The Overnight News Digest is a nightly series chronicling the eschaton.
VoxWhat Trump’s horrific polling actually tells us — and what it doesn’t — about 2020
The polls du jour show ... Donald Trump trailing basically every Democrat in the 2020 general election, both nationally and in individual states — even in Texas.
Democratic voters might rejoice at these signs that Trump will be a one-term president. But they should temper themselves: Hillary Clinton was regularly leading Trump by 10 points or more a year ahead of the 2016 election. Polls taken 14 months before an election are simply not predictive. Too much can happen and sentiments can change when the race becomes one specific Democrat running against one specific Republican.
We also shouldn’t read too much, pollsters and political handicappers say, into the variations in how different Democrats fare against Trump in these polls. […] But we can still learn something from these surveys. Their message is pretty simple: Trump looks weak.
Justice Sotomayor warns the Supreme Court is doing “extraordinary” favors for Trump
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a brief but pointed dissent Wednesday evening from a Supreme Court order that effectively locked nearly all Central American migrants out of the asylum process. Asylum allows foreign nationals who face certain forms of persecution to seek refuge in the United States.
The Court’s order is temporary, and it only allows the asylum ban to remain in effect while the case is working its way through the courts. It stays a lower court decision that blocked the ban. Though this litigation will continue to percolate in lower courts, other judges are likely to read the Supreme Court’s order as a sign that a majority of the justices will ultimately uphold the ban.
As is often the case with such temporary orders, there was no majority opinion — and thus no explanation of why the Court ruled the way it did or even how each member of the Court voted. We only know that Sotomayor voted against the stay, and that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined Sotomayor’s dissent.
The Washington PostAir Force says only 6 percent of crews that stopped in Scotland stayed at Trump Turnberry resort
The U.S. Air Force said Thursday it reviewed overnight stays by crew members who stopped at Glasgow Prestwick Airport between 2015 and 2019 to refuel and found about 6 percent stayed at … Trump’s Scottish golf resort.
The House Oversight Committee has been investigating an uptick in stays by the military at the five-star, coastal Trump Turnberry hotel, which is about 30 miles from the airport, to determine whether the president has improperly directed crews to stay at his family-owned property.
“We reviewed the vast majority the 659 overnight stays of Air Force crews in the vicinity at Glasgow Prestwick Airport between 2015 and 2019. Approximately six percent of those crews stayed at the Trump Turnberry,” said an Air Force spokesman in an emailed statement.
145 CEOs implore Senate to act on gun violence, saying doing nothing is ‘simply unacceptable’
The chief executives of 145 U.S. companies pressed Senate leaders to expand background checks to all firearms sales and enact stronger “red flag” laws, marking the latest push by corporate America to pressure Congress into taking meaningful action on gun violence.
Signatories to a letter sent Thursday included the heads of major retailers, tech firms and financial institutions, including Levi Strauss, Twitter, Uber, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Yelp, Bain Capital and Reddit. The letter pointed to mass shootings in recent weeks — including those in El Paso; Dayton, Ohio, and Gilroy, Calif. — but also called out a broader epidemic of gun violence that kills 100 Americans each day and wounds hundreds more.
Is the Supreme Court too deferential to Trump — or worried some judges are overstepping their power?
Has the Supreme Court become a soft touch for the Trump administration? Or are the justices sending a message to lower courts not to become a part of the “resistance” to the president’s legitimate powers?
The questions became relevant again Wednesday as the court allowed the administration to begin implementing a dramatic change in asylum rules that would bar requests from most Central American migrants who arrive at the southern border seeking protection in the United States.
The court gave no reason in its one-paragraph unsigned order for effectively dissolving an injunction federal courts had placed on the administration’s new policy. The directive would deny in almost all cases asylum requests from those who had traveled through another country without first seeking protection there.
AP NewsTrump administration drops Obama-era water protection rule
The Trump administration on Thursday revoked an Obama-era regulation that shielded many U.S. wetlands and streams from pollution but was opposed by developers and farmers who said it hurt economic development and infringed on property rights.
Environmental groups criticized the administration’s action, the latest in a series of moves to roll back environmental protections put into place under President Barack Obama. […]
The agencies plan to adopt a new rule by the end of the year that is expected to define protected waterways more narrowly than the Obama policy.
Trump tells Republicans they’ll take back the House majority
Donald Trump sought to boost the spirits of Republican lawmakers Thursday, mocking Democrats and promising a new tax cut package, as he returned to the city he recently disparaged as a “rat and rodent infested mess.”
Trump spoke to House Republicans attending an annual retreat in a hotel on Baltimore’s waterfront. Protesters gathered nearby. But inside, the president found a friendly audience of legislators whose political futures are closely tied to how well he performs in next year’s election. They greeted him a chant of “four more years.”
Trump emphasized some of the biggest wins of his presidency, such as boosting military spending, slashing regulations and expanding a program that gives veterans the option to see private doctors outside the Veterans Affairs medical system. He touted the $1.5 trillion tax cut package passed in 2017 and promised to deliver another tax cut proposal next year.
What a Purdue Pharma bankruptcy means for the Sackler family
Purdue Pharma could be heading for bankruptcy but the extent to which it would affect the Sackler family fortunes remains unclear.
The company, which makes OxyContin and other drugs, this week reached a tentative agreement with thousands of local governments and more than 20 states over its role in the opioid crisis that has contributed to the death of thousands of Americans.
As part of that deal, the company would file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, the Sacklers would lose control of the business and the family could pay up to $4.5 billion. But some states are refusing to sign on, saying it doesn’t do enough to hold the Sacklers and their company accountable.
Los Angeles TimesElizabeth Warren’s new plan? Get the rich to pay for better Social Security benefits
Sen. Elizabeth Warren is calling for the wealthy to pay for an overhaul of Social Security that would boost the annual payment to retirees by $2,400 and extend the program’s solvency by two decades.
“We need to get our priorities straight,” the Massachusetts senator and White House hopeful wrote in a post published Thursday morning on Medium, in which Warren unveiled her proposal. “We should be increasing Social Security benefits and asking the richest Americans to contribute their fair share to the program.”
Warren targets individual earners making more than $250,000 per year, and families with incomes exceeding $400,000, with the bill. Each dollar they earn beyond that threshold — both salary and investment returns — would be taxed at 14.8%. On wage income, the new levy would be split evenly between employee and employer.
More Americans are prepared for a recession, thanks to painful lessons of the last one
When the Great Recession struck in 2007, business was so slow at the Dodge dealership here that Brett Woodruff and his fellow salesmen played football on the empty car lot. Woodruff lost his 3,300-square-foot home by a golf course, his marriage and a prized 2004 black Dodge Viper.
It wasn’t until after years of renting that Woodruff cautiously reentered the housing market, and even then with a home one-third the size and cost of his old one. He didn’t hesitate recently to use coupons to save a few bucks for drapery ropes. He’s squirreled away enough savings to sustain him for six to eight months — far more than the one month’s cushion he had in 2007 — and he keeps all of it in a savings account that pays next to nothing in interest.
“Sure, it costs me money,” said the 47-year-old. “But I also like the fact that I know for sure it’s there.”
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is vulnerable in next month’s election
Canada has embarked on a six-week sprint to a national election that has the potential to end the leadership of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, transforming the political landscape of the country and establishing a conservative bloc from the Rio Grande to beyond the Arctic Circle.
On the surface, the Oct. 21 federal election consists of 338 separate parliamentary contests but, as in British political contests, the balloting will determine whether Trudeau — the youthful son of a glamorous but controversial 20th century prime minister — retains the office he has held for nearly four years. His principal rival is Andrew Scheer, who for the last two years has led the country’s Conservative Party.
The campaign kicked off Wednesday, and analysts from all sides expect it to be nasty. The first ads already have been aired, and many of them are negative, befitting two leading candidates who begin their formal campaigns with large electoral hurdles. Trudeau is viewed negatively by 63% of Canadians and Scheer by 52%, according to the respected Angus Reid poll.
The Oregonian“But her emails...”
Over the past two-plus years, this has been the mocking response from ... Donald Trump’s critics every time news has surfaced of alleged corruption and perfidy in the current administration. […]
Now the email scandal has become art. In Venice, an exhibition by artist Kenneth Goldsmith features 60,000 pages of the emails that went through Clinton’s private server. It is called, simply, “HILLARY: The Hillary Clinton Emails.” […]
After she toured the unusual artwork, Clinton was asked what, at this point, the emails represent to her.
“That [it] was, and still is, one of the strangest, most absurd events in American political history,” she replied. “Anyone can go in and look at them. There’s nothing there.”
The GuardianJohn Bercow: I’ll stop Boris Johnson breaking the law on Brexit
John Bercow has threatened Boris Johnson that he will be prepared to rip up the parliamentary rulebook to stop any illegal attempt by the prime minister to take the UK out of the EU without a deal on 31 October.
In a direct warning to No 10, the Speaker of the House of Commons said he is prepared to allow “additional procedural creativity” if necessary to allow parliament to block Johnson from ignoring the law.
“If we come close to [Johnson ignoring the law], I would imagine parliament would want to cut off that possibility … Neither the limitations of the existing rulebook or ticking of the clock will stop it doing so,” he said, delivering the annual Bingham lecture in London. “If I have been remotely ambiguous so far, let me make myself crystal clear. The only form of Brexit that we have, whenever that might be, will be a Brexit that the House of Commons has explicitly endorsed.”
World losing area of forest the size of the UK each year, report finds
An area of forest the size of the UK is being lost every year around the world, the vast majority of it tropical rainforest, with dire effects on the climate emergency and wildlife.
The rate of loss has reached 26m hectares (64m acres) a year, a report has found, having grown rapidly in the past five years despite pledges made by governments in 2014 to reverse deforestation and restore trees.
Charlotte Streck, a co-founder and the director of Climate Focus, the thinktank behind the report, said: “We need to keep our trees and we need to restore our forests. Deforestation has accelerated, despite the pledges that have been made.”
‘They are barbaric’: Turkey prepares to flood 12,000-year-old city to build dam
After the half-hour drive from Batman in south-east Turkey, the ancient city of Hasankeyf, which sits on the banks of the Tigris River, appears as an oasis.
Hasankeyf is thought to be one of the oldest continuously inhabited settlements on Earth, dating as far back as 12,000 years and containing thousands of caves, churches and tombs.
But this jewel of human history will soon be lost; most of the settlement is about to be flooded as part of the highly controversial Ilisu dam project.
Underpopulated Italian region offers visitors €25,000 to move in
An underpopulated region in southern Italy is offering newcomers €700 per month for three years to live in one of its villages.
There are a few catches, however: the village must have fewer than 2,000 residents, and the newcomer must pledge to open a business.
“If we had offered funding, it would have been yet another charity gesture,” Donato Toma, the president of Molise, told the Guardian. “We wanted to do more; we wanted people to invest here. They can open any sort of activity: a bread shop, a stationery shop, a restaurant, anything. It’s a way to breathe life into our towns while also increasing the population.”
PoliticoIsrael accused of planting mysterious spy devices near the White House
The U.S. government concluded within the past two years that Israel was most likely behind the placement of cellphone surveillance devices that were found near the White House and other sensitive locations around Washington, according to three former senior U.S. officials with knowledge of the matter.
But unlike most other occasions when flagrant incidents of foreign spying have been discovered on American soil, the Trump administration did not rebuke the Israeli government, and there were no consequences for Israel’s behavior, one of the former officials said.
The miniature surveillance devices, colloquially known as “StingRays,” mimic regular cell towers to fool cellphones into giving them their locations and identity information. Formally called international mobile subscriber identity-catchers or IMSI-catchers, they also can capture the contents of calls and data use.
'My time is growing near': John Lewis dangles impeachment announcement
Rep. John Lewis has called Donald Trump an illegitimate leader and boycotted his inauguration, but he's remained conspicuously silent on demands for the president's impeachment.
Despite his silence, advocates for Trump's removal see the civil rights icon — a man Democrats describe as the conscience of their caucus — as a singularly powerful potential ally, one of the last publicly undecided lawmakers who could change the calculus inside the Democratic caucus. And Lewis himself says an announcement on impeachment is almost at hand.
"My time is growing near," the Georgia lawmaker told reporters this week. He added, "I’ve never been supportive of this so-called president. Before he was inaugurated I said he was not legitimate. So I have some very strong feelings."
ReutersMexico pushes back after top U.S. court favours Trump on shunning migrants
The Mexican government protested and Central American migrants feared deportation back to their violent homelands on Thursday after the U.S. Supreme Court allowed … Donald Trump to slam the door on asylum-seekers at the U.S.-Mexican border.
The court on Wednesday found that Trump’s restrictive asylum rule could go into effect nationwide while a lawsuit challenging its underlying legality proceeds, handing the president a victory as he brandishes his anti-immigration credentials for the November 2020 presidential election.
The rule requires immigrants who want asylum to first seek safe haven in a third country through which they travel on the way to the United States, enabling the United States to combat a record surge in Central American asylum-seekers.
NPR12 Journalists Have Been Killed In Mexico This Year, The World's Highest Toll
This year, Mexico surpassed Syria to become the deadliest country for journalists, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.
Many consider that overall levels of violence and impunity in Mexico are the biggest problems facing Mexican journalists. But press advocates say the president's harsh rhetoric toward the media isn't helping the situation.
So far this year, 12 journalists have been killed, according to Mexico's National Human Rights Commission. Some press rights groups put the number even higher, according to their own reporting criteria.
Guantánamo Has Cost Billions; Whistleblower Alleges 'Gross' Waste LISTEN· 7:59
The U.S. military court and prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, have cost more than $6 billion to operate since opening nearly 18 years ago and still churn through more than $380 million a year despite housing only 40 prisoners today.
Included in that amount are taxpayer-funded charter planes often flying just a few passengers to and from the island; hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of government electronic devices intentionally destroyed each year due to spills of classified information; some Pentagon-funded defense attorneys billing about half-a-million dollars a year; and total legal costs of nearly $60 million annually even though Guantánamo has had only one finalized conviction.
Criticism of that spending comes even from inside Guantánamo. A former top attorney there has filed a federal whistleblower complaint alleging "gross financial waste" and "gross mismanagement," NPR has learned.
NewsweekAn expert on Russia's security services, who was friends and colleagues with a former FSB agent whose murder was blamed on the Kremlin, has given a chilling assessment of the future of the alleged U.S. spy reportedly extricated from Moscow. […]
Yuri Felshtinsky co-wrote the book Blowing Up Russia with Litvinenko. […]
Reports emerged this week that, in 2017, a decision was made to extricate a high-level U.S. covert source from within the Kremlin due to concerns over how the White House was handling intelligence. Russia media were the first to name the man as Oleg Smolenkov.
Felshtinsky said the case was unusual because you would only normally hear about spies if they had been arrested, exchanged, or killed.
"Until recently, he would have been safe in the United States, the main problem is that there are no rules anymore. Unwritten rules that once existed have been broken by Putin," he told Newsweek.
National Catholic OnlineFrancis warns of ideology 'infiltrating' some quarters of US Catholic Church
Pope Francis warned … that ideology is "infiltrating" the religious teaching of some quarters of the U.S. Catholic Church, and said that in past centuries such infiltrations have led to schisms. […]
"Ideology is infiltrating doctrine," he said. "And when doctrine slips into ideology, there is the possibility of a schism."
"I pray that there will not be schisms," he said. "But I am not afraid."
Francis also implied that some conservative Americans who criticize him are hypocrites, saying that while he appreciates those who offer constructive criticism of his pontificate, he does not appreciate those who critique without intending to dialogue.
The Atlantic[…] Medicaid, the government program that provides health care to more than 75 million low-income and disabled Americans, isn’t necessarily free. It’s the only major welfare program that can function like a loan. Medicaid recipients over the age of 55 are expected to repay the government for many medical expenses—and states will seize houses and other assets after those recipients die in order to satisfy the debt.
Why Are American Homes So Big?
America is a place defined by bigness. It is infamous, both within its borders and abroad, for the size of its cars, its portions, its defense budget—and its houses.
Rightly so: U.S. houses are among the biggest—if not the biggest—in the world. According to the real-estate firms Zillow and Redfin, the median size of an American single-family home is in the neighborhood of 1,600 or 1,650 square feet. About five years ago, Sonia A. Hirt, a professor of landscape architecture and planning at the University of Georgia, was working on a book about land-use patterns in the U.S., and when she tracked down the average size of dwellings for about two dozen countries, the U.S. came out on top. Her comparisons were rough because she’d cobbled together her data from various sources, but she found that American living spaces had a good 600 to 800 square feet on most of the competition.
Looking just at the average size of newly built houses—as opposed to an average for all houses in a country, which is a smaller number—Australia, Canada, and New Zealand are on par with the U.S.; the averages for new houses in these countries approach or exceed 2,000 square feet. These same four countries have the most rooms per household occupant of 40 mostly wealthy countries studied by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Ars TechnicaFirst water detected in the atmosphere of a habitable-zone planet
On Wednesday, astronomers announced the first detection of water in the atmosphere of a planet that orbits within the habitable zone of its host star. The planet, K2-18b, is certainly not habitable by us, as it's a mini-Neptune that may not have any solid surface and is likely to have a hydrogen/helium-rich atmosphere. But the discovery of water vapor and clouds confirms expectations that the Earth isn't necessarily special in having water at a distance from its star where that water could be liquid.
As the planet's designation indicates, K2-18b was discovered during the extended second mission of the Kepler space telescope. After the failure of some of the telescope's pointing hardware, NASA figured out how to keep the optics stable by using its solar panels. This allowed Kepler to examine additional areas of the sky during what was termed the K2 mission.
California passes bill that threatens Uber and Lyft’s business model
Both houses of California's legislature have passed sweeping legislation requiring businesses to treat more of their workers as employees rather than independent contractors. As a result, more workers will enjoy protections like the minimum wage and benefits such as unemployment insurance. The bill is now on its way to Governor Gavin Newsom, who is expected to sign it.
The law will apply across the California economy, but it could have particularly stark consequences for Uber and Lyft—both of which are based in the Golden State. The companies currently treat their drivers as independent contractors, and their entire business model is built around that assumption.
In the hours after the legislation cleared the California legislature, Uber and Lyft both blasted the law and vowed to seek changes.