Subbing for annetteboardman tonight.
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. Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.
BBC
Boeing pays Alaska Air $160m after mid-air blowout
Boeing has paid $160m (£126m) to Alaska Air to make up for losses the airline has suffered following a dramatic mid-air blowout in January.
Alaska said the money would address profits lost in the first three months of the year and it expected further payouts in the months ahead.
Regulators temporarily grounded nearly 200 Boeing 737 Max 9 jets after a door plug fell from an Alaska Air plane shortly after take-off.
Thousands of flights were cancelled.
However, a law firm which is representing some of the passengers on the Alaska flight has criticised the move.
"Apparently, Boeing thinks it more urgent and important to pay those whose corporate profits were at stake, but not those whose lives were at stake and nearly lost," said Daniel Laurence, a partner at the Stritmatter Firm.
BBC
A23a: Tracking the world's biggest iceberg as it drifts towards oblivion
A23a, as it’s known, broke away from the Antarctic coastline way back in 1986, but it's only recently begun a big migration.
For more than 30 years, it was stuck rigidly in the bottom-muds of the Weddell Sea like a static "ice island". A 350m-deep keel had anchored it in place.
It took gradual melting until 2020 to allow the berg to re-float and start moving again, slowly at first, before currents and winds then swept it north towards warmer air and waters.
A23a is now following a path that exports so much of Antarctica's floating ice - what scientists refer to as "iceberg alley".
It’s a path to destruction. It's going to fragment and melt to nothing in just a matter of months.
Today, the behemoth is drifting along the 60th Parallel, close to the South Orkney Islands, about 700km (430 miles) northeast of the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula.
The Guardian
MB covered this; so shocking:
Global rainforest loss continues at rate of 10 football pitches a minute
The destruction of the world’s most pristine rainforests continued at a relentless rate in 2023, despite dramatic falls in forest loss in the Brazilian and Colombian Amazon, new figures show.
An area nearly the size of Switzerland was cleared from previously undisturbed rainforests last year, totalling 37,000 sq km (14,200 sq miles), according to figures compiled by the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the University of Maryland. This is a rate of 10 football pitches a minute, often driven by more land being brought under agricultural cultivation around the world.
While Brazil and Colombia recorded large drops in forest loss of 36% and 49% respectively, under the environmental policies of presidents Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Gustavo Petro, those falls were offset by big increases in Bolivia, Laos, Nicaragua and other countries.
The Guardian
Schools close and crops wither as ‘historic’ heatwave hits south-east Asia
Thousands of schools in the Philippines have stopped in-person classes due to unbearable heat. In Indonesia, prolonged dry weather has caused rice prices to soar. In Thailand’s waters, temperatures are so high that scientists fear coral could be destroyed.
A “historic heatwave” is being experienced across south-east Asia, according to Maximiliano Herrera, a climatologist and weather historian. In updates posted on X, he said heat that was unprecedented for early April had been recorded at monitoring stations across the region this week, including in Minbu, in central Myanmar, where 44C was recorded – the first time in south-east Asia’s climatic history that such high temperatures had been reached so early in the month. In Hat Yai, in Thailand’s far south, 40.2 C was reached, an all-time record, while Yên Châu in north-west Vietnam hit 40.6C, unprecedented for this time of year.
NPR
UN human rights body calls for halt to weapons shipments to Israel
GENEVA — The U.N.'s top human rights body called on countries to stop selling or shipping weapons to Israel in a resolution passed Friday that aims to help prevent rights violations against Palestinians amid Israel's blistering military campaign in Gaza.
The 47-member-country Human Rights Council voted 28-6 in favor of the resolution, with 13 abstentions.
The sweeping measure takes aim at an array of Israeli actions such as impeding access to water and limiting shipments of humanitarian aid into Palestinian areas. It also calls on U.N.-backed independent investigators to report on shipments of weapons, munitions and "dual use" items — that have both civilian and military applications — that could be used by Israel against Palestinians.
While non-binding, the resolution is bound to raise international pressure on Israel as a sign of widespread concern about its military campaign in Gaza, begun in response to the attacks in Israel by armed militants on Oct. 7, that has led to the killings of nearly 33,000 Palestinians.
L A Times
Neighbor heard odd noises amid heist of up to $30 million from Sylmar vault
It was a strange mechanical sound — a kind of rhythmic whirring — and it wouldn’t quit.
At the time, the resident of Tahitian Mobile Home Park in Sylmar didn’t think much of the weekend racket, which seemed to be coming from a neighboring industrial building and may have lasted two hours or more, she said.
Now, though, after learning that the warehouse behind the park was breached by thieves who stole as much as $30 million in a Sunday night heist, the woman has fixated on that odd noise — and what it may have been. The elaborate Easter heist is believed to be among the biggest in L.A. history. It occurred at a Roxford Street facility where cash from businesses across the Southland is handled and stored by GardaWorld, a security services company. In a display of uncommon sophistication, thieves breached the single-story building via its roof to gain access to its vault — and avoided the property’s alarm system, according to sources with knowledge of the investigation of the theft.
Deutsche Welle
What's behind China's gold-buying spree?
The price of gold broke the $2,300 (€2,212) level for the first time this week as geopolitical issues, expectations of US interest rate cuts and China's accumulation of the precious metal spurred interest from speculators.
Gold is seen by investors as a safe haven in times of turmoil and a hedge against currency devaluation, so the conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine have helped the recent price rise, along with the post-COVID inflation spike.
The move by China's central bank, the People's Bank of China (PBC), has been mirrored by other mostly emerging market central banks, who are all keen to up their gold holdings.
The PBC has been adding to its gold reserves for the past 16 months in a row, according to the World Gold Council. In 2023, the PBC bought more gold than all other central banks.
The industry body calculated China's purchases of the precious metal last year at 225 metric tons, roughly a quarter of the 1,037 tons bought by all the world's central banks. As well as the PBC, Chinese consumers have been buying gold coins, bars and jewelry, after their real estate investments, the yuan currency and the country's stock market dropped in value due to recent economic woes in the world's second-largest economy.
Speaking of gold, how about this golden parachute:
Reuters
Departing Boeing CEO gets nearly $33 million in 2023 total compensation
April 5 (Reuters) - The 2023 pay package of Boeing's
(BA.N), opens new tab CEO, who recently announced his departure in the midst of a safety crisis, rose about 45% to nearly $33 million, the U.S. planemaker said on Friday.
Boeing said much of CEO Dave Calhoun's compensation is in deferred stock that has fallen in value following a January mid-air panel blowout.
The adjusted value of Calhoun's total 2023 compensation is $24.8 million, the company said in a regulatory filing. Boeing shares have tumbled nearly 30% this year as the company wrestles with quality concerns from regulators and customers following
the Jan. 5 blowout on an Alaska Airlines
(ALK.N), opens new tab 737 MAX 9 jet.
Al Jazeera
Zimbabwe introduces new gold-backed currency to tackle inflation
Zimbabwe’s central bank has launched a new “structured currency” backed by gold, as it seeks to tackle sky-high inflation and stabilise the country’s long-floundering economy.
The new currency – called Zim Gold (ZiG) – will be backed by foreign currencies, gold and precious minerals, John Mushayavanhu, the governor of Zimbabwe’s Reserve Bank, told reporters in the capital Harare on Friday.
Mushayavanhu said the ZiG would circulate alongside a basket of other currencies.
He said the central bank would also introduce a market-determined exchange rate.
“With effect from today … banks shall convert the current Zimbabwe dollar balances into the new currency,” he said.
The move is aimed at fostering “simplicity, certainty, [and] predictability” in Zimbabwe’s financial affairs, he added, presenting the new banknotes that come in eight denominations ranging from one to 200 ZiG.