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Overnight News Digest: Justice department urges six month prison plus fine for Bannon [1]

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Date: 2022-10-17

C/NET

All it took was a shocking 30-second ad for Eric Greitens to become a trending topic on social media this summer. The Missouri Republican Senate hopeful's ad starts with him walking up to a home, shotgun in hand and pistol on his hip. He says the target "feeds on corruption and is marked by the stripes of cowardice." After a team of men in military fatigues ram the door down, Greitens walks in saying he's acting on behalf of former President Donald Trump's political movement, hunting "RINOs" -- a mocking abbreviation among conservatives, "Republicans In Name Only." The ad was quickly pulled down by Facebook and labeled as "abusive" by Twitter. That's when Greitens' real ad campaign began.

C/NET

Microsoft's suite of productivity apps -- Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, OneDrive -- will live in a rebranded home in the Microsoft 365 app from November, the company said. For years, the familiar apps have made up Microsoft Office. "In the coming months, Office.com, the Office mobile app, and the Office app for Windows will become the Microsoft 365 app, with a new icon, a new look, and even more features," Microsoft said in a FAQ about the change. Office.com will change in November, while the Windows and mobile Office apps will change in January. Some of the new features rolling out with the Microsoft 365 app include new content templates, a feed of information based on your ongoing projects and collaborators, and new ways to view and access your content.

BBC

Former British military pilots are being lured to China with large sums of money to pass on their expertise to the Chinese military, it is claimed.

Up to 30 former UK military pilots are thought to have gone to train members of China's People's Liberation Army. The UK is issuing an intelligence alert to warn former military pilots against working for the Chinese military. Attempts to headhunt pilots are ongoing and had been ramping up recently, western officials say. A spokesperson from the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said the training ​and the recruiting of pilots does not breach any current UK law but officials in the UK and other countries are trying to deter the activity. "It is a lucrative package that is being offered to people," said one western official. "Money is a strong motivator." Some of the packages are thought to be as much as £237,911 ($270,000).

BBC

Netflix has defended The Crown as a "fictional dramatisation" following criticism of its forthcoming series. Sir John Major told The Mail on Sunday that a scene which apparently depicts a plot to oust the late Queen was "a barrel-load of malicious nonsense". The scene is said to include a conversation between the former prime minister and Prince Charles, as he was then, about the Queen abdicating. Sir John's office told the newspaper there was never any such discussion. "Sir John has not co-operated in any way with The Crown. Nor has he ever been approached by them to fact-check any script material in this or any other series," a statement from his office read. "As you will know, discussions between the monarch and prime minister are entirely private and - for Sir John - will always remain so. But not one of the scenes you depict are accurate in any way whatsoever. They are fiction, pure and simple."

Nigeria flood death toll tops 600 as thousands evacuated Al Jazeera The death toll from floods in Nigeria this year has increased to 603 as local authorities race to provide relief to hundreds of thousands of people being evacuated from their submerged homes. More than 1.3 million people have been displaced by the disaster, which has affected people across 33 of Nigeria’s 36 states, the humanitarian affairs ministry said late on Sunday. At least 3,400sq km (1,300sq miles) of land has been inundated, worsening fears of food supply disruptions. Conflict already has threatened production in the northwest and central regions of Nigeria, which produce much of what the country eats. President Muhammadu Buhari directed “all concerned to work for the restoration of normalcy”, according to a statement issued by his office. UN chief calls for ‘armed action’ in Haiti amid growing crisis Al Jazeera The head of the United Nations has called for “armed action” in Haiti, warning that residents face a “nightmarish” situation, especially in the capital, Port-au-Prince. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Monday that he believed such action was necessary to ease the grip gangs have on a port that is critical to allowing fuel supplies into the country. A weeks-long gang blockade of the Varreux terminal in Port-au-Prince has led to critical shortages of fuel and water and complicated efforts to respond to a dangerous outbreak of cholera. “It’s an absolutely nightmarish situation for the population of Haiti, especially in Port-au-Prince,” Guterres said. Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants Deutsche Welle Olaf Scholz's three-party coalition has wrangled over nuclear power but the German chancellor decided that the plants should stay running through winter. Germany is scrambling to reorganize its energy mix amid gas cuts. Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Monday ordered Germany's three remaining nuclear plants to remain in operation until April to fend off a possible energy crunch. The chancellor has asked the Economy, Environment and Finance Ministries to create the legal basis for the plants to remain open. "The legal basis will be created to allow the operation of the nuclear power plants Isar 2, Neckarwestheim 2 and Emsland beyond December 31, 2022, until April 15, 2023," Scholz said in a statement. Scholz also requested that the ministries present an "ambitious" law to increase energy efficiency, as well as a binding agreement to phase out coal by 2030.

Deutsche Welle

Kyiv was struck by "kamikaze drones," the head of Ukraine's presidential office said early on Monday. Mayor Vitali Klitschko later confirmed the report on Telegram. Klitschko said four bodies were recovered, including those of a woman who was 6 months pregnant, and her husband. He added that several residential buildings had been damaged and that rescuers had pulled out 18 people from the rubble. According to witnesses, several of the blasts hit the central Shevchenko district, which was also rocked by explosions last week. DW correspondent Fanny Facsar was on the scene of one of the strikes that hit a residential building, leaving it "immensely damaged." She said it was "unclear how many people [were] trapped underneath the rubble."

The Guardian, US

The Republican gubernatorial nominee in Arizona, Kari Lake, refused to say whether she would accept the results of the election if she loses in November. Lake, a former Phoenix-area news anchor, has made denying the 2020 election results that her preferred candidate, Donald Trump, lost a pillar of her campaign. She has said she wouldn’t have certified the 2020 vote that the former president lost – and which the Democratic victor, Joe Biden, won in Arizona by just over 10,000 votes – saying the election was “corrupt, rotten”. Appearing on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, Lake was asked three times by host Dana Bash whether she would accept the results of next month’s election. She avoided the question twice, before saying she would accept it if she won.

The Guardian, UK

The average annual energy bill will rise to more than £4,000 from April after Liz Truss’s U-turn over her policy to ease the cost of living crisis, according to the sector’s leading forecaster. The price cap for a typical dual-fuel tariff will now be £4,347 in six months’ time if the government does not offer special support, according to the consultancy Cornwall Insight. The new chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, said on Monday that the energy price guarantee (EPG), which caps the unit price of energy and was intended to last for two years from this month, will now be limited to six months. A Treasury review is in progress to devise ways of targeting the policy at those consumers most in need of support, which will “cost the taxpayer significantly less” after April.

Ed. note: I did the math. That is roughly $350 each month for 12 months.

The Guardian, UK

When it was announced that Penny Mordaunt had offered to stand in for Liz Truss in response to an urgent Commons question over the economic crisis on Monday, some Conservative MPs thought it was a joke. “Why is she asking one of her biggest rivals for the job to take her place? She’ll totally show her up,” one said. It was hard to see the cabinet minister’s performance on Monday afternoon as anything other than an audition for the top job. Mordaunt did little to dispel that impression as she landed punchy attacks on the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, roused the depressed Tory troops, and offered an apology to the country for the instability caused by the prime minister’s dramatic climbdown. Truss had done none of these things publicly, though probably should have done all of them.

The Guardian, Australia

Queensland’s education minister, Grace Grace, says she is considering beefing up the powers of the independent schools’ regulator, to ensure students outside the state system are “protected and supported”. On Monday, Guardian Australia revealed the principal of a Gold Coast school, Livingstone Christian college, interviewed several students amid an investigation into whether a teacher had told them she lived with her boyfriend. The principal had told the teacher that an unmarried relationship went against the school’s “biblical moral standards”. Grace told Guardian Australia schools should be “warm, welcoming, and supportive environments for students and staff”.

Reuters

WASHINGTON, Oct 17 (Reuters) - Former President Donald Trump's administration at a crucial time in the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 blocked the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from adopting a federal mandate requiring face masks on airline flights and other forms of transit, a congressional report released on Monday said. Marty Cetron, a senior CDC official, is cited in the report as saying the federal public health agency began working on the proposed order in July 2020 after its experts determined that there was scientific evidence to support requiring masks in public and commercial transportation.

Reuters

WASHINGTON, Oct 17 (Reuters) - When a Washington state beauty salon charged Simran Bal $1,900 for training after she quit, she was shocked. Not only was Bal a licensed esthetician with no need for instruction, she argued that the trainings were specific to the shop and low quality. Bal's story mirrors that of dozens of people and advocates in healthcare, trucking, retail and other industries who complained recently to U.S. regulators that some companies charge employees who quit large sums of money for training.

NPR

The Southeastern Conference hit the university with a $100,000 fine for violating the SEC's "access to competition area policy," citing the imperative for schools to ensure the safety of their fans and players. Tennessee's athletic department seems to be taking that fine in stride — but after the win and celebration, it issued a call for help in paying for new goal posts for Neyland Stadium in Knoxville. It's seeking as much as $150,000 for that work. "Y'all remember how we tore the goalposts down, hauled em out of Neyland and dumped em in the Tennessee River?" the school tweeted. "Yeah that was awesome. Anywho, turns out that in order to play next week's game, we need goalposts on our field. Could y'all help us out?"

NPR

Brittanei Martinez, 26, has known for a while she doesn’t want to have kids. “I had always thought that I just wasn't really like the motherly type,” she said. “I was never really around kids growing up, and so I never really saw myself ever being pregnant and having children.” Getting her tubes tied had long been in the back of her mind, but she wanted to wait until she was certain. She met her now husband in 2015 and got pregnant in 2019. But at the time, she said, she felt her life wasn't stable. And at the end of the day, the two just didn’t feel ready to have a child. [...] In 2019, abortion was legal in Texas, and Brittanei was able to get one. Fast forward three years, and the procedure is no longer an option in the state for her or millions of other Texans. Shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade this summer, Texas’ so-called “trigger law” went into effect, banning all abortions, except in cases where the pregnant person's life is at risk. When Brittanei heard the news that Roe was overturned, she was scared. She texted her husband.

The crew of the Overnight News Digest consists of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, eeff, Magnifico, annetteboardman, Rise above the swamp, Besame and jck. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) Interceptor 7, Man Oh Man, wader, Neon Vincent, palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse (RIP), ek hornbeck (RIP), rfall, ScottyUrb, Doctor RJ, BentLiberal, Oke (RIP) and jlms qkw.

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