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.
From weather.com:
Watching Tropical Storms Bret And Cindy
We have two tropical storms in the Atlantic Basin, very unusual for this early in the hurricane season.
- Tropical Storm Bret is in the eastern Caribbean Sea.
- Bret will weaken in the Caribbean.
- Tropical Storm Cindy formed late Thursday night, but is no threat to land.
- It's the first time we've had two storms form east of the Antilles in June in the same hurricane season.
From the Washington Post:
China’s national weather forecaster issued an unconventional outlook this week: “Hot, really hot, extremely hot [melting smiley face],” it wrote Tuesday night on Weibo, China’s answer to Twitter.
It was imprecise, but it wasn’t wrong. The temperature in Beijing hit 106 degrees Fahrenheit on Thursday, a public holiday for the Dragon Boat Festival. It was the highest June recording since 1961.
More beneath the fold.
Obviously the big story tonight is the conflict in Russia. Look for updates on CNN, among others.
What we're covering
Other news about Russia(ns):
A Russian diplomat has been squatting near Australia's parliament in a row over the site where Russia wants to build its new embassy.
The lone protest follows Australia's decision last week to tear up the lease - granted in 2008 - citing national security grounds.
Russia says it will challenge the move in the High Court.
From Quartz:
According to the UK military, the marine mammal fighting force is a bulwark against combat divers in Mariupol
Russia has increased the number of dolphins guarding the Sevastopol naval base on the Black Sea in occupied Ukrainian territory, according to the UK Ministry of Defense.
The Russian navy has trained the marine animals to counter potential enemy divers sent on solo missions by the Ukrainian military to attack the naval base. A report by Naval News estimated there were between 6 and 7 dolphins being held in underwater pens floating off the base.
From Deutsche Welle:
Residents in Ukraine are reeling from atrocities they say occurred as they tried to escape catastrophic flooding triggered by a breach in the Kakhovka Dam. Survivors accuse Russian forces of firing on them as they fled their homes in Russian held areas.
From Al Jazeera:
The European Union's representative in Palestine says Israeli settlers are, in his words, 'terrorising' Palestinian civilians. Sven Kuehn Von Burgsdorff is touring a village that was recently attacked one of several targeted since the killing of four Israelis on Tuesday that followed an Israeli raid in Jenin.
Also from Al Jazeera:
Israeli settlers rip up Quran after attacking Palestinian mosque
From France24:
In an interview with FRANCE 24 on the sidelines of the Summit for a New Global Financing Pact, Kenya President William Ruto said the multinational financial architecture needed to be "fixed". He also reacted to the ongoing conflict in Sudan, saying "there are already signs of genocide". More than 2,000 people have been killed there fighting broke out on April 15.
From CNN:
The hull of the fishing trawler lifted out of the water as it sank, catapulting people from the top deck into the black sea below. In the darkness, they grabbed onto whatever they could to stay afloat, pushing each other underwater in a frantic fight for survival. Some were screaming, many began to recite their final prayers.
“I can still hear the voice of a woman calling out for help,” one survivor of the migrant boat disaster off the coast of Greece told CNN. “You’d swim and move floating bodies out of your way.”
From WION:
At least 9 people were shot dead in the northeastern Indian state of Manipur on the 13th of June. The late Tuesday night incident is the latest in weeks of violence sparked by longstanding ethnic tensions. Reportedly, unidentified gunmen, wielding sophisticated weaponry, stormed Kamenlok village on the outskirts of state capital, Imphal, and shot indiscriminately at houses. Couple of days later, a federal Indian minister's house was also set ablaze by a mob. More than a 100 people have lost their lives in these violent ethnic clashes, besides tens of thousands who have fled their homes seeking safety.
From Deutsche Welle:
Leaders from various opposition parties met in Bihar to discuss a united front at next year's election. They will formulate a plan to run joint candidates against the BJP in key consultancies.
Leaders of 17 political parties in India agreed on Friday to form a united front against Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Loose coalitions have been formed in the past, but not since the 1980s have so many different parties banded together on a national level to take on ruling party in government, The Indian Express reported.
From the Associated Press (our weekly check into the world of orcas):
In a image from video provided by The Ocean Race, an orca moves along a rudder of the Team JAJO entry in The Ocean Race on Thursday, June 22, 2023, as the boat approached the Strait of Gibraltar. A pod of killer whales bumped one of the boats in an endurance sailing race, the latest encounter in what researchers say is a growing trend of sometimes-aggressive interactions with Iberian orcas. No one was injured. (The Ocean Race via AP)
And a couple of more cheery stories to end up the diary, beginning with CNN:
Made by dragging fingers across relatively soft rock, lines, swirls and dots on the walls of a cave in France are the oldest known engravings by Neanderthals, according to a new analysis of the ancient marks.
A team of researchers, led by Jean-Claude Marquet of the University of Tours in France, believe the markings “demonstrate a deliberate creative process,” the study published in the journal PLOS ONE on Wednesday noted.
And from the Associated Press (via AOL.com):
NICOLE WINFIELD
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis praised artists on Friday as true visionaries who can see, dream and invent as he welcomed 200 artists, filmmakers and writers into the Sistine Chapel to mark the 50th anniversary of the Vatican Museums’ contemporary art collection.
Francis acknowledged that some in the crowd — there was Andres Serrano, of “Piss Christ” fame — sometimes use confrontation to make people think. But he said their aim was to find harmony and beauty.