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 now moi, 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’m going to refrain from posting stories about Prince Harry’s memoir Spare. It is generally the top international story (after the mess in Washington). Just google it and you’ll see more than you can imagine. If you are interested, one of his many interviews will be on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Monday night.
But there are other rather crazy stories. We begin with this, from the Washington Post:
Hey Carolyn! Long-time fan here. I just can’t believe I’m in a situation that necessitates your help…
I am so in love with my fiancé. He’s by far the best partner I have ever had, and I could never imagine my life without him. However, his family is not nearly that great.
From the BBC:
Used sex toys, taxidermy pets, someone's ashes and a teapot full of mouldy tea - these are just some of the bizarre donations charity shops say they have received.
With the annual January declutter in full swing following Christmas' influx of toys and general detritus, many households may be thinking of donating to their local charity shop.
From Ars Technica:
Avoid swimming in canal water brimming with rodent urine.
BETH MOLE
It was his yellow, bloody eyes that gave his illness away. The previously healthy 18-year-old showed up at an emergency department in the Netherlands after two days of fever, vomiting, and diarrhea. His heart was beating rapidly and his abdomen was a bit tender.
The whites of his eyes were splotched with blood, a sign that blood vessels on the surface of his eyes had burst. Areas that weren't bloodied were a jaundice yellow. Lab tests would later indicate he had acute kidney injury as well as liver dysfunction. But an equally important clue as to what was causing his acute illness was the mention that three weeks prior he had fallen into a canal.
And from WION:
From Deutsche Welle:
US banking giant Wells Fargo fired Shankar Mishra after he allegedly urinated on another Air India flight passenger. Mishra said a settlement was reached and compensation paid to the woman.
The American banking behemoth Wells Fargo said it had fired an executive in India, Shankar Mishra, after he allegedly urinated on a fellow passenger aboard an
Air India flight.
From The Guardian:
State broadcaster’s staff held on suspicion of disseminating the clip of Salva Kiir at official event
More stories about the Press, this one from the BBC:
An Iranian journalist who interviewed families of protesters who had been sentenced to death has been arrested, his wife and Iranian media say.
Mehdi Beik was detained on Thursday night, reformist newspaper Etemad, which Mr Beik works for, said.
From NPR:
Nate Thayer, the last Western correspondent to interview the murderous Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot after tracking him in the jungles of Cambodia for nearly a decade, has died at his home in Falmouth, Mass. He was 62.
Thayer had multiple ailments and died of natural causes, according to his brother Rob, who last saw Nate on Sunday. His body was found on Tuesday.
From the BBC:
The trial of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning human rights activist Ales Bialiatski has begun in Belarus.
Bialiatski, 60, was arrested in anti-government protests in 2021, and his supporters say that Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko's authoritarian regime is trying to silence him.
Also from the Beeb:
Police in Kenya are investigating the death of young fashion designer and LGBTQ activist Edwin Chiloba after his body was found dumped in a metal box by the roadside near the town of Eldoret.
A suspect believed to be a friend of the victim has been arrested but police have not spoken about a motive.
Rights organisations in Kenya, where gay sex is outlawed, have linked the killing to his sexuality.
From The Guardian:
Novelist and screenwriter says he is unable to move arms and legs and has undergone spinal surgery
Lucy Knight
The novelist and screenwriter Hanif Kureishi has said he may never be able to walk or use a pen again after a fall on Boxing Day in Rome.
The Buddha of Surburbia author has now tweeted about the incident, following reports in the Italian media that he was in intensive care.
From The Guardian:
Alidoosti was arrested for support of women’s movement in Iran, including posing on Instagram without hijab
The celebrated Iranian actor Taraneh Alidoosti has been released from prison by the authorities after her friends and family provided bail. Pictures of her outside jail with campaigners holding flowers and without a hijab were shown on Iranian social media.
She had been arrested for issuing statements of support for the women’s movement in Iran, including by posing on Instagram without a hijab, the compulsory hair covering in the country.
Also from The Guardian:
Users of Chinese social media have questioned the country’s official statistics after a surge in the number of public figures dying
A spate of deaths among celebrities and public figures across China has sparked concerns that the actual death toll from Covid-19 may be far higher than authorities are reporting.
Many on Chinese social media have been mourning the death of actor Gong Jintang, who died aged 83 on New Year’s Day. He was known for his portrayal of Father Kang in the sitcom Kang’s Family, which first aired in 2000.
And one more from The Guardian:
Journalist touring residence with new first lady is shown torn sofas, broken windows and art damaged by the sun
Jair Bolsonaro’s wrecking of the Amazon made him a global outcast – but his acts of desecration were not limited to the rainforest.
A report by the Brazilian broadcaster GloboNews suggests that even the official presidential residence – a 1950s masterpiece by the architect Oscar Niemeyer – was defiled by the far-right politician during his four years in power.
From the AP (via Yahoo):
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — The palm trees lining the desert roads leading out of Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport were wet with rain drops when Cristiano Ronaldo arrived this week in Saudi Arabia’s capital city.
The surprising weather greeted the soccer great’s shocking move to the Middle East, where the gray skies in Riyadh were more akin to the often overcast conditions of Manchester — his previous home.
From NBC News:
The graves of Christian figures at the Protestant Cemetery on Jerusalem’s venerated Mount Zion were found pushed over and pulled from their foundations on Sunday.
Police in Israel arrested two teenagers Friday who they said vandalized over two dozen Christian graves in a historic Jerusalem cemetery earlier this week.
The graves of Christian figures at the Protestant Cemetery on Jerusalem’s venerated Mount Zion were found pushed over and pulled from their foundations on Sunday, unsettling the contested city’s Christian minority and drawing worldwide condemnation. The cemetery is more than 170 years old and houses prominent members of the armed forces and clergy in the holy city.
From Al Jazeera:
Palestinian envoy: ‘What red line does Israel need to cross for the Security Council to finally say, enough is enough?’
United Nation’s Security Council members voiced concern and stressed the need to maintain the status quo at the Al Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem, but did not commit to any action days after Israel’s new far-right security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir made a controversial visit to the site, which Palestinian leaders called “an unprecedented provocation”.
The decades-old status quo at the Al Aqsa Mosque compound allows only Muslim worship at the site, which is Islam’s third-holiest after Mecca and Medina.
From Daily Beast:
JERUSALEM—Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, who is on trial for corruption, ended his first week back in office embroiled in two new legal entanglements of his own creation.
On Thursday at the Supreme Court, he was forced to defend appointing a convicted tax fraud to two key posts, that of minister of interior and of minister of health.
From France24:
One of "the world's most wanted" human traffickers is arrested in Sudan. Eritrean-national Kidane Zekarias Habtemariam is accused of leading a criminal organisation that abducts, extorts and murders migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean. UN intelligence reports suggest M23 rebels in eastern DR Congo have not pulled back from key areas around Lake Kivu. And a good year for African startups - they raised a record 5 billion euros last year... but the future might not be all rosy.
From Deutsche Welle:
US diplomats and government statements in the future will now refer to the "Republic of Türkiye," several months after the Turkish government requested the change.
The United States moved to adopt the Turkish preferred spelling for its NATO ally, changing from Turkey to Turkiye, the State Department confirmed on Thursday.
The move comes months after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government called on countries and international bodies to adopt the name change — seeking to differentiate the country from the North American bird of the same name.
From the Washington Post:
One-third of transplant patients at a center near Kathmandu have been young men who worked abroad in extreme heat
JANAKPUR, Nepal — Head nurse Rani Jha circled around her busy kidney ward, reeling off the list of patients who were too young, too sick, too many to count.
There, lying against the far wall, was Tilak Kumar Shah, who had worked in construction for seven years in the Persian Gulf before collapsing. The next bed had belonged to Mohan Yadav, who had labored in Qatar — until he died two weeks earlier. Next to Jha’s cubicle, huddling quietly under a blanket, was another typical case: Suraj Thapa Magar, a shy 28-year-old who had left his mud hut in Nepal to install windows on skyscrapers in Kuwait, often dangling by a rope in the scorching, 120-degree purgatory between the sun and the desert.
From The Guardian:
Opera company lost more than half its funding after Arts Council England sought to divert money to underserved regions
From The Guardian:
More than 2,250 UK nationals ordered to leave bloc between January 2021 and September 2022
Jon Henley
More than 2,250 British citizens were ordered to leave EU member states between the end of the Brexit transition period and September last year, according to figures from the bloc’s statistical office.
Quarterly data published late last month by Eurostat shows a total of 2,285 UK nationals were expelled from 1 January 2021, when British citizens lost their free movement rights within the EU, until the third quarter of last year.
From the BBC:
Train drivers have been offered a 4% pay rise for two years in a row by the body which represents rail companies in a bid to end strike action.
The Rail Delivery Group (RDG) has made its first offer to Aslef, the union for train drivers, after several strikes.
The deal includes a backdated pay rise of 4% for 2022 and a 4% increase this year, but it also hinges on changes to working practices.
From the BBC:
By Lauren Moss, LGBT correspondent & Josh Parry
More than 1.3 million people in England and Wales identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual, census data has revealed for the first time.
For people aged 16 and over, more than 1.5% - 748,000 - identify as gay or lesbian, and 624,000 (1.3%) as bisexual.
Some 165,000 people identify as "other" sexual orientations.
And finally, also from the BBC, come the Pictures of the Week.