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.
From Deadspin: The Knicks Are Done With Phil Jackson
Knicks fans are perhaps permanently broken and unable to experience joy. But they can still find a reasonable simulacrum of it in relief. Phil Jackson, after three years of somehow making a terrible, dispirited, dysfunctional franchise even worse in all categories, is out as team president.
ESPN broke the news overnight, and the local tabloids are confirming it this morning: Owner James Dolan is going to eat the two years and $24 million remaining on Jackson’s five-year contract just to get Phil out of the paint before he alienates the team beyond repair.
One reason is Jackson’s beef with Kristaps Porzingis, the only positive thing to happen to this team since that month Jeremy Lin was good. Jackson has been holding a grudge since Porzingis skipped his exit meeting, apparently never considering the reasons Porzingis was unhappy: The Knicks fired his favorite assistant coach, they insisted on running an offense he didn’t like, the team wasn’t improving, and they certainly weren’t getting him any help, to the point of constantly trying to drive off Carmelo Anthony, his only decent teammate. But it was apparently Jackson’s showdown with Anthony that ultimately did him in.
From the New York Times: Australian Cardinal and Aide to Pope Is Charged With Sexual Assault
Australia’s senior Roman Catholic prelate, and one of Pope Francis’ top advisers, has been charged with sexual assault, the police in the Australian state of Victoria said on Thursday.
The prelate, Cardinal George Pell, became the highest-ranking Vatican official in recent years to face criminal charges involving accusations of sexual offenses. The case will test the credibility of Francis’ initiatives to foster greater accountability after abuse scandals that have shaken the church around the world.
“Cardinal Pell has been charged on summons, and he is required to appear at the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court” on July 18, Shane Patton, the deputy police commissioner, said at a news conference.
From Jezebel: Michelle Rodriguez Threatens to Quit Fast and the Furious Franchise If Women Aren't Given More to Do
Michelle Rodriguez, best known as Letty in The Fast and the Furious franchise, is perhaps the number two fan of the beloved vroom vroom series (second only to her co-star Vin Diesel), but that doesn’t mean that she’s satisfied with her character’s jump seat storylines.
On a new Instagram post about the DVD release of The Fate of the Furious (the eighth Fast and the Furious film), Rodriguez captioned:
F8 is out digitally today, I hope they decide to show some love to the women of the franchise on the next one. Or I just might have to say goodbye to a loved franchise. It’s been a good ride & Im grateful for the opportunity the fans & studio have provided over the years...One Love.
From the A.V. Club: What did LGBTQ movies look like before Stonewall?
“Well, nobody’s perfect!”
—Some Like It Hot, 1959
Queer themes wrote themselves into the history of film early on—a statistical inevitability, because even in those periods when explicitly LGBTQ characters and plots were kept out of the mainstream, there were bound to be a few gay or bisexual men behind the camera. Among these were some of the canonical greats of the first half-century of movies: F.W. Murnau, Jean Cocteau, George Cukor, James Whale, et al. Of course, they were all male. When it comes to American sound film before the 1950s, notable examples of bona fide sapphic ogling are pretty much limited to the giggly, touchy, silk-nightie-hung gal pals of The Wild Party (1929), directed by Dorothy Arzner, who was about as out as a woman could be at the time while pursuing a high-profile career. As for any expression of self that might be prefixed trans-, forget about it.
Yet classic cinema is steeped in male-on-male homoeroticism, especially the B genre movies, and the silent era is full of cross-dressing plots, drag roles, and assorted other varieties of gender-bending. Is it because taboos of queerness always exist in proportion to other, tacit varieties of feeling, being, or acting queer and to accepted levels of homoeroticism in same-sex friendships? That’s not to say that straight men are on perpetual alert five to fuck each other, but that the very human tendency to eroticize and fetishize all sorts of things that aren’t strictly sexual has made us into creatures of strange wiring. Our reality is queer. So are movies. We’ve just made a social art out of pretending otherwise.
From NBC News: As Trump Travel Ban Takes Effect Thursday, Many Questions Still Up in Air
The Trump administration's travel restrictions blocking foreigners from six Muslim-majority countries and refugees fleeing persecution will take effect Thursday, following the Supreme Court’s decision earlier this week to temporarily uphold portions of the ban.
David Lapan, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, confirmed to NBC News Wednesday evening that the order "will begin to be implemented tomorrow and detailed guidance will be provided to DHS professionals."
A senior administration official told NBC News that it's likely the ban won't go into effect until the evening.
From the Los Angeles Times: Destruction of Arkansas' Ten Commandments monument places spotlight on separation of church and state
The 6-foot-tall stone monument engraved with the Ten Commandments — a capstone of sorts to years of debate in Arkansas over the separation of church and state – was erected with little pomp on the lush grounds of the state Capitol. Less than 24 hours later, the monument came crumbling down after a Dodge Dart plowed into it.
On Wednesday, as maintenance crews cleaned up the debris, many summed up the incident as the latest chapter in an ongoing nationwide battle over the separation of church and state. Across the country — at state legislatures, city council hearings and school board meetings — questions about whether the Ten Commandments should be displayed have led to legal battles and stark debate over the role of religion in public life and interpretations of the 1st Amendment.
The violence was captured in a Facebook Live video posted by the man charged with ramming the monument, Michael Tate Reed. In the video, Reed can be heard yelling, “Oh, my goodness — freedom!” as his car slams into the 6,000 pound granite slab.
“This really was a horrifying surprise,” said Arkansas state Sen. Jason Rapert, who in 2015 sponsored the Ten Commandments Monument Display Act, which called for erecting the monument on the Capitol grounds in Little Rock. “It’s truly an act of violence toward the people of Arkansas.”
From Buzzfeed: A Teen Was Charged With Killing Her Boyfriend During A Failed YouTube Stunt
Monalisa Perez was arrested on Monday night after she fatally shot her 22-year-old boyfriend, Pedro Ruiz, while the couple were recording a YouTube stunt for her vlog, according to a criminal complaint provided to BuzzFeed News.
On Wednesday, Perez was charged with second-degree manslaughter — a felony that carries a maximum sentence of 10 years, a fine of $20,000, or both.
She was held in a regional jail in Crookston and was scheduled to be arraigned in court on Wednesday afternoon.
Perez called 911 on Monday evening to report that she accidentally shot Ruiz in the chest while they were making a YouTube video at the couple's house in Norman County.
Authorities found Ruiz with a single gunshot wound to his chest and attempted to save his life, but he died at the scene, the complaint said.
From the New York Times: After Helicopter Attack, Venezuelans Ask, What Was That About?
It was an outlandish attack on Venezuela’s centers of power: A police helicopter swooped down from a clear sky while someone inside dropped grenades on the Supreme Court and opened fire on the Interior Ministry.
The rogue police officers inside the craft waved a banner that referred to an article in the Constitution that allows for civil uprisings against tyrants.
But if the assault on Tuesday was meant as a call to arms, it instead perplexed Venezuelans who have been protesting against the government and a devastating economic crisis. Demonstrators took to the streets on Wednesday, many voicing admiration for the stunt, but also wondering why anyone would engage in such a hapless attack. The police stayed in their precincts, showing little support for the dissident officers.
Some people even wondered whether the government had somehow orchestrated the events as a distraction.
From Vice: Trump reportedly unclear on difference between Medicare and Medicaid
Though Trump often portrays himself as all-seeing and all-knowing, there’s a lot of issues on which the president appears to be unclear. This week, a barrage of reports indicated Trump is less-than-clear on several items in his current agenda. Here, compiled in one place, are some of the concepts Trump is reportedly struggling to understand:
HEALTHCARE: Trump confused Medicaid and Medicare at times during his presidential campaign and had to be reminded of their functions, a former senior Trump aide told The Daily Beast Wednesday.
“There would be times when he would describe what was clearly Medicare… but say Medicaid, and when we pointed that out, he would say, ‘That’s what I said, Medicare and Medicaid,'” the source said.