The Overnight News Digest is a nightly series dedicated to chronicling the eschaton. Please add news or other items in the comments.
White House maintenance orders reveal cockroaches, ants and mice infestations
White House maintenance work orders reveal that the historic building's grounds are plagued with mice, cockroaches and ants.
NBC 4 Washington, which obtained the hundreds of work orders, reports that there have been a number of requests to deal with vermin in the White House, including mice in the situation room and the White House Navy mess food service area.
Other requests reported cockroach infestations in at least four parts of the White House, and a colony of ants living in chief of staff John Kelly's office.
The Washington Post
Senate GOP tax plan hits deficit snag, leaving leaders scrambling
A fast-moving Senate Republican effort to overhaul the tax code unexpectedly stalled Thursday evening over concerns about the federal deficit, leaving the GOP without a clear plan to pass the legislation.
Senate leadership, who had hoped to vote to pass the $1.5 trillion tax bill by late Thursday night, instead sent lawmakers home and began to search for a new way to offset the cost of the legislation. They are looking to win the support of several senators, including Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who has led a small group of colleagues in demanding that the bill not drive up the nation’s debt.
Now, Republican leaders may have to brace for an intraparty battle over how far to go to accommodate deficit concerns. Other Republicans are arguing strongly against reducing the size of the bill’s tax cut, as may now be necessary to satisfy the deficit hawks.
Trump tells confidants that a government shutdown might be good for him
President Trump has told confidants that a government shutdown could be good for him politically and is focusing on his hard-line immigration stance as a way to win back supporters unhappy with his outreach to Democrats this fall, according to people who have spoken with him recently […]
Up against a Dec. 8 spending deadline, House Republican leaders on Friday are expected to unveil a measure to extend current funding until Dec. 22, said multiple aides, who were granted anonymity to describe private deliberations. If talks on a longer-term deal to fund the government are not resolved by that time, GOP leaders are prepared to pursue another stopgap plan that would kick the talks into January, the aides said. […]
Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), who has golfed with Trump in recent weeks, said he believes Trump is committed to averting a shutdown… “We’d look like crazy people to shut down the government in light of all of our problems.”
If North Korea fires a nuclear missile at the U.S., how could it be stopped?
Politico
Pelosi ‘sure as hell’ won’t decide resignation, Conyers lawyer says
Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) has not decided whether to resign, his lawyer said Thursday, despite calls from congressional leaders to step down amid several allegations of sexual harassment.
“Nancy Pelosi did not elect the congressman, and she sure as hell won’t be the one to tell the congressman to leave,” said Conyers’ attorney, Arnold Reed, referring to the House minority leader. Conyers, 88, was hospitalized after suffering chest pains and dizziness Wednesday night.
Reed also suggested that the calls for Conyers’ resignation are racially motivated.
Manafort strikes $11 million bail deal with prosecutors
Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort has reached an $11 million bail agreement with prosecutors that could clear the way for him to be released from the house arrest he's been under for the past four weeks.
In court filings released Thursday afternoon, Manafort's defense attorneys revealed "an agreed-upon bail package" with lawyers from special counsel Robert Mueller's office, which obtained an indictment last month charging Manafort and business partner Rick Gates with money laundering and failing to register as foreign agents. […]
Paul Manafort's attorneys had previously proposed pledging his Trump Tower apartment, but prosecutors questioned the value of that property and it was not mentioned in the new filings.
The Guardian
Blackwater founder pitches plan to quell Libya migrant crisis with private police
Erik Prince, the founder of the private military contractor Blackwater, is pushing a plan to intervene in the migrant crisis in Libya with a proposal involving a privately trained police force that would mirror his company’s work in Afghanistan.
The proposal, he said, would be a more humanitarian option for the European Union compared to the chaos that is now gripping the oil-rich nation, given widespread reports of grave human rights abuses by militia groups against migrants.
Prince, who is close to the Trump administration and is mulling a run for Senate in Wyoming, said it would be relatively easy for his company, Frontier Services Group, to stop, detain, house and “repatriate” hundreds of thousands of African migrants who are seeking a path to Europe through Libya.
State department denies Rex Tillerson is being replaced as Trump reveals little
The state department has said it has been assured by the White House there are no plans to oust Rex Tillerson and replace him with the CIA director, Mike Pompeo.
Donald Trump himself was less reassuring, however. When asked whether Tillerson would stay in his job… “He’s here. Rex is here,” Trump said.
The cryptic non-denial added fuel to multiple reports quoting White House officials as saying a plan was under consideration to get rid of Tillerson, put Pompeo, a former Republican congressman in his place, and make Senator Tom Cotton, another Trump loyalist, CIA director.
Pterosaurs: record haul of egg fossils from ancient flying reptile found in China
A discovery in northwestern China of hundreds of fossilized pterosaur eggs is providing fresh understanding of the flying reptiles that lived alongside the dinosaurs, including evidence that their babies were born flightless and needed parental care.
Scientists said on Thursday they unearthed 215 eggs of the fish-eating Hamipterus tianshanensis – a species whose adults had a crest atop an elongated skull, pointy teeth and a wingspan of more than 11ft (3.5m) – including 16 eggs containing partial embryonic remains.
StarTribune
New allegations against Sen. Al Franken, new demands he resign
The Senate Ethics Committee formally launched an investigation into Sen. Al Franken on Thursday, hours after another woman said the Minnesota senator groped her. […]
In the latest allegations, an Army veteran accused Franken of groping her. Stephanie Kemplin told CNN that Franken threw an arm around her and cupped her breast as she posed with him after a USO show while she was deployed in Kuwait in December 2003. […]
Franken’s office responded to Kemplin’s account with a variation of the response it has given to other allegations from women in recent days: “As Sen. Franken made clear this week, he takes thousands of photos and has met tens of thousands of people and he has never intentionally engaged in this kind of conduct. He remains fully committed to cooperating with the ethics investigation.”
The Seattle Times
Amazon’s HQ2 choice: go to software developers, or find a site that will pull them in
Amazon.com’s search for a second headquarters is, in part, a hunt for software developers. […]
So, where does the software developer crowd want to live and work? […]
As Amazon evaluates bids for HQ2, it is said to be weighing two major gauges of the labor market among its range of data points: the number of highly educated workers already in a city, and Amazon’s assessment of how many young computer science and engineering graduates it could convince to move to a particular area. If Amazon ends up prioritizing the latter, that could weigh in favor of a city with a better cultural scene, or quality of life, or lower cost of living.
Reuters
How parents of adopted children foiled a U.S. Republican tax proposal
Charles “Chuck” Johnson is not the kind of foot soldier in the army of lobbyists that House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan warned would descend on Washington to fight the biggest overhaul of the tax code since the 1980s.
Johnson, 53, with a degree in social work and another from a theological seminary, heads the National Council for Adoption, a small organization in Alexandria, Virginia that represents adoption agencies and adoption lawyers. Despite a relative lack of clout, parents of adopted children and adoption advocates beat back against a minor change in the tax code that would have removed a tax credit to help cover the costs of adoption.
Turkish gold trader implicates Erdogan in Iran money laundering
A Turkish-Iranian gold trader on Thursday told jurors in a New York federal court that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan authorized a transaction in a scheme to help Iran evade U.S. sanctions.
Reza Zarrab is cooperating with U.S. prosecutors in the criminal trial of a Turkish bank executive accused of helping to launder money for Iran. At the time of the alleged conspiracy, Erdogan was Turkey’s prime minister.
Zarrab said he had learned from Zafer Caglayan, who was Turkey’s economy minister, that Erdogan and then-treasury minister Ali Babacan had authorized two Turkish banks, Ziraat Bank and VakifBank, to move funds for Iran.
Russia accuses U.S. of trying to provoke North Korean leader 'to fly off handle'
Russia accused the United States on Thursday of trying to provoke North Korean leader Kim Jong Un into “flying off the handle” over his missile program to hand Washington a pretext to destroy his country.
In some of his most robust comments on the subject to date, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also flatly rejected a U.S. call to cut ties with Pyongyang over its nuclear and ballistic missile program and said U.S. policy towards North Korea was deeply flawed.
Tensions on the Korean Peninsula have flared after North Korea said it had successfully tested a new intercontinental ballistic missile on Wednesday in a “breakthrough” that put the U.S. mainland within range of its nuclear weapons.
BBC News
Japan's Emperor Akihito to abdicate in April 2019
Japan's ageing Emperor Akihito will step down in April 2019, marking the end of an imperial era for Japan. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced the abdication date shortly after a government and royal panel met to discuss the timing.
The 83-year-old emperor had said last year that his age and health made it difficult to fulfil duties. The timing of his abdication, the first in more than two centuries, has been the subject of debate in Japan.
Is crude oil killing children in Nigeria?
When thunder crackles in the Niger Delta, like the sound of a short burst of fire, the pounding rain is never far behind it.
Caught in the downpour in the town of Kogbara Dere, known as K Dere, a woman runs to the shelter of a restaurant by the side of the road. The plastic bottles of homemade petrol she was selling are beaten off their wooden perch by the heavy rain.
The smell of petrol rises up from the ground and hangs briefly in the air before being washed down a mucky lane. Following the shiny oil slick, through a warren of small concrete houses, we arrive at the home of Love Sunday.
The avocado police protecting Mexico's green gold
Tancítaro looks and feels like a typical Mexican town: There is a central square with a bandstand and a little church. A mariachi band is playing as I arrive. The music is part of a funeral procession with Tancítaro residents watching on.
But there is something that makes this quaint little town feel different. The pickup trucks ubiquitous in Mexico are shinier and newer here. Tancítaro is powered on avocados, its people are rich from Mexico's green gold. This town is known as Mexico's avocado capital.
Deutsche Welle
The Hague Tribunal: A death and the painful truth
One day on, the Hague Tribunal's guilty verdict against six former Bosnian Croat leaders for crimes committed during the Bosnian War in the early 1990s, and Slobodan Praljak's spectacular suicide before the court on live television, remained the top headline in Croatia. The country's current situation might best be described as a state of emergency.
On Thursday, the Croatian parliament, the Sabor, held a moment of silence for Praljak, a former military general — and a man legally convicted of being a war criminal by The Hague Tribunal. Some representatives in the hall said that the verdict was unjust and ignored historical facts, exclaiming that Praljak had died for his people. Another parliamentarian who said the Tribunal's decision had finally shined a light on something that had long been kept silent in Croatia was immediately threatened by an enraged colleague: "Three people called my office yesterday after you said you were happy that Praljak poisoned himself. If they could have found you, you wouldn't be here today." Another representative who refused to take part in a moment of silence for a convicted war criminal was informed via social media that "seven bullets" were waiting for him.
Found footage - The camera that floated across the North Sea
German and English media on Friday widened the search for a fair-haired boy with a plastic bucket who videoed himself in England's Thornwick Bay.
The young man's watertight "action-cam" was somehow washed away and swept hundreds of kilometers to Süderoog, a low-lying German island across the North Sea.
It was found among flotsam on November 2 by Roland Spreer, 67, whose son Holger Spreer and wife Nele Wree, coastal park employees and Süderoog's sole residents, examined the camera's undamaged digital contents.
Its 11 minutes of footage show the boy enjoying a day at the beach in summer shorts and a T-shirt, before waves toppled his camera from a rock pool ledge into the sea. By early Friday, the video had been viewed 86,000 times, apparently without anyone claiming ownership.
The Globe and Mail
Sarah Kendzior: Gutting net neutrality is a death knell for the resistance
For nearly a year, America has stood at the crossroads of a damaged democracy and a burgeoning autocracy. If net neutrality is destroyed, we will cross firmly into the latter, and our return is unlikely. […]
The erosion of freedom of speech and assembly has always been a hallmark of dictatorship, one traditionally associated with formal decrees of censorship or dramatic acts like book burning. In Mr. Trump's corporatized administration, overt state censorship is unnecessary and undesirable: Instead, technology can be manipulated while excessive litigation can force the media into self-censorship. The subtler gesture of removing the neutrality of the internet allows constitutional rights to remain intact on paper but demolished in practice. […]
Americans also face a serious threat to the integrity of elections, with gerrymandering, restrictive voter ID laws, a bogus "voter fraud" commission, insecure voting machines, and foreign interference that is not only unchallenged but is sometimes encouraged by Republicans all adding up to the likelihood that the 2018 midterm elections will not be free or fair. Voter suppression will likely be rampant, with non-white and immigrant Americans the primary targets of disenfranchisement.
And here we lie at the interconnected horror of the Trump administration's autocratic manoeuvres. Consider this scenario for 2018: The repeal of net neutrality will stem the flow of information, making voter suppression harder to document. The packing of the courts will make the voter suppression that is documented harder to challenge. And the long-standing solution to purveyors of unpopular policies – vote them out – will be, by definition, impossible, since the election is rigged and the rigging uncontestable. This carefully constructed web of repression is how democracy dies.