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.
From Vatican News:
The Prefect of the Vatican Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples tested positive on his arrival in the Philippine capital on Thursday. Earlier, he denounced those who profit from the pandemic.
The Holy See Press Office on Friday confirmed that Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle has tested positive with Covid-19 after a swab test.
From Slate.com:
Few news stories scream “before times” quite as loudly as Brexit does. The agonizing negotiations over Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union consumed much of Britain’s, Europe’s, and, to a lesser extent, the rest of the world’s attention for much of 2016 through 2019, though today—in the midst of a pandemic with much of the world literally on fire—all the talk of Malthouse compromises and Canada Plus deals can feel like a distant memory. Here at Slate, we discontinued our regular This Week in Brexit roundup in December 2019, after Parliament finally passed Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s withdrawal bill. But Brexit was not done with us, not by a long shot. This week, talks are on the brinks of collapse, the British government may be breaking the law, and terrifying deadlines are looming. Ah, just like the good old days.
From CBS:
Paris — Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy sparked controversy on Thursday by complaining in a TV interview that political correctness has gone too far. He said certain, otherwise innocuous words had come to be automatically deemed offensive, even if that's not the intention.
He said that some people refuse to hear certain things, "just like monkeys," and covered his eyes with his hands in a reference to the triptych of the "three wise monkeys," who see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil.
From The Guardian:
Delphine Boël, whose mother had affair with ex-king Albert II, also wants to take her father’s surname
A woman who successfully fought a seven-year legal battle to prove she was the daughter of the former king of Belgium, Albert II, will learn next month whether, against the wishes of her father, she will be able to use the titles Her Royal Highness and the Princess of Belgium.
Delphine Boël, 52, an artist and sculptor, whose mother had an extra-marital affair with Albert in the 1960s and 70s, argued in the Brussels court of appeal that she should also be able to use her biological father’s surname of Saxe-Coburg. The court will give its judgment on 29 October.
From The Guardian:
Military seen using helicopters to carry equipment as they set up tented area on hilltop
Authorities have rushed to start putting up tents on Lesbos after thousands of men, women and children forced by devastating fires to evacuate Greece’s largest refugee camp spent a second night of sleeping rough.
Faced with intense opposition from local officials who were now demanding that the notoriously overcrowded Moria facility be removed “once and for all” from the island, the Greek government scrambled to break the deadlock.
Also from The Guardian:
Deepening dispute between Nato allies has dragged in neighbours and is in danger of spiralling out of control
by Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editor
An increasingly fractious standoff over access to gas reserves has transformed a dispute between Turkey and Greece that was once primarily over Cyprus into one that now ensnares Libya, Israel, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, and feeds into other political issues in the Mediterranean and has raised fears of a naval conflict between the two Nato allies in the Aegean Sea.
The crisis has been deepening in recent months with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, leading those inside the EU opposing Turkey’s increasingly military foreign policy and saying Turkey can no longer be seen as partner in the Mediterranean. He has offered French military support to the Greek prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, including the possible sale of 18 Rafale jets.
A video from Al Jazeera English:
A group of European Union nations says they are ready to impose sanctions on Turkey over its drilling ambitions in the Mediterranean.At a summit of seven nations on the sea hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron, he said there was a willingness to re-engage with Turkey.Tensions have been rising since the discovery of large reserves of oil and gas in the Eastern Mediterranean.
From ABC News:
A court in Slovenia has sentenced a 22-year-old woman to two years in prison for deliberately cutting off her hand with a circular saw to make a fraudulent insurance claim
LJUBLJANA, Slovenia -- A court in Slovenia on Friday sentenced a 22-year-old woman to two years in prison for deliberately cutting off her hand with a circular saw to make a fraudulent insurance claim.
The district court in Ljubljana said Julija Adlesic agreed with her boyfriend to have her left hand severed above the wrist at their home in the capital early in 2019. She was found guilty of attempted insurance fraud.
Video from The Guardian:
Thousands of Belarusians have defied beatings and arrests to demand the resignation of the country's authoritarian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, after he claimed victory in an election they say was rigged. Protesters have flooded Belarus's capital, Minsk, every week for a month to call for new, free and fair elections, as well as an end to police violence. But Lukashenko has held on with the support of the police and military. Can the protesters topple the man often called Europe's last dictator? Putin holds key to Belarus crisis as Lukashenko heads to Moscow Belarus: Lukashenko vows to stay in first interview since protests
From the New York Times:
Palestinian families are suffering intensely as their government’s tax protest continues, even though the cause — Israel’s push to annex the West Bank — has been suspended.
By Adam Rasgon and Mohammed Najib
RAMALLAH, West Bank — Furious that Israel was about to annex large swaths of the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, took the painful step in June of refusing to accept taxes collected by Israel that account for more than 60 percent of the authority’s budget.
From Bloomberg:
Israel is set to enter a second coronavirus lockdown and become the only developed country to shut down again nationwide, after a botched reopening of the economy sent infections soaring.
From Al Jazeera:
Under the proposal for a two-year transitional government, the president would be a 'civil or military personality'.
Experts appointed by Mali's new military rulers have proposed a two-year transitional government led by a president chosen by the army, despite calls by West African leaders for elections within 12 months.
Friday's recommendation emerged on the second day of talks in the capital, Bamako, aimed at mapping a way forward in the wake of the August 18 military coup that overthrew embattled President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita.
From Al Jazeera:
PM Abiy dismissed Tigray polls as a 'shanty election', federal officials said polls have 'no legal basis'.
The governing party in Ethiopia's northern Tigray region has won all contested seats in elections that have further affected an already hostile relationship with the federal government.
"The total seats for all the regional constituencies were won by the TPLF," regional election commissioner Muluwork Kidanemariam said on Friday, referring to the Tigray People's Liberation Front.
From The Guardian:
Investigator says woman raped in front of her children shouldn’t have driven alone
The gang-rape of a woman in front of her children after her car broke down on a motorway has prompted outrage and protests in Pakistan, with anger further fuelled by police, who appeared to blame the victim for travelling alone.
Fifteen people have been arrested in connection with the gang-rape, which happened at about 1.30am by the side of a motorway in Lahore.
From NBC News:
In June, tensions erupted into a frontier clash in which 20 Indian soldiers were killed and China suffered an unspecified number of casualties.
China and India said on Friday they had agreed to deescalate tensions on their contested Himalayan border and take steps to restore "peace and tranquility" following a high-level diplomatic meeting in Moscow.
Chinese State Councilor Wang Yi and Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar met in Moscow on Thursday and reached a five-point consensus, including agreements that troops from both sides should quickly disengage and ease tensions, the two countries said in a joint statement.
From CBS News:
Rio Tinto announced the resignation of its CEO and two top lieutenants Friday over the mining giant's destruction of a 46,000-year-old Aboriginal site to expand an iron ore mine in Australia. The Anglo-Australian firm faced a growing investor revolt over the destruction of the sacred site in the Juukan Gorge in Western Australia's remote Pilbara region -- one of the earliest known locations inhabited by Australia's indigenous people.
Following a board investigation into the May 24 incident, Rio Tinto said CEO Jean-Sebastien Jacques was stepping down "by mutual agreement" along with the chief of the company's core iron ore division, Chris Salisbury, and corporate relations head Simone Niven.
From the New York Times:
Rieli Franciscato, an expert on the Amazon’s isolated tribes, had been frantically trying to keep safe a group that had ventured out of the forest. He was mistakenly perceived as a threat.
RIO DE JANEIRO — Sightings of the isolated tribes that Rieli Franciscato devoted his career to protecting are rare and fraught with danger.
So in June, when a handful of unclothed Indigenous people emerged from the forest in Rondônia state and approached a small hamlet, Mr. Franciscato, a Brazilian government official specializing in uncontacted tribes, sprang into action.
From CNN:
Another journalist was found dead in Mexico this week -- the fifth this year in the country's somber record of attacks against the press.
Veteran reporter Julio Valdivia was found Wednesday afternoon in Mexico's coastal state of Veracruz, in the municipality of Tezonapa, decapitated near railroad tracks. His blue motorcycle was found only a few yards from his body, according to Córdoba's Diario El Mundo, the newspaper where he worked.
The Veracruz government condemned the killing.
And finally, from Vox:
Different ways of looking at the problem.
With
heat waves,
wildfires,
intense hurricanes, and other extreme weather events in the headlines, the ravages of climate change have become undeniable and unavoidable. Who or what is responsible for this?
It seems like a simple enough question, but like so many things about climate change, it gets more complicated the more you look into it. It turns out there are a number of ways of divvying up the blame.
To illustrate the point, I’ve borrowed some charts from a recent research note by the investment firm Morgan Stanley (with permission). They help distinguish who is emitting now from who emitted in the past, who’s emitting more and less over time, and which fuels and activities are driving the change. None of this data is original — it’s all public — but putting these charts in one place can help us wrap our minds around the many different ways that questions about responsibility for climate change can be phrased.
News of the arts
From The Smithsonian:
Patricia Marroquin Norby previously worked at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian–New York
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is set to mark a major milestone in its approximately 150-year history. As the New York cultural institution announced earlier this week, Patricia Marroquin Norby, who is of Purépecha heritage, will start as the museum’s inaugural associate curator of Native American art on September 14.
From 6abc:
CAMDEN, New Jersey (WPVI) -- Crumbling roofs and boarded up doors are a common eyesore on neighborhood blocks in Camden.
"It makes the street look bad, it just gets filthy sometimes," said Ashley Cream, who lives next to an abandoned home.
Artist Erik James Montgomery knows beautifying the city starts with giving hope to the people next door.
From the School of the Visual Arts:
‘Art Is ...’: Gail Anderson and Zipeng Zhu on Their New SVA Subway Campaign
by Rodrigo Perez
The fall 2020 SVA subway poster, "Art Is," created by BFA Advertising and BFA Design Chair Gail Anderson (BFA 1984 Media Arts) and art director, designer, animator and illustrator Zipeng Zhu (BFA 2013 Design).
It’s a "semi-long story," they say, but the simple version is this: Earlier this year, BFA Advertising and BFA Design Chair and Visual Arts Press Creative Director Gail Anderson (BFA 1984 Media Arts) was asked to design the latest SVA subway poster. Not long after, in March, she and fellow alumnus and friend Zipeng Zhu (BFA 2013 Design) were both in Woodstock, New York, for a long weekend when the COVID-19 pandemic descended on the city, state and country, upending life as we knew it.
That long weekend turned into an ongoing, six-months-and-counting stay upstate, during which Zhu collaborated with Anderson on the project. The end result: a colorful, type-based subway poster and social-media campaign that carries on the College's long-running "Art Is ..." series. With the start of the 2020 – 2021 academic year at SVA, Anderson and Zhu say, "Art Is Back."
From the Boston Globe:
Stressed? Join the club. It’s called 2020.
To help us get by, Salem’s Peabody Essex Museum is offering “All the Flowers Are for Me: Yoga & Mindfulness” inside the calmness that is Anila Quayyum Agha’s installation. A fan favorite since 2017, Agha’s piece consists of a steel cube laser-cut with Middle-Eastern floral motifs, bathing an entire gallery with pattern and light.
From the Minneapolis Star Tribune:
By Kennedy Rance Patrick Henry High School
The iconic George Floyd mural resides on the intersection of 38th Street and Chicago Avenue in Minneapolis. Floyd is engulfed in hues of blue, orange and yellow with reddish undertones. Behind him, in white lettering, are the names of people wrongfully killed by law enforcement officers.
The mural was photographed and archived by the Urban Art Mapping Research Project. The project was founded by University of St. Thomas professors Todd Lawrence, Heather Shirey and Paul Lorah. It is part of an initiative started by the College of Arts and Sciences at the St. Paul university.
From Art News:
David Johansen, frontman of the legendary proto-punk band New York Dolls, released a music video on Thursday with some very pointed words for viewers. “Captain this ship is sinking,” he sings, “Shall we abandon ship? Or shall we sit on it, and perish slow?” The video is a cover of Winston Edward Peters’s 1968 song “Sinking Ship,” though Johansen reworked the lyrics into a protest song (the ship in question is the United States) that decries white supremacy, immigration policy, and President Trump, who’s described in the opening line as “unhinged.”
