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 Rise above the swamp. . 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.
Since 2007 the OND has been 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.
Some stories for Halloween night:
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Climate change: Extreme weather events are 'the new norm’
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Man with knife stabs at least 17 on Tokyo train; starts fire
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New Delta coronavirus subvariant AY.4.2: What we know so far
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White House press secretary Jen Psaki reveals she has COVID-19
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US would only quit Iran nuclear deal if Tehran were to renege, Biden pledges
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Brazilian police kill 25 suspects allegedly part of bank robbery gang
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China says U.S. COVID origins report is without credibility
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Dutch customs officers discover four tons of cocaine in Rotterdam
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Afghanistan: Taliban says leader makes first public appearance
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Roger Stone threatens to run against Ron DeSantis over lack of 2020 election audit
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What if Everything You Learned About Human History Is Wrong?
BBC
Climate change: Extreme weather events are 'the new norm'
Extreme weather events - including powerful heat waves and devastating floods - are now the new normal, says the World Meteorological Organisation.
The State of the Climate report for 2021 highlights a world that is "changing before our eyes."
The 20-year temperature average from 2002 is on course to exceed 1C above pre-industrial levels for the first time.
And global sea levels rose to a new high in 2021, according to the study.
These latest figures for 2021 are being released early by the WMO to coincide with the start of the UN climate conference in Glasgow known as COP26.The study finds that the past seven years including this one are likely to be the warmest on record as greenhouse gases reached record concentrations in the atmosphere.
Al Jazeera
Man with knife stabs at least 17 on Tokyo train; starts fire
A man dressed in Batman’s Joker costume attacked passengers on a Tokyo train line on Sunday, injuring 17 people as many party-goers headed into the city centre for Halloween gatherings.
NHK public television reported at least 17 passengers were wounded, including one seriously. NHK said the suspect, 24, after stabbing passengers, poured a liquid resembling oil and set a fire.
“I thought it was a Halloween stunt,” one witness told the Yomiuri newspaper, recalling the moment he saw other passengers running in a panic towards his train car. “Then, I saw a man walking this way, slowly waving a long knife.”
There was blood on the weapon, he said.
The attacker was arrested on the spot and was being investigated on suspicion of attempted murder. His motive was not immediately known. A man believed to be in his 60s was unconscious and in critical condition after being stabbed.
Al Jazeera
New Delta coronavirus subvariant AY.4.2: What we know so far
Health officials and scientists are closely tracking a new mutation of the coronavirus amid concerns that it could be more transmissible than the original strain.
A subvariant of the Delta variant of the virus labelled AY.4.2 has been detected in dozens of countries, with the vast majority of cases being reported in the United Kingdom.
“An increase in AY. 4.2 sequence submissions has been observed since July,” the World Health Organization (WHO) said in its weekly epidemiological update this week.
It said that 93 percent of AY.4.2 cases were reported in the UK, where the strain was gradually contributing to a greater proportion of cases and accounted for about 5.9 percent of overall Delta cases reported there in the week beginning October 3.
The subvariant, which some have labelled as “Delta Plus,” contains changes that could give the virus survival advantages over other variants.
NPR
White House press secretary Jen Psaki reveals she has COVID-19
President Biden's press secretary Jen Psaki said on Sunday that she has tested positive for COVID-19, the highest-ranking White House official to have publicly revealed a case in this administration.
Psaki, who is fully vaccinated, said she has experienced only mild symptoms. In a statement, she said she had not had contact with senior White House officials since Wednesday — four days before she tested positive — and last saw Biden on Tuesday, when they were wearing masks and were more than six feet apart from each other, outdoors.
"I am disclosing today's positive test out of an abundance of transparency," Psaki said in a statement. She said she will quarantine for at least ten days and won't return to the White House until receiving a negative rapid test.
The Guardian
US would only quit Iran nuclear deal if Tehran were to renege, Biden pledges
Joe Biden has given a pledge that if the US returns to the Iran nuclear agreement, it will only subsequently leave if Tehran clearly breaks the terms of the deal.
The US president made the commitment, which addresses one of Iran’s key negotiating demands, in a joint statement issued with Germany, France and the UK. The statement followed a meeting on the margins of the G20 in Rome attended by Biden, Germany’s Angela Merkel, France’s Emmanuel Macron and Britain’s Boris Johnson.
The key paragraph of a lengthy statement read: “We welcome President Biden’s clearly demonstrated commitment to return the US to full compliance with the JCPOA [joint comprehensive plan of action] and to stay in full compliance, so long as Iran does the same.”
The Guardian
Brazilian police kill 25 suspects allegedly part of bank robbery gang Allegedly
Police in Brazil have killed 25 suspects as part of what authorities called an unprecedented offensive against heavily armed bank robbers whose brazen heists have brought several major cities to a standstill.
The alleged criminals were gunned down in the early hours of Sunday in the south-eastern state of Minas Gerais, where police claimed they had been poised to unleash an attack.
A report in the local O Tempo newspaper said the killings took place at two farmhouses in Varginha, a city about 245 miles (395km) north-west of Rio de Janeiro.
“This operation … will go down in history,” the Minas Gerais state security secretary, Rogério Greco, told local radio.
The federal highway police, which took part in the mission, said the group had “a veritable military arsenal” including assault rifles, .50-caliber machine guns, explosives and bulletproof vests.
Layla Brunella, the spokesperson for Minas Gerais’s military police force, said the alleged robbers belonged to Brazil’s “modern-day cangaço” – a reference to the bands of outlaws who roamed the country’s north-eastern backlands in the early 20th century under the leadership of a highwayman called Lampião.
Reuters
China says U.S. COVID origins report is without credibility
SHANGHAI, Nov 1 (Reuters) - A declassified U.S. intelligence report saying it was plausible that the COVID-19 pandemicoriginated in a laboratory is unscientific and has no credibility, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said in a statement on Sunday.
The updated U.S. intelligence briefing, published on Saturday, said that a natural origin and a lab leak were both plausible hypotheses to explain how SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19, first infected humans, but that the truth may never be known.
In a response Sunday on the website of China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Wang said "a lie repeated a thousand times is still a lie", adding that U.S. intelligence services "have a reputation for fraud and deception."
"The tracing of the origins of the novel coronavirus is a serious and complex issue that should and can only be researched through the cooperation of global scientists," he said.
Deutsche Welle
Dutch customs officers discover four tons of cocaine in Rotterdam
Customs officers seized more than four tons of cocaine in two containers at the port of Rotterdam, Dutch prosecutors said on Sunday.
The illegal drugs, which have an estimated street value of €313 million ($362 million), were found hidden in soy bags destined for Portugal from Paraguay via Uruguay.
"It has been the largest haul discovered so far this year" in the Netherlands, a public prosecution official told the ANP news agency. The cocaine has since been destroyed.
Europol warned that Rotterdam port is a major entry point for drugs, with the Netherlands and Belgium becoming central hubs for cocaine.
Authorities recorded almost daily drug seizures from South America at Europe's largest port last week.
In September, police officers found a similar quantity of cocaine valued at about €301 million.
[sniff]
Deutsche Welle
Afghanistan: Taliban says leader makes first public appearance
Taliban supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada made his first public appearance since taking control of the group, Taliban officials said Sunday.
If true, this would be his first public appearance in Afghanistan.
His absence from the public sphere had fueled speculation over his role within the new Taliban government formed in mid-August, with some rumors of his death.
According to officials, Akhundzada visited the Darul Uloom Hakimah madrassa in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar late Saturday.
Akhundzada addressed his supporters, "brave soldiers and disciples," according to the introduction to an audio clip circulated by Taliban social media accounts.
"May God reward the oppressed people of Afghanistan who fought the infidels and the oppressors for 20 years," Akhundzada could be heard saying in the audio clip.
Raw Story
Roger Stone threatens to run against Ron DeSantis over lack of 2020 election audit
Longtime GOP operative resident Roger Stone announced that he's considering a campaign against Florida's Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis over his frustrations that the state has not yet implemented a statewide audit into its 2020 election results, which former President Donald Trump won.
"If Florida governor Ron DeSantis does not order an audit of the 2020 election to expose the fact that there are over 1 million phantom voters on the Florida voter rolls in the Sunshine state," Stone wrote on Gab, "I may be forced to seek the Libertarian Party nomination for governor Florida in 2022."
New York Times
What if Everything You Learned About Human History Is Wrong?
One August night in 2020, David Graeber — the anthropologist and anarchist activist who became famous as an early organizer of Occupy Wall Street — took to Twitter to make a modest announcement.
“My brain feels bruised with numb surprise,” he wrote, riffing on a Doors lyric. “It’s finished?”
He was referring to the book he’d been working on for nearly a decade with the archaeologist David Wengrow, which took as its immodest goal nothing less than upending everything we think we know about the origins and evolution of human societies.
Even before the Occupy movement made him famous, Graeber had been hailed as one of the most brilliant minds in his field. But his most ambitious book also turned out to be his last. A month after his Twitter announcement, Graeber, 59, died suddenly of necrotizing pancreatitis
.“The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity,” out Nov. 9 from Farrar Straus and Giroux, may or may not dislodge the standard narrative popularized in mega-sellers like Yuval Noah Harari’s “Sapiens” and Jared Diamond’s “Guns, Germs and Steel.” But it has already gathered a string of superlative-studded (if not entirely uncritical) reviews. Three weeks before publication, after it suddenly shot to #2 on Amazon, the publisher ordered another 75,000 copies on top of the 50,000 first printing.
On my “must read” list.
Happy Halloween, everyone.