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.
Video from the BBC:
A new social media trend has taken off in Belarus: men destroying their military or police uniforms.
In clips they say they are ashamed to be linked to the security forces cracking down hard on protesters.
From The Guardian:
Foreign ministers agree individuals responsible for vote-rigging and violence should face asset freezes and travel bans
European Union foreign ministers have agreed to move toward imposing sanctions on Alexander Lukashenko’s regime, after reports of the systematic abuse and torture of Belarusians in the brutal crackdown on protests.
From The Guardian:
‘The move against Palestine is not a step that can be stomached,’ says Erdoğan
Oliver Holmes
Turkey has threatened to suspend its diplomatic relations with the United Arab Emirates and recall its envoy, a day after the Gulf state announced it would become the third Arab country to establish full ties with Israel.
“The move against Palestine is not a step that can be stomached,” President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told reporters on Friday.
From CBS:
BY ELAINE COBBE
Paris — Spain has banned smoking in outdoor public spaces where people can't maintain social distancing of at least six feet and closed nightclubs amid a surge in new coronavirus cases. The moves followed research by the Spanish health ministry that showed a heightened risk of smokers transferring the new virus to other people in droplets exhaled with smoke.
From The Independent:
“A critical piece of London’s infrastructure cannot be allowed to crumble into the Thames while the government and London mayor wrangle over responsibility for the funding', council official says
West London's Hammersmith bridge has been fully closed until further notice following safety concerns after a crack in the infrastructure appeared to have been worsened by the ongoing heatwave gripping the country.
The suspension bridge - the capital's first when it was opened in 1827 - will remain shut until engineers confirm it is safe to reopen, as will pedestrian underpasses on both sides of the river.
From the BBC:
Eurotunnel has warned customers hoping to beat the government's latest travel quarantine deadline not to just turn up at its terminal on Friday.
People coming to the UK from France and the Netherlands will be forced to quarantine for 14 days if they arrive back after 04:00 on Saturday.
The firm warned hopeful passengers: "Do not turn up unless you have a booking. You won't get on a crossing."
Also from the BBC:
Thousands of holidaymakers have just hours to return to the UK if they want to avoid quarantine measures imposed on France, coming into force on Saturday.
The 14-day isolation requirement from 04:00 BST also applies to people arriving from the Netherlands, Monaco, Malta, Turks and Caicos, and Aruba.
Eurotunnel trains sold out on Friday and air travellers face steep prices, but some ferries increased capacity.
From The independent:
'I told my counterpart Grant Shapps of our will to harmonise health protocols in order to ensure a high level of protection on both sides of the Channel'
From the BBC:
My Money is a series looking at how people spend their money - and the sometimes tough decisions they have to make. Here, Lexy Oliver from Cheshire takes us through a week in her life during the coronavirus pandemic.
Lexy is 27 and lives in Cuddington, Cheshire, with her husband Jonny, also 27, and their cat Bobby. She is the fifth generation to work in her family business, a delicatessen owned by her father. Jonny works as a data scientist for a holiday lettings agency. Lexy says there are no better staff discounts than good food and holidays!
From The Independent:
Analysis: Lawyers and charities tell May Bulman prime minister’s remarks carry some considerable inaccuracies
“This is a very bad and stupid and dangerous and criminal thing to do,” said Boris Johnson on Monday, in response to a spike in people crossing the Channel in small boats.
The prime minister, speaking hours after 20 Syrians arrived on Kent shores in a dinghy, proceeded to state that people arriving on boats were able to remain in the country despite “blatantly coming here illegally”.
From the New York Times:
Islanders have joined together in an effort to contain an estimated 1,000 tons of fuel oil that leaked into the waters surrounding the picturesque nation off Africa’s eastern coast.
NAIROBI, Kenya — Zareen Bandhoo was at work last week in the central Mauritius town of Curepipe when she heard that
oil was spilling from a ship into the island nation’s pristine lagoons.
In the days since, as Mauritius has confronted one of its worst environmental disasters, Ms. Bandhoo has been hard at work. She has donated money and food for cleanup operations, and has teamed with friends and colleagues to help limit the damage to the island’s picturesque coast. Together, they made makeshift booms from fabric and sugar cane leaves to contain the oil, collected hair and plastic bottles to absorb and clean up the slick, scrubbed contaminated beaches, and raised awareness online about the extent of the damage.
From CNN:
Now, Malaysian scientists are hoping to use tissues and cells from Iman and other dead rhinos to bring the population back.
From The Washington Post:
Six years of global devastation ended with celebrations in the U.S., disbelief in Japan.
August 14, 2020 at 6:00 a.m. CDT
On the night of Aug. 14, 1945, the bespectacled Emperor of Japan walked into the second-floor room of the Household Ministry in Tokyo, where the technicians from the national radio station, NHK, had set up recording equipment.
Emperor Hirohito was 44. And for 3½ years, he had presided over the titanic struggle Japan had been waging with the U.S. and its allies since the attack on Pearl Harbor.
From The Hill:
The New Zealand government on Friday extended a lockdown in its largest city as the country faces its first COVID-19 outbreak in more than three months.
The lockdown in Auckland started Wednesday and will continue for another 12 days after a cluster of 30 virus cases was discovered Tuesday, the The Associated Press reported on Friday.
From CBS:
BY JOSE DIAZ JR., ALEX PENA AND MANUEL BOJORQUEZ
The number of COVID-19 cases in Latin America and the Caribbean has positioned the region as the global epicenter of the virus. Health professionals and regional experts are warning that if nothing is done, the region will see major setbacks, including a massive rise in poverty and a rise in authoritarianism, as leaders see an opportunity to crackdown on dissent. Latin America, which accounts for 8% of the world population, has reported nearly 30% of the global fatalities.
From the Independent:
A third believe vegetarians and vegans should bring their own food to events
Richard Jenkins
Nearly half of people in Britain say they worry about trying to cater to everyone’s dietary needs when hosting a barbecue, a survey has found.
A poll of 2,000 adults found one in five feel stressed when putting on a barbecue if they learn they have a vegetarian or a vegan coming.
A few from the arts world:
Many can open but with social distancing in place this is not economically viable and the experience offered just isn’t what people want, writes James Moore
You’ll never experience it this quiet,” says Marcus Davey, the chief executive of Camden’s Roundhouse, in a half-whisper.
He’s taken me into the middle of the venue’s main hall, where we take in a silence that in more normal times you might have to go caving to experience. It’s not just that the venue is empty, as it has been since lockdown began in March. The air conditioning is off, so it’s uncomfortably warm. Ditto most of the lights. The stage has been taken down.
From WECT:
WILMINGTON, N.C. (WECT) - The Wilmington City Council will consider a request from a community group to place a Black Lives Matter art installation in public space during Tuesday’s meeting.
The original request asked city leaders to allow the installation of a three-dimensional metal art piece that would have read ‘Black Lives Matter.’
From wisbusiness:
To workers organizing at the Milwaukee Art Museum,
I offer my support and solidarity as you stand united together with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers Local Lodge 66 to achieve a just and fair workplace, what every worker deserves. The freedom to negotiate together as a team in union is a fundamental right of all workers.
From wlvt:
by Megan Frank
NEW HOPE, Pa. (WLVT) — This week, PBS39's Culture Shock segment is featuring the work of a New Hope-based artist who creates unique designs on wood using electricity.
Rob McAllister is the owner of Angry Nimbus Woodcraft in New Hope. He creates unique designs on wood through a technique called fractal burning. McAllister calls it “capturing lightning.”
From artnet:
The project was founded by Brooklyn-based artist Christina Massey to support the postal system.
For all the ways in which the lockdown era has taken a toll on artistic production, it has also yielded some scrappy, alternative forms of making—and revived old ones.
Months of quarantine has ushered in a mini-renaissance for mail art, a decades-old genre that has long appealed to those looking to create outside the strictures of the institutionalized art world. Now, the art form has taken new weight with the future of the United States Post Office being thrown into jeopardy.
That fact was the inspiration for the USPS Art Project, a mail-art initiative launched in April by Brooklyn-based artist Christina Massey. The project comes in the form of a challenge for artists: create an artwork, then send it via USPS to another creative to finish the job.
