Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, current leader Neon Vincent, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, Doctor RJ, Magnifico, annetteboardman and Man Oh Man. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) wader, palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse (RIP), ek hornbeck, ScottyUrb, Interceptor7, BentLiberal, Oke 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.
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NPR
March 20 is the International Day of Happiness, the result of a UN resolution adopted in 2012 that identifies the pursuit of happiness as "a fundamental human goal" and promotes a more holistic approach to public policy and economic growth — one that recognizes happiness and wellbeing as important pieces of sustainable and equitable development.
The official page for the International Day of Happiness, HappinessDay.org, goes one step further in declaring happiness a "universal human right."
But is happiness really a human right? And is happiness a goal we should actively pursue? I think the answers are "no" and "it depends."
First, consider the analogy between psychological wellbeing — including happiness — and physical wellbeing, or health. The World Health Organization endorses a "right to health," but the details make it clear that it isn't health, per se, that is a right, but rather the means to achieve the best health possible. The WHO constitution recognizes"...the highest attainable standard of health as a fundamental right of every human being," with the right to health including "access to timely, acceptable, and affordable health care of appropriate quality." Similarly, the Declaration of Independence doesn't recognize happiness as a right, but rather the pursuit of happiness.
US NEWS
Reuters
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson plans to skip an April 5-6 meeting of NATO foreign ministers for a U.S. visit by the Chinese president and will travel to Russia later in the month, U.S. officials said on Monday, a step allies may see as putting Moscow's concerns ahead of theirs.
Tillerson intends to miss what would be his first meeting in Brussels with the 28 NATO members to attend President Donald Trump's expected April 6-7 talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, four current and former U.S. officials said.
The decisions to skip the NATO meeting and to visit Moscow risked feeding a perception that Trump may be putting U.S. dealings with big powers before those of smaller nations that depend on Washington for their security, said two former U.S. officials.
Trump has often praised Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Tillerson worked with Russia's government for years as a top executive at Exxon Mobil Corp, and has questioned the wisdom of sanctions against Russia that he said could harm U.S. businesses.
New York Times
WASHINGTON — The F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, took the extraordinary step on Monday of announcing that the F.B.I. is investigating whether members of President Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 election.
Mr. Comey’s remarks before the House Intelligence Committee created a treacherous political moment for Mr. Trump, who has insisted that “Russia is fake news” that was cooked up by his political opponents to undermine his presidency. Mr. Comey placed a criminal investigation at the doorstep of the White House and said agents would pursue it “no matter how long that takes.”
Mr. Comey also dismissed Mr. Trump’s claim that he was wiretapped by his predecessor during the campaign, a sensational but unfounded accusation that has served as a distraction in the public debate over Russian election interference.
The New York Times and other news organizations have reported the existence of the investigation into the Trump campaign and its relationship with Russia, but the White House dismissed those reports as politically motivated and rallied political allies to rebut them. Mr. Comey’s testimony on Monday was the first public acknowledgment of the case. The F.B.I. typically discloses its investigations only in the rare circumstances when officials believe it is in the public interest.
Reuters
Some Republican lawmakers appear to be reassessing whether to make changes to a surveillance law that allows broad snooping of Internet communications, citing concerns over the handling of classified intercepts after leaks of conversations between Russian officials and American associates of President Donald Trump.
The law, known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, allows U.S. intelligence agencies to collect vast amounts of communications from foreigners, but often incidentally scoops up the communications of Americans.
Until recently most Republicans have been quick to defend Section 702 and Congress had been expected to renew it without major changes before it expires at the end of the year.
Though long criticized by privacy advocates, a new front of potential opposition to Section 702 has emerged as Republicans sputter about what they view as politically motivated leaks by the agencies amid probes of any collusion between the Russian government and Trump's 2016 presidential election campaign.
The tensions burst into full view on Monday at a U.S. House of Representatives' Intelligence Committee hearing, during which FBI Director James Comey confirmed his agency was investigating those ties.
The Guardian
Senate Democrats will seek to tar Neil Gorsuch with the same brush as Donald Trump when his supreme court confirmation hearing begins on Monday, branding him a pro-big business judge who favours special interests over ordinary workers.
The minority party has chosen to focus on this line of attack rather than where the conservative Gorsuch stands on touchtone issues such abortion, gay rights and gun ownership. Analysts say this is an indication that they will use the hearing to hammer Trump – and are ultimately resigned to his nominee’s confirmation.“
Democrats need to figure out how they want to lose it,” said Ed Whelan, president of the Ethics & Public Policy Center, speaking on a panel at Georgetown University Law Center last week. “It’s actually a very important strategic decision and I think they’re struggling with this now.”
Reuters
The head of the FBI publicly challenged U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday, denying the Republican's claim that former president Barack Obama wiretapped his 2016 election campaign and confirming his agency had launched a criminal investigation into any collusion between Trump's campaign and Russia.
FBI Director James Comey told a congressional hearing he had seen no evidence to support a claim by Trump that Obama had wiretapped his campaign headquarters in Trump Tower in New York.
The president created a controversy in early March when he tweeted without giving evidence that Obama had wiretapped the campaign as the Republican businessman took on Democrat Hillary Clinton in the presidential race.
"With respect to the president's tweets about alleged wiretapping directed at him by the prior administration, I have no information that supports those tweets," Comey told the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee hearing.
Reuters
U.S. House Republicans are working on changes to their healthcare overhaul bill to provide more generous tax credits for older Americans and add a work requirement for the Medicaid program for the poor, House Speaker Paul Ryan said on Sunday.
Ryan said Republican leaders still planned to bring the healthcare bill to a vote on the House of Representatives floor on Thursday. Speaking on the "Fox News Sunday" television program, he said leaders were working to address concerns that had been raised by rank-and-file Republicans to the legislation.
Republicans remain deeply divided over the healthcare overhaul, which is President Donald Trump's first major legislative initiative. It aims to fulfill his campaign pledge to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare, the signature healthcare program of his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama.
Democrats say the Republican plan could throw millions off health insurance and hurt the elderly, poor and working families while giving tax cuts to the rich.
NPR
With the stroke of a pen on Tuesday, Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson is expected to separate a holiday that has for decades celebrated both Martin Luther King Jr. and Gen. Robert E. Lee in the state.
Under the bill that Hutchinson says he'll sign into law, King will have the third Monday of January entirely to himself, as dictated by federal law; Lee will now be commemorated in a state holiday on the second Saturday of October.
If the civil rights icon and Confederate general would seem to make for rather odd bedfellows, the state's Legislature has come to agree. Member station KUAR reportsthat by a 66-11 vote Friday — with 18 members not voting and five voting present — the Arkansas House of Representatives passed a bill to "eliminate the dual status of the joint holiday," and to "specify the teaching of content related to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in conjunction with the corresponding holiday." The Senate had already approved the change.
The Guardian
We spend a lot of time talking about which cities see the most gun violence. But analyzing gun violence at the city level is very misleading. Gun violence is much more local than that.
The Guardian is releasing a new set of nationwide data for 2015 that maps gun murders at the micro level – down to the local census tract. You can use this data to do analysis of how gun murder clusters within neighborhoods in your city or state.
Our analysis was possible thanks to the not-for-profit Gun Violence Archive (GVA), which tracks shootings and gun deaths using media reports. This data set includes the latitude and longitude of each shooting incident. We mapped each of these geolocated gun murders to a census tract – which means that there’s a wealth of demographic data connected to each census tract, allowing you to analyze the levels of poverty, educational attainment and other factors in neighborhoods where gun murders happen.
This article contains the data we used to conduct this analysis. We invite you to download this data and use it for further analysis and reporting. If you use this data, please make sure to credit the Gun Violence Archive and the Guardian.
[...]
Donald Trump has spent months decrying the historic spike in gun violence in Chicago, most recently suggesting on Twitter that if Chicago’s “Mayor can't do it he must ask for Federal help!”
Seventeen minutes from Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s flagship Palm Beach hotel, is a neighborhood with one of the highest gun homicide rates in the country.
Kiki Paulk lives just miles from where Trump and his transition team vacationed this holiday. About every third night, the 31-year-old West Palm Beach resident said, she has to get her children down on the floor to protect them from the gunfire.
The Tamarind Avenue area’s gun murder rate in 2015 was double or triple that of some of the most violent areas in Chicago.
Asked who was working to stop the violence in her neighborhood, Paulk said, “No – no – no – there’s nobody.”
Reuters
Passengers traveling on certain U.S.-bound foreign airline flights will have to check electronic devices larger than a cell phone once U.S. authorities formalize a new ban in response to an unspecified terrorism threat, U.S. officials told Reuters on Monday.
The new rule is expected to be announced Tuesday by the Department of Homeland Security, the officials said, adding that it had been under consideration since the U.S. government learned of a threat several weeks ago.
A source said the rule would cover around eight to 10 foreign airlines. A separate government official confirmed an Associated Press report that the ban will affect 10 airports in eight countries in the Middle East and North Africa.
Reuters reported earlier the ban would include airlines based in Jordan and Saudi Arabia. The officials did not name the other countries.
BuzzFeed News
Ivanka Trump has a new office: The White House.
The president’s daughter will be working as an adviser from the West Wing, gaining access to a government-issued phone, security clearance, and classified information, her attorney told the Associated Press.
The move further solidifies Trump’s prominent, though unofficial, place in the new administration. Trump has attended multiple, high-level meetings since her father became president, including a recent roundtable with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
WORLD NEWS
AFP
Iraqi forces battled Islamic State group fighters on Monday to push into Mosul's Old City where thousands of civilians remain trapped under jihadist rule.
The city's historic centre is home to the Al-Nuri mosque, where IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in July 2014 proclaimed an IS "caliphate" in jihadist-controlled territory in Iraq and neighbouring Syria.
The forces have recaptured several neighbourhoods from IS since starting the push for west Mosul last month, but the battle for the Old City, with its warrens of alleyways, was always expected to be tough.
Located on the west bank of the River Tigris which divides the city, the densely populated old centre is difficult for armoured vehicles to navigate and any use of heavy weapons there risks putting civilian lives in danger.
Iraqi forces on Monday aimed to press forward to enter the Old City from the Iron Bridge in an area rocked by heavy fighting the previous day, the commander of the Rapid Response Division's 2nd Brigade told AFP.
AFP
France's tumultuous presidential race steps up a gear on Monday as the five leading candidates face off in a TV debate, the first of its kind in the eurozone's second biggest economy, with just a month to go before the vote.
In the most unpredictable election in years, far-right National Front (FN) leader Marine Le Pen and centrist Emmanuel Macron have been running neck-and-neck for weeks, with the latest opinion poll showing Macron just half a percentage point ahead for the first round of voting on April 23.
The debate will be the first time in history that French voters get an opportunity to compare the leading candidates before the first round as the frontrunners share the stage with the candidates currently in third and fourth place, Francois Fillon of the right and Benoit Hamon of the left, along with the far-left Jean-Luc Melenchon.
All 11 contenders, spanning the spectrum from Trotskyist left to the far right, will take part in another debate on April 4. In previous elections, TV debates have been held only between the two finalists. This year's runoff is scheduled for May 7.
- Disgruntled voters -
AFP
Swiss banking giant UBS will go on trial in France for establishing a wide-ranging tax fraud scheme, legal sources told AFP on Monday.
UBS will be charged with illegal banking practices and dissimulating tax fraud, the sources said, adding UBS's French subsidiary will also go on trial for complicity.
Five UBS top managers are also facing trial, including Raoul Weil, the former third-in-command at UBS.
France opened a probe into UBS after former employees blew the whistle over the bank's alleged system of setting up dual accounts to hide the movement of capital into Switzerland between 2004 and 2012.
The bank's staff allegedly approached French clients, from wealthy businessmen to sports stars, during receptions, golf tournaments or concerts to convince them to hide their money in Switzerland.
- 'Aggravated laundering' -
DW
Norway has claimed the top spot as the happiest country on Earth, unseating Scandinavian neighbor Denmark, the World Happiness Report found. The report also noted that Germans are happier but Americans are feeling blue.
A new report released Monday has given Norwegians something to celebrate - if they weren't smiling already. The Scandinavian country vaulted three spots to claim the title of world's happiest country according to the latest world Happiness Report released on Monday.
Norway ousted Denmark, which landed in this year's second spot, followed by Iceland and Switzerland.
Al Jazeera
Mohamed Tennari, a medical doctor, was visiting an electronics repair shop in the northwestern Syrian village of Sarmin to have a broken internet router fixed. The store was owned by family friend Waref Taleb. Tennari left the router with Taleb and returned the following day to collect it. Taleb did not charge him for the fix. These were the last exchanges the two Syrian friends would ever have.
The next time Tennari saw Taleb was on March 16, 2015, a month or two later, following a chlorine chemical attack in Sarmin. This time, though, Taleb was on an operation table in the emergency room of the Sarmin field hospital.
Tennari rushed into the emergency room to see Taleb, who was coughing, choking, foaming at the mouth, and barely clinging to life. That night, a helicopter had dropped a barrel bomb containing chlorine that exploded on Taleb's home.
"We couldn't help him because he inhaled a lot of chlorine," Tennari, 36, recalled, who has been working as a doctor in Syria since 2007.
The Guardian
Theresa May will trigger article 50, the formal mechanism for starting negotiations for Britain to leave the European Union, on Wednesday 29 March, the prime minister’s spokesman has confirmed.
The UK’s permanent representative to the European Union, Sir Tim Barrow, notified the EU on Monday morning that a letter should be expected on that date. The move will put the UK on course to leave the EU on the same date in 2019.
May, who was visiting Wales on Monday, intended to visit Northern Ireland and Scotland before the formal notification was sent by letter, Downing Street said.
Speaking during her visit to Swansea after the date was announced, May said: “I am very clear that I want to ensure we get the best possible deal for the United Kingdom that works for everyone across the United Kingdom and all parts of the UK when we enter these negotiations.
Reuters
Nearly half of Canadians want to deport people who are illegally crossing into Canada from the United States, and a similar number disapprove of how Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is handling the influx, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Monday.
A significant minority, four out of 10 respondents, said the border crossers could make Canada "less safe," underlining the potential political risk for Trudeau's Liberal government.
The increasing flow of hundreds of asylum-seekers of African and Middle Eastern origin from the United States in recent months has become a contentious issue in Canada.
There has been broad bipartisan support for high levels of legal immigration for decades in Canada. But Trudeau has come under pressure over the flow of the illegal migrants. He is questioned about it every time he appears in parliament, from opponents on the left, who want more asylum-seekers to be allowed in, and critics on the right, who say the migrants pose a potential security risk.
Canadians appeared to be just as concerned about illegal immigration as their American neighbors, according to the poll, which was conducted between March 8-9. Some 48 percent of Canadians said they supported “increasing the deportation of people living in Canada illegally.” (For graphics on asylum process, immigration poll see tmsnrt.rs/2nyY8CJ)
THE ENVIRONMENT, SCIENCE, HEALTH AND TECHNOLOGY
Climate Central (03/19/2017)
Scientists' efforts to develop new crops able to resist climate change, droughts and other shocks have been boosted by the United States joining an international seeds treaty, a research group said.
The United States this week became the single largest party to a U.N. agreement under which countries allow researchers from other member states free access to their crop gene banks - collections of varieties of seeds, plants and roots.
By joining, the United States adds more than 570,000 types of maize, wheat, potatoes and other crops to the 1.5 million varieties available under the treaty's sharing system managed by the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
"The quality and size of gene bank contributions by the United States will further the progress of scientific research," CGIAR, a global agricultural research organisation, said in a statement.
As farmers worldwide experience more frequent drought and erratic rainfall linked to global warming, scientists are racing to find crops capable of tolerating increasingly high temperatures, water shortages and dry conditions.
Access to a large pool of seeds is vital for researchers to choose the best varieties to cross and create new strains resistant to pests, disease and drought, while also improving yields to help feed a growing population, according to FAO.
"Biodiversity can help us face the impacts of climate change," said FAO Director-General Jose Graziano da Silva in a statement marking the U.S. accession to the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture.
The Guardian
Uber president Jeff Jones left the taxi-hailing firm after just six months in the job because working at Uber was incompatible with his values, he said.
Jones’s departure is the latest blow to the San Francisco-based company, after revelations of a secret programme to evade law enforcement, allegations of workplace discrimination and sexual harassment, and a string of departures of high-level executives.
He told the tech blog Recode, which first reported his resignation: “The beliefs and approach to leadership that have guided my career are inconsistent with what I saw and experienced at Uber, and I can no longer continue as president of the ride-sharing business.”
The embattled company confirmed that Jones had quit. “We want to thank Jeff for his six months at the company and wish him all the best,” it said.
The Guardian
Sesame Street is adding a new character to its ranks – a muppet called Julia, who has autism.
Julia, a four-year-old with bright orange hair, a pink dress and a favorite toy rabbit called Fluffster, will make her debut on 10 April in an episode called “Meet Julia”. She has already appeared in Sesame Street cartoons and books, but this will be her first appearance on the famous children’s show.
“We wanted to address autism in general because of the growing number of children who are diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder,” Sherrie Westin, EVP of global social impact and philanthropy at Sesame Workshop, the non-profit behind Sesame Street, told the Guardian.
NPR
Safety advocates are worried that lawmakers are getting ready to make it harder to penalize companies that don't keep track of workers' injuries.
Since 1971, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has required many employers to keep careful records of any worker injuries or illnesses.
David Michaels, the former head of OSHA who now is a professor at George Washington University's School of Public Health, says the rules affect millions of Americans employed in "everything from steel mills to poultry processing plants."
Companies are required to keep injury records for five years, and he says this isn't pointless paperwork.
"The only way employers and workers understand what's going on in the workplace and why workers are being hurt is by looking at the log and by investigating the injuries that occurred," says Michaels.
LITERATURE
NPR
On a bitterly cold day in February 1846, the French writer Victor Hugo was on his way to work when he saw something that affected him profoundly.
A thin young man with a loaf of bread under his arm was being led away by police. Bystanders said he was being arrested for stealing the loaf. He was dressed in mud-spattered clothes, his bare feet thrust into clogs, his ankles wrapped in bloodied rags in lieu of stockings.
"It made me think," wrote Hugo. "The man was no longer a man in my eyes but the specter of la misère, of poverty."
Anyone who has read or watched Les Misérables will recognize that wretched scene immediately. It is retold in The Novel of the Century: The Extraordinary Adventure of Les Misérables, a new book out this month by Princeton professor David Bellos, which tells the fascinating story behind Hugo's 1862 masterpiece.