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, sometimes09OP0az 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.
First we have stories about animals, some good and some bad. Other news below the fold.
We begin with this from the Quint:
From an initial investment in 1973 of just nine dedicated tiger reserves, India now protects 54 such areas.
The year 2023 coincided with the 50th anniversary of India’s groundbreaking Project Tiger, an innovative programme designed to rescue the country’s iconic big cat from the precipice of extinction. In April, as part of these celebrations, prime minister Narendra Modi announced that tiger numbers in India have now surpassed 3,000, representing more than 70% of the wild tigers in the world.
From an initial investment in 1973 of just nine dedicated tiger reserves, India now protects 54 such areas. It adds up to an area in excess of 75,000 sq kilometres, or about 2% of the country.
From CNN:
By Melissa Gray and Sania Farooqui
Three cheetah cubs have died in India this week, dealing yet another setback to a historic effort by the government to reintroduce the species to the country after 70 years of extinction.
The cubs were part of a litter of four born in late March to a cheetah named Siyaya, who was one of eight rehabilitated cheetahs brought from Namibia to India’s Kuno National Park, in the central state of Madhya Pradesh, in September last year.
From CBSNews (via Yahoo! News):
About 40 crocodiles killed a Cambodian man on Friday after he fell into their enclosure on his family's reptile farm, police said.
Luan Nam, 72, was trying to move a crocodile out of a cage where it had laid eggs when it grabbed the stick he was using as a goad and pulled him in.
From The Guardian (a story I first heard about in the comments on my diary last week, hat tip jck):
One explanation is that their behaviour is a reaction to past trauma inflicted on one member of the pod by humans
Recent accounts of “attacks” on vessels by orcas off the Iberian peninsula are challenging the way we expect the natural world to behave. Increasing in number since 2020, from northern Portugal to the strait of Gibraltar, these incidents suggest the need for a cetacean scene investigation team. On 4 May, in one of the most extreme events, orcas sank a yacht.
“There were two smaller orcas and one larger,” the skipper Werner Schaufelberger told German magazine Yacht. “The little ones shook the rudder at the back while the big one repeatedly backed up and rammed the boat with full force from the side.”
From Deutsche Welle:
A court has suspended the culling order for a bear that fatally attacked a runner in the Italian Alps last month. Animal rights advocates want to see the animal sent to a refuge where it cannot harm people.
An administrative court in Italy's Alpine region on Friday delayed for at least a month the euthanization of a bear that killed a 26-year-old man running on a local track in early April.
From the Sydney Morning Herald:
The heritage-listed warehouse that burst into flames in central Sydney was supposed to be the fulfilment of a family dream for a $38 million hotel, the culmination of six years of design work and planning, and a catalyst to transform a pocket of trendy Surry Hills with a slick new development.
Those dreams were reduced to a smouldering pile of rubble by Friday, as firefighters extinguished the final flames and the police arson squad spoke to two teenagers who had handed themselves in.
From CNN:
The son of a local Japanese government official is in police custody after allegedly going on a shooting and stabbing rampage in the central city of Nakano on Thursday, a rare crime in a country with tough gun laws and a low murder rate.
Masanori Aoki, a 31-year-old farmer, was arrested on suspicion of killing a 61-year-old police officer by shooting him in the chest with what appeared to be a hunting rifle, police in Nakano, a city in the country’s Nagano prefecture, told CNN.
From Time:
On Sunday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate a new parliament building in New Delhi, unveiling an edifice intended to symbolize his vision as the leader of the world’s most populous country.
The large, triangular building stands directly opposite the old, circular building on a two-mile-long path—akin to D.C.’s National Mall—in the heart of the capital. It is part of the $2.8 billion Central Vista redevelopment project to revamp the British-era administrative offices near the Prime Minister’s official residence.
From the BBC:
A government official in India has been suspended after he ordered a reservoir to be drained to retrieve his phone.
It took three days to pump millions of litres of water out of the dam, after Rajesh Vishwas dropped the device while taking a selfie.
From NDTV:
Kashmir and Handicraft are considered two sides of the same coin. Kashmir is not only famous all over the world for its scenic beauty but also for its handicraft. In the last few decades, this industry and artisans suffered because of terrorism and various state governments. But the industry is now seeing a revival due to fresh efforts. The recently held G20 summit has also given the industry hope for a change.
From the NY Times:
The aid worker, Olivier Vandecasteele, had been sentenced to 40 years in prison for spying. The former diplomat was convicted of plotting a 2018 bomb attack.
Iran freed a Belgian aid worker imprisoned in Tehran for 455 days on charges of spying, in exchange for Belgium releasing a former Iranian diplomat who was convicted in 2021 of a thwarted bomb plot, officials from both countries said on Friday.
The aid worker, Olivier Vandecasteele, was flown late Thursday from Tehran to Muscat, the capital of Oman, where the exchange took place, Belgium’s prime minister, Alexander De Croo, said on Friday.
From CNN:
The Iron Age users of two ancient toilets in Jerusalem were not a healthy bunch, according to an analysis of poop samples from the 2,500-year-old latrines.
Researchers found traces of dysentery-causing parasites in material excavated from the cesspits below the two stone toilets that would have belonged to elite households in the city. Back then, Jerusalem was a vibrant political and religious center in the Assyrian empire and home to between 8,000 and 25,000 people.
From Business Insider (via Yahoo! Life Canada):
Chris Panella
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Russia is selling President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's apartment in Crimea to fund its war in Ukraine.
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Zelenskyy and his wife bought the luxury, 3-bed coastal penthouse apartment in 2013.
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Russian state media said the sale would go towards Russia's so-called "special military operation."
Russia is selling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's luxury penthouse apartment in Crimea — and the money will go towards funding its ongoing war in Ukraine.
From Al Jazeera:
Many voters seem to find it hard to resurrect the enthusiasm of the first round ahead of a second presidential vote between Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Kemal Kilicdaroglu.
From the BBC:
After two decades in power and more than a dozen elections, Turkey's authoritarian leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan knows how to work a room. At a taxi drivers' convention in Istanbul, they could not get enough of him.
He controlled the crowd like the conductor of an orchestra. They cheered and clapped - and booed the opposition - on cue. The venue was a waterside convention centre in Istanbul, built during his time as mayor of the city.
From Al Jazeera:
Police in Kosovo tear gas small groups of ethnic Serbs who try to block the entrance of municipal buildings.
Small groups of ethnic Serbs in northern Kosovo have clashed with police while trying to block the entrance of municipal buildings to prevent recently elected officials from entering, according to local media.
Police fired tear gas and several cars were set ablaze on Friday.
Also from Al Jazeera:
Two humanitarian ships fail to find vessel in distress after rescue groups lose contact with those onboard.
Alarm Phone, a group that picks up calls from refugee vessels in distress, said on Friday that it had lost contact with the boat on Wednesday morning.
From CNN:
Pope Francis canceled all of his scheduled meetings on Friday morning due to a fever, the Vatican said, again raising concerns about the 86-year-old pontiff’s health.
The Vatican press office didn’t provide any further details on the Pope’s illness.
From The Guardian:
Sanda Dia died in hospital in December 2018 after enduring a degrading two-day initiation ritual
Eighteen former members of an elite university fraternity have been found guilty for their role in the death of a student during a brutal and degrading initiation ritual in 2018.
Sanda Dia was 20 when he died in hospital in December 2018 after he and two other first-year students endured two days of vicious hazing to enter the student fraternity, Reuzegom.
From the New York Times:
A search of a reservoir in Portugal that came more than 16 years after the British girl went missing resulted in the collection of some material but did not solve the mystery of her disappearance.
The Portuguese authorities confirmed on Thursday evening that a search in the case of Madeleine McCann, a British girl who was 3 when she disappeared in 2007 from her family’s vacation apartment in the Algarve region, has ended.
The search of the Arade Dam reservoir and surrounding areas in southern Portugal “resulted in the collection of some material,” which will be expertly analyzed, the Portuguese police said in a statement, but there was no indication that anything conclusive had been found. The search was prompted by a request from the German authorities.
From the Washington Post:
For about a month, Google Play users in Brazil could download a game that simulated what the South American nation looked like in the 1600s — a Portuguese colony and major hub of the Atlantic slave trade. In fact, that’s the whole premise of the game called “Simulador de Escravidão,” or “Slavery Simulator”: to use accumulated, make-believe wealth to buy, sell, punish or sexualize enslaved people.
“Choose one of two goals at the beginning of the slave owner simulator: the Path of the Tyrant or the Path of the Liberator. Become a wealthy slave owner or achieve the abolition of slavery. Everything is in your hands,” the game’s description read.
Also from the Washington Post:
In the left-leaning precincts of social media, the elder statesman’s longevity is no cause for celebration
Henry Kissinger, who served as national security adviser and secretary of state under Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Gerald Ford, will turn 100 years old on May 27, and to mark the occasion, he recently sat down for
an interview with CBS “Sunday Morning” senior contributor Ted Koppel. The segment was largely friendly, save for a testy exchange midway through. “There are people at our broadcast who are questioning the legitimacy of even doing an interview with you,” Koppel said. “They feel that strongly about what they consider, I’ll put it in language they would use, your criminality.
From the Sydney Morning Herald:
New Zealand alt-pop artist Benee has combined her favourite comfort food with expertise from neuroscientists to design a song, Bagels, that reduced anxiety more effectively than the track previously known as the most relaxing song in the world.
Scientists from Auckland University of Technology played Bagels to 30 young people hooked up to EEG brain tests and found they reported lower feelings of short-term anxiety.