The Overnight News Digest is a nightly series dedicated to chronicling the eschaton and the decline of the Republic. Please add news, signs of life or hope, or other items in the comments.
The Washington PostHe gave her a bike when she was a refugee. Decades later, the Internet helped her find him.
Mevan Babakar wanted to say thank you, but first she had to find the man who had given her a bicycle while she was staying at a refugee camp as a child. So she asked Twitter for help. And in a rare moment of Internet goodness, the World Wide Web answered the call.
Babakar, 29, had been on a journey to retrace her Kurdish family’s steps after they fled Iraq in the 1990s. Before eventually finding safety, they traveled for five years, through Turkey, Azerbaijan, Russia and to a refugee camp in Zwolle, Netherlands.
It was in Zwolle where Babakar, head of automated fact-checking at United Kingdom-based Full Fact, found herself Monday, with lingering questions about her family’s history. She was not able to dig up much information about the refugee camp, even after talking to local historians and librarians. And she could remember only a few details and moments from that time.
But she did remember the feeling after she was given the bike: disbelief, a new sense of worth, that she mattered, that she could hope for more in her life.
x xYouTube VideoIsrael denies entry to Reps. Omar and Tlaib hours after Trump’s push for a ban
Trump’s explosive feud with two Democratic congresswomen moved to the international stage on Thursday as Israel denied the lawmakers entry into the country just hours after Trump publicly urged Israel to block them.
U.S. officials said the extraordinary intervention by the president was part of his strategy to sow divisions within the Democratic Party by shining a spotlight on its most liberal members.
Trump blasted the two lawmakers, Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), tweeting that “they hate Israel & all Jewish people, & there is nothing that can be said or done to change their minds.”
But the actions by Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his close ally, appeared to unite Democratic Party leaders.
A truck drove into ICE protesters outside a private prison. They say a guard was at the wheel.
The protesters were sitting on the pavement to block staff from parking at a Rhode Island prison that works with Immigration and Customs Enforcement when a black pickup truck swerved toward them. The protesters shouted as the driver laid on the horn, and the truck briefly stopped. And then, the driver hit the gas.
In a viral video captured by bystanders, the protesters screamed and jumped out of the way. Several were struck, according to organizers of the Wednesday night demonstration at the Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, R.I. Some were treated at a hospital, though none were severely injured.
“It was terrifying because we didn’t know what exactly his intention was,” Amy Anthony, a spokesperson for Never Again Action, a Jewish activist group that planned the protest, told The Washington Post. “It certainly appeared he was trying to hit us.”
Los Angeles TimesCourt upholds ruling that children held at border must have adequate food, bedding, sanitation
In a closely watched case, a federal appeals court Thursday upheld an order requiring immigration authorities to provide children detained at the border with adequate food, water, bedding, toothbrushes and soap.
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected an appeal by the Trump administration to an order by a federal judge in Los Angeles who found the government was violating a 1997 settlement by failing to provide detained minors with safe and sanitary conditions.
U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee issued the order in 2017 after finding that minors in U.S. Customs and Border Protection custody were held in conditions that deprived them of sleep and did not have adequate food, clean water or basic hygiene items. The settlement, known as the Flores agreement, required the children be given safe and sanitary quarters.
Iowa Democrats think Kamala Harris could send ‘bully’ Trump ‘back to his corner’
Young men in Elizabeth Warren T-shirts gawked and pointed their cameras as Kamala Harris worked the crowd in Iowa. A group wearing black Andrew Yang shirts asked her for a photo.
And on the sidelines of the Democratic Wing Ding Dinner, an Iowa political rite of passage, an older woman trying to find her friend for a selfie with the senator got a little help from Harris, who cranked up the goofy warmth she sometimes radiates on the campaign trail.
“Owen! Where are you?” Harris hollered, gesturing jokingly over the crowd, as the beaming woman instead recorded what was essentially a private campaign ad with an intended audience of Owen. “I’m looking all over the Wing Ding for you. I can’t — Owen? Has anyone seen Owen? I can’t find you anywhere, Owen. I need your help. Caucus for me. I need you in my corner, wherever you are.”
Gibraltar releases Iranian supertanker that U.S. wanted to seize
Gibraltar on Thursday allowed a detained Iranian supertanker to leave the British overseas territory after a last-minute U.S. attempt to seize the vessel, potentially defusing tensions between London and Tehran as a British-flagged tanker remains held by the Islamic Republic.
The release of the Grace 1 comes after the U.S. under … Trump pulled out of Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers over a year ago, setting in motion a growing confrontation between Tehran and the West over its atomic program. In past weeks, the Persian Gulf region has seen six attacks on oil tankers that the U.S. has blamed on Iran and the downing of a U.S. surveillance drone by Iranian forces. Iran has denied being behind the tanker attacks, though it has seized other tankers.
Wisconsin Public RadioMural On Milwaukee Bus Depicting ICE Raid Draws Criticism
Each year since 2003, the Milwaukee Art Museum and Milwaukee County Public Transit System have partnered up to decorate a county bus with a mural designed and created by Milwaukee teenagers. This year's mural on immigration is the first time the longstanding partnership has drawn criticism.
The mural depicts U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents separating a mother and child. The mural also lists instructions on "What to do if ICE comes to your door" and on the back reads "Celebrating over 160 years of Dreamers: Milwaukee is immigrant strong."
After the county bus was unveiled on Sunday, Milwaukee County Board Supervisor Dan Sebring called for the mural to be removed, saying it sends a racist and anti-law enforcement message. WPR reached out to Sebring but he was not available to comment.
Milwaukee Journal SentinelTyler Kuhl has wanted one thing in life — to be a dairy farmer… One hundred years since Kuhl's great-grandpa put down stakes, he's selling the last of his dairy cows.
"I'm shaking right now just talking about it," Kuhl said in an interview on the day of the Century Farm award ceremony.
"This 100 years means a lot but it's bittersweet because I'm done. This farm, my grandpa told me years ago, will always be a farm. But I just don't need to milk cows. It's a tough deal to look up at the sky and say that."
Farmers' milk checks have dropped because of a worldwide milk glut, forcing many to sell off their herds after losing money for months, sometimes years. Nearly 3,000 U.S. dairy farms folded last year, about a 6.5% decline, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture figures. In Wisconsin this year, two to three dairy operations are shutting down every day.
BloombergThe State With the Highest Suicide Rate Desperately Needs Shrinks
The mental health unit inside the Glendive Medical Center is dark, and when Jaime Shanks declares that a light switch surely must be around here somewhere, a faint echo chases the words down an empty hall. […]
The problem isn’t a lack of demand; Montana is cursed with the highest suicide rate in the nation, and it’s higher in this predominantly rural part of the state than in any other region. During the rare times when the unit is up and running, the supply of incoming patients is predictably, and sometimes frantically, consistent. The problem here is staffing. Administrators can’t find anyone to run the place.
Last fall, after years of fruitless recruiting drives and ad placements, the center finally snagged a recently graduated psychiatrist to oversee the unit. This spring, not long after the local newspaper celebrated her arrival, she quit. “I think maybe it was just a little too much for someone without experience to take on, and I don’t blame her,” says Shanks, who as marketing director is part of the recruitment team. “There’s such a huge need out here, and I can see the burnout in mental health providers that comes out of that.”
China Loses Status as U.S.'s Largest Foreign Creditor to Japan
Japan surpassed China in June as the top holder of U.S. Treasuries as the trade war between the world’s two largest economies intensified.
Japan increased its holdings of U.S. bonds, bills and notes by $21.9 billion to $1.12 trillion, the highest level in more than 2 1/2 years, according to data released by the Treasury Department on Thursday. Meanwhile, China’s ownership rose for the first time in four months to $1.11 trillion, up by $2.3 billion.
The last time Japan held the position as America’s largest foreign creditor was May 2017.
House Panel Subpoenas Former Trump Campaign Manager Lewandowski
The House Judiciary Committee said Thursday it has subpoenaed … Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and former White House chief of staff Rick Dearborn to publicly testify in its investigation of whether to pursue presidential impeachment.
Both men are being called to appear on Sept. 17 and discuss Trump’s “extensive efforts to obstruct” Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian election interference, New York Representative Jerrold Nadler, the committee’s chairman, said in a statement.
Railway AgeAAR: U.S. Rail Traffic Still Down
The Association of American Railroads (AAR) reported U.S. rail traffic for the week ended August 10, 2019, and it’s still trending in the wrong direction—though the U.S.'s neighbor to the north saw a slight uptick.
For this week—and as we’ve recently seen—total U.S. weekly rail traffic was 533,190 carloads and intermodal units, down 4.3% compared with the same week last year.
Total carloads for the week ended August 10 were 261,194 carloads, down 3.9% compared with the same week in 2018, while U.S. weekly intermodal volume was 271,996 containers and trailers, down 4.6% compared to 2018.
The GuardianIt's raining plastic: microscopic fibers fall from the sky in Rocky Mountains
Plastic was the furthest thing from Gregory Wetherbee’s mind when he began analyzing rainwater samples collected from the Rocky Mountains. “I guess I expected to see mostly soil and mineral particles,” said the US Geological Survey researcher. Instead, he found multicolored microscopic plastic fibers.
The discovery, published in a recent study (pdf) titled “It is raining plastic”, raises new questions about the amount of plastic waste permeating the air, water, and soil virtually everywhere on Earth.
“I think the most important result that we can share with the American public is that there’s more plastic out there than meets the eye,” said Wetherbee. “It’s in the rain, it’s in the snow. It’s a part of our environment now.”
Tree-damaging pests pose ‘devastating’ threat to 40% of US forests
About 40% of all forests across the US are at risk of being ravaged by an army of harmful pests, undermining a crucial resource in addressing the climate crisis, new research has found.
Tree-damaging pests have already destroyed swathes of US woodland, with the American chestnut virtually wiped out by a fungal disease and elms blighted by Dutch elm disease. About 450 overseas pests that damage or feed on trees have been introduced to US forests due to the growth in international trade and travel.
A PNAS-published study of the 15 most damaging non-native forest pests has found that they destroy so many trees that about 6m tons of carbon are expelled each year from the dying plants. This is the equivalent, researchers say, of adding an extra 4.6m cars to the roads every year in terms of the release of planet-warming gases.
Jacinda Ardern says Australia has to 'answer to Pacific' on climate change
Jacinda Ardern has declared that “Australia has to answer to the Pacific” on climate change, saying that New Zealand is doing what it can to limit global emissions to 1.5C and expects other nations to do the same.
However, the New Zealand prime minister stopped short of saying New Zealand would throw its weight behind the smaller Pacific nations who are urging Australia to commit to a rapid transition from a coal-based economy at this year’s Pacific Islands Forum.
“Issues around Australia’s domestic policy are issues for Australia,” she said, when asked about Australia’s coal use.
'People are dying': how the climate crisis has sparked an exodus to the US
At sunrise, the misty fields around the village of Guior are already dotted with men, women and children sowing maize after an overnight rainstorm.
After several years of drought, the downpour brought some hope of relief to the subsistence farmers in this part of eastern Guatemala.
But as Esteban Gutiérrez, 30, takes a break from his work, he explains why he is still willing to incur crippling debts – and risk his life – to migrate to the United States.
“My children have gone to bed hungry for the past three years. Our crops failed and the coffee farms have cut wages to $4 a day,” he says, playing nervously with the white maize kernels in a plastic trough strapped to his waist.
MercoPressMassive women's protests in Brasilia against Bolsonaro's policies
Tens of thousands of women took to the streets of Brazil's capital on Wednesday to denounce President Jair Bolsonaro, in the third anti-government protest in the city in two days.
The huge demonstration in Brasilia comes as Bolsonaro faces increasing heat over rampant deforestation in the Amazon rainforest as well as education funding cuts, which have sparked nationwide protests by students and professors in recent months, including one in the capital on Tuesday.
The “March of the Margaridas” is named after Brazilian trade union leader Margarida Maria Alves, who was murdered in 1983 during the military dictatorship.
Trump threatens to pull the US out of WTO: “they have been screwing us for years”
Donald Trump threatened on Tuesday to pull the United States out of the World Trade Organization (WTO) if conditions are not improved. “We will leave if we have to,” Trump told a cheering audience of workers at a Shell chemical plant in Pennsylvania.
“We know that they have been screwing us for years and it's not going to happen again,” he said. […]
But the United States in fact has a successful track record of winning disputes mediated by the global trading body. While calling for reforms to the institution's rules, the Trump administration also has effectively paralyzed its work.By blocking naming of new members to the appellate panel part of the Dispute Settlement Body that arbitrates disputes, the system will grind to a halt by the end of the year.
ReutersU.S. 30-year yields drop to fresh record low below 2%
U.S. 30-year Treasury yields fell to a record low below 2% and benchmark 10-year notes dropped to a three-year trough on Thursday amid persistent worries about global trade tensions and economic slowdowns around the world.
A day after inverting, the U.S. yield curve steepened a little. Curve inversion, which occurs when long-term yields dip below short-term ones, is widely considered a warning that the economy is headed for recession.
“I don’t think we have seen a bottom in yields yet,” said Gary Pzegeo, head of fixed income at CIBC Private Wealth Management, in Boston.
GE shares fall on Madoff whistleblower calling its finances a fraud
General Electric Co shares fell as much as 15% on Thursday after fraud investigator Harry Markopolos, who blew the whistle on Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, said GE was concealing deep financial problems, prompting a sharp rebuke from GE’s new CEO.
GE Chief Executive Officer Larry Culp said Markopolos’ 175-page report contained factual errors and constituted “market manipulation - pure and simple,” because Markopolos stood to profit from short-selling tied to its release.
Short sales, or bets that a share price will fall, have risen 17% in GE stock over the past month to 110 million shares worth about $995 million before the report came out Thursday, said Matthew Unterman, a director at S3 Partners, a financial analytics firm in New York.
In the report www.gefraud.com, Markopolos accused GE of hiding $38 billion in potential losses and asserted that the company's cash and debt positions were far worse than it had disclosed.
McClatchy DC‘We are dropping like flies.’ Ex-fighter pilots push for earlier cancer screenings
Former Air Force and Navy fighter pilots are calling on the military to begin cancer screenings for aviators as young as 30 because of an increase in deaths from the disease that they suspect may be tied to radiation emitted in the cockpit.
“We are dropping like flies in our 50s from aggressive cancers,” said retired Air Force Col. Eric Nelson, a former F-15E Strike Eagle weapons officer. He cited prostate and esophageal cancers, lymphoma, and glioblastomas that have struck fellow pilots he knew, commanded or flew with.
Nelson’s prostate cancer was first detected at age 48, just three months after he retired from the Air Force. In his career he has more than 2,600 flying hours, including commanding the 455th Air Expeditionary Group in Bagram, Afghanistan, and as commander of six squadrons of F-15E fighter jets at the 4th Operations Group at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina.
After ‘fake farmer’ claim, Devin Nunes reports he owns small farm that earns no income
For the first time in more than a decade, Rep. Devin Nunes is reporting that he owns a stake in a farm.
The new disclosure comes a year after Democratic groups accused Nunes, R-Tulare, of being a “fake farmer” and unsuccessfully challenged his description of himself as a farmer on California ballots.
Nunes, R-Tulare, reported on a newly released financial disclosure form that he owns a Tulare County farm that generates no income for him and is worth less than $15,000. Nunes has never before claimed a farm as one of his assets in annual financial disclosures, according to public records dating back to 2007.
‘A reckoning’: Sanders and Warren supporters see an alliance on the brink
Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are Senate colleagues, ideological partners and mutual admirers.
But their tacit alliance in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary is approaching a breaking point as they vie to become the progressive alternative to … Joe Biden.
More than five months out from the Iowa caucuses, liberals are thrilled that two of their own are at the top of the field. But there’s an underlying worry among some of their supporters that if both Sanders and Warren’s strength endures, they could clear the path for the more moderate Biden to win the nomination -- a scenario similar to how Republicans never united behind a single alternative to Donald Trump in the 2016 primary.
Deutsche WelleJuly 2019 was the hottest month ever recorded, US agency confirms
Humanity faced our hottest month in at least 140 years in July, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said on Thursday. The finding confirms similar analysis provided by their EU counterparts.
"Much of the planet sweltered in unprecedented heat," NOAA said on their website. "The record warmth also shrank Arctic and Antarctic sea ice to historic lows."
For example, Alaska saw its warmest July since statewide records began in 1925. At the same time, despite powerful heat waves in Europe, the continent marked only the 15th hottest July on record.
Scientists say atmosphere carrying microplastics to the Arctic
Microplastics are entering the atmosphere and being carried vast distances to some of the remotest places on the planet, scientists said.
Researchers from Germany and Switzerland said in a study published Wednesday that they found evidence of "high concentrations" of microplastics are falling from the sky with snow in the Arctic and Bavarian and Swiss Alps.
"It's readily apparent that the majority of the microplastic in the snow comes from the air," said co-author Melanie Bergmann.
NPR NewsIndia's Modi Defends Moves In Kashmir As Lockdown Continues
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed his government's recent constitutional reform that stripped Kashmir of its statehood in a speech Thursday to mark India's Independence Day. He said the change will bring prosperity and equality to the area.
"It is our duty to fulfill the hopes and wishes of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. It is our responsibility to give their dreams new wings," he said at the Red Fort in New Delhi.
But as India's leader spoke, Jammu and Kashmir's 7 million people were in their 11th day of a communication blockade, with phone, Internet and cable TV services cut.
Most ICE Detainees Held In Rural Areas Where Deportation Risks Soar
Yoel Alonso sat in a cell for 10 months before he ever met with a lawyer. His wife had to travel 1,000 miles to visit him at the remote Louisiana facility where he was detained.
Alonso is not imprisoned for committing a crime. In fact, he turned himself in to immigration officials last October, seeking asylum from Cuba. Since then, he has been detained in two rural facilities — first in Louisiana, and now in Adams County, Miss. — where he is faced with daunting legal hurdles. Chief among them: Alonso has met his lawyer only once in his nearly 11 months in federal custody.
And his plight is becoming more common. More than half of immigrants detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement are housed in remote rural prisons, according to a new NPR analysis, about 52%. That number is increasing.
That is a mounting concern for those who advocate on behalf of immigrants, because detainees in rural areas are facing higher barriers to obtaining a lawyer, more likely to have their asylum cases denied and more likely to be deported to their home countries.
Washington Wheat Farmers Could Be Toast If Dams Are Removed To Help Hungry Orcas
The southern resident killer whales that live off the coast of Washington state are hungry, because there are fewer and fewer of the salmon they depend on. To help them, the state is looking at removing a series of dams.
Dam removal would help salmon travel up the river to spawn and down the river to the ocean, where the orcas can eat them.
But the dams are also important to another population: wheat farmers. Washington's wheat crop brings $700 million into the state's economy, more than any crop except apples. The vast majority of that wheat gets exported, most of it to Asia.
UPIPhysicists say they've discovered a new state of matter
Physicists at New York University claim they have uncovered a new state of matter that could boost the storage capacity of electronic devices and pave the way for the first generation of quantum computers.
"Our research has succeeded in revealing experimental evidence for a new state of matter -- topological superconductivity," Javad Shabani, an assistant professor of physics at New York University, said in a news release. "This new topological state can be manipulated in ways that could both speed calculation in quantum computing and boost storage."
Traditional computers process bits, which can only assume the value of a zero or a one. Quantum computers use quantum bits or qubits, which can assume the value of one, zero or both -- and an infinite number of values in between.
Julian Castro proposes plan to tax inheritance, provide family tax credit
Democratic presidential candidate Julian Castro introduced a plan Thursday to tax inheritance, raise the capital gains tax rate and provide a tax credit for families.
The plan proposes replacing the state tax and gift tax with a unified inheritance gift tax under which the first $2 million of person's inheritance would be tax-free and all subsequently inherited wealth would be subject to federal income and payroll taxes."
A new inheritance tax will ensure wealthy heirs pay their fair share of taxes on inherited wealth, just like they would any other source of income and also prevent the concentration of economic and political power in the hands of the privileged few," Castro said.
Ars TechnicaWoman accused of Capital One hack had stolen data from 30 companies, authorities say
In a petition filed on August 13 in federal court in Seattle, the Justice Department asserted that Paige Thompson—the former Amazon employee accused of stealing data from Capital One credit card applications—had done far more, including "major cyber intrusions that resulted in the theft of massive amounts of data from what now appears to be more than 30 victim companies." US Attorney for Western Washington Brian Moran's filing was for a motion to keep Thompson imprisoned until trial because she is a flight risk and "has a long history of threatening behavior that includes repeated threats to kill others, to kill herself, and to commit suicide by cop."
Aside from Capital One, the victim organizations have not been named by Justice officials, but the filing stated that they included "other companies, educational institutions, and other entities." The data from these sources reviewed thus far appears largely to not include personal information.
"At this point, however, the government is continuing to work to identify specific entities from which data was stolen, as well as the type of data stolen from each entity," Moran wrote in his filing. "The government expects to add an additional charge against Thompson based upon each such theft of data, as the victims are identified and notified."
The National InterestThe United States is Losing Latin America to China
Historically speaking, the United States has been sensitive about foreign powers involving themselves in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere. Yet with the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War, Washington seemed to forget about its “backyard” in the Americas. Instead, the U.S. foreign policy establishment focused on Eurasia, particularly after 9/11. Sensing an opportunity to attain influence in the region at the expense of the United States, China has stepped into Latin America—strengthening diplomatic ties, expanding trade relations and pouring tens of billions of yuan into infrastructure investments.
Beijing’s intentions were stated outright in a 2008 policy paper that, apart from a few China and Latin America hands, was largely overlooked at the time. Though China and Latin America are separated by the breadth of the Pacific Ocean, the paper stated that both sides “enjoy a time-honored friendship” and “are at a similar stage of development and face the common task of achieving development.” The region’s then mostly left-wing governments, often ignored and at times antagonized by the United States’ cavalier attitude towards them, welcomed China’s message of harmonious and collaborative development. After all, China’s own model of state-led economic development has advanced its economy by leaps and bounds over the past four decades, lifting over 800 million people out of poverty and significantly increasing the ordinary citizen’s standard of living. Latin American countries could not help but covet achieving similar results.
Now, over a decade later, China’s efforts have borne fruit.
Fire! Here's All the Battleships That Would Have Been Built If No World War II
The late 1930s promised a renewed era of battleship construction, similar in some ways to the bonanza that immediately followed the construction of the HMS Dreadnought. The “naval holiday” restrictions imposed by the Washington Naval Treaty system were relaxing, and in any case Japan and Italy had determined to abandon the system, reducing the constraints on Britain, France and the United States. Moreover, Germany and the Soviet Union were preparing to re-enter the battleship construction game.
Events intervened, of course, but it’s worth thinking about what the battlefleets of the world might have looked like in 1950 if the demands of the Second World War had not pulled resources away from battleship construction, while at the same time demonstrating that technology had passed the great warships by.
CBC NewsWhat killed the cave bear? Scientists think they have the answer
Polar bear-sized herbivore went extinct after humans took over caves where it hibernated, gave birth
Genetic research that reconstructed the past population dynamics of the cave bear, a prominent prehistoric denizen of Europe, implicates Homo sapiens rather than climate cooling in the Ice Age extinction of these brawny plant-loving beasts.
Scientists said on Thursday they obtained genome data from 59 cave bears from bones unearthed at 14 sites in France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Serbia, Spain and Switzerland.
Using this, they detected a population downturn roughly 50,000 years ago coinciding with the arrival of our species in eastern Europe and then a dramatic decline starting about 40,000 years ago coinciding with the spread of Homo sapiens throughout Europe. It ultimately went extinct about 20,000 years ago.
She canoed to Thunder Bay in a big Victorian dress — and the trip's not over, yet
This time last summer, Naomi Harris was scared for her life — over and over and over again.
There's the story of how she landed in hospital with a leg infection, which was a nasty prologue to a whole other misadventure on the French River. (She was bucked into the rapids, slicing her shin on the rocks.) Before that, she'd survived the Ottawa and Mattawa Rivers, plus the muddy, 11 km slog of the LaVase Portages. Then came a crossing at Lake Superior, where she paddled way out into the greatest of the Great Lakes ... just as the weather turned murderous. She and her guide survived. Barely. Same goes for the the squall that rocked her campsite soon after — an episode that nearly drowned her on dry land.
But Harris made it, completing a 70-day canoe journey from Lachine, Que., to Thunder Bay, Ont. And she did it all in a damned floor-length dress.
xHey, that she is me! Thanks for the interview @LeahCollinsShe canoed to Thunder Bay in a big Victorian dress — and the trip's not over, yet | CBC Arts https://t.co/kmTbC9IEbS
— Naomi Harris (@mapledipped) August 15, 2019