Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, current leader Neon Vincent, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, Interceptor7, Magnifico, annetteboardman and Besame. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) Man Oh Man, wader, palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse (RIP), ek hornbeck, ScottyUrb, Doctor RJ, 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.
We will begin tonight with the latest on Hurricane Flornce as of 7:30 pm
Weather.com: Hurricane Florence Targets Carolinas, Appalachians, With Potentially Catastrophic Flooding, Destructive Winds; Hurricane Warning Issued
Hurricane Florence will lash the Carolinas and Virginia late Thursday and into Friday as an intense hurricane with life-threatening storm surge, destructive winds and potentially catastrophic inland rainfall flooding as one of the strongest strikes on record for this part of the U.S. East Coast.
A hurricane warning and storm surge warning are now in effect from the South Santee River, South Carolina, northward to Duck, North Carolina, including the Albemarle and Pamlico sounds. This includes Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Wilmington, North Carolina, and most of the Outer Banks.
Hurricane watches and storm surge watches remain posted north of Duck, North Carolina, to the border between North Carolina and Virginia, as well as from Edisto Beach, South Carolina, northward to the South Santee River, South Carolina. This includes Charleston, South Carolina.
Hurricane watches also extend to some extent inland in the Carolinas, including such cities as Goldsboro and Lumberton, North Carolina, with a hurricane warning posted for Kinston, North Carolina.
Tropical storm watches have been issued farther north, from the border between North Carolina and Virginia to Cape Charles Lighthouse, Virginia, as well as for the Chesapeake Bay south of New Point Comfort, Virginia. This includes Virginia Beach and Norfolk, Virginia.
Chicago Sun-Times: Will Chicago riot? Hoping to move trial, Van Dyke’s lawyer raises possibility by Jon Seidel
The question has been on the minds of many as Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke faces trial this month for the shooting death of Laquan McDonald: What happens if he’s acquitted?
This week, Van Dyke’s lawyers put their prediction on paper — and squarely in front of Judge Vincent Gaughan — as they continue to insist Van Dyke’s trial should leave Cook County.
“It is abundantly clear that the community will riot if Van Dyke is not found guilty,” defense attorney Dan Herbert wrote in a fresh court filing Monday.
That prediction follows a large, but peaceful, protest last week outside the Leighton Criminal Court Building on the first day of Van Dyke’s trial. Though jurors potentially saw signs calling Van Dyke “Guilty of Racist Murder,” one legal expert told the Chicago Sun-Times that Herbert’s comments raise “unnecessary hysteria.”
Detroit News: Poll: Michigan voters back Russia probe by Mueller; impeachment support grows by Melissa Nann Burke
Michigan voters strongly back the investigation into Russian efforts to influence the 2016 presidential elections, with a majority saying they believe the probe by special counsel Robert Mueller is "fair," according to a new statewide poll.
The survey conducted last week for The Detroit News and WDIV-TV also found a significant portion — 41 percent of voters — support U.S. House impeachment hearings for President Donald Trump. The poll had a margin of error of minus-plus 4 percentage points.
The Constitution lets Congress remove the president from office before the end of his four-year term if enough legislators vote to say the president committed “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”
The poll found that 63 percent of the 600 likely voters polled support the Mueller investigation, while 31 percent do not. About 46 percent "strongly" favor the probe, despite Trump's frequent criticism of the inquiry as a tainted "witch hunt."
Seattle Times: Does Washington cyberstalking law violate free-speech rights? Bainbridge man gets new chance to make his case by Heidi Groover
A Bainbridge Island man attempting to overturn Washington’s cyberstalking law will get another shot to make his case.
A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has overturned a lower court decision that dismissed a challenge by retired Air Force Maj. Richard Lee Rynearson III of the constitutionality of the state’s cyberstalking law. The unanimous panel, in a published opinion, reinstated a lawsuit that had been dismissed by U.S. District Judge Ronald Leighton in Tacoma and sent the case back to him for further proceedings.
Rynearson faced allegations of online harassment against a neighbor and fellow community activist, Clarence Moriwaki, who sought and obtained a protection order against Rynearson’s online activities. In the meantime, Rynearson sued to challenge the constitutionality of the law, and Leighton dismissed it based on case law that says federal courts should abstain from intervening in state cases while proceedings are ongoing in state court. The panel disagreed, finding Rynearson’s lawsuit did not fit into that narrow exclusion.
AL.com: EPA adds 5 Superfund sites to National Priorities List, but not north Birmingham by Dennis Pillion
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced Tuesday that five Superfund sites have been added to the agency's National Priorities List for cleanup, but north Birmingham's 35th Avenue site was not among them.
The site was the focus of a corruption trial earlier this summer in which a coal company executive and a lawyer representing the company were convicted of bribery, wire fraud and money laundering related to their efforts to keep the site off the NPL.
The Birmingham site was proposed for listing on the NPL in 2014, but has not been formally added to the list since state officials including former-Gov. Robert Bentley, then-Attorney General Luther Strange, and the Alabama Department of Environmental Management opposed the listing.
In light of evidence at the trial, some local officials, including Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin and U.S. Senator Doug Jones have argued that the site should be formally added to the NPL, which would unlock additional funds for EPA to use for the cleanup.
Guardian: Lehman Brothers collapse: where are the key figures now? by Sean Farrell
Ten years ago this weekend Lehman Brothers crashed into bankruptcy – the biggest corporate failure in history – and sent the world’s financial system reeling close to collapse, causing panic among policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic. The US government was forced into a $700bn (£540bn) bailout of the banking sector, while in the UK, Lloyds Bank rescued HBOS and the government was then forced to rescue Lloyds and Royal Bank of Scotland.
A decade on, what has happened to the key players involved in the financial crisis and its aftermath?
THE LEHMAN TWO
Dick Fuld
Then: Lehman Brothers chief executive
Now: runs Matrix Private Capital, which offers investment advice to “high-net-worth” clients
Fuld ran Lehman for 14 years before the bank collapsed and was paid about $500m over the last eight years of that period. The man nicknamed “the gorilla” has repeatedly blamed the government, regulators and unfounded rumours for Lehman’s death while admitting few mistakes. The bank’s staff, however, blamed the Gorilla and in a grilling on Capitol Hill a congressman described him as “the villain”.
In 2009 he sold an apartment in Manhattan for $25m and a collection of art for $13.5m but he still has a number of luxury properties dotted around the US. Now aged 72, Fuld has made a comeback as the head of New York-based Matrix Private Capital, and the “key wealth centres” of Los Angeles and Palm Beach in Florida. In a rare public appearance in 2015 he said: “Whatever it is, enjoy the ride. No regrets.”
Washington Post: On Sept. 11 anniversary, Trump launches fresh attacks on FBI and Justice Department with dubious allegation by Matt Zapotosky
As politicians and others went on Twitter on Tuesday morning to mark the 17th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, President Trump used the platform to launch a fresh round of assaults on the FBI and Justice Department.
Trump — apparently seizing on allegations leveled the night before by one of his conservative allies in Congress — referred to two former FBI officials who have become infamous for trading anti-Trump texts: Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.
The president repeated a claim from Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) that the pair employed a “media leak strategy” to undermine his administration, then blamed the bureau and Justice Department for inaction on the matter.
The claim from Meadows is debatable; Strzok’s attorney said his client’s reference to a “media leak strategy” was an effort to stem unauthorized disclosures of information. Both Strzok and Page have left the FBI; Strzok was fired over his anti-Trump texts.
Buzzfeed: More Than 2,000 Puerto Ricans Applied For Funeral Assistance After Hurricane Maria. FEMA Approved Just 75. by Nidhi Prakash
FEMA approved just 3% of applications for funeral assistance from more than 2,000 Puerto Rican families who lost loved ones after Hurricane Maria, according to a letter the agency head wrote to Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
In response to an earlier letter from Warren, Brock Long, director of FEMA, wrote on Aug. 14 that as of July 30, his agency had received 2,431 requests for funeral assistance from Puerto Ricans related to the hurricane — they approved just 75 of them, meaning 97% have either been rejected or have not received a decision almost a year after Maria hit the island.
FEMA's funeral assistance is intended to help people who have lost loved ones in disaster situations pay for funeral costs, including caskets, mortuary services, burial plots, and cremations.
Although Long did not give a specific reason in his letter for the rejections, he pointed to FEMA’s requirements for funeral assistance. To qualify, Puerto Ricans had to provide a death certificate or letter from a government official "that clearly indicates the death was attributed to the emergency or disaster, either directly or indirectly,” Long wrote in the letter obtained by BuzzFeed News, which he wrote on behalf of FEMA and the Department of Health and Human Services.
But getting that information was impossible for many families because, as the Puerto Rican government recently admitted, officials were not counting hurricane-related deaths correctly.
FiveThirtyEight: Americans Are Shifting The Rest Of Their Identity To Match Their Politics by Perry Bacon, Jr.
We generally think of a person’s race or religion as being fixed — and that those parts of identity (being black, say, or evangelical Christian) drive political views. Most African-Americans vote Democratic. Most evangelical Christians vote Republican. But New York University political scientist Patrick Egan has written a new paper showing evidence that identity and politics operate in the opposite direction too — people shift the non-political parts of their identity, including ethnicity and religion, to align better with being a Democrat or a Republican.
Egan used public opinion data collected through the General Social Survey, one of the most reliable measures of Americans’ views of political and social attitudes that we have. The GSS is conducted every two years and surveys a rotating panel of respondents. Some respondents agree to follow-up interviews two years and four years after their initial interview. Egan’s data set was made up of about 3,900 people who were interviewed three times for the GSS surveys, starting either in 2006, 2008 or 2010 (so the most recent data was from people interviewed in 2010, 2012 and 2014). All three times, respondents were asked to rank themselves on a seven-point ideological scale (from “extremely liberal,” to “moderate, middle of the road,” to “extremely conservative.”) They were also asked questions about aspects of their identity that, at least in theory, are non-ideological — questions like: 1) “From what countries or part of the world did your ancestors come?” and 2) “What is your religious preference? Is it Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, some other religion, or no religion?”
The Atlantic: Is Bob Woodward Like Walter Cronkite? by James Fallows
Two very useful assessments of Bob Woodward’s mega-best-selling Fear, officially published today, are this one by Isaac Chotiner, in Slate, and this one by Andrew Prokop, in Vox. They both make one of the enduring points about Woodward’s long-running inside-Washington saga: how easy it is to guess at least some of the people who have talked with him.
Partly that is because these figures are presented with ongoing interior monologues: “Powell wondered: was Cheney pushing the WMD evidence too hard? Might they regret the step they were about to take? Was he being hung out to dry?” “Petraeus thought as he left the meeting, Maybe this time, at long last, Obama would finally act.” Or in the latest book, “Cohn realized, this could mean economic war. If only there were some way to head it off.” None of these is a real quote, but any of them could be.
Back in 1976, Art Levine published in The Washington Monthly a famous parody of how Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s treatment of Richard Nixon’s resignation, in The Final Days, would have applied in the final days of Naziism. Only two books into the Woodward oeuvre, Levine highlighted the source-greasing tone. His piece began:
BBC News: Three arrests after modern slavery raid in Iver, Buckinghamshire
Two men and a woman have been arrested on suspicion of modern slavery offences after a police raid involving 100 officers.
Police found eight people, believed to be victims of modern slavery, in a raid on a residential property in Love Lane, Iver, Buckinghamshire.
The operation followed allegations made about forced labour being used at building sites.
Two men, aged 49 and 42, and a woman, 28, all from Iver, were arrested.
They remain in police custody.
DW: Brazil Former President Lula bows out of presidential bid
Fernando Haddad, the former Sao Paulo mayor and the running mate of Brazil's jailed ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, has been named as the Workers Party presidential candidate. Party officials made the announcement on Twitter.
The change was a virtual certainty otherwise Lula's Workers Party would have no candidate in the presidential elections, with the first round less than a month away on October 7.
It comes less than two weeks after the Superior Electoral Tribunal ruled that the former president cannot run while serving a 12-year sentence for corruption. The tribunal set a deadline for the Workers Party of 7:00 pm local time Tuesday (2200 GMT) to name a stand-in.
Though he is in jail, the 72-year-old Lula was the frontrunner in polls, and his removal from the race has left the field a mess, and catapulted rightwing populist Jair Bolsonaro into the lead
AFP: Hungary's Orban denounces 'blackmail' over EU censure move
Prime Minister Viktor Orban vowed Tuesday that Hungary would resist any attempt to "blackmail" it into softening its anti-migrant stance, on the eve of an EU parliament vote to censure his populist government.
Orban denounced as insulting to Hungary's honour a report presented to the Strasbourg assembly that accuses his government of posing a "systemic threat" to the democratic values on which the European Union was founded.
MEPs will vote Wednesday on whether to launch a procedure that could lead to unprecedented political sanctions against EU member Hungary and deepen the continental divide between centrist pro-European parties and populist anti-migrant forces.
Underlining this division, the centre-right EPP parliamentary group -- which includes Orban's own Fidesz party -- has given its members a free vote on whether to back the possible investigation of his government for non-compliance with EU law.
"Whatever your decision will be, Hungary will not accede to this blackmail," an angry Orban told lawmakers, whom he alleged had already made up their minds to activate Article 7 of the EU treaty and seek measures to restrict his government's voting rights.
AlJazeera: Afghanistan: Suicide bomber kills 32 in attack on protesters
A suicide attack on protesters and a bomb blast in front of a girl's school in eastern Afghanistan killed at least 33 people on Tuesday as a recent wave of attacks across the country continued.
A suicide bomber targeted a group of men demanding the dismissal of a local police commander in Nangarhar province's Achin district, Ataullah Khogyani, the governor's spokesman, told Al Jazeera.
Thirty-two people died and at least 130 people were wounded in the blast.
"All people killed were civilians in the attack," Khogyani said, adding a number of wounded were in critical condition.
Local media reported hundreds of protesters from Achin district gathered in Mohmand Dara district near the Jalalabad-Torkham highway when the bomber detonated explosives. The reason for the demonstration against the police chief was not immediately clear.
1. Alabama
2. Clemson
3. Georgia
4. THOSE people
5. Oklahoma
6. Wisconsin
7. Auburn
8. Notre Dame
9. Stanford
10. Washington
This week’s feature game is #12 LSU @ #7 Auburn and in two weeks...#6 Wisconsin goes to where national championship dreams die.
Don’t forget that Meteor Blades is hosting an open thread for night owls tonight.
Everyone have a good evening.