Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, eeff, Magnifico, annetteboardman, Besame and jck. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) Man Oh Man, wader, Neon Vincent, palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse (RIP), ek hornbook (RIP), 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
Bill Gates: Solving Covid easy compared with climate
Fifty-one billion and zero - the two numbers Bill Gates says you need to know about climate.
Solving climate change would be "the most amazing thing humanity has ever done", says the billionaire founder of Microsoft.
By comparison, ending the pandemic is "very, very easy", he claims.
Mr Gates's new book, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, is a guide to tackling global warming.
Don't underestimate the scale of the challenge, he told me when we spoke last week.
"We've never made a transition like we're talking about doing in the next 30 years. There is no precedent for this."
Fifty-one billion is how many tonnes of greenhouse gases the world typically adds to the atmosphere each year.
Zero is where we need to get to.
The Guardian
Texas sees one of its coldest winters in decades as temperatures drop
Texas is experiencing one of its coldest winter in decades , with temperatures expected to drop to as low as 11F (-12C) in Houston and 9F (-13C) San Antonio under a winter storm warning.
The governor, Greg Abbott, issued a disaster declaration for every county in the state on Friday, as conditions continued to get colder over the weekend.
“Every part of the state of Texas will face freezing conditions. That includes all the way down to Brownsville, Texas, over the coming days,” Abbott said in a press conference. “In many of those locations across the state of Texas, the high temperature for the day will be in the single digits.”
Warnings were issued by other government officials across the state, including Houston’s mayor, Sylvester Turner, who cited concerns about icy road conditions and urge people to not drive and stay home. Last Thursday, the city of Fort Worth saw a pileup of up to 100 cars, where five people died and several others were injured.
New York Times
At Least 120 Million Americans Are Bracing for Coast-to-Coast Storm
NASHVILLE — A coast-to-coast winter storm swept from Oregon and Washington to the Southeast on Sunday, part of a frigid weather pattern that has created record low temperatures in Minnesota and a 100-vehicle traffic pileup in Texas and that is now producing dangerous conditions across much of the country because of heavy snowfall, perilous ice and dangerously low temperatures.
In all, the National Weather Service said on Sunday that more than 120 million Americans were under ice or winter storm warnings. Hundreds of thousands of people were without power. Trucks slid off highways and cars piled up on ice-coated roads. As the storm continued to intensify, officials urged residents to brace themselves.
“The time to prepare for this storm was yesterday,” the National Weather Service in Texas said in an ominous warning issued on Sunday.
The Guardian
Myanmar: tanks roll into cities as internet shut down
Myanmar’s internet has been cut overnight on Sunday, hours after armoured vehicles rolled into several cities, prompting fears for the fate of protesters and warnings by diplomats that “the world is watching”.
Armoured cars appeared on the streets of Yangon, Myitkyina and Sittwe on Sunday, live footage broadcast online by local media showed, in the heaviest show of force so far by the military since it staged a coup on 1 February.
The US embassy in Myanmar warned on Sunday evening of reported “military movements” in the country’s main city, Yangon, and said it expected interruptions to internet access.
Around 1.30am, the internet-monitoring service Netblocks reported that national internet connectivity had fallen to 14% of ordinary levels. Contacts in Myanmar could not be reached by email or messaging apps.
NPR
Mario Draghi, Former EU Central Bank Head, Sworn In As Italy's Prime Minister
Mario Draghi, the celebrated economist who is credited with saving the euro, was sworn in as Italy's new prime minister Saturday. He will be tasked with guiding the country through the twin crises of the coronavirus and a crumbling economy.
Draghi, who formerly served as the head of the European Central Bank, took the oath of office with support from across the political spectrum with all but one of Italy's major parties backing him. Twenty-three members of Draghi's cabinet, which included technocrats and a broad swath of politicians, also took the oath of office Saturday.
In addition to charting Italy's course through the pandemic, Draghi is tasked with spending a roughly $240 billion, once-in-a-generation recovery fund provided by the EU to resuscitate an economy bound toward recession. Italy's economy is in its worst downturn since World War II, according to Reuters.
A boost for the Italian economy could benefit the whole eurozone.
Reuters
CDC chief warns it's too soon in U.S. to lift COVID-19 mask mandates
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Sunday it is “absolutely” too soon to lift mask mandates, citing daily COVID-19 case numbers that despite recent declines remain more than double the levels seen last summer.
Dr. Rochelle Walensky’s warning that face-covering requirements are still critical came just days after governors in Iowa and Montana lifted long-standing mask mandates in their states.
Appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Walensky said preventing further surges of infection is key to safely reopening schools and regaining some level of social normalcy until collective COVID-19 immunity can be achieved through mass vaccinations.
Whether Americans can look forward to walking down the street without wearing a mask by the end of the year “very much depends on how we behave right now,” she said.
Deutsche Welle
Coronavirus: Germany mostly shuts Czech, Austria land borders
Germany on Sunday stopped most travel between regions in the east and south of the country and the neighboring Czech Republic and Austria in a bid to stop COVID-19 variants from spreading.
The measures are set to remain in place for at least 10 days.
Germany on Thursday designated Austria's Tyrol and border regions of the Czech Republic as "virus mutation areas."
The government took the decision after the South African B.1.351 coronavirus variant was found in Austria's Tyrol region. The British B.1.1.7 variant was found circulating in the Czech Republic.
There are concerns that variants are more contagious and that vaccines may not be as effective against them.
Al Jazeera
Mexico gets AstraZeneca COVID vaccine shipment from India
Mexico has received a shipment of 870,000 doses of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine from India, the government said, as the country prepares to prioritise older adults in the next phase of its vaccination campaign.
Mexico is also expecting shipments of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to resume, with 494,000 doses due to arrive on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said during a news conference.
Sunday’s shipment amounts to about 42 percent of the two million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, developed by Oxford University, that Mexico plans to import from India, the government said.
Mexico and Argentina have an agreement with AstraZeneca to produce the vaccine for the eventual distribution of 250 million doses in Latin America, with financial support from the foundation of Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim.
Washington Post
Guinea declares new Ebola epidemic, five years after West Africa’s deadliest outbreak
DAKAR, Senegal — Public health officials in Guinea declared a new epidemic of Ebola on Sunday after recording seven cases and three deaths — the first resurgence since the hemorrhagic fever devastated the West African nation and two neighbors from 2014 to 2016.
More than 11,300 people died in the last outbreak, the deadliest on record, which started in a rural Guinea village before tearing through Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Health investigators are rushing to trace and isolate suspected contacts, said Sakoba Keita, head of the National Health Security Agency. The country is building a new Ebola treatment center.
But resources are thin in Guinea, one of the world’s poorest countries, which was already battling the coronavirus pandemic on top of yellow fever and measles outbreaks.
DhakaTribune
Teen's rape and murder sparks outcry, protest in Nepal
Hundreds of Nepalis staged a mock funeral procession in the capital Kathmandu Friday after the rape and murder of a teenage girl drew attention to a rise in sexual assault cases.
Bhagirathi Bhatta, 17, went missing on Thursday last week while she was going home from school. Her body was found a day later in a gorge near her village in Baitadi district in western Nepal.
An initial investigation by police found that she had been raped and then strangled.
At the protest in Kathmandu, demonstrators dressed in white mourning clothes carried a young woman on a bamboo stretcher to symbolise the victims who lose their lives to such violent crimes.
Others followed, calling for an end to violence against women and justice for victims as the marched.
Raw Story
‘Hated by absolutely everyone’: Kentucky columnist puts the nail in Mitch McConnell’s political coffin
In a scorching column for the Lexington Herald-Leader, columnist Linda Blackford accused McConnell of standing by while "His beloved Republican party has turned into a death cult in thrall to a pathetic and pathological egotist. Everyone sees through him now. He may have helped create the modern Republican party, but when it most needed saving, he was nowhere to be found. He could have given political cover to his colleagues to stand up to Trump and the attack on Jan. 6, but as I wrote before, the monster he helped create was no longer in his control," she wrote before stating McCoinnell's legacy is forever stained.
New York Times
Calls Grow for Commission to Investigate Capitol Riot
WASHINGTON — Lawmakers fresh off the impeachment acquittal of former President Donald J. Trump are issuing growing calls for a bipartisan commission to investigate the administrative and law enforcement failures that led to the mob attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6 and recommend changes to prevent another siege.
Such a commission appears to be the primary remaining option for Congress to try to hold Mr. Trump to account for his role in the assault. Top lawmakers have quashed the idea of a post-impeachment censure of the former president, and the possibility of barring him from future office under the 14th Amendment, which prohibits any official involved in “insurrection or rebellion” from holding office, seems remote. Lawmakers in both parties have called for a commission modeled on the bipartisan panel established after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Representative Madeleine Dean, Democrat of Pennsylvania and an impeachment manager, described it on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday as “an impartial commission, not guided by politics, filled with people who would stand up to the courage of their conviction.”
Reuters
Ancient mass production brewery uncovered in Egypt
CAIRO (Reuters) - Archaeologists have discovered a 5,000-year-old brewery that could produce thousands of litres of beer in the ancient Egyptian city of Abydos, Egypt’s tourism and antiquities ministry said.
The site in Egypt’s Sohag Governorate likely dates back to the reign of King Narmer around 3,100 BC, the ministry said in a statement on Saturday.
Dr. Matthew Adams, one of the leaders of the Egyptian-American mission that made the discovery, said they believe the beer was used in royal burial rituals for Egypt’s earliest kings.
The brewery, which had a production capacity of 22,400 litres, was split into eight sections each containing 40 clay pots used to warm mixtures of grain and water.