Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, current leader Neon Vincent, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, Interceptor7, Magnifico, annetteboardman, Besame and jck. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) Man Oh Man, wader, palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse (RIP), ek hornbeck, ScottyUrb, Doctor RJ, BentLiberal, Oke (RIP) and jlms qkw.
OND is a regular community featureon 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.
Special thanks to JekylinHyde for the OND banner.
US NEWS
DW News
The new regulation forbids refugees from claiming asylum in the US if they have traveled through a third country. Officials called it an 'interim rule' until Congress passes stricter laws.
The administration of President Donald Trump announced a new rule on Monday that would severely limit the ability to claim asylum in the United States. The regulation, set to go into effect on Tuesday, would bar anyone from filing an asylum application if they passed through a third country on their way to the US.
In a statement on its website, the Department of Homeland Security specified that it will bar claims for people, "where it (asylum) was available in at least one third country outside the alien's country of citizenship, nationality, or last lawful habitual residence through which he or she transited en route to the United States."
The White House hopes this will stop refugees traveling through Mexico and claiming asylum at the border.
The Guardian
Two Jeffrey Epstein accusers offered emotional entreaties in court on Monday, asking a judge not to release the financier before his trial on sex trafficking charges.
Assistant US attorney Alex Rossmiller also revealed that authorities found “piles of cash”, “dozens of diamonds” and an expired passport with Epstein’s picture, a fake name and a Saudi Arabia residence during a raid of his Manhattan mansion following his arrest on 6 July.One alleged victim, who identified herself as Courtney Wild, said: “I was sexually abused by Jeffrey Epstein, starting at the age of 14.”
The financier, 66, has been held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, a fortress-like jail in lower Manhattan, since his arrest earlier this month for the alleged sex trafficking of minors. He has pleaded not guilty and was appearing in court on Monday over his request for house arrest while awaiting trial.
Prosecutors said their case was getting “stronger by the day”, several more women having contacted them to say Epstein abused them when they were underage.
Reuters
Charlottesville Circuit Court Judge Richard Moore sentenced James Fields, 22, to life plus 419 years, as recommended by the jury that found him guilty last December of murder plus eight counts of malicious wounding and a hit-and-run offense.
“Mr. Fields, you deserve the sentence the jury gave. What you did was an act of terror,” Moore said.
Fields, a resident of Maumee, Ohio, who appeared in court on Monday in striped prison garb, had already received a separate life sentence without the possibility of parole after pleading guilty in March to federal hate-crime charges stemming from the violence in Charlottesville on Aug. 12, 2017.
Heather Heyer, 32, one of the counter-demonstrators, was killed in the attack, which also injured many others.
BBC
After US President Donald Trump told four US congresswomen of colour to "go back" to the countries "from which they came", some Americans have been sharing their own experiences of hearing that kind of language.
One BBC reader said the incident was reminiscent of an experience on a London bus in 1975 when a white woman accusingly said "you foreigners, why don't you go back to your country?"
"Yes, we were foreign students, we felt petrified, yes, we immediately got off the bus on the next stop," said the reader, who did not wish to have their name used.
"Racism is ugly, ignorance and hurtful, and unfortunately it is everywhere," they continued.
In a three-tweet thread on Sunday, Mr Trump accused the four Democrats of "viciously" criticising him and the US.
NPR
Weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that federal courts can't intervene in cases where state lawmakers have aggressively drawn political boundaries to benefit one political party over another, a new front in the nation's redistricting battles opens Monday in a North Carolina courtroom.
The case has the potential to significantly alter how political maps are drawn in North Carolina and could serve as a blueprint for legal challenges in other states. Or, it could result in the latest affirmation of partisan gerrymandering — a tradition in American politics that stretches back more than two centuries.
"There is a lot at stake both for North Carolina and nationally," said Michael Li, senior counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice who works on redistricting cases and described North Carolina's legislative maps as some of the most lopsided in the country.
Reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - White House senior adviser Kellyanne Conway defied a subpoena and failed to appear on Monday at a congressional hearing about allegations she violated federal law, prompting a Democratic threat to hold her in contempt of Congress.
The top White House lawyer directed Conway not to appear at the U.S. House of Representatives Oversight Committee hearing, arguing that current and former White House officials were “absolutely immune” from being required to testify before Congress, according to a letter released by the committee.
Past presidential administrations from both parties have adopted similar arguments, but some legal experts have said such immunity claims would be rejected by a judge if challenged in court.
WORLD NEWS
DW News
EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels are hoping to deescalate tensions between the US and Iran. Britain's top diplomat says there's still a "small window" of time to keep the 2015 nuclear deal alive.
British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt voiced optimism on Monday that the diplomatic impasse over the Iran nuclear deal could be resolved.
"Iran is still a good year away from developing a nuclear bomb," allowing a "small window to keep the deal alive," Hunt told reporters as he arrived for talks with EU foreign ministers in Brussels.
The meeting in the Belgian capital aims to come up with a plan to defuse tensions between Tehran and Washington and salvage the embattled nuclear deal Iran signed with world powers in 2015.
Al Jazeera
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s controversial delivery of a Russian missile defence system despite the threat of US sanctions, saying the next step would be to jointly produce S-400s with Moscow.
The first batch of the Russian S-400 equipment was delivered to Turkey in recent days even after repeated US calls to cancel the deal or face punishment.
"We have begun to receive our S-400s. Some said 'they cannot buy them'… God willing the final part of this [delivery] will be in April 2020," Erdogan told a crowd of thousands on Monday in Ankara as Turkey marked the third anniversary of a bloody coup attempt.P
The Guardian
On a rainy summer evening, Canadian federal police entered a social club in the city of Windsor and arrested bartender Michele Iannetta. Bewildered, he and others were rounded up and brought down to the local armoury.
The police then descended on Ianetta’s house, where his wife, Antonia, and son, Guido, watched, frozen with fear, as officers rifled through the family’s belongings for evidence of his political sympathies
A naturalized Canadian citizen whose two brothers were serving in the Canadian military, Michele did not return home that night or the next; he was eventually released four years later. He was never accused of any crime.
“When something like that like happens, your neighbours look through curtains at what’s going on. There was a great deal of shame involved,” said Susan Iannetta, Michele’s granddaughter.
The prime minister, Justin Trudeau, recently reopened bitter memories for Italian Canadians with a promise to formally apologize for what many consider a longstanding injustice: the detention and internment of hundreds of Italian Canadians during the
second world war.
BBC
Anti-terrorism police in northern Italy have seized an air-to-air missile and other sophisticated weapons during raids on far-right extremist groups.
Three people were arrested, two of them near Forli airport. Neo-Nazi propaganda was also seized, in the raids.
The raids were part of an investigation into Italian far-right help for Russian-backed separatist forces in eastern Ukraine, local media said.
The missile was one of those used by the Qatari army, Italian police said.
NPR
Alan Turing, the father of computer science and artificial intelligence who broke Adolf Hitler's Enigma code system in World War II — but who died an outcast because of his homosexuality — will be featured on the Bank Of England's new 50-pound note.
The new note will be printed on polymer and bear a 1951 photo of Turing, the bank announced Monday. It's expected to enter circulation by the end of 2021. It will include a quote from Turing: "This is only a foretaste of what is to come, and only the shadow of what is going to be."
Turing was just 41 when he died from poisoning in 1954, which was deemed a suicide. For decades, his status as a giant in mathematics was largely unknown, thanks to the secrecy around his computer research and the social taboos about his sexuality. His story became more widely known after the release of the 2014 movie The Imitation Game.
ENVIRONMENT, HEALTH, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Al Jazeera (7/14/2019)
Mosul, Iraq - Two years after Iraqi forces captured Mosul from ISIL, residents say neighbourhoods along the riverfront of its Old City risk losing their historical identity due to a plan by local authorities to transform the area into a "modern city".
Limited funding and an ill-equipped municipality have hampered efforts to rebuild the Old City following a fierce nine-month military operation to root out ISIL fighters who had seized Mosul in June 2014.
The battle left Mosul, Iraq's second-largest urban centre and capital of Nineveh province, a dilapidated ghost city, with many of its buildings in ruins and hundreds of thousands of its residents forced from their homes.
Despite the widespread destruction, some of the displaced began returning shortly after the United States-backed operation against ISIL ended in July 2017.
ScienceBlog
States with stricter firearms laws had lower firearm-related deaths among children and adolescents, finds research led by faculty at Children’s National in Washington, D.C. Furthermore, state laws that had been in place for more than five years requiring universal background checks for firearm purchases were associated with a 35% lower firearm-related death rate among children. The findings underscore the need for robust research to understand the interplay between legislation type and pediatric deaths due to firearm injuries, according to research published online July 15, 2019, in Pediatrics.
The cross-sectional study examined 2011 to 2015 firearm fatality data from the Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS), de-identified data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about fatal injuries in the U.S. The team used the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence’s gun law scorecards which measure the strength or weakness of state laws, with higher scores designating states with consistently strong firearm laws.
Some 21,241 children aged 21 years and younger died from firearm-related injuries over the five-year study period, or about 4,250 deaths per year.
The Guardian
US campaigners who oppose the birth control pill have promoted a menstruation tracking app in “the most vulnerable communities” in rural Nigeria with the backing of the Catholic church, the Guardian has learned.
Prominent anti-abortion campaigners in New York developed and funded the Femm app, which collects intimate information about women’s sex lives and sows doubt about hormonal birth control methods.
The app has been downloaded more than 400,000 times globally, according to its developers, and appears to be the first ideologically aligned fertility tracking app.
But leaders of the organization are also promoting the app and teaching the “Femm methods” of natural family planning in places such as rural Nigeria, where women are at high risk of HIV infection, child marriage and sexual violence.
The Catholic church’s diplomatic arm, the permanent observer mission of the Holy See at the United Nations, has promoted the Femm foundation and its app in speeches and events at the UN headquarters in New York. Femm also received a $100,000 grant from the Papal Foundation.
The Guardian
Scientists have found that the devastating eating disorder anorexia nervosa is not purely a psychiatric condition but is also driven by problems with metabolism.
The finding may help to explain doctors’ poor record in treating the illness and pave the way for radical new approaches to predict and treat those who are most at risk.
Researchers made the discovery after comparing the DNA of nearly 17,000 people with anorexia and more than 55,000 healthy controls. Those with anorexia submitted their DNA through the Anorexia Nervosa Genetics Initiative or the eating disorders working group of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium.
The study revealed eight genes that linked anorexia to anxiety, depression and obsessive compulsive disorder, all of which was expected. But it also flagged up DNA involved in burning fat, being physically active and having resistance to type 2 diabetes.
NPR
Lady Gaga fills the tiny back-of-seat airplane screen. Then, (spoiler alert) A Star Is Born's tragic ending ensues and the waterworks begin.
Amanda Wind, an airline passenger taking an early morning flight, felt tears welling up in her eyes. Soon, her sobs were so loud, she had roused several other passengers from their sleep.
Her uncontrollable crying is not out of the ordinary. Neither are bizarre beverage orders, tirades against flight attendants or intimate bonds forged with seatmate strangers.
Flying makes people do weird things.
"When people get on a plane, they revert to a lizard brain where they forget all social decencies and common sense," Kat Anderson, a flight attendant who has seen her fair share of oddities through three years of accommodating travelers, tells NPR's Weekend Edition.
Vox
It’s been a banner few years for people who hate doing laundry. A slew of brands has arrived promising that you can wear their products for days, weeks, or months straight without ever putting them in the wash.
Wool & Prince started the trend in 2013 with a Kickstarter that collected 10 times their goal of $30,000 by promising that their merino wool button-downs could be worn for 100 days straight. Dozens of athletic brands, including Lululemon and Patagonia, treat clothing items with nanosilver particles to fight odor.
Earlier this year, Unbound Merino released a collection of men’s T-shirts, socks, hoodies, and underwear (and one women’s shirt), promising you could travel without any luggage. As I write this, I’m wearing a cotton and seaweed fiber T-shirt by Pangaia treated with antimicrobial peppermint oil to prevent odor for the fourth time. The company claims the peppermint will help you save 3,000 liters of water over its lifetime by skipping laundry