Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, eeff, Magnifico, annetteboardman, Besame and jck. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) Interceptor 7, Man Oh Man, wader, Neon Vincent, palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse (RIP), ek hornbeck (RIP), rfall, 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.
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Chicago Sun-Times: Lightfoot back in action — with a mask — one week after COVID-19 diagnosis by Fran Spielman
Mayor Lori Lightfoot was back in action on Tuesday — wearing a mask at all times — one week after being diagnosed with COVID-19 and feeling well enough to travel to Washington D.C. this week for the annual meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors.
Lightfoot described her symptoms as “relatively mild” and said it “kind of felt like a cold — a bad cold.”
The mayor said she “luckily recovered quickly” and feels strong enough now to fly to the nation’s capital for the meeting with her fellow mayors and lobby the federal agencies whose help she needs to fight Chicago’s unrelenting gang violence.
Lightfoot grew somewhat defensive when asked why she has decided to defy the guidelines for travel issued by the Centers for Disease Control.
Texas Tribune: Texas says supply chain issues have limited the number of voter registration forms it can give out by Ashley Lopez, Kut News
The Texas secretary of state’s office is having more trouble than usual getting enough voter registration cards to groups who help Texans register to vote.
Sam Taylor, assistant secretary of state for communications, said supply chain issues have made it harder and more expensive to get paper, which means the secretary of state’s office will be giving out fewer voter registration forms to groups ahead of elections this year.
“We are limited in what we can supply this year, because of the paper shortage and the cost constraints due to the price of paper and the supply of paper,” he said.
Grace Chimene, the president of the League of Women Voters of Texas, said it is not unusual for the secretary of state to not have enough forms to fill all the requests it gets from groups like hers ahead of elections. This particular shortage, however, is affecting an important part of her group’s work: registering thousands of newly naturalized citizens.
Citing the city’s gun violence crisis, the highest ranking member of the Pennsylvania Senate on Tuesday asked state House leaders to begin impeachment proceedings against Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, a move derided by the prosecutor’s office as a political stunt with no chance of succeeding.
In a letter to three top House Republicans, Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman — a Centre County Republican who is seeking the GOP nomination for governor — contended that the violence was “a direct result of DA Krasner’s failed policies.”
Corman has no authority to begin impeachment proceedings himself, and there is no guarantee the House of Representatives will heed his call. GOP leaders in that chamber were noncommittal, and even Corman’s letter stopped short of saying Krasner deserved to be removed from office.
The letter came as candidates in the crowded GOP gubernatorial primary have jockeyed for attention, often targeting Democrats whom they view as overly liberal or “woke” on issues including criminal justice reform and public safety. Corman’s spokesperson, Jason Thompson, denied that Tuesday’s request was a political ploy.
With days to draw new state House and Senate maps, the seven-member Ohio Redistricting Commission set some bare-bones guidelines for the task ahead of it: work together and try to match the statewide voting preferences of Ohioans.
Those statewide voting preferences amount to about 54% of voters preferring GOP candidates and about 46% selecting Democratic ones, the court ruled last week, giving the commission 10 days to redraw maps. That could lead to about 54 GOP-leaning seats and 45 Democratic-leaning seats in the Ohio House.
"They've determined that that needs to be closely followed, or the number of seats needs to closely follow that ratio," said Speaker Bob Cupp, R-Lima, a co-chairman of the commission, which met Tuesday morning. "So, we're working to comply with the decision."
Another co-chairman, Sen. Vernon Sykes, D-Akron, put it simply: "We are required to attempt to do that unless there's some other, technical guidance that prevents us from doing it."
Finally, the commission was speaking the same language Tuesday – albeit after an Ohio Supreme Court decision forced Republican members' hands.
Orange County Register: Some worry redistricting could split Latino vote in Orange by Tess Sheets
With new census data in hand, Orange leaders have begun the once-a-decade process of adjusting voting boundaries, but some residents are concerned the existing district representing the El Modena neighborhood and communities west of the 55 Freeway could be split up, possibly diluting the voice of the Latino residents in the area.
With nearly 20 maps submitted before a public hearing last month, the City Council is now focusing on four to consider further. Only one of those proposes keeping the existing District 5 – stretching from South Tustin Avenue to Hewes Avenue – intact.
Sam Rodriguez, whose family has lived in the historic El Modena enclave for generations, called the proposals that split up District 5 “a power grab,” saying the maps “gerrymander, and they dilute the Latino vote.”
But city officials note the council has not declared a vote on any particular map, and residents can still submit proposals through the end of the month for consideration.
Washington Post: Omicron hasn’t peaked in U.S., surgeon general says, warning that ‘next few weeks will be tough’ by Paulina Firozi
The United States has not yet reached a national peak of the omicron variant, the nation’s top doctor said, urging caution even as the explosion of cases has started to plateau in some areas.
“We shouldn’t expect a national peak in the next coming days — the next few weeks will be tough,” U.S. Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy said Sunday on CNN.
Case counts fueled by the highly contagious variant have started to level off in some parts of the country hit early by the latest wave. In the District of Columbia and Maryland, experts said the omicron-fueled surge was showing signs of peaking in recent days, after a winter wave began to slow in other Northeast cities, including New York and Boston.
While that’s good news, Murthy said, “the challenge is that the entire country is not moving at the same pace. The omicron wave started later in other parts of the country.”
New York Times: Jan. 6 Panel Subpoenas Giuliani, Digging Into False Vote Fraud Claims by Luke Broadwater and Maggie Haberman
WASHINGTON — The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol on Tuesday subpoenaed Rudolph W. Giuliani and other members of the legal team that pursued a set of conspiracy-filled lawsuits on behalf of former President Donald J. Trump in which they made unsubstantiated claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
In addition to Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer and a ringleader of the group, the panel subpoenaed three others who played central roles in his effort to use the courts, state legislatures and Congress to try to overturn his defeat.
Jenna Ellis drafted a memo on how Mr. Trump could invalidate the election results by exploiting an obscure law. Sidney Powell, a lawyer who worked on many of the lawsuits with Mr. Giuliani, ran an organization that raised millions of dollars based on false claims that election machines were rigged. Boris Epshteyn pursued allegations of election fraud in Nevada and Arizona and is said to have participated in a call with Mr. Trump on the morning of Jan. 6, “during which options were discussed to delay the certification of election results,” the committee said.
Roll Call: Democrats tie ‘talking filibuster’ gambit to Senate’s two-speech rule by Niels Lesniewski
Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer plans to try to implement a “talking filibuster” rule that would allow the chamber’s voting rights debate to be brought to a close by just a simple majority once Republicans have run out of turns to speak.
But the New York Democrat’s proposal announced Tuesday evening lacked buy-in from the entire caucus, meaning its implementation will likely be blocked as early as Wednesday.
“Once members of the minority party have exhausted all of their speaking rights and defended their position on the Senate floor, the debate will have run its course, and the Senate will move to vote on final passage at a majority threshold,” Schumer told reporters late Tuesday.
He described the proposal, which would come up for a floor vote after the GOP rejects the majority leader’s motion to invoke cloture on a voting rights measure, as being “restorative” of a long-standing Senate rule known colloquially as the two-speech rule.
CNN: Exclusive: Eric Trump and Kimberly Guilfoyle's phone records subpoenaed by January 6 committee by Jamie Gangel, Jeremy Herb, and Elizabeth Stuart
Washington (CNN)— House committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol has subpoenaed and obtained records of phone numbers associated with one of former President Donald Trump's children, Eric Trump, as well as Kimberly Guilfoyle, who is engaged to Donald Trump Jr., sources tell CNN.
It appears to be the first time the select committee has issued a subpoena that targeted a member of the Trump family, in what marks a significant escalation of the investigation into Trump's role in the January 6 insurrection. The decision to subpoena communication records involving the Trump family underscores the aggressive tack the committee is taking as it races to complete its investigation
while battling Trump in court over access to documents from his administration.
The phone records obtained by the committee are part of a new round of call detail records subpoenaed from communication companies, multiple sources tell CNN. These records provide the committee with logs that show incoming and outgoing calls, including the date, time and length of calls. The records also show a log of text messages, but not the substance or content of the messages.
Still, the information can be a critical investigative tool for the committee in piecing together a road map of who was communicating before, during and after January 6.
BBC News: Tonga tsunami: Race for vital supplies to reach volcano-hit islands
Teams are working desperately to clear ash from Tonga's main airport runway in an effort to get vital supplies to the region following a volcanic eruption.
Some 200 people with wheelbarrows and shovels are sweeping the site so flights can deliver food and drinking water to the Pacific islands.
New Zealand and Australia have also sent ships in response to Saturday's eruption, which triggered a tsunami.
Four deaths have been reported - three nationals and a woman from Britain.
The Tongan government described the eruption, which sent plumes of gas, smoke and debris from the volcano up to 20km (12.5 miles) into the sky, as an "unprecedented disaster".
On Wednesday morning in Tonga, a UN representative for the region said that while clearing the ash on the main island of Tongatapu had proven more difficult than expected, good progress had been made and it was hoped that flights might soon resume.
Guardian: Indonesia names new capital Nusantara, replacing sinking Jakarta by Rebecca Ratcliffe
Indonesia plans to name its new capital Nusantara, which translates as “archipelago”, when government offices are relocated to the province of East Kalimantan from Jakarta, on the island of Java.
President Joko Widodo first announced the plan to move Indonesia’s capital in 2019, in an effort to relieve the huge environmental challenges facing Jakarta, and to redistribute wealth. The move has been delayed due to the pandemic, but could go ahead in 2024.
The government hopes it will reduce the burden on Jakarta, a city of 10 million, which is notoriously congested, suffers regular flooding, and is one of the fastest sinking cities in the world due to the over extraction of groundwater. Parts of north Jakarta are falling at an estimated 25cm a year, due to subsidence – including even the seawall designed as a buffer for communities.
The new name had been selected from more than 80 options by Widodo and was chosen because it reflected Indonesia’s geography, and was iconic internationally, said Suharso Monoarfa, the national development planning minister.
DW: Russia sanctions: How to punish Moscow over Ukraine threat? By Nik Martin
Diplomats from the United States and Europe continue to threaten Russia with new sanctions in an attempt to stop a feared invasion of Ukraine. But confusion remains over which penalties could be levied.
During a visit to Kyiv on Tuesday, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock warned that Moscow would pay a "high price" if the crisis could not be solved by diplomatic means.
Her US counterpart, Anthony Blinken, last month warned of "massive consequences" if Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered military action against Ukraine, after the Kremlin amassed an estimated 100,000 troops on the joint border.
Around the same time, rumors emerged that Washington may seek the so-called nuclear option of cutting off Russian banks from the SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications) payments system — a global network used by almost all financial institutions to wire sums of money to each other.
Exclusion from SWIFT, which is responsible for 35 million daily transactions moving some $5 trillion (€4.4 trillion) around the world, would cause significant disruption to the Russian economy, according to several financial analysts.
AlJazeera: Turkey and Serbia agree to broker Bosnia crisis talks
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he and Serbian counterpart Aleksandar Vucic have agreed to broker crisis talks involving all parties in Bosnia after elections in Serbia in April.
The crisis flared after nationalist lawmakers in post-war Bosnia’s semi-autonomous Serb entity passed a non-binding motion last year to start pulling the region out of the country’s armed forces, tax system and judiciary – a move long backed by Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik.
Turkey, which has deep-rooted historical ties in the Balkans, has criticised the move as “wrong, dangerous” and has offered to mediate in the crisis, which has raised fears of a relapse into ethnic conflict in Bosnia.
After a calamitous 1992-95 ethnic war that killed 100,000 people, Bosnia was split into two largely autonomous regions – a Serb Republic (Republika Srpska) and a Federation dominated by Bosniaks and Croats, overlaid by a loose central government.
Newsweek: Climate Change 'Altering the Geography' of Winter Olympics, Host Cities May Dwindle: Study by Zoe Stroezwski
As the world continues to learn about the far-reaching consequences of climate change, a new study warns that the pool of potential host cities for the Winter Olympics may be among the casualties.
By the end of the century, just one of the 21 cities around the world that have previously hosted the Winter Games will still be able to "reliably provide fair and safe conditions for the snow sports program" unless countries can dramatically reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, according to the study led by Canada's University of Waterloo. If countries can meet the emission targets designated in the Paris climate accord, eight of the cities would be able to remain "climate-reliable," with only six projected to be considered unreliable.
"Climate change is altering the geography of the Winter Olympic Games and will, unfortunately, take away some host cities that are famous for winter sport," said Robert Steiger of Austria's University of Innsbruck. "Most host locations in Europe are projected to be marginal or not reliable as early as the 2050s, even in a low-emission future."
Hollywood Reporter: Film/TV Sets Under Strain: Is the COVID-19 Safety Status Quo Good Enough? By Katie Kilkenny, Carolyn Giardina, and Winston Cho
Amid the rapid spread of omicron, the Jan. 15 deadline for renewing or changing the COVID-19 safety protocols agreement between the industry’s top guilds and studios came and went without any official acknowledgment. That deal, which went into effect in September 2020 and has been extended several times since, with its latest update published July 19, is expected to be extended until mid-February, multiple sources tell The Hollywood Reporter.
With the highly contagious variant tearing through sets and entertainment workplaces, however, some workers are questioning whether the current protocols are stringent enough or could at least use some targeted updates that respond to the virus’ latest mutation. Others point to case-by-case enforcement in a rapidly changing situation being more of an issue than the industry’s protocols. In recent weeks, Paramount+’s Star Trek: Picard paused production after more than 50 people tested positive, while filming of CBS’ NCIS also halted due to COVID-19. Black Panther restarted production last week in Atlanta, only to get delayed because several cast and crew members including Lupita Nyong’o tested positive for the virus (production was set to restart this week).
Everyone have a great evening!