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, planter, JML9999, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse, 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.
Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.
Chicago Tribune: How much candy can you get with $5? We take a fiver and a sweet tooth to Chicago stores by Erin Ben-Moche
Candy. Think back to the days when it seemed as if you could buy the whole candy store for a dollar.
Maybe kids always think that. Recently on Michigan Avenue, I overheard a conversation between kids and their dad, who let them roam wild in Dylan's Candy Bar with $5 each in their hands, but they couldn't go over the $5 budget. The kids thought they'd tricked their dad, but the real joke was on them — unless they were smart enough to put their earnings together, making it $15. I didn't stay to find out.
Washington Post: Action on Trump’s tax cut plan could be delayed until next year by Damien Paietta and Kelsey Snell
The White House’s push to quickly pass a major package of tax cuts through Congress is facing a fall calendar full of legislative land mines, potentially delaying a key part of President Trump’s agenda into at least 2018.
The Trump administration sees tax cuts as an achievable victory after a string of failed attempts to pass other parts of the president’s legislative agenda, as well as a proposal that could unite a party fractured over Senate Republicans’ failure last week to vote through a repeal of parts of the Affordable Care Act.
Trump touted the tax proposal Tuesday in a meeting with business executives, saying his team was “pursuing bold tax cuts” to help companies grow.
“We’re unleashing a new era of American prosperity perhaps like we have never seen it before,” he said at the meeting.
Republican leaders in Congress, however, face a pair of deadlines that are delaying any action on taxes. The current budget is set to expire at the end of September, and unless Congress approves new funding, there will be a partial government shutdown that will close national parks and put hundreds of thousands of federal workers on unpaid leave.
New York Times: Justice Dept. to Take On Affirmative Action in College Admissions by Charlie Savage
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is preparing to redirect resources of the Justice Department’s civil rights division toward investigating and suing universities over affirmative action admissions policies deemed to discriminate against white applicants, according to a document obtained by The New York Times.
The document, an internal announcement to the civil rights division, seeks current lawyers interested in working for a new project on “investigations and possible litigation related to intentional race-based discrimination in college and university admissions.”
The announcement suggests that the project will be run out of the division’s front office, where the Trump administration’s political appointees work, rather than its Educational Opportunities Section, which is run by career civil servants and normally handles work involving schools and universities.
The document does not explicitly identify whom the Justice Department considers at risk of discrimination because of affirmative action admissions policies. But the phrasing it uses, “intentional race-based discrimination,” cuts to the heart of programs designed to bring more minority students to university campuses.
The hotter the TrumpRussia collusion story gets, the more that the Trump Admnistration will double and triple down on bigotry...but we knew that.
ProPublica: Confusion, Fear, Cynicism: Why People Don’t Report Hate Incidents by Ken Schwencke
It is one of the most striking and curious statistics contained in a recent Bureau of Justice Statistics report on hate crimes in America: 54 percent of the roughly 250,000 people who said they were victimized in recent years chose not to file a formal complaint with the authorities.
The Matthew Shepard Foundation, an advocacy organization based in Colorado that played a role in successfully pushing for national hate crime legislation, has recently tried to better understand the phenomenon. The foundation began asking the Denver residents notifying the organization about being victimized to explain why they did or did not report the incident to the police.
The effort began in February and so far has produced a modest 15 responses — not all of which appear to be crimes. But in a country largely bereft of reliable or probing data on hate crimes, the information collected by the foundation has value.
The foundation, which shared its data as part of our Documenting Hate project, agreed to make public some of the responses to the question on reporting to authorities. The responses are anonymous, but they offer glimpses into the mix of forces at work when victims are deciding what to do: confusion about the definition of hate crimes; skepticism of the commitment by law enforcement to aggressively investigate; fear of retaliation.
New York Times: Decades of Questions Get Chilling Answer: He Was John Wayne Gacy’s Victim by Julie Bosman
MAYWOOD, Ill. — It was a painful mystery that had simmered just below the surface for about 40 years, and last month, the family of James Byron Haakenson finally got their answer. As had been long feared, the funny, good-natured 16-year-old they called Jimmy had been a victim of John Wayne Gacy, one of the country’s most notorious serial killers.
But the revelation by Chicago-area law enforcement officials opened up a new set of haunting questions for this family as it imagined his final days, now with just enough certainty to be horrifying.
“How did this 16-year-old kid get to Chicago, and how in the heck did he run into this awful man?” Lorie Sisterman, Jimmy’s older sister, said from her home in North St. Paul.
The story of Jimmy’s identification, decades after his death, is a remarkable quest that spanned the country. It took a curious nephew in Texas with a knack for digging around online, siblings in Minnesota and South Dakota who had never stopped wondering what had happened to their brother, and a sheriff-detective team in Illinois determined to close cold cases.
Reuters: Exclusive: Former Justice Department official joins Mueller team by Karen Freifeld
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A former U.S. Justice Department official has become the latest lawyer to join special counsel Robert Mueller's team investigating Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential election, a spokesman for the team confirmed.
Greg Andres started on Tuesday, becoming the 16th lawyer on the team, said Josh Stueve, a spokesman for the special counsel.
Most recently a white-collar criminal defense lawyer with New York law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell, Andres, 50, served at the Justice Department from 2010 to 2012. He was deputy assistant attorney general in the criminal division, where he oversaw the fraud unit and managed the program that targeted illegal foreign bribery.
Mueller, who was appointed special counsel in May, is looking into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the election, among other matters. Congressional committees are also investigating the matter.
That Mueller continues to expand his team means the probe is not going to end anytime soon, said Robert Ray, who succeeded Kenneth Starr as independent counsel for the Whitewater investigation during the Clinton administration.
Mother Jones: ISIS and Global Warming Are Considered Top Security Threats by Most of the World by Rebecca Leber
People around the world consider climate change to be a top security threat—and in some cases the biggest threat, according to a survey published Tuesday by Pew Research Center. The poll surveyed 42,000 adults in 38 countries and asked them to prioritize eight types of perceived threats, including concern about the economy, cybersecurity, climate change, and ISIS.
Of course, views on all these issues varied widely depending on region, age, and the political leanings of those who were surveyed. In most cases, especially in most western European countries, climate change ranks in second place when it’s not a top concern. Overall 13 countries surveyed—most clustered in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa—ranked global warming as the top concern. Eighteen nations picked ISIS.
Americans tend to consider ISIS and cybersecurity to be greater threats than climate change, in comparison to Canada and most European countries. Out of the eight issues polled, Americans rank climate change third (56 percent), while 74 percent rank ISIS as number one, and 71 percent see cyberattacks as a top threat. Cybesecurity also comes in second in Germany and the UK, which were also recent victims of high-profile attacks.
Politico (Europe): Berlusconi battles to lead the Italian right by Giada Zampano
ROME — It’s official, Silvio Berlusconi is back in the political fray.
The four-time Italian prime minister, who turns 81 in September, may be marred by sex scandals and barred from holding public office after a tax fraud conviction. But that hasn’t stopped him from emerging as a potent political force ahead of a parliamentary election early next year.
His first task: to seize the leadership of the right.
“Berlusconi is in the race, and he’s always been,” said Renato Brunetta, whip in the lower house of parliament for the media mogul’s Forza Italia party. “And with him, we’re able to win.”
Rejuvenated by a surprise success in June’s local elections, Forza Italia is neck-and-neck with the far-right Northern League led by Matteo Salvini. According to a recent survey by the Italian polling firm IPSOS, both parties are polling at just over 15 percent.
AFP: Venezuela sends two top opposition leaders back to jail
Venezuela's intelligence service hauled two prominent opposition leaders back to prison Tuesday, triggering international outcry as embattled President Nicolas Maduro moved to shore up his power after an election widely denounced as a sham.
The raids, carried out in the dead of night, came just one day before a new assembly elected on Sunday is supposed to take office, superseding the opposition-controlled legislature.
In a statement, the Supreme Court said protest leader Leopoldo Lopez and Caracas ex-mayor Antonio Ledezma were sent back to prison because they had violated the terms of their house arrest by making political statements.
Aljazeera: Why Kenya's presidential election on August 8 matters by Hamza Mohamed
Kenyans will be heading to the polls on August 8 for elections that have been closely followed not just in the Horn of Africa country but across the world.
Election posters have replaced consumer goods ads on street billboards as politicians step up their campaigns to win over the 19 million registered voters.
It is the sixth presidential election since the country of more than 45 million people embraced a multiparty democratic system in 1992.
So why do the elections in Kenya matter not just to Kenyans but to the rest of the African continent and the world?
Nairobi is East Africa's economic hub, and the country is the second-largest economy in the region, according to figures from the World Bank and the International Monitory Fund (IMF).
Until late 2014, when its larger neighbour, Ethiopia, overtook it, Kenya had the biggest economy - at more than $60bn - of the East Africa region.
"Kenya was quick to welcome foreign investors, more than its neighbours. Kenya, for a long time, had the fastest developing economy in the region," Samuel Nyademo, an economist at Nairobi University, told Al Jazeera.
BBC: India Gujarat floods kill more than 200
Floods in the western Indian state of Gujarat have killed 218 people, government officials have confirmed.
The death toll doubled over the last two days as officials found more than 100 bodies once waters began receding.
Officials estimate that the floods have affected 450,000 people in the state.
This years monsoon rains have affected millions across at least 20 states in India. The north-eastern state of Assam has also seen dozens killed and hundreds of thousands displaced.
The government has announced aid packages for affected areas and Prime Minister Narendra Modi is due to visit Assam on Tuesday.
He has said the aim of his visit is to find a "permanent solution" to the flooding that Assam faces every year.
The Press Trust of India news agency quoted an official as saying that many affected people in Gujarat had begun returning to their villages.
Nature: Lab etiquette: The perils of pet peeves by Amber Dance
Virologist Alice Huang awoke in a cold sweat after a nightmare. Out sick at home, she dreamt that she'd returned to her laboratory to find that her lab members had committed her most vexing workplace pet peeve, and on a grand scale — all the equipment was broken, and no one would admit to breaking it.
Of course, when Huang returned in real life to her workplace at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, everything was fine. She had long ago drilled her top rule into everyone's head: 'Break something, say something'. At least then, she reasons, the equipment can be fixed and the experiments keep running.
Lab annoyances are not just bad dreams: they are common, exasperating and can impair morale. Some just go with the job, such as the stench of beta-mercaptoethanol, used as an antioxidant, or the roar of mechanical equipment. But the biggest gripe of many scientists is a labmate's annoying habit: leaving a mess on the bench, using the last box of pipette tips or stealing a colleague's precious Sharpie permanent markers.
“All these are little things, but they can add up,” says Karen Peterson, scientific ombudsman at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington. “It's seemingly a small thing, but it's a big deal to you.”
FiveThirtyEight: Some Pretty Cool Science Is Gonna Happen During The Eclipse by Rebecca Boyle
On Aug. 21, mid-morning Pacific time, the town of Salem, Oregon, will slip into shadow. The moon will slowly and inexorably slide in front of the sun, and our star’s light will slowly grow dimmer. Filtered through foliage, sunlight will appear on the ground as a smattering of crescents.
As more of the sun’s disk disappears, ripples of light and darkness called “shadow bands” will wiggle across the ground, the way sunlight seems to shimmy on the bottom of a swimming pool. They are a harbinger of the coming total eclipse. Birds will hasten back to roosts.
Then, at 10:15 a.m., in one of the most unusual coincidences in all of celestial mechanics, the moon will completely block the sun’s disk. In the final seconds, a dazzling ray of light, known as the diamond ring, will remain: It is sunlight filtering through valleys on the moon. Insects will thrum and chirp as if it’s dusk. The temperature will drop.
At once, the Oregon landscape will be drained of color. Only the sun’s atmosphere, called the corona, will be visible, appearing as a ghostly wreath of light licked by flames of pink and red. Only during totality can you see these tendrils, which reach Earth and affect our daily lives as much as any part of our star. The sky will seem to dance, four other planets will emerge from their daytime hiding spots behind the sun’s glare, and millions of Americans will experience their first total solar eclipse.
Guardian: Usain Bolt warns fellow athletes: stop doping or the sport will die by Sean Ingle
Usain Bolt has issued a stark warning to his fellow athletes that they must stop doping otherwise track and field will die. The triple Olympic 100m and 200m champion insisted that the sport was on the mend following the staggering revelations of state-sponsored doping in Russia but conceded more needed to be done to tackle the scourge of performance-enhancing drugs.
“I don’t think it gets any worse than that,” he said, referring to the problems in Russia which he agreed had left the sport at rock bottom. “But it’s on its way back up now. Hopefully, athletes will see what’s going on and understand that if they don’t stop what they’re doing the sport will die. And hopefully they will understand what the sport is going through and what they need to do as athletes to help it move forward.”
But Bolt, who will hang up his spikes after the world championships in London which start on Friday, said he was still optimistic that these perennial problems could be tackled. “You can’t be happy about doping at all, it’s not good for the sport,” he added. “But over the years we’re doing a better job, it’s getting clean and we’re catching up to a lot of athletes. There’s an understanding that, listen, if you cheat you will get caught. Over time the sport will get better.
“I said a couple of years ago it had to get really bad, when there’s nowhere else to go but up. The only way track and field has left to go is up.”
Don’t forget that Mr. Meteor Blades is hosting an open thread for night owls tonight.
Everyone have a great evening!