Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, current leader Neon Vincent, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, Doctor RJ, Magnifico, annetteboardman and Man Oh Man. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) wader, planter, JML9999, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse, ek hornbeck, ScottyUrb, Interceptor7, BentLiberal, Oke and jlms qkw.
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WASHINGTON Florida has a U.S. senator who once flew aboard the Space Shuttle.
A congressional candidate from Miami can go one better: Bettina Rodriguez Aguilera says she’s been aboard a spaceship too. But this one was crewed by aliens. As in extraterrestrials.
Three blond, big-bodied beings — two females, one male — visited her when she was 7 years old and have communicated telepathically with her several times in her life, she says. (Sen. Bill Nelson served as payload officer aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia in 1986. All seven people aboard were from Earth. As far as is known.)
Rodriguez Aguilera, 59, a Republican who is running to replace retiring Miami Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, recounted her experience with the ETs during a 2009 television interview.
She described “going up” inside the spaceship — though whether it went into space or just hovered around town was left unclear.
“I went in. There were some round seats that were there, and some quartz rocks that controlled the ship — not like airplanes,” Rodriguez Aguilera said.
Juneau Empire: Could migrating squid help Alaska predict climate change? by Kevin Gullufsen
Attracted to warming ocean temperatures, small, iridescent squid have been moving into Southeast Alaska waters. They could be a cipher to understanding how sea life reacts to climate change, said University of Alaska Southeast associate professor Dr. Michael Navarro at an Evening at Egan talk Friday at UAS.
Navarro, an assistant professor of marine fisheries, has been studying what are called market squid in partnership with researchers at Stanford University. With the help of undergraduate students, he opened his lab at UAS last month.
He’s trying to understand if market squid are setting up shop here or only visiting. The squid don’t historically range north of British Columbia. Alaska researchers, however, have encountered them in waters in the Gulf of Alaska and Southeast for more than a decade.
Boston Globe: Worcester to offer $500 million in incentives to lure Amazon by Shirley Leung
The City of Worcester is digging deep to woo an Amazon headquarters, with a proposal to offer up to $500 million in local property tax breaks.
The incentive package would be spread out over 20 years, according to a copy of the 60-page bid, released Tuesday night.
Amazon.com Inc. is on the hunt for a second corporate headquarters that would create up to 50,000 high-paying jobs and come with a $5 billion investment from the Seattle-based tech and retailing giant. Bids are due Thursday, and dozens of North American cities are expected to submit proposals, including Boston and Somerville.
Worcester, the state’s second-largest city, after Boston, is proposing that Amazon take over three parcels totaling 98 acres along Route 20. A commuter rail line runs along the property, but a station would need to be built. The privately owned land is zoned for manufacturing, but the city indicated it can be rezoned for commercial use, such as offices.
The bid aims to set up Worcester as a low-cost tech-hub alternative.
Richmond Times-Dispatch: Black, disabled students disproportionately suspended in Virginia, report says by Justin Mattingly
Black students in Virginia were suspended about four times as much as Hispanic and white students in 2015-16, according to a report released Tuesday.
In total, Virginia schools issued more than 131,500 out-of-school suspensions during the 2015-16 school year, according to the report from the Legal Aid Justice Center, a Virginia-based organization that works to fight injustice. The out-of-school suspensions were given to about 70,000 students, meaning the average student who was suspended received about two suspensions in 2015-16.
The news of an increase in out-of-school suspensions comes after the state’s suspension rate had dropped for four years. The rate of suspensions dropped by more than 20 percent from 2010-11 to 2013-14, according to the report, before flat-lining in 2014-15. The number of short-term suspensions rose by 1.8 percent from 2014-15 to 2015-16, the report says.
“Exclusionary discipline is myopic and harmful — we cannot continue to use access to education as a punishment for student conduct and expect positive results from either students or schools,” said Amy Woolard, Legal Aid Justice Center attorney and author of the report. “When children are suspended from school, they are more likely to experience academic failure, drop out of school, have substance abuse issues, have mental health needs, and become involved in the justice system.”
Washington Post: ‘Excessive force’: Judge rules in favor of children who were handcuffed at school by Moriah Balingit
A Kentucky sheriff’s deputy who handcuffed an 8-year-old boy and 9-year-old girl at school violated the children’s constitutional rights, a federal judge ruled, labeling the move “excessive force” and an unnecessary reaction to their misbehavior.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which filed the lawsuit on the children’s behalf, said last week’s ruling vindicates its position that schools should not use police officers to deal with misbehaving students, particularly children with disabilities. The children who were handcuffed had been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, a condition that made it difficult for them to focus and follow instructions.
“This judge drew a line in the sand and said this conduct is unconstitutional, and we think that this is helpful in our efforts to advocate against the criminalization of children,” said Claudia Center, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU. “It’s a terrible policy from our view, particularly in elementary schools.”
Read the comment thread on that tweet; Australia’s Peter Norman was awesome! CK 11:33 pm
Bloomberg: Nafta Deadlock Forces Ministers to Extend Talks Into 2018 by Eric Martin, Josh Wingrove, and Andrew Mayeda
Nafta talks are switching gears and slowing down as key obstacles emerge, with Canada and Mexico rejecting what they see as hard-line U.S. proposals and negotiators exchanging their strongest public barbs yet.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo and Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland wrapped up the fourth round of North American Free Trade Agreement talks in Washington on Tuesday and said negotiations will run through the end of March 2018, abandoning a December target. They also extended the time between negotiating rounds, giving themselves more space to consider proposals.
The ministers cast the longer timelines as a positive way to dig into tougher disputes, pledging to continue to work out a deal while acknowledging that strong differences remain. They next meet in Mexico Nov. 17-21.
“New proposals have created challenges and ministers discussed the significant conceptual gaps among the parties,” Lighthizer said, reading a joint statement at the close of the fourth round of talks. “Ministers have called upon all negotiators to explore creative ways to bridge these gaps.”
New York Times: Women Denounce Harassment in California’s Capital by Adam Nagourney and Jennifer Medina
LOS ANGELES — The groundswell over sexual harassment that has rocked Hollywood moved into California’s capital on Tuesday as more than 140 women — including legislators, senior legislative aides and lobbyists — came forward to denounce what they describe as pervasive sexual misconduct by powerful men in the nation’s most influential legislature.
Women complained of groping, lewd comments and suggestions of trading sexual favors for legislation while doing business in Sacramento. Their grievances, contained in a public letter and detailed in a series of interviews, mark the latest fallout from the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse scandal.
The women who drafted the letter say they were flooded with anguished responses from women who reported enduring, or witnessing, sexual harassment from male legislators, aides and lobbyists, after they began circulating their statement in recent days.
The letter comes as the scandal involving Mr. Weinstein had set off a wave of investigations, recriminations and accusations across the nation, including in state capitals in Rhode Island and South Dakota. Women from all walks of life — from actresses to corporate leaders — have used social media to report instances of abuse, often marked #metoo.
Buzzfeed: A White House Lawyer Up For A Powerful Judgeship Won’t Discuss The Legal Advice He’s Given In The Russia Probe by Zoe Tillman
Deputy White House counsel Greg Katsas, nominated for a powerful federal judgeship, declined to provide details at his confirmation hearing on Tuesday about his work on some of President Donald Trump’s most controversial — and legally contested — executive actions.
Katsas testified that he gave legal advice on Trump’s executive orders on the travel ban, protections for religious expression, and the creation of an election integrity commission, as well as the administration’s decisions to end the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals program and to adopt new birth control rules.
But citing attorney-client privilege and the need for executive branch confidentiality, Katsas, who is nominated for the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, said he couldn’t discuss the nature of that legal advice. His answers frustrated Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, who had hoped to use Katsas’ hearing to gain insight into legal goings on at the White House since January.
Katsas said he provided “legal advice on a few discrete legal questions” arising from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian influence in the 2016. But he said he couldn’t say more than that — including what advice he gave and who he gave it to — again citing the need for executive branch confidentiality as well as a concern about undermining Mueller’s work.
ProPublica: Trump’s Mine-Safety Nominee Ran Coal Firm Cited for Illegal Employment Practices by Robert Faturechi
The coal mining company run by President Donald Trump’s nominee to be the nation’s top mining regulator has already come under criticism for weaknesses in its safety record. It turns out the company was also found by the government to have illegally retaliated against a foreman who complained about sexual and ethnic harassment from supervisors, unsafe conditions and drug use at one of its mines.
The little-noticed case involved a foreman at a mine operated by Rhino Energy WV. At the time, the president of the mine’s parent company, Rhino Resource Partners, was David Zatezalo, who is now Trump’s nominee to run the Mine Safety and Health Administration. A Senate committee is scheduled to vote on his nomination Wednesday.
In the West Virginia case, Michael Jagodzinski, a foreman at the mine located near the town of Bolt, complained in 2011 that he was the target of ethnic and gay slurs. The company illegally retaliated against him, falsely accusing him of sexual harassment, and then fired him, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission found. As a result, Rhino Energy WV entered into a five-year consent decree last year, agreeing to pay $62,500 to Jagodzinski and implement reforms, including a policy against harassment and training for all managers and employees on prohibitions against discrimination and retaliation. The company also agreed to report how it handles any internal complaints of discrimination to federal regulators, and post notices about the settlement at all mine sites.
Washington Post: Kelly tried to keep his son’s death out of politics. Trump had other ideas. by Ashley Parker
For the past seven years, Gen. John F. Kelly has gone out of his way to keep the death of his son free from politics.
He did not talk about him when — just four days after his death in southern Afghanistan — Kelly found himself commemorating two other Marines killed in combat, in a moving speech in St. Louis. In fact, according to a Washington Post report, he specifically asked the officer introducing him not to mention his boy, 1st Lt. Robert M. Kelly, who was killed instantly when he stepped on a land mine while on patrol in 2010.
Just last month, Kelly slipped away from the White House to attend a Marine Corps scholarship golf tournament in his son’s memory, with little fanfare or attention.
But on Tuesday, Kelly’s boss, President Trump, thrust his son into the public and political glare, invoking the younger Kelly as part of a continuing attack on former president Barack Obama.
What a disgusting monster this occupant is.
AlJazeera: Quebec to vote on controversial face veil ban by Huthifa Fayyad
Rights groups have slammed proposed legislation in Quebec that would prohibit individuals from wearing face coverings while receiving public services as "islamophobic and anti-Muslim".
The bill, which is expected to be voted on as early as Tuesday, would require all government employees and any individual receiving a public service to show their face, prohibiting all garments that cover the face.
"This is nothing new, there is certainly offensive deja vu that we have seen this debate for 10 years in Quebec, and more broadly in Canada" Ihsaan Gardee, executive director of the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) told Al Jazeera.
Bill 62 was first introduced in 2015, but did not create momentum in parliament.
In August, liberal Minister of Justice Stephanie Vallee proposed amendments to the bill at the National Assembly.
Guardian: ‘The situation is desperate’: murdered Maltese journalist’s final written words by Luke Harding, David Pegg, and Juilette Garside
In her last blogpost, published the day she died, Daphne Caruana Galizia signed off with a sentence that seems particularly chilling now.
“There are crooks everywhere you look. The situation is desperate.”
Caruana Galizia, 53, felt she had good reason to feel pessimistic about Malta, and her enemies had good reason to fear her. Someone, it seems, was worried enough to want her silenced.
In that last post, which appeared just before a bomb blew up the car she was driving, Caruana Galizia had taken aim, and not for the first time, at Maltese politicians. But they were far from the only people in the firing line.
She believed, in essence, that malign and criminal interests had captured Malta and turned it into an island mafia state; she reported on a political system rife with corruption, businesses seemingly used to launder money or pay bribes, and a criminal justice system that seemed incapable, or unwilling, to take on the controlling minds behind it all.
Times of Malta: PM should step down after Caruana Galizia murder, police chief, AG should be replaced - Delia (special thanks to MTMofo in the comment section for adding some local reportage as it concerns the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia) CK 11:41 pm
Updated 9.45pm
Opposition Leader Adrian Delia called on Prime Minister Joseph Muscat to step down for his failure to safeguard the life of blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia and challenged the government to remove the police commissioner.
"The political blame for her death lies squarely in his lap and he should shoulder responsibility for it," he said.
He also called for the replacement of the Attorney General and for the institutions to recover their independence.
"The police should never have become a political band club where you get ahead because of your political colour," Dr Delia said today in his speech in Parliament responding to the Budget.
"It should be there to serve the people and to protect us all. In the past five years, it has been stripped of its function, its autonomy, its respect and dignity. One police commissioner after another leaving, and people not doing what was their duty to do... The police did nothing to stop the collapse of the law in the Panama case," he said.
DW: Portugal: As wild fires fade, survivors blame government for deaths
The Portuguese civil protection agency on Tuesday said wild fires that swept across northern and central Portugal left 41 people dead.
"Most of the victims were killed in their cars, but we also found them inside their houses," said Jose Carlos Alexandrino, town mayor of Oliveira do Hospital. "The whole the city looked like a ballo of fire, surrounded by flames on all sides."
Read more: How climate change is increasing forest fires around the world
Nearly all major wildfires were out by Tuesday morning, according to Portuguese authorities. At least half of the more than 5,000 firefighters deployed were expected to stay out to prevent re-ignitions in the country's smoldering forests.
Iberian officials have blamed arsonists for the late season forest fires, saying authorities have launched investigations to discover the cause of the deadly phenomenon.
"We are ready to extinguish fires, but we are not ready for arsonists," Spain's Environment Minister Isabel Garcia Tejerina told state broadcaster TVE.
BBC: Ukraine anti-graft protesters clash with riot police
Four people have been injured in clashes between riot police and demonstrators demanding major reforms in Ukraine's capital Kiev.
The protesters are calling for an anti-corruption court to be set up, MPs to lose their immunity from prosecution, and changes to the electoral system.
They vowed to stay on, putting up tents and blocking the main road outside the parliament building in central Kiev.
One of the opposition leaders called for President Petro Poroshenko to quit.
"It is time for them to hear us," Mikheil Saakashvili, a former Georgian president and one-time regional governor in Ukraine, told the crowd of several thousand protesters.
Mr Saakashvili is now a stateless person, after his Ukrainian citizenship was removed by his former ally Mr Poroshenko.
Mr Saakashvili is accused by his opponents of trying to further stir up political tensions in Ukraine, which is fighting pro-Russian separatists in the east.
He denies the accusations.
Reuters: China's Xi says anti-graft campaign has 'overwhelming momentum' by Christian Shepherd and Stella Qiu
BEIJING (Reuters) - China’s campaign against corruption has achieved “overwhelming momentum”, President Xi Jinping said on Wednesday at the start of a critical Communist Party congress expected to cement his authority.
Xi’s speech kicks off the twice-a-decade congress, a week-long, mostly closed-door conclave that will culminate with the selection of a new Politburo Standing Committee that will rule China’s 1.4 billion people for the next five years.
Speaking to more than 2,000 delegates in Beijing’s cavernous Great Hall of the People, including 91-year-old former president Jiang Zemin, Xi praised the party’s success, particularly his high-profile anti-graft campaign.
“The fight against corruption has formed an overwhelming posture and strengthened in development,” Xi said in a speech carried live across the nation on state television.
Xi has waged a relentless fight against deep-rooted graft since assuming power five years ago, with more than one million officials punished and dozens of former senior officials jailed.
Gretchen Carlson, the former Fox News anchor who settled her lawsuit against the late Roger Ailes for $20 million, was upfront about her contractual limitations in writing her new book, Be Fierce: Stop Harassment and Take Your Power Back.
"Many people have heard about the sexual harassment case I filed against my former boss," she wrote in the introduction of her book, which came out Tuesday. "That lawsuit was settled, and there are things I can't discuss about it. That's the nature of a settlement. But when it was all over, I decided I wasn't ready to shut up and sit down."
Gretchen Carlson, the former Fox News anchor who settled her lawsuit against the late Roger Ailes for $20 million, was upfront about her contractual limitations in writing her new book, Be Fierce: Stop Harassment and Take Your Power Back.
"Many people have heard about the sexual harassment case I filed against my former boss," she wrote in the introduction of her book, which came out Tuesday. "That lawsuit was settled, and there are things I can't discuss about it. That's the nature of a settlement. But when it was all over, I decided I wasn't ready to shut up and sit down."
AP: College Football Top 10 (Post Weekend Chaos)