U.S. Justice Department has reversed an order by the Obama administration to phase out the use of private contractors to run federal prisons.
In a memo made public on Thursday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the Obama policy impaired the government's ability to meet the future needs of the federal prison system.
Al Jazeera (Qatar)
It was called Operation Moshtarak and it was supposed to be the defining moment of the Afghanistan conflict - an all-out assault by coalition forces on the Taliban-held city of Marjah in Helmand province. […]
As the attack got under way in February 2010, the coalition's public relations efforts went into overdrive…
But seven years on - after seven more years of fighting, the 2014 withdrawal of most NATO troops (but not the 8,000 US forces still in country), changing administrations in Washington and Kabul and countless more killed and wounded on both sides in this seemingly never-ending war - the Taliban's white banners are flying over Marjah once again, poppy production continues unabated and the regional capital, Lashkar Gah, is once more under virtual siege. Indeed, with most of Helmand province back under the Taliban's control and another fighting season getting under way as the winter recedes, it's as though Operation Moshtarak never happened, that it was just a billion dollar blip in this country's terrible recent history.
Protestors took to the streets on Tuesday, exactly one year after Bolivia held a referendum on changing the constitution to enable President Evo Morales to seek a fourth re-election.
The "No" vote won by a small margin, a decision that prevents Morales from running in the 2019 elections. Later last year, however, the Movement for Socialism (MAS), the party led by Morales, announced they were considering putting him forward for candidacy again anyway. The ruling party are pursuing legal loopholes that allow Morales to run again.
Half a dozen women sat around a large table, each with a ball of yarn in front her. Some made fumbling progress, while others settled into the rhythmic calm that so many knitters say reminds them of meditation.
Kat Coyle, 54, walked around the students, inspecting their progress and handiwork. Two of the women were making their first pink, knitted "pussyhats"…
A month after women's marches across the United States, people continue to stop by Coyle's shop, looking for pink yarn or beginner lessons to make more pussyhats.
Coyle designed the first hat pattern for what became the national phenomenon launched by two of her former students, Jayna Zweiman, 38, and Krista Suh, 29.
USA Today (US)
Pope Francis on Thursday criticized Catholics leading a "double life," — those who proudly boast they are "very Catholic" yet fail to pay their workers a fair wage.
In his daily morning Mass, the pontiff denounced such hypocrisy, noting: "How many times have we heard — all of us, around the neighborhood and elsewhere — ‘but to be a Catholic like that, it’s better to be an atheist.’"
A study released this week shows that engagement by hate groups on social media has been booming in the last two to three years —and the largest shares of activity are focused on anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiment.
The study titled "Hate on Social Media: A Look at Hate Groups and Their Twitter Presence" was conducted by Safe Home, an organization of home security experts that conducts research aimed at making communities safer. The study used data collected by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a non-profit based in Montgomery, Ala., that tracks hate groups nationwide.
The Canadian Press (Canada)
The United Nations refugee agency is keeping a careful eye on the situation at informal crossings along the Canada-U.S. border where dozens of people have been arriving in recent weeks in search of asylum.
But it’s the perception of what’s happening rather than the reality that troubles Jean-Nicolas Beuze, the agency’s representative in Ottawa, who spent a day this week observing people making their way through one such crossing in Quebec. […]
Beuze said of the 50 to 70 people he observed on Tuesday, many were Turks, Yemenis or Syrians; most had legal status in the U.S.; and the group included single men and women as well as women travelling alone with children.
Most were young, well-educated and clearly prepared for the journey, carrying cash and the necessary documents to try and make the case for asylum in Canada.