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Overnight News Digest August 22, 2023 [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2023-08-22
Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, eeff, Magnifico, annetteboardman, Besame, jck, and JeremyBloom. 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. OND is a regular community feature on Daily Kos, consisting of news stories from around the world, sometimes coupled with a daily theme, original research or commentary. Editors of OND impart their own presentation styles and content choices, typically publishing each day near 12:00 AM Eastern Time.
Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments. Good evening from Macomb County, Michigan.
When Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas announced a multibillion-dollar initiative two years ago to deter migrants crossing from Mexico, the border city of Eagle Pass was seeing 1,200 people coming into town every day, and many residents welcomed the extra aid. Hugo Urbina, who owns a pecan farm next to the Rio Grande, was unhappy with the constant foot traffic on his land, sometimes dozens of people a day. Jessie Fuentes, who owns a canoe and kayak business, did not want migrants to think America had an “open border.” The town’s mayor, Rolando Salinas Jr., saw the Border Patrol being overwhelmed. “People cannot be arriving by the thousands without consequence,” Mr. Urbina said. But over time, as Governor Abbott has tested the legal limits of state action on immigration — sending the National Guard and scores of state troopers to the border, and installing razor wire and floating barriers along the river — some of that popular support appears to be waning.
The Washington Post: Trump vows massive new tariffs if elected, risking global economic war by Jeff Stein
Even in the face of growing personal legal peril, Donald Trump summoned his top economic advisers to his private golf club in New Jersey for a two-hour dinner last Wednesday night to map out a trade-focused economic plan for his presidential bid. Trump and top aides, including former senior White House officials Larry Kudlow and Brooke Rollins, as well as outside advisers Stephen Moore and former House speaker Newt Gingrich, spent the dinner discussing how Trump could attack President Biden in the 2024 election on the economy, amid a recent spate of positive economic news that has buoyed Biden’s fortunes, according to three people familiar with the meeting, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private event. Among the ideas they discussed was Trump’s plan to enact a “universal baseline tariff” on virtually all imports to the United States, the people said. This idea, which Trump has taken to describing as the creation of a “ring around the U.S. economy,” could represent a massive escalation of global economic chaos, surpassing the international trade discord that marked much of his first administration. Trump advisers have for months discussed various potential levels to set the tariff rate, and they said the plan remains a work in progress with major questions left unresolved, the people said.
AlJazeera: US-Iran prisoner swap deal is ‘on track’, says White House official
White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has said that a prisoner swap deal between the United States and Iran is “on track”, less than two weeks after Tehran moved five detained US citizens to house arrest. Sullivan’s comments on Tuesday marked a rare public expression of confidence from Washington that the prisoner swap would take place. “We believe that things are proceeding according to the understanding that we’ve reached with Iran,” Sullivan told reporters during a conference call. “I don’t have an exact timetable for you because there [are] steps that need to yet unfold. But we believe that that remains on track.” Several news outlets reported earlier this month that Washington and Tehran were working on a deal to release the five American citizens in exchange for allowing Iran to access $6bn in funds that have been frozen in South Korea due to US sanctions.
Guardian: Climate crisis made spate of Canada wildfires twice as likely, scientists find by Oliver Milman
The conditions that caused Canada’s extreme spate of wildfires this year, which resulted in parts of the US and Canada to be blanketed in toxic smoke, were made at least twice as likely due to the human-caused climate crisis, scientists have found. The 2023 Canadian wildfire season has been the largest, and most devastating, on record, with nearly 14m hectares (34m acres) burned, an area larger than Greece. The extent of these fires, more than double the size of the previous record, caused more than a dozen fatalities and thousands of evacuations, and sent a plume of smoke that unfurled as far as Norway and, for a time in June, turned the sky above New York City orange. Scientists have now analyzed the conditions that caused the fires that raged in the Canadian province of Quebec between May and July and found that the climate crisis, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, made them at least twice as likely, and the fire-prone weather at least 20% more intense. The attribution study, conducted by a coalition of scientists in Canada, the UK and the Netherlands, found that while the fire-prone weather conditions were unprecedented, they are no longer unexpected and will become more commonplace as the worlds continues to heat up.
BBC News: Greece wildfires: Eighteen bodies found in Greek forest by Kostas Koukoumakas & Paul Kirby
Eighteen bodies have been found in a forested area of northern Greece hit by wildfires for the past four days, the Greek fire service says. Initial reports suggest those who died may have been migrants. A coroner and investigation team are heading to the scene near the Dadia forest. The Evros region of north-eastern Greece, not far from the Turkish border, has been ravaged by fires. A hospital in the city of Alexandroupolis had to be evacuated. Newborn babies and intensive care patients were among those moved to a ferry at the port. Fires are raging across several fronts in Greece, whipped up by high winds and temperatures which climbed above 40C in several places on Tuesday.
Hollywood Reporter: Scraping or Stealing? A Legal Reckoning Over AI Looms by Winston Cho
For nearly 20 years, Karla Ortiz has worked as a concept artist, bringing to life an entire universe of characters in projects like Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War and Thor: Ragnarok. She’s credited with coming up with the main character design for Doctor Strange in her own blend of impressionist and magic realism styles honed by decades of practice. She was horrified to learn last year that her work at the forefront of multibillion-dollar franchises is being used to train generative artificial intelligence systems without her knowledge or consent. Imitations of her work are now floating all across the web. Her name has been fed into Midjourney, an AI art generator, more than 2,500 times to create art that looks like hers. She’s been paid nothing. “You work your entire life to do what you do as a creative, and for a company to profit off that — literally take your work to train a model that’s attempting to replicate you — it makes me sick,” Ortiz tells The Hollywood Reporter. Ortiz is one of three artists suing AI art generators Stability AI, Midjourney and DeviantArt for using their work to train generative AI systems. The first-of-its-kind suit will test the boundaries of copyright law and could be one of a few cases that decide the legality of the way large language models are trained.
And finally
x Serena Williams gives birth to her second child: Adira River Ohanian pic.twitter.com/rdN1GOMo2k — philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) August 22, 2023
Congratulations to the Diva!
Have the best possible evening everyone!
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