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.
I am still in the UK, but although tonight’s diary may be a bit heavier in UK news than last week’s, there is more geographical breadth in stories this time around. We do begin with a British story, from the Derbeyshire Times:
We have taken a look at recent big cat sightings in Derbyshire after a DNA analysis confirmed that there is a big cat roaming the British countryside.
The DNA of a big cat has been identified from a swab taken from the remains of a dead sheep in the
Lake District.
It has been announced today (May 17) that the Panthera genus was found following a DNA analysis carried out at the University of Warwick. This is the first time ever that a big cat DNA was found on animal remains in the UK.
From yesterday’s Guardian comes this story I thought was worth including even though it was a bit older than I usually post in this series:
A mega egg in Paris, a hovering hotel in Machu Picchu, an hourglass tower in New York, a pleasure island in Baghdad … we reveal the architectural visions that were just too costly – or too weird
Did you know that, if things had gone differently, the Pompidou Centre could have been an egg? In the 1969 competition for the Paris art centre – ultimately won by Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano, with their inside-out symphony of pipework – a radical French architect called André Bruyère submitted a proposal for a gigantic ovoid tower. His bulbous building would have risen 100 metres above the city’s streets, clad in shimmering scales of alabaster, glass and concrete, its walls swelling out in a curvaceous riposte to the tyranny of the straight line.
“Time,” Bruyère declared, “instead of being linear, like the straight streets and vertical skyscrapers, will become oval, in tune with the egg.” His hallowed Oeuf would be held aloft on three chunky legs, while a monorail would pierce the facade and circle through the structure along a sinuous floating ribbon. The atrium was to take the form of an enclosed globe, like a yolk.
Also from The Guardian:
Updated guidelines strip bishops of power to recognise ‘supernatural’ nature of purportedly divine events
Apparitions of the Virgin Mary and weeping statues have been part of Catholicism for centuries, but the age of social media has prompted the Vatican to issue a crackdown against potential scams and hoaxes.
New rules issued on Friday say that only a pope, rather than local bishops, can declare apparitions and revelations to be “supernatural”. The document, Norms for Proceeding in the Discernment of Alleged Supernatural Phenomena, updates previous guidance issued in 1978 that is now considered “inadequate”.
More stories below the fold.
From Al Jazeera:
Azerbaijan previously condemned French colonialism in overseas territories, while has France backed Armenia on Nagorno-Karabakh.
France has accused Azerbaijan of being behind protests and violence that have rocked its Pacific island territory of New Caledonia for the past few days over the French government’s decision to change a voting law.
Azerbaijan, which has traditionally had little presence in the Asia Pacific and is nearly 14,000km (8,700 miles) away from New Caledonia, has denied the allegations of interference.
From The Guardian (link takes you to a video):
A scuffle broke out in the Taiwanese parliament days before the president-elect, Lai Ching-te, takes office without a legislative majority. The opposition wants to give parliament greater scrutiny powers over the government, including a controversial proposal to criminalise officials who are deemed to make false statements in parliament.
From the BBC:
Vladimir Putin’s state visit to China this week was a show of strength. It was a chance for the Russian president to prove to the world that he has a powerful ally in his corner.
The Russian leader is widely regarded as a pariah after ordering the invasion of Ukraine. But to China’s President Xi Jinping, he is a key partner in seeking a new world order that is not led by the US.
From ITV:
Dead politicians brought back to life and millions spent on false ads. How is the World's biggest democratic election already feeling the impact of misinformation?
India's election sees one in 10 of the world's population going to the polls - that's roughly 970 million voters. The election is staggered across six weeks and is already more than halfway through. The votes will then be counted on Tuesday June 4.
From the Mirror:
Olga Bogdanova, 96, who fought the Nazis in World War II, is alleged to have been tied to a bed for 15 years while her neighbour Galina Barashneva stole her pension in Russia
A 96-year-old woman claims she was tied to a bed for 15 years by her neighbour in Russia who stole her pension.
Victim Olga Bogdanova, who fought the Nazis in World War II, says she was fleeced of more than £21,700 by neighbour Galina Barashneva, according to local media. The shocking incident has come to light with Olga now in hospital after suffering a heart attack.
From the New Statesman:
The hard-right politician has at last formed a government after six months of negotiation.
By Ben Coates
In the winter of 2009, the Dutch MP Geert Wilders caught a flight from Amsterdam to Heathrow. The Dutch ambassador to Britain was waiting to greet him in arrivals, but Wilders never made it that far. The firebrand politician was stopped at the passport desk and refused entry to the UK on the grounds that the home secretary Jacqui Smith had decided Wilders’ much-publicised views on Islam “would pose a genuine, present and significantly serious threat to… community harmony and therefore public safety”. Wilders went straight back to Amsterdam.
Fifteen years later, he is now the most powerful man in the Netherlands and wields extraordinary influence in Europe. After six months of negotiations, Wilders announced on 15 May that his Party for Freedom (PVV) had reached an agreement with three other parties (the centre-right VVD and NSC, as well as the populist BBB) to form a new government. Wilders won’t be the next prime minister – his coalition allies baulked at the idea – but he’ll be the influential force behind the government, and it’s his policies that will form the bulk of its platform. Dutch commentators have already taken to referring to the new government as simply “rechts” or “centrum rechts” (right or centre right) but there’s little doubt this will be a hard-right government.
From Al Jazeera:
Local prosecutor says two investigations into arson attempt and death of unidentified suspect are under way.
From The Guardian:
Shadow foreign secretary sets out vision for a more strategic, less elitist approach to UK diplomacy
From the BBC:
A retired 74-year-old Ghanaian man who has lived in the UK for nearly 50 years must wait a decade before the Home Office will let him stay permanently.
Nelson Shardey, from Wallasey in Wirral, had for many years assumed he was officially seen as British.
He only discovered otherwise in 2019 and, despite paying taxes all his adult life, now faces paying thousands of pounds to stay and use the NHS.