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, jck, and Besame. 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 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
Yemen war: More than 100 dead in Saudi-led strike, says Red Cross
More than 100 people have died in Yemen after the Saudi-led coalition launched a series of air strikes on a detention centre, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
The ICRC said that at least 40 survivors were being treated after the attack on Sunday in the city of Dhamar.
Local residents reported hearing six air strikes during the night.
The Saudi-led coalition, which backs Yemen's government, said its attack destroyed a drone and missile site.
The Iran-aligned Houthi rebel movement, which is fighting in opposition to the government and Saudi-led coalition, said the strikes had hit a facility it was using as a prison. The ICRC said it had visited detainees at the location before.
Franz Rauchenstein, the head of delegation for the ICRC in Yemen, said the organisation was collecting bodies from the site and described the chances of finding more survivors as "very low".
BBC
The country disappearing under rising tides.
Bangladesh has been a vulnerable state for much of its short existence. People in this flood-prone country have coped with rising water levels with a combination of innovation, flexibility and resilience – but the extremes the environment is now throwing at them might be beyond anyone’s endurance.
As climate change accelerates, the pressures on rural Bangladeshis mount. Where previously people might have been able to move away for the worst of seasonal flooding, the regularity of waterlogging is making it impossible to farm. Crop varieties cannot cope with the saltwater, and career alternatives are limited.
Historically, people in Bangladesh had worked around seasonal flooding; farming for part of the year and retreating when water levels rose, or seeking work in the cities as land became unusable.
By the end of the century, however, sea levels are expected to rise along the Bangladesh coastline by up to 1.5m. And that will come with more extreme seasonal fluctuations in sea levels. Disastrous storms and unusually high tides currently occur once each decade, but could become as regular as three to 15 times each year by 2100.
As a result, rural Bagladeshis face a stark choice; change their way or life or seek employment and a home elsewhere.
The Guardian
US and China begin imposing new tariffs as trade war escalates
China and the United States have begun imposing additional tariffs on each other’s goods in the latest escalation of their bruising trade war that has sent shockwaves through the global economy.
A new round of tariffs took effect from 0401 GMT on Sunday, with Beijing’s levy of 5% on US crude oil marking the first time the fuel has been targeted since the world’s two largest economies started their trade war more than a year ago.
The Trump administration will begin collecting 15% tariffs on more than $125bn in Chinese imports, including smart speakers, Bluetooth headphones and many types of footwear.
In retaliation, China started to impose additional tariffs on some of the US goods on a $75bn target list. Beijing did not specify the value of the goods that face higher tariffs from Sunday.
The extra tariffs of 5% and 10% were levied on 1,717 items of a total of 5,078 products originating from the United States. Beijing will start collecting additional tariffs on the rest from 15 December.
The new round of tariffs promises more volatility when stock markets resume trading on Monday, although Wall Street is closed for the Labor day holiday.
Al Jazeera
Ancient city Kemune emerges in northern Iraq before sinking again
A palace thousands of years old has emerged from the Mosul Dam in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq after water levels dropped because of drought.
The appearance of the ruins on the banks of the Tigris River triggered an archaeological dig, with a joint Kurdish and German team keen on surveying the treasures of the complex, known as Kemune.
The site of Kemune can be dated to the time of the Mittani Empire, and is estimated to be nearly 3,500 years old.
The Mittani Empire is one of the least-researched empires of the Ancient Near East.
It spanned from the eastern Mediterranean coast to the east of present-day northern Iraq.
Archaeologists first discovered Kemune in 2010, when water levels in the reservoir were low, but its recent emergence marked the first time excavation at the site became possible.
CBS News
Despair as Turkey prepares to flood one of the world's oldest cities
The clock is ticking for an ancient city in southern Turkey that is about to be left underwater. Despite an outcry from locals and activists, the 12,000 years of human history in Hasankeyf will be completely submerged when a reservoir behind the new Ilusu dam is filled over the next few months.
Hasankeyf, built on the banks of the river Tigris, is one of the oldest sites of human settlement in the world. The caves in the city date back to the Neolithic era, and some of the cave dwellings have continued to provide homes for locals until today. Civilizations that ruled over ancient Mesopotamia, the Byzantines, Arabs and Ottomans, all took turns leaving their mark on Hasankeyf over the millennia. The resulting landscape is nothing short of an open air museum.
The Ilusi dam and the Hydra Electric Power Plant to be powered by it were first devised in the 1950s, but legal battles meant ground wasn't actually broken until 2006. The fourth biggest dam in Turkey, it will help fulfil the country's energy needs and provide irrigation to the agricultural lands surrounding it. Once completed, the power plant will generate 4,200 gigawatts of electricity annually, similar in capacity to a small nuclear plant.
Reuters
Merkel allies weather far-right surge in German regional elections
BERLIN (Reuters) - Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives and her Social Democrat (SPD) coalition partners held off a surge in far right support in two state elections in eastern Germany on Sunday, averting an immediate crisis for the ruling alliance.
Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) remained the largest party in Saxony but saw their vote share drop by 7.4 points from the last election in 2014 to 32%, with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) coming second, preliminary results showed.
The AfD harnessed voter anger over refugees and the planned closure of coal mines in the formerly communist eastern states, casting itself as the heir of the demonstrators who brought about the fall of the Berlin Wall three decades ago.
Reuters
Rise of populists in Europe resembles eve of WW2, warns London mayor
GDANSK, Poland (Reuters) - Europe is starting to resemble the situation on the eve of World War Two, with leaders using divisive language to win popularity and spreading hatred against minorities, London Mayor Sadiq Khan warned on Sunday.
Khan, a Muslim of Pakistani heritage, was speaking at an event in Poland with other world leaders to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the start of the 1939-1945 conflict.
“Are we living through times now similar to the 1930s? Because if you look at the 1930s, what happened - the rise of charismatic leaders using the power of hatred to divide communities and to pick on the other,” Khan said.
“Look at some of the things happening (now) across Europe. People are trying to divide communities using the language of hate, scapegoating people because of their sexual orientation, because of their ethnic origin, because of their faith, or because of who they are.”
Reuters
Kashmiri militant calls for Pakistan military intervention in disputed region
MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan (Reuters) - A Kashmiri militant commander said on Sunday that Pakistan should send troops to protect the people of India-controlled Kashmir if the United Nations does not send peacekeepers, after New Delhi revoked its autonomy last month.
“It’s binding upon the armed forces of Pakistan, the first Islamic nuclear power, to enter India-occupied Kashmir to militarily help the people of the territory,” Syed Salahuddin, who heads an alliance of over a dozen groups fighting Indian rule in Kashmir, said.
His comments underline growing domestic pressure on Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Kahn to take robust action after India stripped Kashmir of its special status on Aug. 5. Khan has so far focused on a global diplomatic campaign condemning India’s actions.
“In these testing times... mere diplomatic and political support is not going to work,” Salahuddin told a gathering of hundreds in Muzaffarabad, the capital of the Pakistani zone of Kashmir.
NPR
After Cancer Treatment, Ginsburg Says She'll Be Ready For High Court's October Term
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg just finished three weeks of radiation treatment for a tumor on her pancreas, but she told a crowd on Saturday that she is "on [her] way to being very well."
Ginsburg, speaking with NPR's Nina Totenberg at the Library of Congress National Book Festival in Washington, D.C., said she would be prepared for the start of the Supreme Court's term in October.
Ginsburg's latest round of radiation therapy began on Aug. 5, shortly after doctors confirmed the presence of a localized malignant tumor on her pancreas. A stent was also placed in her bile duct as part of the cancer treatment, according to a statement issued by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Doctors at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, where the 86-year-old justice was treated this month on an outpatient basis, found no evidence of cancer anywhere else in Ginsburg's body.
Christian Science Monitor
Points of Progress: Protections for migratory birds, and more (Some positive stories)
United States
Since 2016, more than 2,700 communication towers across the country – some 20% – updated their lighting systems in an effort to save migratory birds. The American Bird Conservancy says 7 million birds die each year by accidental collision with flight towers. A change in requirements allows tower operators to maintain aviation safety while turning off the steady-burning red lights that distract birds. A study found that turning off the red lights, while retaining the flashing white ones, can reduce bird mortality rates by 70% and reduce electricity costs. The conservancy is working with some 11,000 remaining towers to embrace these lighting changes. (American Bird Conservancy)
And more stories from Saudi Arabia, Lithuania, Nigeria, and Peru.
NPR
Optimists For The Win: Finding The Bright Side Might Help You Live Longer
Good news for the cheery: A Boston study published this month suggests people who tend to be optimistic are likelier than others to live to be 85 years old or more.
That finding was independent of other factors thought to influence life's length — such as "socioeconomic status, health conditions, depression, social integration, and health behaviors," the researchers from Boston University School of Medicine and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health say. Their work appears in a recent issue of the science journal PNAS.
"We wanted to consider, in the current issue, benefits of psychological resources like optimism as possible new targets for promoting healthy aging," says Lewina Lee, who headed the study. She's a clinical research psychologist at Boston University. "The more we know about ways to promote healthy aging the better."
Researchers already knew from previous work that optimistic individuals tend to have a reduced risk of depression, heart disease and other chronic diseases. But might optimism also be linked to exceptional longevity?