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, Besame and jck. 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 featureon 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.
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US NEWS
NPR
Thirteen parents and one coach charged in the college admissions scandal will plead guilty, federal prosecutors announced Monday. One of the parents is Felicity Huffman, the actress who is among the best known of the wealthy individuals arrested in the cheating case that broke last month.
The 14 defendants were all charged with conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest-services mail fraud. They have agreed to plead guilty in accordance with plea agreements.
Authorities charged 50 people in the scheme, in which parents allegedly paid millions of dollars in a conspiracy with William "Rick" Singer to have their children's test scores and athletic achievements falsified to secure admission to elite colleges.
At least two of those colleges, Yale University and Stanford University, have since revoked their offers of admission to students involved in the case.
NPR
The Trump administration has canceled a deal between Major League Baseball and the Cuban Baseball Federation that would have allowed Cuban players to join professional teams in the U.S. and Canada.
Under the four-month-old agreement, a major league club seeking to sign certain Cuban players would have to pay a release fee – 25 percent over the player's signing bonus – to the Federation. The player would also have to pay Cuban income taxes on foreign earnings.
The deal, which was initially negotiated under President Barack Obama, met with immediate opposition from the Trump administration.
It was designed to end the often dangerous pattern of ambitious Cuban stars seeking to join the major leagues by defecting and arranging to smuggle themselves out of Cuba with the aid of human traffickers. Under the agreement, Cuban players may return to the island during the off-season, unlike those who defect.
NPR
The leaders of the House Judiciary Committee agreed on Monday to call special counsel Robert Mueller to appear for a hearing. The question now is whether Mueller would agree.
Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., the panel's ranking member, opened the bidding with a letter in which he asked the chairman, Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., to invite Mueller to testify later this month.
Although the committee expects to hear from Attorney General William Barr, Collins wrote, it must go to the source to learn all it needs to know about the special counsel inquiry.
The Guardian
The “absolutely horrific” leak of Donald Trump’s contentious 2017 phone call with Malcolm Turnbull could lead to criminal charges.
Devin Nunes, the highest-ranking Republican member on the US House of Representatives intelligence committee, announced on Sunday he was sending eight criminal referrals to the US attorney general, William Barr.
One is aimed at finding out who leaked transcripts of the US president’s phone call with Turnbull on 28 January 2017, a call with the then Mexican president, Enrique Peña Nieto, and former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s communications with a Russian ambassador.
“You had conversations with the president of the United States and the prime minister of Australia leak,” Nunes told Fox News. “You had leaks of President Trump talking to the president of Mexico leak.
“We all know the travesty of General Flynn.
“Nobody knows where those supposed transcripts came from.
New York Times
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — The Chinese woman who was arrested after gaining entry to President Trump’s private club while carrying four cellphones and other electronic equipment had stored even more electronics in her hotel room, including a device used to detect hidden cameras, a federal prosecutor said Monday.
The woman, Yujing Zhang, 32, was arrested March 30 after telling Secret Service agents that she had come to use the pool at Mar-a-Lago and showing two Chinese passports. After the authorities determined that the event she said she had come to attend did not exist, she was arrested and charged with lying to a federal officer and accessing a restricted area.
Ms. Zhang had entered the property with four cellphones, a hard drive and a thumb drive infected with malware, according to federal court records. Upon searching her hotel room, investigators found another cellphone and a radio frequency device that detects hidden cameras, Assistant United States Attorney Rolando Garcia said.
Washington Post
A federal judge on Monday blocked an experimental Trump administration policy that requires asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their cases make their way through the U.S. immigration court system, a major blow to President Trump’s efforts to stem the surge of crossings at the southern border.
U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg in San Francisco enjoined the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) policy days after outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen pledged to expand the program. The policy began in January at the San Ysidro port of entry in California but has been extended to the Calexico, Calif., entry and to the entry in El Paso, and Seeborg wrote that the approach would have been further extended if the court had not stepped in.
Several hundred migrants have been returned to Mexico under the program after seeking asylum at the border.
WORLD NEWS
Deutsche Welle
For weeks, Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip, has had to contend with a growing protest movement. So far, the demonstrators' concerns are predominantly social in nature — but political demands could follow.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh recently urged the people living in the Gaza Strip to stage mass protests on March 30 against the Israeli occupation. This was shortly after the Israeli army targeted two Hamas posts in Gaza, which it later said was in response to violent protests along the border with Israel
The anti-Israel protests began in March 2018. Since then at least 258 Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers have died.
However, the protests at the Israeli border fence mask another conflict that has the people in the Gaza Strip on edge. A month ago, a movement calling itself Bidna na'ish (We want to live) was founded in Gaza City by a coalition of independent media activists. It quickly found popularity among many young people in the Strip.
In mid-March, followers of the movement protested openly for the first time. The response from the ruling Hamas party was immediate: Online videos show security forces breaking up the demonstration and making numerous arrests.
Al Jazeera
President Donald Trump announced on Monday that the United States is designating Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) a foreign "terrorist organisation", marking the first time Washington has formally labelled another country's military a "terrorist group".
Responding to the move, Iran immediately declared the US as "state sponsor of terrorism" and US forces in the region "terrorist groups", state media reported.
Iran also condemned the US decision as an illegal act prompted by Tehran's regional influence and "success in fighting against Islamic State," Iranian state TV said, referring to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS).
The US has already blacklisted dozens of entities and people for affiliations with the IRGC, but not the organisation as a whole.
The Guardian
The European Union’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, has pledged support for the Irish border backstop regardless of what happens in the Brexit negotiations.
“The EU will stand fully behind Ireland,” Barnier said on Monday at a joint press conference with the taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, in Dublin.
Speaking in English to underline his point, Barnier said that if the UK were to leave without a deal the EU would still expect it to honour the backstop, an insurance policy to avert a hard border on the island of Ireland.
“You have our full support,” he said, looking at Varadkar. “The backstop is currently the only solution we have found to maintain the status quo on the island of Ireland ... Let me be very clear. We would not discuss anything with the UK until there is an agreement for Ireland and Northern Ireland as well as for citizens’ rights and financial settlement.”
It was a blunt warning to Westminster, which experienced another day of turmoil, that a no-deal exit would freeze trade talks until the Irish border issue was resolved. Some Brexiters have pinned hopes on the EU pressuring Ireland to drop the backstop.
NPR
Terrorists groups using the Internet to spread propaganda. Criminal gangs inciting violence over social media. Sexual predators going online to groom children for exploitation.
These are some of the harms the United Kingdom has identified that spread via social media platforms. To counter those harms, the U.K. plans to require social media companies to be much more active in removing and countering harmful material on their platforms. The sweeping 102-page paper envisions requirements for everything from ensuring an accurate news environment, to combating hate speech, to stamping out cyberbullying.
The proposal is the latest in a series of increased efforts by governments around the world to respond to harmful content online. Last year Germany imposed fines of up to $60 million if social media companies don't delete illegal content posted to their services. After the massacre in Christchurch, New Zealand, Australian lawmakers passed legislation subjecting social media executives to imprisonment if they don't quickly remove violent content. The U.K. proposal goes further than most by proposing the creation of a new regulatory body to monitor a broad array of harms and ensure companies comply.
The Guardian
A warplane has attacked the only functioning airport in Tripoli as fighting between forces loyal to the Libyan warlord Khalifa Haftar and rival militias escalated and EU foreign ministers met in Brussels to try to de-escalate the violence.
Mitiga airport, in an eastern suburb of the capital, was closed after it was hit in an airstrike by pro-Haftar forces. Passengers could be seen leaving the terminal, a Reuters correspondent at the airport said. Fighting was also under way at Tripoli’s international airport, 15 miles from the city centre, which has not been functioning since fighting destroyed much of it in 2014.
The UN said 2,800 people had been displaced in an upsurge in violence that broke out after Haftar ordered fighters in his self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA), to march on the capital on Thursday.
The Guardian
A fresh attempt to oust Theresa May is under way over her decision to enter into talks with Jeremy Corbyn, with leading Brexiter MPs plotting ways to force a vote showing that the majority of the party has lost confidence in her.
Sir Graham Brady, the chair of the 1922 Committee, has rebuffed calls from backbenchers for an indicative vote on May’s future, because the prime minister saw off a no-confidence vote in December last year and cannot be challenged again within 12 months.
However, backbench MPs are submitting a fresh batch of no-confidence letters to him in the hope the number will become so great that he has to act.
After meeting the prime minister on Monday, Brady said there was “no intention of proceeding” with any informal vote of confidence.
It is understood the 1922 Committee debated the issue for almost an hour last week and was split over whether it should go ahead. Some Conservative MPs were under the impression Brady had ruled it out only “for now” and would be forced to give in to pressure to hold a vote if he received a deluge of letters.
ENVIRONMENT, HEALTH, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY
Climate Central (4/3/2019)
The start of April marks the time when the western snowpack approaches its usual annual maximum. This winter brought record precipitation, including snowfall extremes from Seattle to Flagstaff, boosting this year’s snowpack totals. According to the USDA’s western SNOTEL network, this year’s end-of-season snowpack was above average for just the third time in ten years and the seventh time in twenty years. 2019’s overall western snowpack is 25 percent above the median normals, with especially high values in California, Arizona, and Nevada. Since snowmelt makes up around 75 percent of the West’s water supply, this above-average year will help farmers and city water users alike.
However, western snowpack is decreasing in the long term with human-caused climate change. Warmer air is turning potential snow into rain for some lower-elevation areas. Meanwhile, other areas are experiencing less precipitation overall, with that trend expected to continue. According to a December report from the University of Arizona, some western areas have recorded snowpack reductions of 41 percent in 35 years.
Western drought shows similar trends. This winter’s rain has helped ameliorate severe droughts in the current U.S. Drought Monitor. (Although the rain has led to extreme flooding, of course — see our heavy rain toolkit for relevant graphics). Still, it takes more than one rainy season to restore the groundwater that the West relies on. As we reported last month, drought and water deficits are projected to be the highest-risk climate impact for 40 percent of U.S. cities — including much of the West.
Deutsche Welle
The German branch of environmental activist group Fridays for Future outlined their climate change policy goals at a press conference held on Monday in Berlin.
The paper, "Our demands for climate protection," seeks to put pressure on politicians to take quicker action to prevent continued global warming.
Read more: Fridays for Future: The #Climatestrike movement comes of age
Fridays for Future sprang up after 16-year-old Swedish high school student Greta Thunberg staged sit-ins in August 2018 in front of the Swedish parliament building every school day for three weeks.
Thunberg inspired other young people around the world to organize protests every Friday, demanding their governments take action to limit global warming under the 1.5 degree Celsius limit specified in the UN's Paris climate agreement.
Fridays for Future said that its paper was drawn up with input from groups of students from across Germany in coordination with climate scientists. The activists said that student strikes would continue until their demands were met.
The Guardian
A decline in memory as a result of ageing can be temporarily reversed using a harmless form of electrical brain stimulation, scientists have found.
The findings help explain why certain cognitive skills decline significantly with age and raise the prospect of new treatments.
“Age-related changes are not unchangeable,” said Robert Reinhart, a neuroscientist at Boston University, who led the work. “We can bring back the superior working memory function that you had when you were much younger.”
The study focused on a part of cognition called working memory, the brain system that holds information for short periods while we are making decisions or performing calculations. Working memory is crucial for a wide variety of tasks, such as recognising faces, doing arithmetic and navigating a new environment.
Working memory is known to steadily decline with age, even in the absence of any form of dementia. One factor in this decline is thought to be a disconnection between two brain networks, known as the prefrontal and temporal regions.
The Guardian
Internal government records obtained by the Guardian raise questions about the role of Pennsylvania governor Tom Wolf in permitting construction of a controversial fossil fuel pipeline that now faces two criminal investigations stemming from widespread environmental and property damage.
The 350-mile, $2.5bn Mariner East 2 natural gas liquids pipeline through southern Pennsylvania has sparked growing outrage. It has caused roughly 140 documented industrial waste spills into wetlands and waterways, destroying numerous residential water wells, and opening large sinkholesjust steps from residents’ homes.
It is being constructed by the Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners (ETP), which first gained notoriety as the builder of the Dakota Access pipeline, a project that drew international attention and widespread opposition, particularly from Native Americans, in 2016 and 2017 on the northern Great Plains.
Emails, text messages and regulatory records show that the secretary of Pennsylvania’s department of environmental protection (DEP), Patrick McDonnell, directed staff to cut short their environmental review even as numerous shortcomings remained in the project’s permit application. The department also appeared to be under pressure from Wolf’s office at the time.
The Guardian
Scientists and officials around the US have told the Guardian that the Trump administration has withdrawn funding for a large, successful conservation program – in direct contradiction of instructions from Congress.
Unique in scale and ambition, the program comprises 22 research centers that tackle big-picture issues affecting huge swaths of the US, such as climate change, flooding and species extinction. They are known as Landscape Conservation Cooperatives – or were, because 16 of them are now on indefinite hiatus or have dissolved.
“I just haven’t seen anything like this in my almost 30 years of working with the federal government,” said a scientist at the Fish and Wildlife Service who worked for one of the LCCs and wished to remain anonymous, because federal employees were instructed not to speak with the Guardian for this story. “There is this lack of accountability.”
NPR
Across the U.S., many doctors, nurses and other health care workers have remained silent about what is being called an epidemic of violence against them.
The violent outbursts come from patients and patients' families. And for years, it's been considered part of the job.
When you visit the Cleveland Clinic emergency department these days — whether as a patient, family member or friend — a large sign directs you toward a metal detector.
An officer inspects all bags and then instructs you to walk through the metal detector. In some cases, a metal wand is used — even on patients who come in on stretchers. Cleveland Clinic officials say they confiscate thousands of weapons like knives, pepper spray and guns each year. The metal detectors were installed in response to what CEO Tom Mihaljevic is calling an epidemic.