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.
Again it was hard to find good and/or amusing news to start out the diary. I found three items in a first skim through. You might have seen this first one, as it has been all over today. This version comes from NPR:
When a wild orangutan in Indonesia suffered a painful wound to his cheek, he did something that stunned researchers: He chewed plant leaves known to have pain-relieving and healing properties, rubbed the juice on the open wound — and then used the leaves as a poultice to cover his injury.
"This case represents the first known case of active wound treatment in a wild animal with a medical plant," biologist Isabelle Laumer, the first author of a paper about the revelation, told NPR.
From the New York Times:
The European Court of Human Rights has found that Italy’s claims to a contested Greek statue are legitimate. But the museum says its continued possession is appropriate and lawful.
And this, from USA Today, which I at first thought was a US story, but no...:
Emilee Coblentz
The United Kingdom has a new catfish on record, thanks to an angler from Rainham.
Darren Reitz, 34, from east London seems to have captured the country's largest freshwater fish by rod from a lake in Maldon, Essex. The "monster" catfish, as he calls it, weighed in at 143 pounds (64.4kg). Reitz says it was all "luck," according to BBC News.
The rest of the news below the fold.
From the BBC:
Mohamed Zakaria Omer Mohamed ,Barbara Plett Usher
The threat of invasion darkens the daily struggle for life in El Fasher, the main city in Sudan’s western Darfur region and the last major urban centre still under the army’s control.
“We all live in absolute fear and constant worry of what awaits us in the coming days,” says Osman Mohammed, a 31-year-old English teacher.
Mohammed Ali Adam Mohamed, a 36-year-old grocery shop owner with five children, has no doubt what a full-scale battle would mean.
From CNN:
By
Louis Mian,
Sharon Braithwaite,
Ingrid Formanek and
Richard Roth
Time is running out to prevent starvation in Darfur, in western Sudan, a UN agency has warned, as escalating violence devastates the African nation.
People have been forced to consume “grass and peanut shells,” the regional director for Eastern Africa of the World Food Programme (WFP) said on Friday. “If assistance doesn’t reach them soon, we risk witnessing widespread starvation and death in Darfur and across other conflict-affected areas in Sudan,” Michael Dunford added.
More African news from the Weather Network:
Hidaya is the strongest tropical cyclone ever recorded this close to the Tanzanian coast
Deadly floods across eastern Africa may get worse this weekend as Cyclone Hidaya approaches landfall in Tanzania.
The storm, a historic first for this stretch of coastal Africa, could produce 100-200+ mm of rain around the country’s densely populated capital region of Dar es Salaam.
From The Guardian:
Glossy promotional leaflet handed out to asylum seekers detained under Rishi Sunak’s deportation policy
Asylum seekers who have been detained under Rishi Sunak’s deportation policy are being handed a colourful promotional document entitled: “I’m being relocated to Rwanda. What does it mean to me?”
The news came as the government faced a second legal challenge over the prime minister’s £500m policy and it emerged that dozens of asylum seekers were being forcibly taken to detention centres.
From the Associated Press:
SAO PAULO (AP) — Heavy rains in the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul killed 39 people, with another 68 still missing, the state civil defense agency said Friday, as record-breaking floods devastated cities and forced thousands to leave their homes.
It was the fourth such environmental disaster in a year, following floods in July, September and November 2023 that killed 75 people in total.
The flooding statewide has surpassed that seen during a historic 1941 deluge, according to the Brazilian Geological Service. In some cities, water levels were at their highest since records began nearly 150 years ago, the agency said.
From VOA:
Political will to support journalism faltering, watchdog finds
The latest global press freedom rankings from media watchdog Reporters Without Borders present a discouraging picture, including a lack of political will to defend a free press. Afghanistan, Argentina and the U.S. are among countries whose rank fell. For VOA, Cristina Caicedo Smit has the story.
From the BBC:
There has been lots of noise and lots of numbers.
And, for plenty of us, not a lot of sleep.
And there are still more results to come this weekend.
But how do things look right now?
Firstly, dire election results are becoming a dangerous habit for the Conservatives.
From the BBC:
Security is being tightened for the Eurovision Song Contest in Sweden's third city Malmo, with large demonstrations planned to coincide with the event and the country already on high alert.
Police and organisers say they're well-prepared and hoping for a "joyful" event.
The annual feel-good celebration of pop and showbiz is this year shrouded by complaints from some quarters over Israel's participation amid the war in Gaza. Sweden was already facing heightened security challenges, and Malmo is expecting one of the country's biggest ever policing efforts.
From The Guardian:
Berlin’s finance minister says property owned by Hitler’s propaganda minister will be demolished if taker not found
Berlin’s government is offering to give away a villa once owned by Adolf Hitler’s propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, hoping to end a decades-long debate on whether to repurpose or bulldoze a sprawling disused site in the countryside north of the German capital.
“I offer to anyone who would like to take over the site, to take it over as a gift from the state of Berlin,” Berlin’s finance minister, Stefan Evers, told the state parliament, the German Press Agency reported.