Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, Magnifico, annetteboardman, Besame and jck. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) Interceptor 7, Man Oh Man, wader, Neon Vincent, 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.
Raw Story
In the previous three installments of this series, I chronicled the attempts made by an old friend to convince me of an outlandish conspiracy theory being promoted by the group of rabid online Trump supporters known as “QAnon.” According to my friend, initiates of the Illuminati had teamed up with subterranean demons to torture, rape and eat kidnapped children in underground military bases ruled by the mortal enemies of Donald Trump. He insisted that when Trump is re-elected in November we can all look forward to the abolition of the income tax, the development of “free energy” for all and the public unveiling of thousands of grateful kidnapped children rescued by Trump’s private army of “white hats” from cages squirreled away in these Satanist-controlled underground dungeons.
C/NET
Amazon is reportedly barring the sale of foreign plants to the US, following reports that people across the country this summer have been receiving suspicious, unsolicited packages of seeds, many of which are postmarked from China.
Amazon's new policy went into effect on Thursday, according to an email viewed by The Wall Street Journal, which first wrote about the ban Saturday. Amazon didn't immediately respond to a request for confirmation, but the Journal also noted that the company has updated its seller rules to reflect the change. The email Amazon reportedly sent to foreign seed sellers said the change is part of the company's "ongoing efforts to protect our customers and enhance the customer experience," the Journal said.
C/NET
Rameez Anwar's phone had serious problems. The device, paid for by the federally funded Lifeline program for low-income people, was overrun with pop-up ads that made it unusable. Despite multiple factory resets, the problem wouldn't go away.
"As soon as it detected internet," Anwar said, "it started doing the pop-ups.”
Anwar, who says he's tinkered with computers since childhood, suspected the phone had come with malware installed. So he sent it to Nathan Collier, a researcher at Malwarebytes.
Collier confirmed Anwar's hunch: The phone's settings and update apps contained code that allowed them to load malicious apps known as adware. The adware displayed ads that covered users' screens, no matter what they were doing on their phones.
BBC
The latest "big change" in coronavirus infections across the UK is of "great concern", England's deputy chief medical officer has warned.
Prof Jonathan Van Tam said people have "relaxed too much" over the summer and "we have got to start taking this very seriously again".
If not, the UK will have "a bumpy ride over the next few months", he warned.
He said that infections among younger people in EU countries had later filtered through to older age groups.
France and Spain are among a number of European countries that have seen a sharp rise in coronavirus cases in recent weeks, after lockdown restrictions were eased and testing for the disease was ramped up.
On Monday, Spain became the first country in western Europe to record 500,000 infections, after tallying more than 26,000 new infections over the weekend.
BBC
The mayor of Rochester, New York, has promised to reform the police as protests continue over the death of a black man in police custody.
Daniel Prude died in March after officers put him in a "spit hood", designed to protect police from detainees' saliva.
Footage of the incident was released on Wednesday, sparking days of protests.
Mayor Lovely Warren announced a series of changes to policing in "the coming weeks, months and years".
Seven police officers have been suspended over the incident. On Saturday, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced a grand jury would be formed to investigate the 41-year-old's death.
Mr Prude's death came two months before that of George Floyd, whose killing while in police custody sparked global outrage and demonstrations against police brutality and racism.
NPR
At 121 degrees, Los Angeles County hit its highest temperature ever recorded this weekend, as the state swelters in a heat wave that has helped intensify the most devastating wildfire season California has experienced in years.
The record temperature was measured in Woodland Hills, northwest of downtown Los Angeles.
The "kiln-like" heat was exacerbated by a high-pressure system and a weak sea breeze, according to the National Weather Service.
NWS Meteorologist Dave Bruno told The New York Times that these factors "allowed basically the entire region to roast." Several other locations in the state also faced scorching temperatures.
The heat contributed to the death of a 41-year-old hiker, who died Saturday from a heat-related seizure after hiking at Tapia Park in Malibu Creek State Park for several hours, L.A. County Sheriff's officials told CNN. After her death, officials decided to close all hiking trails in the Santa Monica Mountains through Labor Day.
NPR
India's recorded coronavirus case total has surpassed that of Brazil, making India the second worst-affected country in the world after the United States.
India overtook Brazil on Monday after registering 90,802 fresh cases — the highest single-day increase any country has recorded so far during the pandemic. India's total cases are now more than 4.2 million.
The caseload is lower than that of the U.S. by about 2 million but India is where the virus is spreading at the fastest pace. For about a month, India has been recording the largest number of new cases of any country.
About 1,000 people are dying every day in India after testing positive for the coronavirus. The country's total COVID-19 death toll is 71,642 — the third highest in the world after the U.S. and Brazil. India's coronavirus mortality rate of 1.7% is among the lowest of the worst-hit countries. But only about one in five deaths in India is medically certified so COVID-19 deaths could be substantially under-counted.
NPR
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has made no secret of his affection for "The Princess Bride" – the 1987 cult classic starring Robin Wright. But he's now making it clear he's no fan of a plan by cast members to stump for Democrats in Wisconsin next week.
On Twitter over the weekend, Cruz expressed sadness for every "Princess Bride fan who wants to see that perfect movie preserved from Hollywood politics."
According to a web post by the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, several cast members including Wright, Cary Elwes, Mandy Patinkin, Billy Crystal, and others will reunite for a live-streamed script reading and a question-and-answer session moderated by comedian and actor Patton Oswalt.
USA Today
American Airlines has become the latest major airline to support its employees wearing Black Lives Matter pins on the job.
"American Airlines believes in equity and inclusion for all," read a statement from American provided to USA TODAY by representative Sarah Jantz. "In light of the appropriate attention to lives of Black Americans, we will allow team members who wish to wear a Black Lives Matter pin to do so if they choose."
Some of American's Black employees noticed workers at other airlines sporting Black Lives Matter pins and asked if they could do the same, Jantz said.
American Airlines is working with its Black Professional Network to design a company-specific Black Lives Matter pin that may be worn with the American uniform, as it has done with several other Employee Business Resource Groups, including its Christian, Veteran and LGBTQ groups. Until a company pin is created, employees will be allowed to wear their own Black Lives Matter pins.
USA Today
Bruce Williamson, 49, a long-running voice of The Temptations, has died from coronavirus.
The R&B singer died Sunday evening at Mountain View Hospital in Las Vegas, his business manager, Anta Ealy, confirms to USA TODAY. He was diagnosed with COVID-19 in late August, Ealy says, weeks after having his gallbladder removed.
"There's no words in the world that can express how I feel right now," Bruce Alan Williamson Jr., the singer’s son, wrote in an emotional post on Monday. "I love you Daddy thank you for being awesome thank you for being loving thank you for being Who You Are. ... We will meet again."
“We mourn the loss of one of our brothers,” original Temptation Otis Williams told USA TODAY in a statement on Monday. “Once you are a Temptation, you are always a Temptation.”
Later Monday, Williamson's son posted a live video of himself captioned, "Hurt is not the word for it," in which he sang gospel songs and reminisced about his father.
"My dad was a great dude," he said.
Reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican President Donald Trump, accused by Joe Biden of putting lives at risk in his handling of the coronavirus, on Monday called his Democratic rival “stupid” and demanded an apology for what Trump called anti-vaccine rhetoric.
Trailing in national opinion polls as the U.S. death toll from the virus approaches 190,000, Trump unleashed a broad attack against both the former vice president, his opponent in the Nov. 3 election, and Biden’s running mate, U.S. Senator Kamala Harris.
Trump has said that a vaccine against the virus would be ready in record time, perhaps before the election, raising questions about whether political pressure might result in the deployment of a vaccine before it is safe.
Reuters
(Reuters) - Three large wildfires continued to burn in California as a record-breaking heat wave was set to linger across large swaths of the western United States on Monday.
The Creek Fire, which has engulfed the Fresno area in central California and caused the emergency evacuation over the weekend of more than 200 people vacationing at a popular reservoir, was still 0% contained as of early Monday morning, fire officials said.
The blaze continued to grow under “extreme weather conditions” to devour nearly 79,000 acres of land while a cause remained under investigation, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CalFire) said in a statement.
The Guardian
Brussels’ plummeting trust in Boris Johnson has been laid bare in leaked diplomatic cables obtained by the Guardian, as the Brexit negotiations reopen in London with a warning from the European commission president that Britain must respect international law.
Ursula von der Leyen made her extraordinary intervention on Monday as Downing Street struggled to control the damage from disclosures suggesting it was backtracking on agreements made last year to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland.
“I trust the British government to implement the withdrawal agreement, an obligation under international law & prerequisite for any future partnership,” Von der Leyen posted on Twitter. “[The] protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland is essential to protect peace and stability on the island & integrity of the single market.”
The row over plans that could undermine the legal force of parts of the protocol on Northern Ireland came as leaked cables seen by the Guardian reveal the growing suspicion in Brussels of Britain’s motivations and strategy, said by sources to have been further damaged by the latest developments.
The Guardian
Unidentified masked men snatched the leading Belarusian opposition figure Maria Kolesnikova from the street in the centre of the capital, Minsk, on Monday and drove her away in a minivan, witnesses told local media.
Kolesnikova was one of the campaign partners of the opposition candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who claimed victory against the long-ruling president, Alexander Lukashenko, in disputed elections on 9 August.
Kolesnikova was reportedly seized soon after 10am local time while walking close to Minsk’s national art museum. Three other members of the opposition coordination council have also vanished, in what appears to be a targeted attempt by the authorities to wipe out the protest movement.
Kolesnikova is the most prominent political figure still inside Belarus.
Lukashenko’s victory – in a poll widely seen as rigged – has sparked mass protests. On Sunday, more than 100,000 people marched on the president’s residence, calling on him to quit. Riot police wearing balaclavas arrested 633 people. Gangs of pro-government thugs beat up protesters on their way home.
The Guardian
He helped galvanise the US civil rights movement, and today sparks intense debate about cultural dominance and the musical canon. In his 250th anniversary year can we listen to Beethoven and what he represents with fresh ears?
Exactly 80 years after Beethoven’s death, in 1907, the British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor began speculating that Beethoven was black. Colderidge-Taylor was mixed race – with a white English mother and a Sierra Leonean father - and said that he couldn’t help noticing remarkable likenesses between his own facial features and images of Beethoven’s. Having recently returned from the segregated US, Coleridge-Taylor projected his experiences there onto the German composer. “If the greatest of all musicians were alive today, he would find it impossible to obtain hotel accommodation in certain American cities.”
British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912). Photograph: Hulton Archive/Getty Images
His words would prove prophetic. During the 1960s, the mantra “Beethoven was black” became part of the struggle for civil rights. By then Coleridge-Taylor had been dead for 50 years and was all but forgotten, but as campaigner Stokely Carmichael raged against the deeply ingrained assumption that white European culture was inherently superior to black culture, the baton was passed. “Beethoven was as black as you and I,” he told a mainly black audience in Seattle, “but they don’t tell us that.” A few years earlier, Malcolm X had given voice to that same idea when he told an interviewer that Beethoven’s father had been “one of the blackamoors that hired themselves out in Europe as professional soldiers”.
Deutsche Welle
A UK judge rejected a request by Assange's lawyers to delay his US extradition hearing until January on Monday. Previously, Assange's defense team asked for more time to prepare a response to fresh allegations that he conspired with hackers to obtain classified information.
Ahead of the decision, Julian Assange's partner, lawyer Stella Moris, delivered a petition with nearly 80,000 signatures calling for the release of the WikiLeaks founder. The petition, organized by media freedom organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF), was delivered to Downing Street, the seat of the UK government.
Assange hearing continued at London's Central Criminal Court, the Old Bailey, on Monday. The activist appeared in the dock wearing a dark suit and maroon tie — the first time he was seen in public since the first part of the hearing took place in February. It had been scheduled to go ahead in April, but was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Deutsche Welle
Chancellor Merkel believes it's "wrong to rule anything out" when it comes to Berlin's reaction to the Navalny poisoning. This could spell trouble for Nord Stream 2, the massive gas pipeline linking Russia and Germany.
Angela Merkel's spokesman has said the German chancellor believes "it's wrong to rule anything out" over Moscow's refusal to acknowledge the findings that Alexei Navalny was poisoned.
Navalny, a key Russian opposition figure, was airlifted from the Siberian city of Omsk late last month to a Berlin clinic in a medically induced coma. Citing toxicological testing that showed "proof without doubt," German authorities said last week that he had been poisoned with a Soviet-era nerve agent.
On Sunday, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said the Kremlin reaction of denying responsibilitycould determine whether Germany changed its backing of the Nord Stream 2 project being constructed for Gazprom, which would bring Russian gas to Germany.
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Pipeline targeted by United States
The second conduit tracks an already-functioning seabed pipeline, Nord Stream 1. The United States has long criticized European countries for their reliance on energy from Russia, with President Donald Trump wielding the threat of sanctions to pressure contractors, including those from Germany, into halting the project.
Within Merkel's grand coalition government, assessments are mixed on whether Nord Stream 2 should become part of the Navalny-Russia wrangle.
A spokeswoman for the German Economy Ministry told the Reuters news agency on Monday that a construction halt would have "very high" impact on provision of energy to Germany.
Attention all:
Because 2thanks asked me and other diarists to do this, and I have a hard time saying no to the hard working 2thanks, here’s a link to the ActBlue Page For Readers and Members of Daily Kos. You know what to do. ;-)