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, jck, 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.
I almost forgot about the OND tonight...so tonight’s is brief, short, and to the point.
Iowa Starting Line: Early Insights From Initial Results Of The Iowa Caucus by Pat Rynard
Let’s start with some statewide numbers (again, which aren’t complete) and then delve into precinct-by-precinct observations — those we can analyze with more certainty right now since individual precincts are fully in.
Here’s the statewide SDEs percentages with 62% reporting:
Buttigieg: 26.9%
Sanders: 25.1%
Warren: 18.3%
Biden: 15.6%
Klobuchar: 12.6%
Yang: 1.0%
With just these precincts in, you can’t call a winner yet. But there’s one candidate who definitely lost: Joe Biden.
He’s currently on track to come in fourth place, confirming what many of us saw on caucus night itself: Biden groups simply struggling to make viability in a surprising number of precincts. Right now, he’s at just 15.6% of the state delegate equivalent results, with Amy Klobuchar close behind at 12.6%.
Washington Post: Iowa Democrats kept their app secret to prevent hacks. Instead, they got confusion and chaos. By Issac Stanley-Becker and Michael Scherer
Linda Nelson, a 68-year-old retired elementary school teacher in Council Bluffs, received a notice over the weekend that a new version of the mobile app she would use three days later for Iowa's first-in-the-nation caucuses was ready for her to test.
But when Nelson downloaded the software on her smartphone, she couldn’t figure out how to log in. She tried one PIN number. She tried the ID for the precinct she would be chairing in the western Pottawattamie County. She tried another PIN number. “Nothing works!” Nelson wrote in an email to the state party.
Her problems were replicated across the state on Monday, as precinct leaders failed to access the app or reported being locked out as they sought to punch in numbers to report them to state party officials. In one especially stark example, just one precinct leader in all of Scott County, which is part of the Quad Cities region, was able to successfully use the software, according to the county’s Democratic Party chair.
Chicago Tribune: If Iowa, N.H. are too white to vote first, then who? ‘Look no further than Illinois,’ Gov. J.B. Pritzker says
Right about now, as the Iowa Democratic Party releases partial results of the state’s first-in-the-nation presidential caucus, when the nation’s political microscope turns to inspect the small state’s DNA, people start to complain about this quirk of American presidential politics. Why Iowa? It doesn’t look like America, they note. It certainly doesn’t look like the Democratic Party, in terms of racial diversity.
“It’s time for a state other than Iowa to go first so that our nominating process actually reflects the diversity of our country or of our party,” former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro said in an Iowa television ad just before ending his presidential campaign.
On the eve of this year’s Iowa caucuses, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker jumped in the foray, addressing the issue with a tweet stating, “If you’re looking for a state whose people represent the diversity of America, look no further than Illinois. It’s time for the most representative state in the country to be the first in the nation,” then linking to
a 2016 National Public Radio analysis.
You think that politics in Illinois is a hot mess now…
New York Times: Fear and Takeout: 14 Days in Coronavirus ‘Self-Quarantine’ by Mitch Smith, Zolan Kanno-Younds, Farah Stockman, and Vanessa Swales
Claire Campbell expected to spend this semester studying in Shanghai. Instead, she is five days into a self-imposed quarantine at her parents’ house in South Carolina.
She checks her temperature twice a day. She reads. And she waits for a family friend to slide takeout meals through the front door.
“I am going stir crazy,” said Ms. Campbell, 20, a Clemson University student who returned from her study abroad trip months earlier than planned because of an outbreak of coronavirus in Wuhan, China, that has left hundreds dead and sickened thousands more. “Every day kind of melts together.”
As United States officials impose new restrictions on travelers from China, many people who have returned to the country in recent days have hunkered down in their homes to make sure they were not carrying or spreading the disease.
Guardian: US homeless student population reaches 1.5m, the highest in a decade by Vivian Ho
The number of public school students experiencing homelessness in the US has increased 15% in the past three years, reaching its highest number in more than a decade.
More than 1.5 million students reported experiencing homelessness during the 2017-18 school year, according to a study by the National Center for Homeless Education, with California at the forefront with 263,000 students.
The 2017-18 number was the highest number that the NCHE has reported since it began tracking this data in 2004, George Hancock, the center director, told the Guardian. “We’re seeing it throughout the country,” he said.
The majority of homeless students, whose ages range from pre-kindergarten at age 3 to grade 12 at age 18 or older, reported that they were forced to stay with friends or relatives due to loss of their primary housing or economic hardship. More than 182,000 students reported living in shelters, transitional housing or were awaiting foster care – a 2% decrease from previous years.
However, the number of students living in unsheltered situations, such as on the streets, spiked by 137% to more than 102,000 in the past three years.
BBC: Lesotho First Lady Maesaiah Thabane faces charge of murdering rival
The wife of the prime minister of Lesotho is to be charged with murdering his previous wife.
First Lady Maesaiah Thabane handed herself in to be questioned by police in the southern African mountain kingdom.
Prime Minister Thomas Thabane has also been questioned about the killing.
His estranged wife, Lipolelo Thabane, was shot dead outside her home in the capital Maseru two days before his inauguration in 2017.
The couple were involved in bitter divorce proceedings at the time.
The attack was originally blamed on unknown armed men, but recent court papers filed by the country's police commissioner, Holomo Molibeli, have raised further questions.
An arrest warrant was issued for 42-year-old Maesaiah Thabane on 10 January after she disappeared.
Don’t forget that Meteor Blades is hosting a Tuesday night owls thread.
Everyone have a great evening and I will see you this Saturday for...science!