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 Besame. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) Man Oh Man, wader, palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse (RIP), ek hornbeck, ScottyUrb, Interceptor7, BentLiberal, Oke (RIP) 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.
Special thanks to JekylinHyde for the OND banner.
BuzzFeed
According to reports by The New York Times and The Observer, the research firm Cambridge Analytica procured personal data from as many as 50 million Facebook users, and used that data as part of its work on President Trump’s 2016 campaign. Though Facebook claimsCambridge Analytica and its associates broke the rules in retaining and using this data, this wasn’t a breach as we typically think of them: The Times reported that 270,000 of those users willingly gave over their info when they signed up for a personality-quiz app.
Developers can request to see your relationship status, education history and religious and political beliefs, among many other data points, but only if you allow them. For example, I had unknowingly shared all of my Facebook photos and photos tagged of me with TripAdvisor. A hiking app called AllTrails could see all of timeline posts, while Waze had access to my custom friend lists (including one named “Frenemies” ). In any case, now would be a good time to revisit the third-party apps you’ve granted permission to access your Facebook data, and review — and maybe revoke — some of the info you’re sharing.
US NEWS
Bloomberg
Donald Trump’s aides are watching for two key encounters this week to see if Attorney General Jeff Sessions has finally extricated himself from the danger of being fired, in part by ousting the former No. 2 official at the FBI, according to two people familiar with the situation.
Sessions’s standing improved after his Friday night firing of Andrew McCabe, who the president and some Republicans have accused of anti-Trump bias. Top White House officials, including Vice President Mike Pence and Chief of Staff John Kelly, have been protective of Sessions, going out of their way to make Sessions feel appreciated amid frequent criticism from Trump, the people said.
Bloomberg
A federal court backed Pennsylvania’s redrawn congressional voting map, making it likely that borders friendlier to Democrats will be in place for the midterm election as the party seeks to retake the U.S. House.
A panel of three federal judges on Monday denied a request from eight Republican congressmen and state politicians who sought to block the implementation of the revised map, which Pennsylvania’s highest court drew up after ruling the earlier borders had been put in place to favor Republicans. The Pennsylvania court had said the previous map violated the state constitution.
The Guardian
A deadly serial bomber has struck in Austin for what appears to be the fourth time this month, frightening residents and prompting police to put a neighbourhood in the Texan capital into lockdown.
After three packages had exploded earlier in March, killing two people and seriously injuring another while baffling the authorities, the city’s police chief appealed on Sunday for the suspect or suspects to make contact.
But later that night another bomb seriously injured two more people, deepening the mystery – and the alarm.
The men, aged 22 and 23, were by the side of a road in a quiet residential area, known as Travis Country, about seven miles west of downtown just after 8.30pm on Sunday when, police said, they triggered a tripwire next to a fence. They were taken to hospital with significant injuries and were in stable condition on Monday morning.
The Guardian
Wellwishers have been crowdfunding to send pizza to 225 students at a Pennsylvania school who were given detention for taking part in protests against school shootings.
Students at Pennridge high school took part in a national school walkout on 14 March against the wishes of the school board. The board warned pupils in advance that anybody taking part in the protest would receive the standard punishment for skipping class – a Saturday morning in detention.
Anna Sophie Tinneny, one of the students who helped to organise the protests and get the message out on social media, told the Guardian: “Two hundred and twenty-five students walked out of the front doors for 17 minutes of silence and a few speeches afterwards. As we walked into the school, we were put in single-file lines and had to sign up for detention before returning to class.”
The students then turned the detention into another opportunity to protest. They attended the session on Saturday wearing signs bearing the names of those killed at the Parkland school shooting in Florida, and turned the detention into a sit-in.
Reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration is expected to unveil up to $60 billion in new tariffs on Chinese imports by Friday, targeting technology, telecommunications and intellectual property, two officials briefed on the matter said Monday.
One business source, who has discussed the issue with the administration, said that the China tariffs may be subject to a public comment period, which would delay their effective date and allow industry groups and companies to lodge objections.
This would be considerably different from the quick implementation of the steel and aluminum tariffs, which are set to go into effect on March 23, just 15 days after President Donald Trump signed the proclamations.
The Washington Post
A 13-year-old girl in Mississippi has died after being shot by her 9-year-old brother over a fight about video games, police say.
The shooting took place Saturday about 12:30 p.m. at a home in northeast Mississippi, Monroe County Sheriff Cecil Cantrell told The Washington Post on Monday.
Cantrell, who happened to be in the area and was the first officer to respond, said he arrived to a scene he’ll never forget.
[...]
“The little boy — he managed to get a gun out of a nightstand there in the room there, and he just came over and shot her,” Cantrell said. “I’ve been in law enforcement 30-some-odd years, and I’ve never dealt with anything quite like this. Not with children.”
[...]
Analyzing data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, The Post’s editorial board found that “on average, 23 children were shot each day in the United States in 2015. Of the approximately 8,400 shootings, 1,458 were fatal, a death toll that exceeds the entire number of U.S. military fatalities in Afghanistan this decade.”
The New York Times (3/18/2018)
Anti-Semitic hate crimes are on the rise, up 57 percent in 2017 from 2016, the largest single-year jump on record, according to the Anti-Defamation League. That increase came on top of the rise in incidents in 2016 that coincided with a brutal presidential campaign.
I have personally seen the anti-Semitism, in online insults, threatening voice mail messages and the occasional email that makes it through my spam filter.
If not quite a crisis, it feels like a proto-crisis, something to head off, especially when the rise of anti-Semitism is combined with hate crimes against Muslims, blacks, Hispanics and immigrants. Yet American Jewish leaders — the heads of influential, established organizations like the American Jewish Committee and the Jewish Federations of North America — have been remarkably quiet, focused instead, as they have been for decades, on Israel, not the brewing storm in our own country.
But American Jews need to assert a voice in the public arena, to reshape our quiescent institutions and mold them in our image. And Jewish leadership must reflect its congregants, who are not sheep.
Reuters
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Actress and liberal activist Cynthia Nixon, one of the stars of the hit television series “Sex and the City,” announced on Monday she would run for governor of New York, challenging incumbent Andrew Cuomo for the Democratic nomination.
“I love New York, and today I’m announcing my candidacy for governor,” Nixon, 51, said on Twitter.
WORLD NEWS
Agence France Presse
Russia hit back at Britain in the spy poisoning row on Monday, demanding proof of its alleged involvement in a nerve agent attack, as international weapons experts arrived to take samples of the toxic substance.
The March 4 poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal, which took place just two weeks ahead of the Russian election in which Vladimir Putin was re-elected, has plunged relations between London and Moscow into crisis.
As the European Union offered Britain its "unqualified solidarity", the Kremlin demanded London either come up with proof of Russia's involvement -- or apologise.
"Sooner or later these unsubstantiated allegations will have to be answered for: either backed up with the appropriate evidence or apologised for," said Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
Deutsche Welle
Spokesman Steffen Seibert didn't waste many words at the German government's Monday press conference when asked about calls by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin for sanctions on former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. Angela Merkel, Seibert said, saw "no reasons" to punish Schröder, who has held a variety of top posts with Russian companies and was recently described by the Wall Street Journal as "Putin's most important oligarch."
Ukraine is outraged that people in Russian-annexed Crimea were allowed to vote in Sunday's national election, which saw Vladimir Putin handed a fourth term as Russian president. After Seibert's statement, Klimkin said he was widening his appeal for sanctions against the former chancellor.
Deutsche Welle
The EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier announced on Monday that agreement had been reached on "a large part of what would constitute the orderly withdrawal of the United Kingdom."
He said that, after negotiators met at the weekend, there was broad agreement on a transition deal for the period after the UK leaves the bloc.
"We have reached an agreement on the transition period," Barnier told a press conference in Brussels after talks with his British counterpart David Davis. "The transition will be of limited duration."
Al Jazeera
All eyes will be on Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman this week, as he makes his first visit to the United States after consolidating his influence in the Gulf kingdom.
The Saudi leader, commonly referred to as MBS, will meet political and business leaders in Washington, New York, Silicon Valley and elsewhere, on a two-week tour across the country.
He is expected to meet US President Donald Trump on Tuesday, and hold other meetings with business leaders in the tech industry, as the crown prince seeks US investments to bolster a plan to diversify the Saudi economy.
But the main goal of the visit will be rehabilitating Saudi Arabia's image in the minds of the US public, said Nader Hashemi, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Denver's Josef Korbel School of International Studies.
Reuters
BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - The world’s financial leaders were seeking on Monday to clearly endorse free trade and renounce protectionism amid concern that U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum and looming actions against China could trigger a trade war that would hurt global growth.
On Sunday Scholz said he would seek to dissuade Washington from imposing the planned punitive steel and aluminum tariffs which only come into effect on March 23.
Others at the G20 meeting, which will conclude on Tuesday with a joint communique, shared Germany’s concern.
“There is a solid understanding among the global community that free trade is important,” Japanese central bank governor Haruhiko Kuroda told reporters upon arrival for the talks. Brazilian Central Bank governor Ilan Goldfajn also called on the G20 to work to keep global trade flows open.
Reuters
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin struck a softer tone towards the West on Monday after winning his biggest ever election victory, saying he had no desire for an arms race and would do everything he could to resolve differences with other countries.
Putin’s victory, which comes at a time when his relations with the West are on a hostile trajectory, will extend his political dominance of Russia by six years to 2024. That will make him the longest-serving ruler since Soviet dictator Josef Stalin and has raised Western fears of spiralling confrontation.
But Putin, 65, used a Kremlin meeting with the candidates he soundly defeated in Sunday’s election to signal his desire to focus on domestic, not international, matters, and to try to raise living standards by investing more in education, infrastructure and health while reducing defence spending.
THE ENVIRONMENT, SCIENCE, HEALTH AND TECHNOLOGY
Agence France Presse
Facebook shares plunged Monday following revelations that a firm working for Donald Trump's presidential campaign harvested data on 50 million users, as analysts warned the social media giant's business model could be at risk.
Calls for investigations came on both sides of the Atlantic after Facebook responded to the explosive reports of misuse of its data by suspending the account of Cambridge Analytica, a British communications firm hired by Trump's 2016 campaign.
"This is a major breach that must be investigated. It's clear these platforms can't police themselves," Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar said on Twitter.
Expressing "serious concern regarding recent reports that data from millions of Americans was misused in order to influence voters," Klobuchar and Republican Senator John Kennedy called for Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg and other top executives to appear before Congress, along with the CEOs of Google and Twitter.
In Europe, officials voiced similar outrage.
Scientists on Monday unveiled a quick, cheap way to detect sepsis, a life-threatening condition in which the body is attacked by its own immune system.
In clinical trials at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, the researchers -- analysing a single drop of blood with a thumb-size filtering device -- singled out sepsis patients in a matter of hours with 95 percent accuracy.
Currently, nearly a third of sepsis patients are misdiagnosed with devices that can take days to yield results.
For every hour that a sepsis diagnosis is delayed, the risk of death increases by nearly eight percent, previous research has shown.
The Science Blog
Three hundred years ago, enormous herds of bison, antelope and elk roamed North America, and the land was pristine and the water clean.
However, today when cattle congregate, they’re often cast as the poster animals for overgrazing, water pollution and an unsustainable industry. While some of the criticism is warranted, cattle production ¬- even allowing herds to roam through grasslands and orchards ¬- can be beneficial to the environment as well as sustainable.
In a study published in the journal Agricultural Systems, Michigan State University scientists evaluated adaptive multi-paddock, or AMP, grass fed operations as well as grain-fed, feedlot herds.
“Globally, beef production can be taxing on the environment, leading to high greenhouse gas emissions and land degradation,” said Jason Rowntree, MSU associate professor of animal science, who led the study. “Our four-year study suggests that AMP grazing can potentially offset greenhouse gas emissions, and the finishing phase of beef production could be a net carbon sink, with carbon levels staying in the green rather than in the red.”
The Guardian
The co-director of a company that harvested data from tens of millions of Facebook users before selling it to the controversial data analytics firms Cambridge Analytica is currently working for the tech giant as an in-house psychologist.
Joseph Chancellor was one of two founding directors of Global Science Research (GSR), the company that harvested Facebook data using a personality app under the guise of academic research and later shared the data with Cambridge Analytica.
He was hired to work at Facebook as a quantitative social psychologist around November 2015, roughly two months after leaving GSR, which had by then acquired data on millions of Facebook users.
Chancellor is still working as a researcher at Facebook’s Menlo Park headquarters in California, where psychologists frequently conduct research and experiments using the company’s vast trove of data on more than 2 billion users.
It is not known how much Chancellor knew of the operation to harvest the data of more than 50 million Facebook users and pass their information on to the company that went on to run data analytics for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
The Guardian (3/16/2018)
The US interior secretary, Ryan Zinke, has promised to look into a Montana land exchange proposal from Texas oil and gas billionaires Dan and Farris Wilks that was twice rejected under the Obama administration, the Guardian can reveal.
The Wilkses and their lobbyist met Zinke, a Montana native, last September.
“Zinke said he’ll look into the Wilkses’ proposal but was noncommittal,” said the brothers’ representative, Darryl James, a Montana-based lobbyist who attended the meeting.
Local conservationists and hunters are opposed to the deal, wary of a takeover of protected lands by wealthy out-of-state landowners.
Since 2014, the Wilkses have set their sights on an approximately 5,000-acre enclave of federal land within their N Bar Ranch in eastern-central Montana.
In exchange they offered the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) territory in and around the Upper Missouri River Breaks national monument.
The BLM, under pressure from local opposition, twice rejected the proposal during the Obama era – most recently in January 2016, when the agency citedlack of resources to fully evaluate the deal. Hunters favour the enclave, known as Durfee Hills, for its large elk herds.
The Guardian
More than 5 billion people could suffer water shortages by 2050 due to climate change, increased demand and polluted supplies, according to a UN report on the state of the world’s water.
The comprehensive annual study warns of conflict and civilisational threats unless actions are taken to reduce the stress on rivers, lakes, aquifers, wetlands and reservoirs.
The World Water Development Report – released in drought-hit Brasília – says positive change is possible, particularly in the key agricultural sector, but only if there is a move towards nature-based solutions that rely more on soil and trees than steel and concrete.
“For too long, the world has turned first to human-built, or ‘grey’, infrastructure to improve water management. In doing so, it has often brushed aside traditional and indigenous knowledge that embraces greener approaches,” says Gilbert Houngbo, the chair of UN Water, in the preface of the 100-page assessment. “In the face of accelerated consumption, increasing environmental degradation and the multi-faceted impacts of climate change, we clearly need new ways of manage competing demands on our freshwater resources.”
SPORTS AND ENTERAINMENT
NPR
A Cirque du Soleil performer died after falling at a Tampa, Fla., show over the weekend when his hand slipped off the double rings, the theatrical company announced Sunday.
"While he was performing the aerial straps number, longtime aerialist, Yann Arnaud, fell onto the stage," Cirque du Soleil's VOLTA said in a statement on Twitter.
The statement said that the 38-year-old fell about 20 feet. Emergency procedures were initiated, it said, and Arnaud was taken to a hospital, where he died from his injuries early Sunday.
"The entire Cirque du Soleil family is in shock and devastated by this tragedy," the statement said. "Yann had been with us for over 15 years and was loved by all who had the chance to know him.”
NPR
Northern Ireland's Rory McIlroy ended his drought in convincing fashion Sunday.
The four-time major tournament winner went on a final-round birdie binge to win the Arnold Palmer Invitational in Orlando, Fla. It was his first victory since 2016. McIlroy pulled away at the end with five birdies on the last six holes for an 8-under par 64.
As dominant as his win was, McIlroy shared the spotlight with Tiger Woods, who finished eight shots back.
It wasn't long ago that Woods was golf's greatest player and a global sports icon. His dramatic downfall is well-known, as a sex scandal and injuries knocked him off his pedestal.
Now, for the second week in a row, Woods almost won a tournament. That's saying a lot when you consider Woods essentially has been wandering in a golf desert for the better part of five years — his legendary career derailed by debilitating back problems.