The Overnight News Digest is a nightly series chronicling the eschaton and the fall of the Republic.
141,251 PEOPLE HAVE DIED FROM CORONAVIRUS IN THE U.S.
101 DAYS UNTIL ELECTION DAY
The Washington Post
Biden predicts that Trump will try to ‘indirectly steal’ the election
Joe Biden on Thursday night warned donors that … Trump will try to “indirectly steal” the 2020 election by making a case against mail-in ballots, a voting method that many are expected to use to avoid exposure to the coronavirus during November’s election.
The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee asked donors attending a virtual event to spread the word that “this president is going to try to indirectly steal the election by arguing that mail-in ballots don’t work.”
Trump will present mail-in ballots as fraud by making the argument that “they’re not real, they’re not fair,” Biden said.
Ocasio-Cortez dismisses Rep. Yoho’s apology, says his remarks are excuses for confrontation
House Democrats rallied around a high-profile congresswoman Thursday in an extraordinary denunciation of sexism, while the chamber’s top Republican was forced to defend his party’s highest-ranking woman from attacks by … Trump and his allies.
Surrounded by Democratic colleagues, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), a favorite target of Trump and other Republicans since her arrival in the Capitol, excoriated Rep. Ted Yoho (R-Fla.) during remarks on the House floor. She dismissed what she called a non-apology for a confrontation between them on the Capitol steps this week and decried Yoho’s reported use of a sexist slur as part of a pattern of inexcusable behavior by men. […]
In her floor remarks, Ocasio-Cortez repeated the reported slur — “f---ing b---h” — made by Yoho and called him “a man with no remorse.” She was joined by more than a dozen Democratic colleagues who seized the moment to rail against sexism and reject the common explanation from men that they would never disrespect a woman because they have wives and daughters.
“What we are seeing here is a resounding rejection of abuse and accosting of women,” Ocasio-Cortez said during the hour of remarks, adding that “incidents like these are happening in a pattern.”
The Oregonian
Attorney arrested by feds among Portland Wall of Moms protesters says she was not read rights
A Beaverton lawyer arrested early Tuesday by federal officers at Portland protests said officers never informed her of her rights or identified where they worked.
Jennifer Kristiansen, 37, said she was standing arm-in-arm other women as part of the Wall of Moms near the front line of protesters converged outside the federal courthouse.
She now faces criminal charges and is not allowed to go back on the federal property to protest.
Oregon Pubic Broadcasting
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler faces boos, calls to resign and tear gas
In a surreal, historic scene that included the mayor of a major American city tear gassed by federal officers, Ted Wheeler waded into a crowd of protesters in downtown Portland Wednesday night hoping to help end the ongoing standoff between city leaders, federal law enforcement and demonstrators who have gathered each night for almost two months demanding racial justice.
Amid chanted insults and calls to resign, Wheeler railed against the federal deployment to Portland, but said he was limited in his powers to force them to leave. The Portland mayor said he will push state legislators to end qualified immunity for police officers. He told demonstrators that they’ve already helped achieve major changes in the Portland Police Bureau.
And then, while observing protesters standing at the fence separating the demonstration from the federal courthouse, he got tear gassed when federal officers used chemicals and flashbang grenades to scatter the crowd.
Judge leaning toward restraining force used by federal officers in Portland
U.S. District Judge Michael H. Simon said he’s leaning in the direction of restraining the use of force by federal officers deployed to Portland, restricting their interactions with legal observers and journalists observing nightly protests against police violence.
Simon said he will likely decide by 5 p.m. Thursday. In a court hearing Thursday afternoon, Simon weighed placing a temporary restraining order on officers from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Marshals Service sent to Portland to guard federal buildings.
The temporary order would last for two weeks. The hearing comes as part of a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union in Oregon, alleging law enforcement has been targeting and attacking journalists at the protests.
Space.com
Multiplanet system around sunlike star photographed for 1st time ever
For the first time ever, astronomers have directly imaged multiple planets orbiting a sunlike star.
The European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile photographed two giant planets circling TYC 8998-760-1, a very young analogue of our own sun that lies about 300 light-years from Earth, a new study reports.
"This discovery is a snapshot of an environment that is very similar to our solar system, but at a much earlier stage of its evolution," study lead author Alexander Bohn, a doctoral student at Leiden University in the Netherlands, said in a statement.
USA Today
USA hits 4 million cases of COVID-19: A look at the milestones and setbacks
The USA hit the latest bleak milestone Thursday in the historic pandemic: 4 million confirmed cases of infections.
Experts agree the number of cases is actually much greater – potentially 10 times higher than what's been reported, according to federal data.
More than 143,000 people have died from the coronavirus in the USA, which leads the world for most cases and deaths.
"We are still knee-deep in the first wave of this," Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, said…
Yankees, Nationals players all kneel before national anthem in MLB opener
Though it was the novel coronavirus that delayed Major League Baseball’s Opening Day by nearly four months, the social reckoning that occurred along the way could not be ignored before it was time to play ball.
Bloomberg
U.S. Economy’s Recovery Is Stalling, and It Could Get Even Worse
The official numbers have begun to confirm what many Americans feel in their bones: the economy is buckling once again.
Despite assurances from the Trump administration that better times are at hand, the worsening pandemic is restraining or even snuffing out the economy’s nascent recovery. From restaurant dining to air travel and now to filings for unemployment benefits, a growing body of evidence indicates America’s rebound from the pandemic is stalling days before hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of federal aid is set to expire. […]
The jobless claims report was so grim -- with the ranks of those filing for benefits swelling to 1.42 million -- that it even got the attention of stock investors, a group that has been blissfully impervious to bad news of late. They pushed the S&P 500 Index down 1.2% on Thursday, marking the biggest decline in almost a month.
What Trump's Campaign Against 'Abolish the Suburbs' Was Actually About
Since January, the Trump administration has been laying the groundwork for a new national policy on fair housing. First, U.S. Housing Secretary Ben Carson pushed back a compliance deadline for communities under an Obama-era law. Then he introduced a new draft rule on Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing, or AFFH, that’s come under fire from cities as it winds its way through the federal machine.
The goal of such policy is to fulfill an obligation under the Fair Housing Act of 1968 that requires communities that receive federal funds work to undo their patterns of residential segregation. But … Donald Trump has latched onto the rule in recent weeks, saying that the enforcement of the desegregation mandate is an effort to “abolish the suburbs.” He has made this complaint a cornerstone in his bid for reelection. In a June 30 tweet, the president threatened to do away with the AFFH rule altogether. “Not fair to homeowners, I may END!”
On Thursday, the administration made good on that threat and eliminated the prior rule, but not without announcing a new, final rule on fair housing and bypassing all the required procedural hurdles for reviewing it first.
Los Angeles Times
Trump repeals rule meant to integrate neighborhoods, further stoking racial divisions in campaign
With … Trump facing sagging support in the suburbs, his administration on Thursday targeted an Obama-era affordable housing regulation, the latest in a series of appeals to white voters’ fears of crime and declining property values.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced that it would scrap a regulation known as Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing, which was implemented by President Obama in an attempt to promote more integrated communities. Under the rule, cities receiving some federal housing aid had to develop plans to address patterns of segregation or risk losing money.
The new regulation from the Trump administration would allow local governments much broader latitude in deciding if their policies were racially discriminatory.
Judge orders Michael Cohen released from prison, accuses government of ‘retaliation’
A federal judge said Thursday that the Justice Department had improperly imprisoned Michael Cohen, … Trump’s former lawyer who has become an outspoken critic, in retaliation for his upcoming tell-all book about his former boss.
The startling accusation by the judge, who ordered officials to release Cohen on Friday, provided the latest accusation that government lawyers have been serving the president’s personal interests, and it raised concerns that the administration was attempting to silence an adversary in an election year. […]
U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein on Thursday indicated he believed Cohen’s version, and he sharply criticized federal authorities for trying to limit his free speech.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
John Lewis “celebration of life” includes Atlanta funeral, stops in Alabama, Washington
John Lewis’ funeral will be Thursday at Atlanta’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, culminating a nearly weeklong ”celebration of life” that will include stops in Troy, Selma and Montgomery, Ala., and Washington.
He will also lie in state or repose at each locale, allowing members of the public to file past his casket. The family has requested that all participants wear masks, regardless of whether the event is indoors or outdoors.
The congressman from Georgia and civil rights icon died July 17 at age 80 after a battle with pancreatic cancer.
Congress has pushed through legislation in veto-proof votes to rename military facilities now honoring Confederate figures.
The National Defense Authorization Act won approval this week in both the Democratic-controlled House and the Republican-controlled Senate. Lawmakers approved the measure even after … Donald Trump said he would veto any proposal that included a requirement that military bases be renamed.
Still, the provision remains in both versions of the bill and would result in new names for Georgia’s Fort Benning and Fort Gordon, as well as eight other facilities across the country.
The Dallas Morning News
One of the most promising ways to treat patients sick with COVID-19 is with the plasma of people who have recovered from the illness and whose antibodies can be used to fight off the disease.
With the surge of new coronavirus cases in Texas filling up hospitals, it’s getting harder to fill orders for convalescent plasma.
“The demand is far exceeding the supply right now,” said Linda Goelzer, a spokesperson for Carter BloodCare, the primary blood center that responds to requests for plasma from North Texas hospitals and doctors.
“We are desperate and people are dying,” said Dr. Donna Casey, an internal medicine specialist at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas.
The Guardian
Ghislaine Maxwell case: ‘extremely personal’ documents to be unsealed
An extensive collection of “extremely personal” documents in civil litigation against British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell can be unsealed, a Manhattan federal court judge ruled on Thursday.
The documents relate to Maxwell’s deposition in this litigation, as well as her early 2015 correspondence with her longterm associate, the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. […]
In the civil lawsuits, Maxwell’s lawyers had pushed to keep these records secret, claiming previously “this series of pleadings concerns [attempts] to compel Ms Maxwell to answer intrusive questions about her sex life” that are “extremely personal, confidential and subject to considerable abuse by the media”.
Canadian federal court rules asylum pact with US violates human rights
Canada’s federal court has ruled that a longstanding pact with Washington which prevents migrants from seeking asylum when they attempt to enter the country from the US is invalid because it violates their human rights.
Under the so-called Safe Third Country Agreement between the two neighbors, asylum seekers at a formal border crossing traveling in either direction are turned back and told to apply for asylum in the country they first arrived in.
Lawyers for refugees who had been turned away at the Canadian border challenged the agreement, saying the United States does not qualify as a “safe” country under Donald Trump.
Deutsche Welle
Mexican cave tools show earlier human arrival in North America
A study published on Wednesday revealed that North America was likely inhabited by humans as early as 26,500 years ago, much earlier than most scientists accept.
The discovery came from the analysis of tools excavated from a cave in central Mexico which now provide strong evidence humans were living in North America some 15,000 years earlier than previously thought.
Published in the journal Nature, the study focused on artifacts — including 1,900 stone implements — found in the high-altitude Chiquihuite Cave.
Coronavirus: Billions of people need basic income, says UN body
Nearly 3 billion of the world's poorest should receive a temporary basic income that could help slow the spread of the coronavirus by allowing them to stay home, said the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in a report on Thursday.
The basic income would help 2.7 billion people in 132 countries, the UNDP recommended.
Funding of $199 billion per month would be needed to provide the "means to buy food and pay for health and education expenses," the report stated. Amid rising infection numbers in developing countries, measures to protect vulnerable populations were "urgently needed," according to the report.
AP News
German court convicts former concentration camp guard, 93
A German court on Thursday convicted a 93-year-old former SS private of being an accessory to murder at the Stutthof concentration camp, where he served as a guard in the final months of World War II. He was given a two-year suspended sentence.
Bruno Dey was convicted of 5,232 counts of accessory to murder by the Hamburg state court, news agency dpa reported. That is equal to the number of people believed to have been killed at Stutthof during his service there in 1944 and 1945. He also was convicted as an accessory to attempted murder.
“How could you get used to the horror?” presiding judge Anne Meier-Goering asked as she announced the verdict. She said that the fact Dey was taking orders didn’t free him from guilt.
Politics drive views of US response to 2 Oregon standoffs
[…] J.J. MacNab, a fellow at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, said many right-wing extremists who espouse anti-government and pro-gun views have embraced the authoritarian tactics used by … Donald Trump that they denounced under his Democratic predecessor.
“It’s like night and day,” she said. “They hated government when Obama was in office. They love government now.”
MacNab said the Oath Keepers in 2015 promoted a conspiracy theory that a U.S. military training exercise was a pretext for the federal government to impose martial law.
“They are literally 180 degrees from where they were in 2015,” she said.
United Press International
Labor Dept.: Another 1.4 million in U.S. file for unemployment
Another 1.4 million American workers have filed for new unemployment benefits, the Labor Department said Thursday in its weekly report.
The department said 1,416,000 workers filed new claims by the end of last week, an increase of 109,000 from the previous week. The report put the unemployment rate at 11.1%. It also revised up last week's report by 7,000 claims.
China braces for impact after mass flooding at Three Gorges Dam
A second round of mass flooding in several provinces across China is expected to increase the risk of natural disasters as torrential rains have affected 45 million people in the country and at least 142 people have died or gone missing, according to local authorities.
China's ministry of water resources said at 8 p.m. Wednesday a key section of the Yangtze River and other areas had risen above flood level. The ministry also said 93 rivers have exceeded their flood limit levels and that they are monitoring the Three Gorges reservoir, located in the upstream part of the Yangtze River.
CBC News
'Emotional and happy': Some Inuit reflect on Edmonton CFL team's name change
Some Inuit say they were in tears, while others say they'll "believe it when [they] see it," after Edmonton Football Club's decision on Tuesday to discontinue the use of a controversial word in the team's name.
"It's always been a different foreign word to me," said Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, an Inuk filmmaker known for her work on Inuit life and culture.
"When non-Inuit would use the word Eskimo to me, it felt like they were being deliberately confrontational — like they're dominant, they're in control."
Some Inuit have said the word is derogatory. The Canadian Football League club said it has begun an engagement process on a new name and will use Edmonton Football Team and EE Football team in the meantime.
The Hill
Romney will oppose Trump Fed nominee who backed gold standard
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) said Thursday he will vote against … Trump’s controversial nomination of Judy Shelton to the Federal Reserve Board, impeding her path to confirmation.
“I'm not going to be endorsing Judy's Shelton's nomination to the Fed,” Romney, one of Trump's most vocal [Republican] critics, told reporters at the Capitol. “I will be voting against her."
Romney is the first Republican senator to announce his opposition to Shelton, who will also likely be opposed by all 47 members of the Senate Democratic Caucus, so the opposition of three more Republicans would effectively doom her nomination.
ProPublica
The Trump Campaign’s Legal Strategy Includes Suing a Tiny TV Station in Northern Wisconsin
This year, … Donald Trump’s reelection campaign filed defamation lawsuits against three of the country’s most prominent news outlets: The New York Times, The Washington Post and CNN. Then it filed another suit against a somewhat lower-profile news organization: northern Wisconsin’s WJFW-TV, which serves the 134th-largest market in the country.
The Trump campaign sued the station over what it claims is a false and defamatory ad WJFW aired that showed Trump downplaying the threat of the coronavirus as a line tracking new COVID-19 infections ticks up and up on the screen.
Dozens of stations ran the ad. But the Trump campaign chose to sue just NBC-affiliate WJFW, which is owned by a relatively small company that only has two other local TV stations, both in Bangor, Maine. The campaign did not initially sue the political organization that produced the ad. That group later joined the case as a defendant.
For most of human history, people have lived within a surprisingly narrow range of temperatures, in the places where the climate supported abundant food production.
As the planet warms, those regions are shifting. Entire nations will lose their ability to farm grains and vegetables.
Faced with starvation, those who can leave will have little other choice.
Human movement is hard to predict, and political battles surround any discussion of migration. This is becoming a barrier to saving lives.
That is why we are asking…
The Atlantic
‘We’re Talking About More Than Half a Million People Missing From the U.S. Population’
Three variables determine the fluctuations of a country’s population: births, deaths, and migration flows. The coronavirus pandemic is disrupting all three.
The forces that have begun acting on America’s population are dramatic departures from the norm. Every year for the past 100 years, the population of the United States has grown. During that time, though, its growth rate has slowed as birth rates have fallen. Demographers expect this deceleration to continue through the 21st century: A recent study published in the medical journal The Lancet projected that the U.S. population will peak in 2062, and then start to shrink.
The pandemic very likely won’t alter that long-term population trajectory, but the varied and devastating effects it has had—and will continue having—will in all likelihood slow the population’s growth rate even more, pushing it to its lowest level in the past 100 years. (The last time the U.S. population shrank was 1918, which also happened to be a pandemic year.) Here, I’ll examine how the pandemic might shape those three key variables that determine population growth.
Mother Jones
States Are Begging for Coronavirus Relief. Trump Sent Federal Police Instead.
Every day, reports of unmarked vans with unidentifiable law enforcement agents rounding up protesters in Portland, Oregon, are going viral. Many of those who were detained said they weren’t doing anything illegal. Last week, one man described being blindfolded, taken to a federal courthouse, and read his rights. After he asked for a lawyer, the officers released him. Several news outlets confirmed that the Department of Homeland Security had sent Customs and Border Patrol agents to the city. After widespread outrage and shock, with city and state leadership asking for federal agents to leave, acting DHS head Chad Wolf posted a now-deleted tweet depicting graffiti on the federal court and using this as justification for the presence of federal agents. Instead of trying to make up a reason that could sound plausible, or even denying that there was anything questionable about the behavior of CBP agents, Wolf he claimed he didn’t need permission from the state or locality to be there and had no intention of retreating.
BBC News
UK and US say Russia fired a satellite weapon in space
The US and UK have accused Russia of testing a weapon-like projectile in space that could be used to target satellites in orbit.
The US State Department described the recent use of "what would appear to be actual in-orbit anti-satellite weaponry" as concerning.
Russia's defence ministry earlier said it was using new technology to perform checks on Russian space equipment.
The US has previously raised concerns about new Russian satellite activity.
But it is the first time the UK has made accusations about Russian test-firing in space. They come just days after an inquiry said the UK government "badly underestimated" the threat posed by Russia.
Nile dam dispute: Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan agree to resume talks
The first-year target for filling the controversial mega dam on the River Nile has been reached, Ethiopia says.
This would allow the first set of turbines to be tested.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's announcement came as Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan agreed to resume talks over the dam, following a virtual summit.
The project has been a source of huge diplomatic tension since its construction began in Ethiopia in 2011.
Ethiopia sees the hydroelectric project as crucial for its economic growth and a vital source of energy.
Ars Technica
US COVID-19: 70K new cases a day, 60K hospitalized, testing swamped
The US surpassed 4 million cases of COVID-19 Thursday as the pandemic shows no signs of easing. Already, nearly 144,000 people in the country have died from the disease.
Yesterday saw more than 70,000 new cases tallied, with a seven-day average of nearly 67,000 new cases per day, according to data collected by The COVID Tracking Project.
With the ongoing surges, hospitalizations are nearing a new record during the pandemic. There are currently 59,628 people hospitalized across the country. That’s slightly below the previous peak on April 15 of 59,940. Deaths are also on the upswing, with a seven-day average of 834 deaths a day. The last two days have seen death tolls over 1,000. Southern states and hotspots in western states, such as California, are seeing the most significant disease spread.
With the sick still streaming into hospitals, experts expect the death rate will continue to climb in the coming weeks to months. That’s how long it is before some of the patients entering the hospital now succumb to their disease.