The Guardian
The climate crisis is causing the length of each day to get longer, analysis shows, as the mass melting of polar ice reshapes the planet.
The phenomenon is a striking demonstration of how humanity’s actions are transforming the Earth, scientists said, rivalling natural processes that have existed for billions of years.
The change in the length of the day is on the scale of milliseconds but this is enough to potentially disrupt internet traffic, financial transactions and
GPSnavigation, all of which rely on precise timekeeping.
The length of the Earth’s day has been steadily increasing over geological time due to the gravitational drag of the moon on the planet’s oceans and land. However, the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets due to human-caused global heating has been redistributing water stored at high latitudes into the world’s oceans, leading to more water in the seas nearer the equator. This makes the Earth more oblate – or fatter – slowing the rotation of the planet and lengthening the day still further.
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.
UK foreign secretary repeats ceasefire call as Israel continues to pummel Gaza
The Guardian, UK
Israeli air and naval strikes continued to pummel Gaza as the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, reiterated his demand for a ceasefire during a visit to Jerusalem.
Strikes on central Gaza followed two days of particularly deadly attacks including one in a humanitarian zone in southern Gaza that killed at least 90 people when Israeli forces targeted the head of Hamas’s military wing, Mohammed Deif.
Hamas has maintained that Deif survived the attack despite public speculation among Israeli officials, but the attempt has further strained already fragile ceasefire negotiations that have dragged for months. “There is no doubt that the horrific massacres will impact any efforts in the negotiations,” the Hamas spokesperson Jihad Taha said on Sunday.
The Guardian, Europe
The leftwing coalition that won most seats in France’s snap general election is facing division after its leading party said it was suspending negotiations with the others over a failure to agree on a prime minister.
Just one week after the election, the fragile unity within the New Popular Front (NFP) fractured on Monday when France Unbowed (LFI) accused the Socialist party (PS) of “unacceptable methods” in vetoing suggestions over who should lead any new administration.
The rift comes at the start of a crucial week in which the government will resign and new MPs will vote on Thursday to appoint a new president of the national assembly, the equivalent of the speaker of the house.
The Guardian, Europe
Top EU officials will boycott informal meetings hosted by Hungary while the country has the EU’s rotating presidency, after Hungary’s pro-Russian prime minister Viktor Orbán held a series of rogue meetings with foreign leaders about Ukraine that angered European partners.
The highly unusual decision to have the European Commission president and other top officials of the body boycott the meetings was made “in light of recent developments marking the start of the Hungarian (EU) presidency”, commission spokesperson Eric Mamer posted on Monday on X.
Deutsche Welle
Gambian lawmakers on Monday upheld a 2015 ban on female genital mutilation (FGM), despite pressure from religious traditionalists in the West African country.
Lawmakers rejected a controversial bill, introduced earlier in 2024, that sought to enshrine "female circumcision" as a religious and cultural practice.
Following months of heated debate, legislators ended the bill's chances by rejecting all its clauses and blocking any further vote.
"The Women's (Amendment) Bill 2024, having gone through the consideration stage with all the clauses voted down, is hereby deemed rejected," said Fabakary Tombong Jatta, the speaker of the National Assembly, adding that the legislative process had been "exhausted".
Most women in the Muslim-majority West African country have already undergone FGM, according to the UN.
Deutsche Welle
According to the Weapons Act, you need a weapons possession card (Waffenbesitzkarte) to own or buy a firearm and a weapons license (Waffenschein) to use or carry a loaded firearm. This means collectors, for instance, only need the first. Hunters don't need a weapons license as long as they have a hunting license (Jagdschein) and only use their guns for hunting game.
A weapons possession card allows gun owners only to "transport" a firearm, rather than carry it. That means it must be unloaded and inside a locked case when taken out in public.
A license to carry a gun, or Waffenschein, is only granted in rare cases: Essentially when the applicant can prove that he or she is in greater danger than the general public and that carrying a gun will keep them safer. German law has no provision stipulating whether a gun must be concealed or loaded in public or not.
Al Jazeera
Violent clashes between people loyal to Bangladesh’s ruling party and demonstrators protesting against job quotas for coveted government jobs have wounded at least 100 people, police say.
The quota system reserves more than half of well-paid civil service posts, totalling hundreds of thousands of government jobs, for specific groups, including children of fighters in the country’s 1971 war of independence from Pakistan.
Critics say the system benefits children of pro-government groups who back Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who won her fourth consecutive term in a general election in January that was boycotted by the opposition.
Bangladesh’s top court last week temporarily suspended the quotas, but protesters have promised to continue their rallies until the parts of the scheme they oppose are scrapped completely.
Al Jazeera
Petaling Jaya, Malaysia – Looking from behind his counter on a recent Saturday afternoon, computer shop owner Goh Sook Lam surveyed the empty corridors of 3 Damansara shopping mall.
Two levels down, shouts rang out from a taekwondo event on the ground floor of the once-popular shopping centre located on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur.
“You have a taekwondo competition downstairs, but who is coming up here?” Goh, 48, told Al Jazeera, standing beside longtime customer Rudi Sim, 48, his only spending patron so far for the day.
“My regulars are my business. Walk-ins are less… Sometimes I can’t break even.”
Goh’s experience is far from isolated in mall-crazy Malaysia, where numerous shopping centres are under construction even as many existing complexes struggle to attract crowds.
Reuters
July 15 (Reuters) - The European Union announced sanctions on Monday against five Israeli individuals and three entities, describing them as responsible for "serious and systematic human rights abuses" against Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
The list included Tzav 9, a group which it said had regularly blocked humanitarian aid trucks delivering food, water and fuel to the
Gaza Strip.
Also on the list were Ben-Zion Gopstein, founder and leader of the Lehava organisation, and Isaschar Manne, whom the EU described as the founder of an unauthorised outpost in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Reuters
Tesla
(TSLA.O), opens new tab CEO Elon Musk on Monday signaled the automaker would take more time to unveil its robotaxi so it can incorporate an important design change to the front of the vehicle and "show off" some other things.
Musk did not disclose when the automaker would hold an event to launch its robotaxi. Bloomberg News reported last week that the event, originally set to be held on Aug. 8, had been
delayed to October
"Requested what I think is an important design change to the front, and extra time allows us to show off a few other things," Musk said on his X social media platform
in a reply, opens new tab to a user post discussing the event.
A person familiar with the matter said on Friday the robotaxi event has been delayed, without elaborating further.
BBC
A £2.8m solar farm built to help offset a council's carbon emissions will be operational later in the year.
The 2MW solar farm at Sandscale Park in Barrow is being built by Westmorland and Furness Council.
The local authority had previously said the project could provide enough electricity to power its five leisure centres or 730 homes a year.
Officials said the panels would be operational from 19 September in a council meeting on Monday.
The project, which was approved last September, is being built on a council-owned field which is of poor agricultural quality, the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) said.
Liberal Democrat councillor Andrew Jarvis previously said: "This is about us making the best use of our assets".
NPR
The cost of a Forever postage stamp has just gone up, under a U.S. Postal Service plan to boost the price of the first-class stamp to 73 cents from 68 cents — a price that was just raised in January.
The 5-cent increase went into effect on Sunday — now the the sixth price hike since January 2021.
Despite the string of increases, the U.S. Postal Service Office of the Inspector General says a U.S. postage stamp remains a bargain in the global marketplace, citing much higher prices in Europe and other areas (more on that below).
The U.S. Postal Service has been criticized in recent years as it resorted to measures such as slowing down the mail in response to its financial problems. Last year, the Government Accountability Office credited the agency with making some improvements, but it added that USPS "should continue taking steps to restore its financial viability and Congress should consider additional changes to USPS's unsustainable business model."
NPR
OSKALOOSA, Iowa — Rural regions like the one surrounding this southern Iowa town used to have a lot more babies and many more places to give birth to them.
At least 41 Iowa hospitals have shuttered their labor and delivery units since 2000. Those facilities, representing about a third of Iowa hospitals, are located mostly in rural areas where birth numbers have plummeted. In some Iowa counties, annual numbers of births have fallen by three-quarters since the height of the baby boom in the 1950s and '60s, when many rural hospitals were built or expanded, state and federal records show.
CNN
During the Cretaceous Period, a genus of sharks roamed the sea with rows of unusual teeth. Mostly large and rounded, these chompers were not meant to slice through their prey, but to grind and crush shelled creatures.
However, since the sharks’ presence in the fossil record has mostly consisted of isolated teeth, scientists have been left to speculate on what the rest of this ancient predator looked like since its discovery in the 18th century.
Now, remains uncovered from limestone quarries in northeastern Mexico are finally giving researchers a clearer idea of the shark’s appearance, including one fossil that shows almost all skeletal elements and an outline of the specimen’s soft-tissue body. The find also reveals where the genus, known as Ptychodus, sat on the shark evolutionary tree, and other previously unknown traits of this “long-standing enigma,” according to a study published in April in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.
Kyiv Independent
The last patrol ship of Russia's Black Sea Fleet left occupied Crimea on July 15, Dmytro Pletenchuk, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian Navy, confirmed to the Kyiv Independent.
"The last patrol ship of Russia's Black Sea Fleet is just now leaving our Crimea. Remember this day," Pletenchuk wrote on Facebook.
The vessel's designation was Project 1135, he said. This patrol ship is not a carrier of cruise missiles, which Russia is using to attack Ukraine, but is equipped with other weapons, Pletenchuk told the Kyiv Independent.
One of the two such vessels departed from Crimea "a long time ago," and the other left occupied Sevastopol on July 15, he added.
"Given that they (Russia) have not been able to patrol for a while, the movement vector... We can assume that this is a transition between bases," Pletenchuk said.
Pfft, J.D. Vance is just Ted Cruz for the crypto crowd.
— Hunter (@hunterub.bsky.social) Jul 15, 2024 at 12:55 PM
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.
