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, doomandgloom and FarWestGirl.
Alumni editors include (but not limited to) Interceptor 7, Man Oh Man (RIP), wader, Neon Vincent, palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse (RIP), ek hornbeck (RIP), rfall, ScottyUrb, Doctor RJ, JeremyBloom, BentLiberal, Oke (RIP) and jlms qkw.
OND is a regular community feature on Daily Kos since 2007, 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.
Space.com: Northern lights may be visible in these 14 US States tonight (June 25)
Good news aurora chasers! We might be in for a treat tonight (June 25), as a stream of solar wind from a coronal hole on the sun is forecast to spark G1 to G2 (Minor to Moderate) geomagnetic storms, potentially triggering aurora visible across 14 U.S. States.
According to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC), the Kp index — a measure of geomagnetic activity — is forecast to peak at 5.67, qualifying as a moderate G2 storm. (Kp is a measurement of geomagnetic activity, with an index that ranges from 0 to 9; higher Kp indicates stronger auroral activity.) These conditions could push the auroral oval far enough south to be glimpsed on the northern horizon in states like New York, Oregon, and South Dakota, especially from dark-sky locations with minimal light pollution.
You can keep up with the latest forecasts and geomagnetic storm warnings with our aurora forecast live blog.
Space.com: Private Japanese moon lander crashed due to laser errors, ispace says.
A lander built by Japanese company ispace crashed on the lunar surface while attempting to make the nation's first private moon landing earlier this month — and now we know why.
Today (June 24), ispace released a statement detailing just what went wrong with the lander, named Resilience. The company said the spacecraft's laser range finder, or LRF, experienced an anomaly that prevented Resilience from obtaining valid measurements of its distance from the lunar surface. This prevented the moon lander from decelerating at the proper rate, causing it to crash.
The Resilience moon lander made that "hard landing" on June 5 as it tried to touch down near the Mare Frigoris region of the moon's near side, also known as the "Sea of Cold." It was the second time ispace lost a lander while coming down onto the lunar surface; in April of 2023, the company lost its Hakuto-R lander in a similar way.
Space.com: Former NASA astronaut Terry Virts announces campaign for Texas Senate seat.
Former NASA astronaut Terry Virts is running for one of Texas' United States Senate seats, he announced today (June 23).
Virts, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel, F-16 pilot and two-time crew member of the International Space Station (ISS), announced his candidacy Monday in a video posted to social media. "Trump's chaos must be stopped. The corruption is overwhelming. Our Constitution is under attack," Virts says in the 2-minute clip. His run aims to challenge the Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's bid, who's polling higher than John Cornyn, the Republican Senator currently holding the seat and is up for reelection in 2026.
Virts frames his campaign against a divisive and dysfunctional Washington, where he says leadership is M.I.A. "After every [NASA] mission, we debrief, no excuses," Virts says, adding, "after the 2024 election disaster, Washington Democratic leadership skipped the debrief."
Virts piloted Space Shuttle Endeavour on the STS-130 mission in 2010, and served as ISS commander in 2015. He logged more than 212 cumulative days in space before his retirement from NASA, and has since remained in the public light through his books, public speaking and STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) outreach.
The Guardian: Mexico’s president threatens to sue over SpaceX debris from rocket explosions.
Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has threatened legal action over falling debris and contamination from billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket launches across the border in the United States.
Mexico’s government was studying which international laws were being violated in order to file “the necessary lawsuits” because “there is indeed contamination”, Sheinbaum told her morning news conference on Wednesday.
Last week, a SpaceX Starship rocket exploded during a routine ground test at the Starbase headquarters of Musk’s space project on the south Texas coast near the Mexican border.
The explosion, which sent a towering fireball into the air, was the latest setback to Musk’s dream of sending humans to Mars.
The Guardian: Iran intensifies internal security crackdown with executions and mass arrests.
Iranian authorities are pivoting from a ceasefire with
Israel to intensify an internal security crackdown across the country with mass arrests, executions and military deployments, particularly in the restive Kurdish region, according to officials and activists.
Within days of Israel’s airstrikes beginning on 13 June, Iranian security forces started a campaign of widespread arrests accompanied by an intensified street presence based around checkpoints.
Some in Israel and exiled opposition groups had hoped the military campaign, which targeted Revolutionary Guards and internal security forces as well as nuclear sites, would spark a mass uprising and the overthrow of the Islamic Republic. While numerous Iranians expressed anger at the government, there has been no sign yet of any significant protests against the authorities.
However, one senior Iranian security official and two other senior officials briefed on internal security issues said the authorities were focused on the threat of possible internal unrest, particularly in Kurdish areas.
The Guardian: The alarming rise of US officers hiding behind masks: ‘A police state’.
Some wear balaclavas. Some wear neck gators, sunglasses and hats. Some wear masks and casual clothes.
Across the country, armed federal immigration officers have increasingly hidden their identities while carrying out immigration raids, arresting protesters and roughing up prominent Democratic critics.
It’s a trend that has sparked alarm among civil rights and law enforcement experts alike.
Mike German, a former FBI agent, said officers’ widespread use of masks was unprecedented in US law enforcement and a sign of a rapidly eroding democracy. “Masking symbolizes the drift of law enforcement away from democratic controls,” he said.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has insisted masks are necessary to protect officers’ privacy, arguing, without providing evidence, that there has been an uptick in violence against agents.
The Guardian: Pam Bondi denies knowing Ice agents wore masks during raids despite video evidence.
The attorney general, Pam Bondi, professed ignorance of reports of immigration officials hiding their faces with masks during roundups of undocumented people, despite widespread video evidence and reports that they are instilling pervasive fear and panic.
Challenged at a Wednesday Capitol Hill subcommittee hearing by Gary Peters, a Democratic senator for Michigan, Bondi, who as the country’s top law officer has a prominent role in the Trump administration’s hardline immigration policy, implied she was unaware of plain-clothed agents concealing their faces while carrying out arrests but suggested it was for self-protection. “I do know they are being doxxed … they’re being threatened,” she told Peters. “Their families are being threatened.”
Bondi’s protestations appeared to strain credibility given the attention the masked raids carried out by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents have attracted on social media and elsewhere.
Al Jazeera: LIVE: Israel kills more than 80 in Gaza; 3 killed in Israeli settler attack.
- The Ministry of Health in Gaza reports that at least 79 people were killed and almost 400 injured in Israeli attacks across the enclave in the past 24 hours and reports of more deaths continue.
- At least three Palestinians were killed and several injured in an attack by Israeli settlers on Kafr Malek, northeast of Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank.
Al Jazeera: Sixteen killed, hundreds injured, in antigovernment Kenyan protests.
At least 16 people have been killed in nationwide rallies against police brutality and government corruption in Kenya, according to Amnesty International and the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights.
Another 400 people were injured on Wednesday, including protesters, police and journalists. The casualties included people hit by live fire and others who were wounded by rubber bullets, or were beaten, and were primarily in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.
Demonstrators had clashed with police, who hurled tear gas canisters and wielded batons. The protests mark one year since people stormed parliament at the peak of anti-government demonstrations.
Thousands took to the streets to commemorate last year’s youth-led demonstrations against tax rises, during which at least 60 people were killed by security forces, according to rights groups.
Al jazeera: Under Trump, US strikes on Somalia have doubled since last year. Why?
Mogadishu, Somalia – Ending the United States’ “forever wars” was a major slogan of Donald Trump’s 2024 election campaign, during which he and many of his supporters spoke out against American resources and lives being put to waste in conflicts across the globe.
But on February 1, a mere 10 days after being inaugurated for a second time, President Trump announced that the US had carried out air strikes targeting senior leadership of ISIL (ISIS) in Somalia. “These killers, who we found hiding in caves, threatened the United States,” his post on X read. This marked Trump’s first military action overseas, but it wouldn’t be his last.
In the time since, the US has provided weapons and support to Israel in its wars in Gaza and across the Middle East; it has launched strikes on Yemen; and even attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities. At the same time, in the Horn of Africa, US strikes have more than “doubled” since last year, according to US Africa Command (AFRICOM).
AFRICOM, which oversees US military operations on the continent, has carried out at least 43 air strikes in Somalia in 2025, according to think tank New America, which tracks strikes using AFRICOM data. More than half of those, which are conducted in coordination with Somalia’s federal government, targeted IS-Somalia, the ISIL affiliate in northeast Puntland state, while the remainder targeted al-Shabab.
Al Jazeera: China’s Xi Jinping meets Central Asian leaders: Why their summit matters.
Chinese President Xi Jinping reached Kazakhstan on Monday to attend the second China–Central Asia Summit, a high-stakes diplomatic gathering aimed at deepening Beijing’s economic and strategic ties with the region.
The summit, which will be held on Tuesday in the Kazakh capital Astana, comes at a time when China is intensifying its outreach to Central Asian countries amid shifting global power alignments — and mounting tensions in neighbouring Iran, which is roiled in an escalating conflict with Israel.
The summit will bring together the heads of state from all five Central Asian nations — Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan — along with Xi.
The Astana summit also carries symbolic weight: it is the first time that the five Central Asian nations are holding a summit in the region with the leader of another country.
Deutsche Welle: NATO members step up spending, but doubts about US remain.
From the perspective of European NATO allies, it all went to plan: A short, one-page and five-point declaration, a nice group photo and even dinner with the Dutch king and queen. At the NATO summit at The Hague, US President Donald Trump was also in good spirits.
When he addressed the press, Trump claimed credit for ending the war in Iran and for getting NATO allies to increase their defense spending to 5% of their national GDPs by 2035.
He praised European members of the alliance for "the love and passion they showed for their countries," but also said they needed the US. He hailed the new pledge as a "big win for Europe and for western civilization."
DW: Ecuador's most-wanted gang leader Fito arrested — president.
Ecuador's most wanted fugitive has been recaptured after escaping prison last year, the country's president announced on Wednesday.
Jose Adolfo Macias, also known as "Fito," was captured in Ecuador, President Daniel Noboa said, without disclosing further details. The Associated Press news agency cited officials as saying the arrest was made in the Ecuadorian city of Manta, Fito's hometown.
What did Noboa say about Fito's capture?
Noboa's government had offered a $1 million (about €855,650) reward for information leading to the gang leader's capture.
"My recognition to our police and military who participated in this operation. More will fall, we will reclaim the country. No truce," said Noboa in a statement on X.
DW: 'Miracle' HIV drug lenacapavir approved amid US budget cuts.
(Bolding mine)
- The US was the biggest funder of global HIV initiatives until the start of Donald Trump's second term as president
- Experts told DW cuts to domestic health institutions and foreign aid are likely to jeopardize efforts to stop an increase in HIV infections
- They said the risk was real despite lencapavir, a highly promising, preventative drug that's now approved in the US for HIV prevention
The battle against HIV has been dealt repeated blows in 2025 with cuts to funding for major global aid programs by the United States.
There have also been budget cuts closer to home. And experts have told DW the cuts risk undermining efforts to end the HIV epidemic in the US by 2030, even now, with the approval of lenacapavir — what UNAIDS officials have described as a "miracle" drug — in HIV prevention.
Lencapavir provides six months of protection against HIV infection. The renowned journal Science named it 2024's scientific "breakthrough of the year."
DW: Attack on Christians threatens Syria's postwar cohesion.
In an official statement issued immediately after a suicide bomber opened fire on worshippers before blowing himself up at a Christian church in Damascus, Syria's government called the attack a desperate attempt to undermine national coexistence and destabilize the country. The Interior Ministry blamed the so-called "Islamic State" group for the attack, which killed 25 people and injured 63.
In neighboring Lebanon, President Joseph Aoun called for "necessary measures to prevent its recurrence, provide protection for places of worship and their visitors, and ensure the safety of all Syrian citizens, regardless of their religion, as the unity of the Syrian people remains the foundation for preventing discord."
Leaders of the Assembly of Catholic Ordinaries of the Holy Land in Jerusalem said: "There is no justification — religious, moral, or rational — for the slaughter of innocents, least of all in a sacred space. Such violence under the guise of faith is a grave perversion of all that is holy."
BBC: When Iran's Supreme Leader emerges from hiding he will find a very different nation.
After spending nearly two weeks in a secret bunker somewhere in Iran during his country's war with Israel, the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 86, might want to use the opportunity of the ceasefire to venture out.
He is believed to be holed up, incommunicado, for the fear of being assassinated by Israel. Even top government officials apparently have had no contact with him.
He would be well advised to be cautious, despite the fragile ceasefire that the US President Donald Trump and the Emir of Qatar brokered. Though President Trump reportedly told Israel not to kill Iran's supreme leader, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not rule it out.
When – or indeed if – he does emerge from hiding, he will see a landscape of death and destruction. He will no doubt still appear on state TV claiming victory in the conflict. He will plot to restore his image. But he will face new realities – even a new era.
The war has left the country significantly weakened and him a diminished man.
Murmurs of dissent at the top
BBC: 'Our food doesn't even last the month' - Americans brace for Trump's welfare cuts.
Elizabeth Butler goes from one supermarket to the next in her hometown of Martinsburg, West Virginia, to ensure she gets the best price on each item on her grocery list.
Along with 42 million Americans, she pays for those groceries with federal food subsides. That cash doesn't cover the whole bill for her family of three.
"Our food doesn't even last the month," she says. "I'm going to all these different places just to make sure that we have enough food to last us the whole month."
But that money may soon run out, as Congress gears up to vote on what US President Donald Trump has coined his "big beautiful bill".
The food subsidy programme that Ms Butler uses - called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as SNAP - is one of many items on the chopping block, as Congress tries to reconcile the president's seemingly conflicting demands to both lower taxes and balance the budget.
Phy.org: NASA's Perseverance rover scours Martian rock for details
On June 3, NASA's Perseverance Mars rover ground down a portion of a rock surface, blew away the resulting debris, and then went to work studying its pristine interior with a suite of instruments designed to determine its mineralogic makeup and geologic origin. "Kenmore," as nicknamed by the rover science team, is the 30th Martian rock that Perseverance has subjected to such in-depth scrutiny, beginning with drilling a two-inch-wide (5-centimeter-wide) abrasion patch.
"Kenmore was a weird, uncooperative rock," said Perseverance's deputy project scientist, Ken Farley from Caltech in Pasadena, California. "Visually, it looked fine—the sort of rock we could get a good abrasion on and perhaps, if the science was right, perform a sample collection. But during abrasion, it vibrated all over the place and small chunks broke off. Fortunately, we managed to get just far enough below the surface to move forward with an analysis."
The science team wants to get below the weathered, dusty surface of Mars rocks to see important details about a rock's composition and history. Grinding away an abrasion patch also creates a flat surface that enables Perseverance's science instruments to get up close and personal with the rock.
Phys.org: Enzyme-based plastics recycling at an industrial scale could be cost-effective, analysis finds.
A successful collaboration involving a trio of research institutions has yielded a roadmap toward an economically viable process for using enzymes to recycle plastics.
The researchers, from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), the University of Massachusetts Lowell, and the University of Portsmouth in England, previously partnered on the biological engineering of improved PETase enzymes that can break down polyethylene terephthalate (PET). With its low manufacturing cost and excellent material properties, PET is used extensively in single-use packaging, soda bottles, and textiles.
The new study, published in Nature Chemical Engineering, combines previous fundamental research with advanced chemical engineering, process development, and techno-economic analysis to lay the blueprints for enzyme-based PET recycling at an industrial scale.
While current methods exist for recycling PET, they are often incompatible with typical low-quality plastic waste. A potential solution lies with enzymes, which can selectively break down PET, even from contaminated and colored plastic waste streams.
Phys.org: Shipboard system that uses limestone and seawater could cut CO₂ emissions by half.
Scientists at USC and Caltech, in collaboration with startup company Calcarea, have developed a promising shipboard system that could remove up to half of carbon dioxide emitted from shipping vessels by converting it into an ocean-safe solution.
The breakthrough, described in Science Advances, describes how the system could reduce carbon emissions from the shipping industry—one of the world's most difficult-to-decarbonize sectors.
"What's beautiful about this is how simple it is," said William Berelson, the Paxson H. Offield Professor in Coastal and Marine Systems at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and co-corresponding author of the study. "We're speeding up a process the ocean already uses to buffer CO2—but doing it on a ship, and in a way that can meaningfully reduce emissions at scale."
Phys.org: Sustainable cooling film could slash building energy use by 20% amid rising global temperatures.
An international team of scientists has developed a biodegradable material that could slash global energy consumption without using any electricity, according to a new study published today.
The bioplastic metafilm—that can be applied to buildings, equipment and other surfaces—passively cools temperatures by as much as 9.2°C during peak sunlight and reflects almost 99% of the sun's rays.
Developed by researchers from Zhengzhou University in China and the University of South Australia (UniSA), the new film is a sustainable and long-lasting material that could reduce building energy consumption by up to 20% a year in some of the world's hottest cities.
