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.
MongaBayAmazon rainforest fires leave São Paulo in the dark
Forest fires have dramatically increased in the Brazilian Amazon this year in the wake of soaring deforestation rates, raising concerns among environmentalists about the fate of the planet’s largest tropical forest.
The number of active fires amounted to 74,155 between January 1 and August 20, a spike of 85 percent compared to the same period in 2018, according to data from the Brazilian National Institute of Space Research (INPE). Roughly half of fire occurrences of this year were registered in the last 20 days, INPE data showed.
In a technical note released in the evening of August 20, the Brazilian NGO IPAM (Institute of Environmental Research in Amazonia) said it didn’t find any evidence to argue that the fires could be a consequence of a lack of rain.
“The fire that we’re seeing today is a fire that’s directly related to deforestation,” said Ane Alencar, scientific director of IPAM.
Japan builds coal plants abroad that wouldn’t be allowed at home: Report
Japan is exporting pollution and endangering public health overseas by funding coal-fired power plants that wouldn’t meet the strict emissions standards it imposes at home, a new report says.
Emissions from the plants being financed by Japanese public institutions could lead to 410,000 premature deaths over a 30-year period, according to the report published Aug. 20 by Greenpeace. That’s because the countries in which they’re located, including India, Indonesia, Vietnam and Bangladesh, typically have less stringent emissions controls than in Japan.
In some cases, the report says, the Japanese-funded plants could emit up to 13 times more nitrogen oxides, 33 times more sulfur dioxide and 40 times more dust pollution than coal-fired plants in Japan.
Japan is the only country in the G7 group of wealthiest nations still actively building coal-fired plants domestically and overseas, according to Greenpeace.
The GuardianJair Bolsonaro claims NGOs behind Amazon forest fire surge – but provides no evidence
The Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, has accused environmental groups of setting fires in the Amazon as he tries to deflect growing international criticism of his failure to protect the world’s biggest rainforest.
A surge of fires in several Amazonian states this month followed reports that farmers were feeling emboldened to clear land for crop fields and cattle ranches because the new Brazilian government was keen to open up the region to economic activity. […]
There was a sharp spike in deforestation during July, which has been followed by extensive burning in August. Local newspapers say farmers in some regions are organising “fire days” to take advantage of weaker enforcement by the authorities.
Brazilian minister booed at climate event as outcry grows over Amazon fires
The environment minister of Brazil, where wildfires have been sweeping the Amazon rainforest, was booed at a climate event on Wednesday…
Videos of Ricardo Salles being booed by demonstrators as he took to the stage at Latin America and Caribbean Climate Week in the north-eastern city of Salvador circulated widely in Brazil. An opposition senator is planning to seek his impeachment at Brazil’s supreme court…
Analysts said the Amazon has become a political problem for Bolsonaro, who wants to develop the rainforest and has told foreigners to mind their own business.
Global heating: ancient plants set to reproduce in UK after 60m years
An exotic plant has produced male and female cones outdoors in Britain for what is believed to be the first time in 60m years. Botanists say the event is a sign of global heating.
Two cycads (Cycas revoluta), a type of primitive tree that dominated the planet 280m years ago, have produced cones on the sheltered undercliffs of Ventnor Botanic Garden on the Isle of Wight.
The species is native to Japan and usually only found indoors as an ornamental plant in Britain, but one of the garden’s plants has produced what is believed to be the first outdoor female cone on record in the UK.
Cycads previously lived in what is now Britain millions of years ago, with fossils of the plants found in the Jurassic strata of rock stretching from the Isle of Wight to the Dorset coast, an era when the Earth’s climate had naturally high levels of carbon dioxide.
The Washington PostHouse Democrats unlikely to get Trump’s tax returns before 2020 election
House Democrats appear increasingly unlikely to secure President Trump’s tax returns before the 2020 presidential election, according to interviews with legal experts and several lawmakers, as resistance from the Trump administration has stymied the party’s efforts to obtain his personal financial records.
Several Democrats involved in oversight see a long path to getting a final court decision, even if they expect to win in the end. Trevor N. McFadden, a Trump-appointed judge who was assigned the case in July, will hear the case first, and any decision is likely to be appealed to higher courts, up to the Supreme Court.
For it to be resolved by fall 2020 would amount to Democrats drawing a possible but improbable legal “perfect straight,” according to Harry Sandick, former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.
Christopher Paul hasn’t felt a police officer tapping at his foot in more than a month — the tap, tap, tap that usually meant he was about to get another citation that he was never going to pay.
Living on the streets for five years after he lost his graphic-design job, Paul has been having undisturbed nights since the City Council and mayor eased restrictions on “public camping” this summer, a move that liberal lawmakers billed as a humane and pragmatic reform of the criminal-justice system. But the change has drawn the ire of Republicans and local business owners who decry it as a threat to public safety and the local economy, exposing a partisan clash over how to manage poverty and affordable housing in America’s cities.
Since Austin’s public-camping ban was relaxed, “people can sleep much better in the open, and they are a lot safer than somewhere hiding in a back alley,” said Paul, who estimates that he received 20 citations for illegal camping before the rule change went into effect July 1.
The Amazon region of South America, soaked in hundreds of inches of rainfall each year, is home to some of the wettest land on Earth. So how can it burn? And why are wildfires — blazes that spewed so much smoke this week they turned the Sao Paulo day into night — growing?
Scientists point to three main causes — each the result of human activity. First is deforestation, much of it illegal. The Amazon is shedding an astonishing amount of forest canopy — and the rate is growing. An area half the size of Rhode Island was lost in July alone. The easiest way to dispose of the felled trees and foliage is to let it dry in the sun for months — and then burn it. [...]
Another spark is farming. More than three-quarters of deforestation in the Amazon is the result of cattle ranching or soy production, according to the nongovernmental organization Amazon Watch. For farmers, fire is a standard tool to clear out brush and help maintain an area for agricultural use.
The final main cause is droughts. These occur naturally, but scientists say climate change and deforestation are making them more frequent — and more severe. This creates a self-reinforcing loop: Less water dries or even kills trees, providing more fuel for more fires.
HuffPostDemocratic National Committee Votes Down Climate Debate
A panel of the Democratic National Committee on Thursday rejected a proposal to host a single-issue debate on the climate crisis. At a party conference Thursday in San Francisco, the DNC’s resolutions committee voted 17-8 against [the] resolution […]
Symone Sanders, a senior adviser of presidential candidate Joe Biden, was among those who urged the DNC on Thursday to vote down a climate debate, saying it would be “dangerous territory in the middle of a Democratic primary process.”
That contrasts with what Biden had earlier said during a campaign stop in Iowa this summer. The former vice president had endorsed having a climate debate, telling Greenpeace, “I’m all in.”
The Murder of the Amazon Is Speeding Up
[…] Fires are common in the Amazon during the region’s dry season, but this year has not been drier or windier than normal, experts have said, meaning many of the outbreaks have likely come from ranchers and farmers. And many environmental advocates have pointed to rapid destruction of the forest as the driver in the spread of the flames.
“It’s not a revenge of nature; it’s something very, very human,” said Nurit Bensusan, a top official at the Instituto Socioambiental, a Brasília-based nonprofit that advocates for conservation and indigenous rights. “It’s a sign of worse things to come.” […]
The increased pace of deforestation, experts have warned, is pushing the Amazon closer to a “tipping point” past which it will not be able to recover― precisely what scientists worried would happen if Bolsonaro won last year’s election and pursued his promised agenda.
Proud Boys Leader Admits Their Rallies Are For Fighting And Wasting Money
The Proud Boys for years have helped organize street fights in Portland, Oregon ― gatherings thinly veiled as political freedom rallies in order to secure permits or police escorts from the city.
This week, that veil was lifted, as the group’s leader admitted the ugly and obvious truth: The events are staged with the intention of spurring fights, wasting city resources and winning a game of optics against their anti-fascist nemeses.
“We’ve wasted all their fucking resources to make this rally,” Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio said in video captured during the latest extremist rally held Saturday in Portland. “We want them to waste $2 million and we’ll do it again in two months.”
Los Angeles TimesDiscord dominates as Trump and other leaders head to G-7 summit
French President Emmanuel Macron, the host of this weekend’s Group of Seven summit, recently expressed hope that the leaders will reaffirm a shared commitment to democratic ideals and multilateral cooperation in an era of political and economic turmoil.
That’s probably wishful thinking.
Even before … Trump leaves Friday for Biarritz, an elegant resort on the southwest coast of France, he urged the G-7 leaders to readmit Russia to the elite group. Russia was expelled in 2014 after its troops invaded Ukraine and President Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea in what Western leaders called a violation of international law.
Trump administration plans to end limits on child detention
The Trump administration is moving to dismantle decades-old protections for immigrant youth, rolling out new regulations that would give the government the ability to indefinitely detain minors and families with children.
… Trump and his aides have long railed against the so-called Flores agreement , the seminal 1997 court settlement that said the government must provide a minimum standard of care for migrant children in U.S. custody. In 2015, as the Obama administration struggled to respond to an influx of unaccompanied minors at the southern border, the agreement was strengthened . Generally, the government must release children as quickly as possible and cannot detain them longer than 20 days, whether they have traveled to the U.S. alone or with family members.
The new regulations, expected to be formally published Friday, will take effect in 60 days, absent legal challenges. Lawyers who argued the original case will have a week to oppose the final regulations if they fall short of the terms of the Flores settlement. Advocates had already sought to block the regulations when the Trump administration first proposed them last September, and lawsuits are expected immediately.
BloombergMacron Pours Cold Water on Johnson’s Optimism Over Brexit Deal
French President Emmanuel Macron gave U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson little hope he’s prepared to compromise on Brexit and said any changes to the current deal won’t be very significant. […]
“Let me be very clear, we will not find a new withdrawal agreement within 30 days that will be very different from the existing one,” Macron said alongside Johnson before their talks. “We have to respect what was negotiated.”
The Brexit deal, which took 19 months for Johnson’s predecessor, Theresa May, and the 27 other EU governments to agree, was rejected three times by the British Parliament. Johnson is demanding the EU scrap the so-called backstop, the mechanism designed to keep the Irish border free of checks after Brexit that’s a key part of the current agreement.
U.S. Budget Gap to Top $1 Trillion in 2020 Amid Election Year
The U.S. budget deficit is growing faster than expected and … Donald Trump’s trade war is weighing on the economy, according to a new Congressional Budget Office forecast that highlights key challenges ahead of the 2020 elections.
The shortfall is set to widen to $1 trillion by fiscal year 2020, two years earlier than previously estimated, according to the non-partisan group’s annual budget outlook released Wednesday in Washington. That’s up from an estimated $960 billion in the 12 months that ends Sept. 30. The CBO said in January saw a gap of $890 billion next year and didn’t see it topping $1 trillion until 2022.
Widening the nation’s fiscal gap is legislation that raised spending levels, though the effect will be somewhat moderated by the expectation of lower interest rates, which reduces the government’s debt-service burden. Trump has badgered the Federal Reserve to cut its policy rate and market rates are low, too.
AP NewsWashington Gov. Jay Inslee announces run for 3rd term
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, who has ended his climate change-focused 2020 presidential bid, announced Thursday that he’ll seek a third term as governor.
Inslee sent the email detailing his plans hours before he was to appear at a news conference at Planned Parenthood in Seattle regarding the Title X family planning program. He wrote that Washington state “shows the economic power of progressive action.”
“We have provided the nation a road map for innovation, economic growth, and progressive action,” he wrote. “And we’re not done yet.”
Cyberattacks on Texas cities put other governments on guard
Cyberattacks that recently crippled nearly two dozen Texas cities have put other local governments on guard, offering the latest evidence that hackers can halt routine operations by locking up computers and public records and demanding steep ransoms.
Government agencies that fail to keep reliable backups of their data could be forced to choose between paying ransoms or spending even more to rebuild lost systems. Officials are increasingly turning to cybersecurity insurance to help curb the growing threat.
“I think we’re entering an epidemic stage,” said Alan Shark, executive director of the Public Technology Institute, which provides training and other support for local government technology employees. “The bad actors have been emboldened.”
Money crunch after Planned Parenthood quits federal program
Planned Parenthood clinics in several states are charging new fees, tapping financial reserves, intensifying fundraising and warning of more unintended pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases after its decision to quit a $260 million federal family planning program in an abortion dispute with the Trump administration.
The fallout is especially intense in Utah, where Planned Parenthood has been the only provider participating in the nearly 50-year-old Title X family planning program and will now lose about $2 million yearly in federal funds that helped 39,000 mostly low-income, uninsured people. It plans to maintain its services — which include contraception, STD testing and cancer screening — but is considering charging a small copay for patients who used to get care for free.
Planned Parenthood in Minnesota is in a similar situation, serving about 90% of the state’s Title X patients, and plans to start charging fees due to the loss of $2.6 million in annual funding.
GQElizabeth Warren was ready for the question. She gets a variation of it almost everywhere she goes. Often, it’ll come after she’s outlined any number of the big, sweeping things she intends to do once she’s assumed the presidency—wipe out student debt, say, or bring the private equity industry to heel, or revamp the State Department. Her immodest plans tend to inspire at least a few people in every crowd to wonder the exact same thing: Really? And how do you expect you’ll do all that?
On a chilly summer evening in a high school gym in Milwaukee, I noticed she’d begun preempting the question by highlighting her own audacity.
She recounted a little story of a colleague who had once approached her on the Senate floor to suggest that an idea of hers was maybe a bit improbable. “That’s just too hard,” Warren said he told her, and added she should “smile more.” (The good, liberal crowd booed on cue.) “And here’s what I remember thinking,” she said, her voice resonating with the righteous disbelief she must have felt then. “What do you think they said to the abolitionists? ‘You’re not going to change this country, that’s too hard!’…What do you think they told the suffragettes? ‘Quit now. It’s just too hard.’ What did they say to the early union organizers? ‘Quit now. It’s just too hard.’ But here’s the thing. They didn’t quit. They persisted and they changed the course of American history!”
BuzzFeed NewsAn email sent from the Justice Department to all immigration court employees this week included a link to an article posted on a white nationalist website that “directly attacks sitting immigration judges with racial and ethnically tinged slurs,” according to a letter sent by an immigration judges union and obtained by BuzzFeed News.
According to the National Association of Immigration Judges, the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) sent court employees a link to a blog post from VDare, a white nationalist website, in its morning news briefing earlier this week that included anti-Semitic attacks on judges. […]
A letter Thursday from union chief Ashley Tabaddor to James McHenry, the director of the Justice Department’s EOIR, said the link to the VDare post angered many judges.
PoliticoTrump team braces GOP donors for a potential ‘moderate and short’ recession
In public, … Donald Trump and top White House officials keep extolling the strength of the U.S. economy. In private, they’re increasingly worrying about a global economic slowdown triggering a U.S. recession — and weighing options to shore up the economy ahead of an election year.
At a fundraising luncheon this week in Jackson, Wyo., … acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney acknowledged the risks to the GOP elite behind closed doors. If the U.S. were to face a recession, it would be “moderate and short,” Mulvaney told roughly 50 donors, according to an attendee.
CNBCManufacturing sector contracts for the first time in nearly a decade
U.S. manufacturer growth slowed to the lowest level in almost 10 years in August, the latest sign that the trade war may be exacerbating the economic slowdown.
The U.S. manufacturing PMI (purchasing managers’ index) was 49.9 in August, down from 50.4 in July and below the neutral 50.0 threshold for the first time since September 2009, according to IHS Markit.
Any reading below 50 signals a contraction. The survey is an initial reading for the month of August. The final figure will be released Sept. 3.