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, palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse, ek hornbeck, ScottyUrb, Interceptor7, BentLiberal, Oke 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.
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BBC
Greece passes tax and pension reforms
Greece's parliament has passed a package of tax and pension reforms, ahead of a crucial meeting of Eurozone finance ministers on Monday.
Controversial austerity measures could unlock more international bailout money for the country, allowing it to access a loan instalment of €5bn (£4bn).
Before the vote, protesters in Athens threw petrol bombs at police, who responded with tear gas.
Trade unions say the country cannot bear another round of austerity.
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said the bill aimed for a "sustainable" system that would "have social justice as its core principle", as only 7.5% of pensioners would see a cut in the money they got.
He said the finance ministers' meeting meant Monday would be "a very important day" as debt relief for Greece was on the agenda after "six long years" of austerity discussions.
BBC
Canada wildfire: 20% of Fort McMurray homes destroyed, says MP
About a fifth of homes have been destroyed in Fort McMurray, a Canadian city ravaged by a huge wildfire, the local MP has told the BBC.
After touring the damage David Yurdiga said it might be years before the city was running normally again.
More than 100,000 residents of the city and surrounding area fled after an evacuation order was issued.
Officials say the fire, now burning for a week, grew more slowly at the weekend than first feared.
Firefighters held key areas and the blaze now covers about 1,610 sq km (620 sq miles) - less than the 1,800 sq km (700 sq miles) estimated on Saturday.
Mr Yurdiga said while most of the city was intact the area was still too dangerous for residents to return home.
Al Jazeera
Canada wildfire likely to burn for months
Canadian officials say they expect the massive wildfire that has destroyed large parts of Alberta's oil sands to continue burning for months.
The Alberta government said on Saturday the massive blaze in the province will cover more than 2,000sq km by Sunday and continue to grow because of high temperatures, dry conditions and high winds.
Chad Morrison, Alberta's manager of wildfire prevention, said it is not uncommon to fight such an inferno in forested areas for months.
There is fear the growing wildfire could double in size and reach a major oil sands mine and even the neighbouring province of Saskatchewan.
"In no way is this fire under control," Rachel Notley, Alberta's premier, said.
No deaths or injuries have been reported since the fire started a week ago but thousands of people have been made homeless.
Reuters
Oil up 2 percent as wildfires threaten Canada supply, Saudi moves eyed
Oil prices rose about 2 percent in early Asian trading on Monday as supply outages persisted over the weekend from Canada's wildfires that have shut half the country's vast oil sands capacity.
Analysts were also digesting weekend news of Saudi Arabia's appointment of a new energy minister to take over from veteran oil minister Ali al-Naimi. The new appointee, Khalid al-Falih, is a believer in reform and low oil prices.
Falih said on Sunday that the world's largest crude exporter was committed to meeting demand and would maintain its stable petroleum policies.
The Guardian
Spice: Americans turn to dangerous 'synthetic marijuana' to evade drug tests
A man comes into the emergency room in Jackson, Mississippi. Six-foot-four, 240lbs. “Solid, brick muscle”, recalls Dr Robert Galli, a professor of emergency medicine and toxicology at the University of Mississippi medical center (UMMC) in Jackson.
“This big guy was fumbling around in the street, he was rolling around in the grass, he had no shirt on, his pants and underwear were down to his shoes, and he’s flopping around in the rain with about 15 people taking videos of him.”
Someone called 911. First the fire department arrived, followed by police, then paramedics, who ascertained from the surrounding crowd that the man smoked “Spice”.
Spice is known as fake weed or synthetic marijuana because it grabs hold of the same receptors in the brain. But the lab-made powder bears little resemblance to the plant Americans increasingly see as benign.
And because synthetic marijuana is ever evolving, standard urine drug screenings don’t detect it. Most confirmed poisonings are ferreted out by epidemiologists, after the bizarre symptoms land users in the hospital.
“Sure enough, this guy was using Spice regularly if he wanted to get high, and now he got a hold of the bad stuff,” Galli said.
The Guardian
Brexit would have 'unforeseeable consequences', warns Juncker
A British exit from the European Union would have “unforeseeable consequences” for European cooperation, European Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker has warned in an interview with German media.
Britain is to hold a referendum on 23 June on whether or not it should stay in the 28-nation bloc, and opinion polls are showing the nation is still largely undecided on the issue.
In an interview with the Funke Mediengruppe press group to be published on Monday, Juncker warned that a so-called “Brexit” would “surely have unforeseeable consequences on European cooperation, about which I absolutely do not wish to speculate about because I am convinced that Britons will make the reasonable decision”.
“All Europeans want Britain to remain in the family,” he said, recalling that the EU had struck a “fair deal” with Britain in February on reforms aimed at keeping it in the bloc.
Britain first joined the then European Economic Community (EEC) in 1973, and in a referendum two years later the public backed membership by just over 67%.
But the country has had a strained relationship with Brussels, opting out of key projects including the euro and the Schengen passport-free zone.
Reuters
Nearly half of Europeans in poll want own votes on EU, like UK
Nearly half of voters in eight big European Union countries want to be able to vote on whether to remain members of the bloc, just as Britons will in a referendum next month, according to an opinion poll published on Monday.
Forty-five percent of more than 6,000 people surveyed in Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Spain and Sweden said they wanted their own vote, and a third would opt to leave the EU if given the chance, poll firm Ipsos-MORI said.
The size of the potential "Out" vote ranges from as high as 48 and 41 percent in Italy and France respectively to as low as 22 and 26 percent in Poland and Spain, the firm said.
"The Italians in particular hope to have their own opportunity to go to the polls on their EU membership, which lends a sense that even if the (British) vote does ... stick with the status quo in June, it will not be the end of the EU's woes," said Bobby Duffy, head of social research at Ipsos-MORI.
Italy's anti-establishment 5-Star Movement has grown into the country's second-biggest political force, and wants an exit from the euro currency zone. France's hard-right National Front party also wants to drop the single currency.
Dozens buried by landslide in south–east China after heavy rains
Chinese president Xi Jinping has ordered “maximum efforts” to find survivors after dozens of people were buried by a landslide caused by heavy rains in south–east China.
On Monday domestic media said at least 41 people were missing after a torrent of boulders and mud tore through the construction site of a hydroelectric dam in Fujian province the previous morning.
About 100,000 cubic meters of debris engulfed the riverside camp in Fujian’s Tainan county at about 5am on Sunday, according to Xinhua, China’s official news agency.
“We were still asleep when the mountains began to jolt very strongly and before we know it, sand and mud are flowing into our room,” one survivor, Deng Chunwu, told the agency.
“It’s been raining all the time over the past couple of days and I didn’t think it was a big deal. But the rain last night was more fierce than ever,” added Deng, who reportedly dodged death by hiding under a pole.
Raw Story
Names in the Panama Papers will go online for public on Monday
WASHINGTON — The names of more than 200,000 offshore companies found in the Panama Papers leak are being made accessible to the public Monday through a searchable database.
Readers who go to the website, offshoreleaks.icij.org, after 2 p.m. EDT will be able to search the Panama Papers for information on names of companies, people, middlemen and countries. The data cover entities created in 21 tax havens.
Q: What is the Panama Papers leak?
A: For almost a year, nearly 400 journalists from news organizations in 78 countries, including a team from McClatchy as the only U.S. newspaper partner, worked collaboratively to scour an archive of 11.5 million documents. The files come from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, a world leader in the formation of offshore companies.
An offshore company is one set up outside an individual's home country, often in places that offer low taxes or stringent bank secrecy laws. Creating such a company is not illegal and they have legitimate uses, such as lowering tax bills, estate planning and simplifying the sale of foreign property.
But they can also be used to launder illicit gains, evade taxes and hide corruption.
N Y Times
Donald Trump’s Warning to Paul Ryan Signals Further G.O.P. Discord
The rift in the Republican Party grew deeper on Sunday and threatened to upset the July convention as Donald J. Trump refused to rule out blocking Paul D. Ryan, the speaker of the House, from serving as the convention’s chairman.
Mr. Trump’s warning was his latest affront to Republicans who have urged him to adopt a more cooperative and unifying tone. And it amounted to an extraordinary escalation in tensions between the party’s presumptive nominee and its highest-ranking officeholder.
In a series of television interviews that aired Sunday, Mr. Trump demonstrated little interest in making peace with party leaders like Mr. Ryan who have called on him to more convincingly lay out his commitment to the issues and ideas that have animated the conservative movement for the last generation.
“I’m going to do what I have to do — I have millions of people that voted for me,” Mr. Trump said on ABC’s “This Week.” “So I have to stay true to my principles also. And I’m a conservative, but don’t forget, this is called the Republican Party. It’s not called the Conservative Party.”
CNN (autoplay ad)
'Captain America: Civil War' battles to fifth biggest box office opening ever
"Captain America: Civil War," the latest film in Disney's Marvel franchise, punched its way to an estimated $181.8 million opening in North America this weekend.
That makes the film, which pits Chris Evans' Captain America against Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man, the fifth biggest box office opening in history.
Including "Civil War," Disney (DIS) films make up four of the top five openings in box office history.
Since opening overseas last weekend, "Civil War" has made $678.4 million globally, including $95.8 million in China, the world's second largest movie market.
The film helped lift Disney pass the $1 billion mark at the domestic box office for the year. The studio has made $1.1 billion in North America in just 128 days, a record time.
While the film is another big success for the Disney and its Marvel brand, "Civil War" did come in on the lower end of some projections.
C/Net
Uber, Lyft threaten to pull out of Austin over driver fingerprinting
Ride-hailing services Uber and Lyft plan to cease operations in Austin, Texas, after losing a vote over required fingerprint background checks for drivers.
The rival companies said they plan to shut down their services on Monday after voters in the Texas capital rejected Proposition 1, a measure that would have exempted drivers from required fingerprinting as part of checks into their backgrounds. Lyft said the vote will make it harder for part-time drivers to offer rides in the city.
"We have to take a stand for a long-term path forward that lets ridesharing continue to grow across the country, and will pause operations in Austin on Monday, May 9," Lyft said in a statement.
"Disappointment does not begin to describe how we feel about shutting down operations in Austin," Uber said in a statement.
The vote comes amid growing concern for the safety of passengers on ride-hailing services. In the past two years, Uber has been dogged by allegations of drivers assaulting, raping and kidnapping passengers.
Last month, Uber agreed to pay as much as $25 million to settle a lawsuit in California that accused the ride-hailing company of misleading consumers about safety.