Overnight News Digest
Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, current leader Neon Vincent, regular editors jlms qkw, maggiejean, wader, rfall,side pocket,Man Oh Man, and JML9999. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse, ek hornbeck, ScottyUrb, Interceptor7, BentLiberal, and Oke. The guest editor is annetteboardman.
Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.
Let's start things off at a high level.
BBC
British team first to scale Himalayan mountain
A British team has become the first in the world to scale a 6,046m (19,835 feet) Himalayan mountain.
Caroline McCann, 40, from Glossop, and Matthew Jones from Salford ascended to the summit of the Cha Ri mountain on 24 August.
The team had been given official approval by the Indian government to explore the unvisited mountain range.
Miss McCann, a graphic designer, said it was the first time she had scaled a peak of that height.
BBC
Some 700 migrants rescued off Italy over two days
More than 700 people have been rescued in the last two days from boats carrying migrants and refugees off the coast of Italy, coastguards say.
Four vessels loaded with people from Syria, Egypt, Eritrea, Nigeria and Ghana got into difficulty off Sicily.
One family of four had to be rushed to hospital for emergency treatment.
The upsurge of violence in Syria and Egypt has seen an increase in the number of refugees attempting to reach Italy in recent months.
Thousands of people have made the hazardous crossing from North Africa to Italy or Malta in open boats.
BBC
Putin ally Sergei Sobyanin set to win Moscow mayor poll
Kremlin-backed candidate Sergei Sobyanin is set to win the election for mayor of the Russian capital Moscow, but by a narrow margin.
His main challenger at Sunday's ballot was Alexei Navalny, the charismatic leader of Russia's pro-democracy movement.
Mr Sobyanin won about 53%, thus taking victory in the first round, partial official results indicate.
Mr Navalny disputes the result, saying he won enough to force a second round.
"Oldest man" contest. Is Methuselah soon to be outdone?
BBC
Ethiopia: '160-year-old man' claims to remember 1895
An Ethiopian reporter claims to have discovered the world's oldest living man.
Retired farmer Dhaqabo Ebba claims to have clear memories of Italy's 1895 invasion of the country. In an interview with regional Oromiya TV, he provided so much detail on the changes of power in his local area that reporter Mohammed Ademo has become convinced that Dhaqabo must be at least 160 - 46 years older than the oldest ever recorded man.
'When Italy invaded Ethiopia I had two wives, and my son was old enough to herd cattle,' he said at home near Dodola. He went on to recount his childhood eight-day horseback ride to Addis Ababa - a journey of a few hours today.
Meanwhile, in the USA........
BBC
US police kill 107-year-old suspect in home shootout
A 107-year-old man was killed in a shootout with police, after he held two people at gunpoint in the US state of Arkansas, authorities said.
Officers were called to a home in the city of Pine Bluff following reports that the man, named as Monroe Isadore, was threatening the two with a gun.
The pair were brought to safety before police tried to arrest the suspect, who was locked inside a bedroom.
Officers shot Isadore when he opened fire on them as they entered the room.
BBC
Guatemalan bar attack leaves 11 people dead
A group of armed men in Guatemala has killed 11 people and wounded at least another 15 in an attack at a bar in the town of San Jose Nacahuil.
Some of the victims were found dead after they tried to hide in the liquor store's bathrooms and nearby alleys.
The motive is not clear, but Guatemalan police are investigating the possible involvement of the country's notorious criminal gangs, or maras.
Some residents said they doubted this interpretation of events.
Local resident Nery Pixtun told the Reuters news agency: "The person or the persons that did this are not mara members. Whoever did this was a professional, it was done by a person trained to use those weapons."
L A Times
Critics see contradictions in Obama administration's Syria claims
WASHINGTON –- The planned military strikes on Syria would be “targeted, limited” and wouldn’t seek to topple the government of President Bashar Assad or even force it to peace talks.
They would also be punishing and “consequential” and would so scare Assad that he would never use chemical weapons again.
U.S. airstrikes would change the momentum on the battlefield of the Syrian civil war. But the war will grind on, unchanged, perhaps for years.
As administration officials lay out their case in favor of a punitive attack on Syria, they have been making all of these seemingly contradictory contentions, confusing supporters and providing rhetorical weapons to their opponents.
N Y Times
Gresham's Law might apply to music, too.
New York City Opera May Cancel Most of This Season
New York City Opera, which was founded 70 years ago to bring opera to the masses, will be forced to cancel most of its current season and all of its next season if it fails to raise $20 million by year’s end, company officials say.
The cash crisis that City Opera is trying to overcome threatens the very survival of a company that has made opera accessible and cultivated important singers over the years, including Beverly Sills, Plácido Domingo and Renée Fleming. And it raises the question of whether New York will again be able to count itself among cultural capitals like Berlin and London that can support more than one major opera company.
N Y Times
Bet he's on the no-fly list, too.
Police at British Palace Stop a Stranger: Prince Andrew
Only days after an intruder was captured inside Buckingham Palace, the police accosted Prince Andrew last Wednesday evening for wandering on the palace grounds, apparently without identification.
No guns were drawn, let alone fired, the police were quick to say Sunday.
N Y Times
LEAVING THE LAND Picking Death Over Eviction
As she drove down a busy four-lane road near her old home, Tang Huiqing pointed to the property where her dead sister’s workshop once stood. The lot was desolate, but for Ms. Tang it lives.
Four years ago, government officials told her sister that Chengdu was expanding into the countryside and that her village had to make way. A farmer who had made the transition to manufacturer, she had built the small workspace with her husband. Now, officials said, it would be torn down.
“So my sister went up to the roof and said, ‘If you want to, tear it down,’ ” Ms. Tang said.
Her voice trailed off as she recalled how her sister poured diesel fuel on herself and after pleading with the demolition crew to leave, set herself alight. She died 16 days later.
S F Gate
Fossil hunters in Santa Cruz make whale of a find
The fossil hunters of the Purisima Formation are avid collectors of the dead - they probe the beaches and sandy cliffs around Santa Cruz to find the stony bones of birds and whales and sea creatures that lived and died there millions of years ago.
To scientists, those amateur hunters provide an endlessly renewing source of material that bears witness to the ebb and flow of evolution as environments change over the millennia and life adapts to the changes and moves on into ever-new forms.
Two of those amateurs recently passed on a few of their trophies to Robert W. Boessenecker, 27 - known as Bobby to his surfing friends in Capitola - who is now a paleontology graduate student in New Zealand.