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, Besame, and annetteboardman. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) wader, planter, JML9999, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse, ek hornbeck, ScottyUrb, Interceptor7, BentLiberal, Oke, Man Oh Man, 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 (or sometimes slightly later).
Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments. The machine here is having one of its slow days...
Chicago Sun-Times: How West Side Bust Led Feds to ‘El Chapo’ by Frank Main
One of the biggest drug investigations in history began in Chicago with less than two ounces of heroin.
On a hot summer day in 2007, a west suburban drug dealer named Christopher Baines sold a plastic baggie containing 50 grams of the brown, powdery stuff to a government informant near Cicero and Chicago avenues on Chicago’s West Side.
It was a modest, street-level deal. The buyer paid Baines $5,000. After three more sales to informants, Baines was busted for drug-trafficking.
Cases like these happen all the time in Chicago. Only this time, it ended up leading to Mexican drug kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera, the world’s most-wanted criminal, court records and Chicago Sun-Times interviews with key players in the investigation show.
The arrest of El Chapo by Mexican marines near the coastal city of Los Mochis in Sinaloa in January 2016 already is the stuff of legend, with his unsuccessful escape through stinking sewers following a series of failed raids on his properties, one of them after a clandestine meeting with actor Sean Penn.
Authorities have never revealed that the case against the man who some believe was the biggest drug kingpin in the world began with Baines, a mid-level dealer whose father owned a grocery store in Austin and also drove a bus for the CTA.
Seattle Times: Puget Sound’s homeless crisis pushes 911 beyond its design by Scott Greenstone
Gillian Murphy was driving to work on a chilly day last winter when bright red underwear caught her eye: a man lying face down, head downhill, pants down, in a homeless camp near the Interstate 90 and Interstate 5 interchange.
“I’ll never forget that image,” she said.
She called 911. The dispatcher, Murphy said, was clearly very annoyed. Murphy didn’t have an address, and it was hard for her to tell what street the encampment was on.
“Why do we keep getting these?” the dispatcher said, according to Murphy.
Even as the homeless crisis has reshaped politics of the city and region, 911 — the front door for emergency medical services — has not evolved to cope with the scale of the problem, city leaders say. That leaves callers like Murphy confused about where to turn when they see someone in need of help, especially if it involves a mental-health or substance-abuse crisis.
Boston Globe: Mother of Odin Lloyd says family ‘retraumatized’ over Hernandez’s vacated conviction by Akilah Johnson and Martin Finucane
The mother of a man killed by former New England Patriots football star Aaron Hernandez said Tuesday that her family has been “re-traumatized” and “re-victimized” by the fact that Hernandez’s murder conviction was vacated because of his suicide in prison.
Ursula Ward, whose son, Odin L. Lloyd, was killed by Hernandez, testified at the State House in favor of legislation that is intended to prevent convictions being erased due to the suicide of the convicted person.
Decades of precedent have held that a conviction is not final until a trial is examined by an appellate court.
Hernandez was convicted in Bristol Superior Court in 2015 for murdering Lloyd in North Attleborough in 2013, and an attorney had been assigned to handle the appeal. However, before the appeal, Hernandez committed suicide on April 14, 2017, five days after he was acquitted in Suffolk Superior Court in the murders of two other men in Boston. So his conviction in the Lloyd case was vacated.
Buzzfeed: An Ammo Dealer Has Been Identified As A Second Person Of Interest In The Las Vegas Mass Shooting by Salvador Hernandez
A second person of interest in the deadly Las Vegas shooting that left 58 people dead was identified in unsealed documents Tuesday, revealing investigators were looking to talk to a man just days after the attack.
The previously unidentified man appeared to be an engineer who also sold and manufactured ammunition from his Arizona home.
Las Vegas Sheriff Joe Lombardo had recently said the gunman, Stephen Paddock, acted alone in the Oct. 1 attack. His girlfriend Marilou Danley, who had been previously identified as a person of interest, is not expected to face charges in the investigation.
But court documents released Tuesday revealed officials considered a second man as a person of interest in their investigation. Though his name had been ordered redacted from the records released by a Clark County district court, the Las Vegas Review Journal obtained an unredacted version of the documents that identified the man as Douglas Haig.
"Until the investigation can rule otherwise, Marilou Danley and Douglas Haig have become persons of interest who may have conspired with Stephen Paddock to commit Murder with a Deadly Weapon," the document states.
Miami Herald: In Miami boycott, Wilson calls Trump’s state of the union ‘lies and innuendo’ by David Smiley
Ahead of a State of the Union address billed as a bipartisan call to action, U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson sat in the bowels of a historic Miami church Tuesday night and predicted a speech full of “lies and innuendo.”
“Nothing he says tonight will come true. Nothing,” she said.
Wilson, one of about a dozen Democratic members of Congress skipping President Donald Trump’s first State of the Union speech, gathered in the lower level of Overtown’s Greater Bethel AME Church with a small crowd of supporters and declared Miami in unity and defiance of the president.
Though the rest of Miami-Dade’s congressional delegation was in attendance Tuesday night in Washington D.C. — some making a statement through their choice of guest — Wilson announced more than two weeks ago that she was boycotting the State of the Union due to Trump’s “recent racist and incendiary remarks about Haiti and African nations” during a private meeting about immigration policy.
Guardian: America's public lands belong to all of us. We owe it to ourselves to save them by Theodore Roosevelt IV
A truly noble idea – one deeply democratic in its inspiration and one that honors the human need to be in relationship to awe and majesty.
America’s public lands.
This idea was seeded by early American settlers, who came here to escape a class system in Europe that excluded them from land – owning it, hunting on it, surviving on it. Conservation was articulated as a national endeavor by hunters and foresters with the unique discernment that our game and timber resources were not boundless, and required professional management to remain bountiful.
This was a hard-won national ethos. From the pitch battles for their existence, our public lands were imbued with moral standing and national sanction: the idea that they “belong” to all of us.
What could go wrong? Much in the way of human frailty. But, most grievously, the threat to the communities who live there of dispossession from their homes. Our public lands, including the national parks, also encompass a brutal history of broken treaties with Native Americans. And rural Americans today fear they are being “regulated off the land” for the sake of urban notions about it; that their voices and knowledge are overwhelmed by the urban supporters of environmental groups who know nothing about their lives.
Mother Jones: The Trump Administration Let a Russian Spy Chief Visit the US— Even Though He Was Legally Barred by Dan Friedman
The Trump administration allowed the head of Russia’s foreign intelligence service, Sergey Naryshkin, to visit the United State last week, despite US sanctions that are supposed to bar Naryshkin from entering the country.
Naryshkin’s visit drew no notice at the time, but after Russia’s US ambassador Anatoly Antonov announced the visit on Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) raised the issue in a press conference later in the day. “This is an extreme dereliction of duty by President Trump, who seems more intent on undermining the rule of law in this country than standing up to Putin,” Schumer said.
Naryshkin met last week outside Washington with Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, Reuters reported. Antonov said that Naryshkin’s meetings addressed the “joint struggle against terrorism,” though he did not offer further details.
News of the visit drew condemnation from congressional Democrats already fuming over the Trump administration’s refusal on Monday to impose new sanctions against Russian defense and intelligence firms—sanctions that were required by bipartisan legislation President Donald Trump begrudgingly approved in 2017. (The 2017 sanctions law passed Congress with veto-proof majorities.)
Washington Post: Trump, reversing 2009 move, vows to keep Guantanamo open indefinitely by Missy Ryan and Ellen Nakashima
President Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday to keep the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in operation indefinitely, suggesting that he may use the facility to house new terrorism suspects for the first time in a decade.
The order, issued as Trump delivered his first State of the Union address, solidifies the president’s well-known intention to keep suspected militants locked up at the military facility, part of his promise to take a hard line on terror.
But it also sheds new light on his administration’s approach to thorny detainee issues, indicating a willingness to end a decade-long moratorium on growing the prisoner population at Guantanamo.
The order rescinds key portions of another measure issued nine years ago by Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, who promised to close Guantanamo but was unable to overcome political opposition to bringing detainees to the United States.
Sixteen years after the prison opened, 41 detainees remain at Guantanamo. Of the more than 700 who have been held there since 2002, only a small minority of detainees have been charged with a crime, and fewer still have completed trial in a military court.
BBC: I'm not a quitter, says Theresa May amid leadership questions
Speaking before arriving in China on a trade mission, she referred to Brexit and the "domestic agenda", adding "there is a long-term job to be done".
Mrs May did not address criticism of her from some backbench MPs but said it was time to speak positively about the government's achievements.
"First and foremost, I'm serving my country and my party," she said.
Mrs May had been asked by reporters travelling with her on the Royal Air Force jet to Wuhan, in central China, whether she expected to lead the Conservatives into the next election, amid speculation she could face a leadership challenge.
She has come under fire on several fronts recently, with some Tories expressing concern that she might be planning to concede too much during negotiations for a deal with the EU.
AlJazeera: Syria opposition rejects Sochi constitution plan
Participants of a Russia-hosted conference for peace in Syria have agreed to set up a commission to rewrite the war-torn country's constitution.
Staffan de Mistura, United Nations Special Envoy for Syria, said on Tuesday that delegates at the two-day conference at the Black Sea resort of Sochi, agreed to include both government and opposition officials in the 150-member committee.
De Mistura said the final agreement on the committee would be reached in the UN-led diplomatic process in Geneva based on UN Security Council Resolution 2254 - which serves as a framework for political transition in Syria.
But the fate of President Bashar al-Assad - a key sticking point that has repeatedly caused ongoing negotiations to fail - was not mentioned in the final statement.
BBC: Taliban threaten 70% of Afghanistan, BBC finds by Shoaib Sharifi and Louise Adamou
Months of research across the country show how areas the Taliban threaten or control have surged since foreign combat troops left in 2014.
The Afghan government played down the report, saying it controls most areas.
But recent attacks claimed by Taliban and Islamic State militants have killed scores in Kabul and elsewhere.
Afghan officials and US President Donald Trump responded by ruling out any talks with the Taliban. Last year Mr Trump announced the US military would stay in the country indefinitely.
The BBC investigation - conducted during late 2017 - provides a rare snapshot of the security situation in every Afghan district between 23 August and 21 November.
A network of BBC reporters across Afghanistan spoke to more than 1,200 individual local sources, in every one of the country's 399 districts, to build up a comprehensive picture of all militant attacks over that period.
The Atlantic: Astrologer Who Coined the Term 'Supermoon' Is 'Delighted' Everyone Uses It by Marina Koren
“A super blue blood moon eclipse is coming.” “Something the United States hasn’t seen since 1866.” “Watch the moon turn blood-red in the sky.”
Reading some headlines this week, you might think the world is headed for some kind of apocalyptic event. What on Earth, er, what on the moon is a “super blue blood moon”?
The super blue blood moon is, in short, a really cool celestial event, a mix of phenomena that, for a brief time, make the moon appear different to us than it usually does on January 31.
It’s super because the moon is now at the closest spot to to Earth in the moon’s monthly orbit, a point known as a perigee.
It’s blue not because of its color, but because it’s the second full moon in a calendar month, a rarish occurrence—it happens once every few years—that’s responsible for the expression “once in a blue moon.”
DW: Swiss university to offer world's first yodeling degree by Nik Martin
Yodeling, the peculiar singing technique that involves rapid and repeated pitch changes, is to be offered as a degree course for the first time.
Switzerland's Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (Luasa) is expected to enroll a handful of students for the program, a feature of its 2018/19 academic year which starts in the fall.
Aspiring yodelers will be taught how to perform the singing style that dates back more than 500 years, and which was used by herders in the Austrian and Swiss Alps to call their stock or communicate between villages.
It involves repeatedly moving from the low-pitch "chest voice" and high-pitch (falsetto) sounds.
Students will be able to choose between a three-year bachelors or two-year masters’ degree.
AFP: New wave of Iranian globetrotters hits the road
A travel frenzy is gripping young Iranians, who are inspiring each other through social media to overcome traditional constraints and expand their horizons.
The exploits of young Iranian travellers, hitchhiking and backpacking their way around the globe, have become immensely popular on Instagram and Telegram, the most widely used apps in Iran, with some gathering more than 200,000 followers.
Iran has long had a globetrotting elite thanks to the large diaspora that fled to the United States and Europe after the 1979 revolution, but now it is the turn of the emerging middle class to stretch their wings, overcoming cultural barriers and parental worries in the process.
Sara Louee, 31, grew up thinking that holidays were a family trip to the northern coasts of Iran.
But two years ago, she met a group of foreigners through the website couchsurfing.com and joined them as they hitchhiked to the ancient city of Yazd.
She was unprepared: "I had absolutely no equipment. I was wearing flimsy girly shoes and had borrowed a backpack from a friend," she told AFP.
and I’ll close out tonight’s OND with this:
There just may be something to that.
Everyone have a good evening!