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.
Some stories for tonight:
- German chancellor says he won't send fighter jets to Ukraine
- Erdogan says Turkey may block Sweden's Nato membership bid
- A bus crashed, fell off a bridge and caught fire in Pakistan, killing 40
- When is it OK to make germs worse in a lab? It's a more relevant question than ever
- Absence from work at record high as Americans feel strain from Covid
- Odds 'very high' of U.S. military conflict with China, top Republican says
- Could tech layoffs spread to rest of US economy?
- NATO's chief urges South Korea to step up military support for Ukraine
BBC
German chancellor says he won't send fighter jets to Ukraine
The German chancellor has ruled out sending fighter jets to Ukraine, just days after committing to supplying tanks.
In an interview with a German newspaper, Olaf Scholz warned against a bidding war for weapons.
But Ukraine has asked allied nations to create a "fighter jet coalition" to bolster their capabilities.
The US said it would discuss the idea of supplying jets "very carefully" with Kyiv on Thursday.
In an interview with Tagesspiegel, Mr Scholz said his focus was on the delivery of German-made Leopard 2 tanks.
"The fact we've only just made a decision [on sending tanks] and the next debate is firing up in Germany, that just seems frivolous", he said.
On Wednesday Germany committed to supplying 14 of its Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, after weeks of pressure from allies.
Following Germany's commitment to send the tanks, the US said it would provide Ukraine with its M1 Abrams tanks.
BBC
Erdogan says Turkey may block Sweden's Nato membership bid
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has suggested that Ankara may agree to Finland joining Nato, but not Sweden.
He criticised Sweden's refusal to extradite dozens of people allegedly tied to Kurdish militant groups and other critics of his government.
"If you absolutely want to join Nato, you will return these terrorists to us," said Mr Erdogan.
His comments come days after Turkey suspended talks to accept the two Nordic nations as members.
The move was prompted by a series of controversial protests in Stockholm, including one during which a copy of the Koran was burned.
Swedish officials have condemned the protests, but defended the country's free speech laws.
In response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Sweden and Finland applied to join Nato last year, ending decades of military non-alignment.
NPR
A bus crashed, fell off a bridge and caught fire in Pakistan, killing 40
QUETTA, Pakistan — A passenger bus crashed into a pillar and fell off a bridge, catching fire and killing 40 people in southern Pakistan on Sunday, a government official said.
The bus was carrying 44 passengers from Quetta in Balochistan province to Karachi in neighboring Sindh province. The accident was near the town of Bela, in Lasbela district.
Hamza Anjum Nadeem, assistant commissioner in Bela, said the bodies of 40 people, including women and children, were recovered. Four injured passengers were rescued.
"The accident happened due to over-speeding and the bus crashed into the pillar of a bridge. It caught fire soon after falling (off the bridge)," he said.
Images from the crash site showed what was left of the charred bus lying near the bridge. The recovered remains of some of the dead are lined up in rows nearby.
NPR
When is it OK to make germs worse in a lab? It's a more relevant question than ever
Over 150 virologists have signed on to a commentary that says all the evidence to date indicates that the coronavirus pandemic started naturally, and it wasn't the result of some kind of lab accident or malicious attack.
They worry that continued speculation about a lab in China is fueling calls for more regulation of experiments with pathogens, and that this will stifle the basic research needed to prepare for future pandemics.
The virologists issued their statement a day before advisors to the federal government completed a review of the existing oversight system for experiments that might make existing pathogens even worse.
At a meeting Friday, those advisors voted to endorse, with minor modifications, a set of recommendations that call for expanding a special decision-making process. This process currently weighs the risks and benefits of experiments that might change "potential pandemic pathogens" in ways that could make them more dangerous.
Their advice will now get considered by officials at multiple agencies and groups across the government who will want to weigh in, including the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the National Security Council.
The Guardian
Absence from work at record high as Americans feel strain from Covid
For many Americans it feels like everyone is out sick right now. But there is a good reason: work absences from illness are at an all-time annual high in the US and show few signs of relenting. And it’s not just acute illness and caregiving duties keeping workers away.
About 1.5 million Americans missed work because of sickness in December. Each month, more than a million people have called out sick for the past three years. About 7% of Americans currently have long Covid, which can affect productivity and ability to work, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The last time the absentee number dipped below a million Americans was in November 2019.
Last year, the trend accelerated rather than returning to normal. In 2022, workers had the most sickness-related absences of the pandemic, and the highest number since record-keeping began in 1976.
Reuters
Odds 'very high' of U.S. military conflict with China, top Republican says
WASHINGTON, Jan 29 (Reuters) - A top Republican in the U.S. Congress on Sunday said the odds of conflict with China over Taiwan "are very high," after a U.S. general caused consternation with a memo that warned that the United States would fight China in the next two years.
In a memo dated Feb. 1 but released on Friday, General Mike Minihan, who heads the Air Mobility Command, wrote to the leadership of its roughly 110,000 members, saying, "My gut tells me we will fight in 2025.”
"I hope he is wrong. ... I think he is right though," Mike McCaul, the new chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives, told Fox News Sunday.
The general's views do not represent the Pentagon but show concern at the highest levels of the U.S. military over a possible attempt by China to exert control over Taiwan, which China claims as a wayward province.
Deutsche Welle
Could tech layoffs spread to rest of US economy?
First a trickle, then a stream and now a torrent. US tech giants are cutting thousands of jobs almost every day. The darlings of COVID-19 lockdowns have seen their profits squeezed as lives returned to normal after months of staring at screens.
During the pandemic boom times, the headcounts of Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Facebook parent Meta grew bloated due to overzealous hiring as demand for their products and services soared. But as decades-high inflation took hold and operating costs rocketed, Silicon Valley had no option but to trim the fat.
Tech firms have collectively cut more than 330,000 positions over the past 12 months, according to a tally by research platform TrueUp, including nearly 90,000 since the start of this year.
With inflation still stubbornly high, interest rates rising and slowing growth, the natural conclusion is that the tech sector's woes will quickly spread to the wider US economy. But economists have cited several reasons why further layoffs may be limited.
Reuters
NATO's chief urges South Korea to step up military support for Ukraine
SEOUL, Jan 30 (Reuters) - NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg urged South Korea on Monday to increase military support to Ukraine, citing other countries that have changed their policy of not providing weapons to countries in conflict after Russia's invasion.
Stoltenberg is in Seoul, the first stop on a trip that will include Japan and is aimed at strengthening ties with U.S. allies in the face of the war in Ukraine and rising competition with China.
Speaking at the Chey Institute for Advanced Studies in Seoul, he thanked South Korea for its non-lethal aid to Ukraine, but urged it to do more, adding there is an "urgent need" for ammunition. Russia calls the invasion a "special operation".
"I urge the Republic of Korea to continue and to step up on the specific issue of military support," he said. "At the end of the day, it's a decision for you to make, but I'll say that several NATO allies who have had as a policy to never export weapons to countries in a conflict have changed that policy now."