BBC
Satellite images commissioned by the BBC reveal the extent of destruction across Gaza, showing that nearly 98,000 buildings may have suffered damage.
The satellite images were taken last Thursday - before the start of a seven-day suspension of hostilities, which has now ended.
Drone footage and verified video also show buildings and entire neighbourhoods reduced to rubble after Israeli air strikes and on-the-ground fighting.
While northern Gaza has been the focus of the Israeli offensive and has borne the brunt of the destruction, widespread damage extends across the entire strip.
This is an open thread where everyone is welcome, especially night owls and early birds, to share and discuss the happenings of the day. Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.
C/NET
Millions of American households could see a steep increase in internet costs next year, with Black and Hispanic families bearing most of the burden.
Sometime around the middle of 2024, the Affordable Connectivity Programwill run out of money. The federal program offers monthly subsidies of $30 to $75 to help low-income households pay for home internet.
It was initially born out of a pandemic-era program called the Emergency Broadband Benefit in 2021, which was replaced six months later by the longer-term ACP when Congress devoted $14.2 billion to the program as part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
NPR
The justices of the U.S. Supreme Court sent mixed signals Monday as they struggled to decide whether to give a thumbs up or thumbs down to the multi-billion dollar Purdue Pharma bankruptcy deal--a deal meant to compensate victims of the highly addictive pain killer OxyContiElement removed
Basically, the issue before the court amounts to a battle between money and principle. On the money side is a bankruptcy deal approved by two lower courts that would provide $8 billion to state and local governments in dealing with the consequences of opioid addiction, as well as providing individual compensation to victims. Funding most of that settlement would be the Sackler family, who owned and ran Purdue Pharma, and agreed to pay $6 billion into the compensation pot.
NPR
The head of United Nations climate talks underway in Dubai insisted incorrectly that there is no science to support phasing out fossil fuels to avoid catastrophic warming.
Sultan al-Jaber, who is also the chief executive of the United Arab Emirates' state-run oil company, made the comments in an online meeting on November 21. That was little over a week before he officially began to preside over annual U.N. climate negotiations, known as COP28, that are being held this year in the UAE. The comments were first reported by The Guardian, which also published a video of the meeting.
Reuters
WASHINGTON, Dec 4 (Reuters) - The United States on Monday charged a former ambassador to Bolivia with spying for Cuba for over 40 years, in what the Justice Department described as one of the highest-reaching and longest-lasting infiltrations of the U.S. government by a foreign agent.
Victor Manuel Rocha, who served as U.S. ambassador to Bolivia from 2000 to 2002, was charged with committing multiple federal crimes including acting as an illegal foreign agent and using a fraudulently obtained passport, the Justice Department said in a statement.
"We allege that for over 40 years, Victor Manuel Rocha served as an agent of the Cuban government and sought out and obtained positions within the United States government that would provide him with access to non-public information and the ability to affect U.S. foreign policy," Attorney General Merrick Garland said in the statement.
USA Today
There are certain topics at Frothers Daughter that can incite froth beyond the lattes. This week there is most definitely a favorite at the mobile coffee trailer across from Florida State University: An epic snub of the local football team.
“The most eloquent word besides BS is this is very, very, very unfair, very unjust, very upsetting and really devastating to all of us,” said Bryn Smith, a Florida State biology major and data obsessive.
The team began the weekend with an almost assured berth in the playoffs. They had done the work. The Seminoles had won the Atlantic Coast Conference Championship, capping a 13-0 season. And yet. On Sunday, the College Football Playoff Selection Committee left them in the dust without a playoff slot – pushed aside in favor of one-loss Texas and Alabama.
The Guaardian
The UK’s most hazardous nuclear site, Sellafield, has been hacked into by cyber groups closely linked to Russia and China, the Guardian can reveal.
The astonishing disclosure and its potential effects have been consistently covered up by senior staff at the vast nuclear waste and decommissioning site, the investigation has found.
The Guardian has discovered that the authorities do not know exactly when the IT systems were first compromised. But sources said breaches were first detected as far back as 2015, when experts realised sleeper malware – software that can lurk and be used to spy or attack systems – had been embedded in Sellafield’s computer networks.
The Guardian
James Cleverly is travelling to Kigali to sign a new treaty with Rwanda, as Rishi Sunak responds to the UK supreme court’s ruling against the policy to send people there.
Domestic legislation is also planned so parliament could assert Rwanda is a safe destination for asylum seekers who arrive in Britain.
Cleverly said Rwanda “cares deeply about the rights of refugees” and that he looked forward to meeting counterparts and signing the deal. “We are clear that Rwanda is a safe country, and we are working at pace to move forward with this partnership to stop the boats and save lives,” he said.
Cleverly will meet his counterpart, Vincent Biruta, to sign the treaty and discuss key next steps on the migration and economic development partnership, the Home Office said. He will also visit the genocide memorial in Kigali and staff at the British High Commission during his trip.
Al Jazeera
The death toll from floods in northern Tanzania following torrential rains this weekend has risen to 63, officials have said.
Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa said in comments broadcast on television on Monday that the number of injured stood at 116 people. Landslides had destroyed half of one village he visited, he said.
“We are here in front of bodies of our fellows. We have lost 63 loved ones. Of the total fellows we lost, 23 are men and 40 are women,” he said during an event to bid farewell to the bodies of those who had died in Hanang district, northern Tanzania.
“My fellow Tanzanians, this is a tragedy,” he said.
Queen Sendiga, commissioner for the Northern Manyara region, said the death toll had reached 68, the AFP news agency reported.
Al Jazeera
Telecommunication services have been cut off in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian telecoms company Paltel has said, as Israel intensifies its assault on the besieged territory.
“We regret to announce the complete cessation of the communications and Internet services with the Gaza strip, as the main paths that were previously reconnected were disconnected again,” Paltel said in a statement on Monday.
Cybersecurity watchdog NetBlocks confirmed that the “near-total internet blackout” would be “experienced as a total loss of communications by most residents”.
Deutsche Welle
German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach on Monday said it was important for at-risk individuals to have their coronavirus vaccinations in advance of the Christmas and New Year holidays.
Lauterbach, himself a trained epidemiologist, said the takeup rate of newly adapted boosted shots designed to fight current COVID-19 variants was so far disappointing.
What did the minister say about COVID shots?
With three weeks to go until Christmas Day, Lauterbach said it was "the optimal time" for people identified as vulnerable to have the COVID-19 shot.
This would allow the vaccine to take full effect before the large social gatherings and travel that often take place at Christmas, he said.
Germany's Standing Commission on Vaccination recommends an annual booster vaccination for people with an increased risk of a serious course of the disease.
New York Times (subscription not needed)
To try to make up for pandemic learning loss, educators and policymakers have searched for solutions that work and — just as important — are cost effective.
Now a new study, released Monday, reports positive results from a reading program in California that emphasized training teachers in the principles of the science of reading, a movement focused on foundational skills such as phonics, vocabulary and comprehension.
The program in about 70 low-performing schools yielded test-score gains for third graders in 2022 and 2023, on par with students having attended school for an additional quarter of a year in English and 12 percent of a year in math, according to a working paper by researchers at the Stanford University Graduate School of Education.
For about $1,000 per student annually, the program retrained teachers and administrators and paid for new classroom materials, better aligned to cognitive research.
Washington Post (subscription not needed)
In less than 90 minutes on Sunday afternoon, two 911 calls led police in Texas and Washington to two mass shootings that pushed the nation to a gruesome milestone.
They were the 37th and 38th shootings this year in which four or more victims were killed, the highest number of mass killings in any year since at least 2006. Last year’s 36 was the previous record.
In Dallas, a 21-year-old man who was supposed to be wearing an ankle monitor because of a previous aggravated assault charge walked into a house and shot five people, killing a toddler and three adults. He fled in a stolen car,
police said, but fatally shot himself as highway patrol officers chased him. In a suburb of Vancouver, Wash.,
five family members died in what sheriff’s deputies think was a murder-suicide.
The latest deaths brought the 2023 total to 197, not counting the shooters — yet another record. Ninety-one people were wounded in those events but survived.
The crew of the Overnight News Digest consists of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, jeremybloom, Magnifico, annetteboardman, Rise above the swamp, Besame and jck. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) eeff, 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.
My thanks to Besame and side pocket for the OND coverage while I was visiting ohio.