(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Overnight News Digest for Weds, April 26, 2023 (Nurturing edition) [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-04-26 This is an open thread where everyone is welcome, especially night owls and early birds, to share and discuss the happenings of the day. Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments. The crew of the Overnight News Digest consists of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, jeremybloom, Magnifico, annetteboardman, eeff, 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. ...It’s true that Biden spearheaded the negotiations with Republicans during the 2011 debt limit standoff, when he was serving as Barack Obama’s vice president. But if anything, that episode should teach Democrats that repeating the same negotiations and resolutions would be exactly the wrong course of action. x AOC: We should examine why our colleagues in the Republican Party are so invested in protecting the wealthiest people and would rather attack healthcare and services for our veterans than repealing tax cuts for yacht owners and private jets pic.twitter.com/XITeiJ80Dp — Acyn (@Acyn) April 26, 2023 ...Pretty quickly, Republicans gave up on even pretending to abide by the budget constraints they themselves had insisted upon; in 2013, for example, they pulled their own transportation and housing bill because they could not come to an agreement on how to stay within their own funding cap. In fact, nearly every year throughout the decade that funding caps were in place, Congress voted to exempt itself from the full cap. x House Republicans to disabled vets: get a job. #ProtectVeteransHealthCare pic.twitter.com/ewJJ3pIdS0 — Rachel Bitecofer 📈🔭🇺🇲🇺🇦 (@RachelBitecofer) April 26, 2023 Nearly two dozen lawsuits filed by cities and states aim to put fossil fuel companies on trial for deceiving the public about climate change. But they’ve been stuck in legal limbo for half a decade, with companies deploying several maneuvers to block them. Now a surprising source has unleashed those lawsuits: the conservative-dominated Supreme Court. On Monday, the justices rejected petitions from Chevron, Shell, BP, and other oil companies to move these cases from the state courts where they were filed to federal courts, an arena considered more friendly to the industry. The Supreme Court’s rejection brings an end to a long jurisdictional battle, meaning that cases in Colorado, Maryland, California, Hawaii, Rhode Island, and more can finally proceed — potentially toward jury trials. ...Oil companies have tried to shuffle these lawsuits to federal courts for years, arguing that they weren’t really about consumer protection laws, but the broader matter of climate change, a federal concern. Judge after judge dismissed this line of reasoning, until it went all the way to the Supreme Court. Last month, the Biden administration urged the court to leave these lawsuits to the states — exactly what it ended up doing. The Montana House voted on Wednesday to censure the state's first openly transgender legislator Zooey Zephyr, who called for her colleagues to vote against a gender-affirming care ban for transgender youth. x As I left the House chambers, I pressed my light to speak—a reminder that this legislature is removing 11,000 Montanans from discussion on every bill going forward. I will always stand on behalf of my constituents, my community, and democracy itself. pic.twitter.com/H3CLZufy6E — Rep. Zooey Zephyr (@ZoAndBehold) April 26, 2023 ...The Montana Freedom Caucus, which includes several of Zephyr's colleagues, misgendered Zephyr by using he/him pronouns and argued the legislation "protects minor children from forced life-altering and unnecessary surgical procedures." Physicians from across the country have previously told ABC News that some types of gender-affirming care are reversible or partially reversible and are only pursued after thorough discussions and evaluations with medical professionals. On Monday, protesters took to the statehouse chanting, "let her speak!" as a debate about a separate bill that would allow students to misgender or deadname transgender people without disciplinary action went on. Several protesters were arrested. Deadnaming refers to the use of a transgender person's name from before they transitioned, such as their birth name. Montana’s Republican-dominated House voted Wednesday to ban Rep. Zooey Zephyr, who had said GOP lawmakers would have “blood” on their hands for passing bills restricting transgender rights and rallied protesters Monday after Speaker Matt Regier blocked her from being recognized to speak, from the House chamber for the remainder of this year’s legislative session. Under the disciplinary measure approved on a 68-32 vote Wednesday, Zephyr – the 34-year-old Democrat from Missoula who last year became the first openly transgender woman elected to Montana’s legislature – will be allowed to retain her seat and cast votes remotely. But she will not be able to participate in debates. The session is scheduled to end next week. “We have a week and a half left of the session, and we’ll be covering important topics — housing bills, the state’s budget — and every bill that goes forward for the remainder of this session, there will be 11,000 Montanans whose representative is missing, whose voices cannot be heard on those bills,” Zephyr told CNN’s Erin Burnett on “OutFront” later Wednesday. x ⚡️ “The Justice Department today filed a complaint challenging Tennessee Senate Bill 1 (SB 1), a recently enacted law that denies necessary medical care to youth based solely on who they are.” #TransYouthHealthCareBan 🏳️‍⚧️ @SenJohnson @WilliamLamberth https://t.co/TKkzzhqacp pic.twitter.com/V216p6wrys — The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) April 27, 2023 The vote was 50-49. Sen Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) voted with Republicans to get rid of the rule. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who has been absent from the Senate amid health issues, did not vote. … The rule in question aims to cut down on emissions of pollutants called nitrogen oxides that can harm the respiratory system and are also components of acid rain. The EPA says it will prevent as many as 2,900 premature deaths and 18,000 fewer cases of childhood asthma annually by 2045. ...Despite its passage, the resolution is not expected to ultimately prevail. The White House said Wednesday that President Biden would veto the effort, and it is unlikely to be able to win the two-thirds majority needed to override the veto. x 🚨🚨🚨: In an absolutely BONEHEAD move, Trump’s attorneys just admitted Trump may have taken classified briefings of phone calls with foreign leaders. This is absolutely wild. In a letter to the GOP chair of the House Intelligence Committee, two of Donald Trump’s defense… pic.twitter.com/KJTDfUD1Yx — CALL TO ACTIVISM (@CalltoActivism) April 26, 2023 "The pollen season right now is about three weeks longer than it was 30 years ago, and there's about 20% more pollen in the air," said Dr. Neelu Tummala, an ear, nose and throat specialist and co-director of the Climate Health Institute at George Washington University. Those statistics come from research published in 2021. As the Earth's core temperature increases, Tummala explained, the ground thaws earlier in the year, rousing trees from their winter slumber, prompting them to flower and produce pollen earlier than ever. ...The combustion of fossil fuels — another cause of global warming —increases carbon dioxide. As CO2 levels go up, plants and trees produce more pollen. Listen to the southern right talk about violence in America and you’d think New York City was as dangerous as Bakhmut on Ukraine’s eastern front. ...In reality, the region the Big Apple comprises most of is far and away the safest part of the U.S. mainland when it comes to gun violence, while the regions Florida and Texas belong to have per capita firearm death rates (homicides and suicides) three to four times higher than New York’s. On a regional basis it’s the southern swath of the country — in cities and rural areas alike — where the rate of deadly gun violence is most acute, regions where Republicans have dominated state governments for decades. ...If you grew up in the coal mining region of eastern Pennsylvania your chance of dying of a gunshot is about half that if you grew up in the coalfields of West Virginia, three hundred miles to the southwest. Someone living in the most rural counties of South Carolina is more than three times as likely to be killed by gunshot than someone living in the equally rural counties of New York’s Adirondacks or the impoverished rural counties facing Mexico across the lower reaches of the Rio Grande. Silver said on Tuesday that he expects to leave the politics and sports news site when his contract ends this summer. Several others at FiveThirtyEight — including deputy managing editor Chadwick Matlin, sports editor Neil Paine, senior audience editor Meena Ganesan, senior science reporter (and 2015 Nieman Fellow) Maggie Koerth, business operations manager Vanessa Diaz, and senior designer Emily Scherer — announced they were affected by layoffs, too. FiveThirtyEight — named, of course, after the number of electors in the U.S. electoral college — has its roots in the “Community” section of the liberal news site Daily Kos, where, in 2007, a 29-year-old baseball statistician named Nate Silver began writing posts about the 2008 U.S. presidential election under the username “poblano.” x I had been worried about an outcome like this and so have had some great initial conversations about opportunities elsewhere. Don’t hesitate to get in touch. I am so proud of the work of FiveThirtyEight staff. It has never been easy. I’m so sorry to the people impacted by this. — Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) April 25, 2023 ...When Silver leaves ABC News, he’ll leave behind the FiveThirtyEight trade name, but his models will go with him. “The models are licensed to them and the license term is concurrent with my contract,” he confirmed to Nieman Lab in a message. “They have limited rights to some models post–license term, but not the core election forecast stuff.” x This chart explains *so much* about modern American politics. What it says, simply, is that almost all the actual persuadable voters in the electorate aren't "moderates." They're cross-pressured extremists and...kinda fashy. They're socially bigoted and economically leftist. /2 — David Atkins (@DavidOAtkins) April 26, 2023 Activision Blizzard (ATVI) is one of the world’s biggest video game developers, producing games such as “Call of Duty,” “World of Warcraft,” “Diablo” and “Overwatch.” Microsoft, which sells the Xbox gaming console, offers a video game subscription service called Xbox Game Pass, as well as a cloud-based video game streaming service. The deal to combine the businesses has been met with growing opposition by antitrust regulators worldwide. In December, the US Federal Trade Commission sued to block the takeover over similar competition concerns. A hearing is scheduled for August. The European Union is also evaluating the transaction. The regulators “cooperate quite closely,” said Alex Haffner, a partner at London law firm Fladgate, who described the UK decision as “seismic,” even though it applies only to the firms’ activities in Britain. x For those who had no voice & those who seemingly had no hope, you made the world a better place, Harry, & there can be no higher calling than that. God Bless you & please give our other brothers a long-awaited hug from me as well.❤️ pic.twitter.com/0PGmyvhdId — Quincy Jones (@QuincyDJones) April 25, 2023 Every now and then on the Internet, people discover something about food that you thought everyone already knew. Hey, we're all learning, right? Last month it was the turn of paprika and all spice, but now it's our old friend Parmesan cheese under the spotlight. x Most aged cheeses, not just parmesan, are made with animal rennet. There are, however, cheeses made with vegetarian rennet--usually fresh cheeses.https://t.co/uOijImTypt. — GonnaCookThat (@GonnaCookThat) January 10, 2023 Parmesan is traditionally made from cow's milk, aged for at least 12 months in copper vats, where it is heated and other ingredients like whey and rennet are added. It's rennet that vegans, vegetarians, and anyone just a bit grossed out by eating the stomach juices of baby cows don't like the sound of. ..."For cheesemaking, rennet helps to form firm curds and is crucial in finding the right texture for your cheese," the Cheesemaker explains. "Where some recipes will use acid or an acid-producing bacteria to do this, cheesemakers use rennet to better cultivate the final flavor profile of their cheese." x Real Parmesan has to use calf rennet however, as one of the conditions for it to be called Parmesan in the EU (it’s a “protected designation of origin,” or PDO, product). Note that are a lot of “parmesan” labeled cheeses in the USA that are not real PDO Parmesan. — Briél Kate (@brielc8) January 10, 2023 x We found this beautiful arrow only two meters from the melting ice. It is incredibly well preserved - the sinew at the front is intact, the wooden birch shaft is in one piece and there are even three fletches. pic.twitter.com/nspQs4LKhJ — Secrets Of The Ice (@brearkeologi) April 21, 2023 x Look how instinctively , the mother croc carries the baby in its mouth. Nature is beautiful. pic.twitter.com/02Jwz3iiuW — jim rose circus (@jimrosecircus1) April 26, 2023 What are YOU nurturing tonight? Tell us in the comments! 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