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 (RIP), 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.
BBC
The US faces a huge task in reversing a culture of "crazy conspiracy theories" that have exacerbated divides in the country, Barack Obama says.
In a BBC interview, the former president says the US is more sharply split than even four years ago, when Donald Trump won the presidency.
And Mr Obama suggests Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 US election is just the start of repairing those divisions.
"It'll take more than one election to reverse those trends," he says.
Tackling a polarised nation, he argues, cannot be left only to the decisions of politicians, but also requires both structural change and people listening to one another - agreeing on a "common set of facts" before arguing what to do about them.
However he says he sees "great hope" in the "sophisticated" attitudes of the next generation, urging young people to "cultivate that cautious optimism that the world can change" and "to be a part of that change".
C/NET
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey are headed back to the Senate, and though the social media moguls have sat in the hot seat before, they shouldn't expect a warm welcome.
The virtual hearing, set for Tuesday, was hastily called after the social networks slowed the spread of a New York Post article that suggested unproven improprieties involving the son of now President-elect Joe Biden. The move enraged Republicans, who viewed it as an effort to support Biden's candidacy. Given that their candidate, President Donald Trump, lost his reelection bid, Republicans will likely come out swinging, complaining that the companies harbor an anti-conservative bias, which the firms deny.
ESPN
AUGUSTA, Ga. -- Nothing ever comes easily for Dustin Johnson in the majors, except for slipping into that Masters green jacket.
Johnson overcame a jittery start that conjured memories of past majors he failed to finish off. He turned that into a command performance, making sure this one-of-a-kind Masters with no fans also had no drama. Not even close.
Johnson tapped in for par on the 18th for a 4-under 68 to finish at 20-under 268, breaking by 2 shots the record set by Tiger Woods in 1997 and matched by Jordan Spieth in 2015.
His 5-shot victory was the largest at the Masters since Woods won by 12 in his record-breaking win in 1997. All that was missing were the roars for any of his pivotal putts early and his birdie putts on the back nine that put it away.
BBC
The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is made up of 10 Southeast Asian countries, as well as South Korea, China, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.
The pact is seen as an extension of China's influence in the region.
The deal excludes the US, which withdrew from a rival Asia-Pacific trade pact in 2017.
Negotiations over the RCEP began in 2012. The deal was signed on Sunday on the sidelines of a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), hosted by Vietnam.
BBC
Donald Trump has insisted he is not conceding the US election, despite seemingly acknowledging for the first time that Democrat Joe Biden won.
"He won because the Election was Rigged," the Republican president wrote on Twitter, repeating unsubstantiated claims of election fraud.
About an hour later he said he was not conceding the 3 November vote.
He has launched a slew of lawsuits in key states, but has not provided any evidence to back his claims of fraud.
All the lawsuits have so far been unsuccessful.
On Friday, election officials said the vote was the "most secure in American history" and there was "no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes or was in any way compromised".
NPR (Analysis Hannah Allam)
How many of President Trump's supporters swarmed into Washington, D.C. this weekend for the Million MAGA March? More than a million, as the White House says? Hundreds of thousands, as the president asserts? Maybe 10,000 or so, as local authorities estimate?
The answer: It doesn't matter.
The nation's political tribalism defies debate. Throngs of largely mask-free, conspiracy-immersed Americans turned the city's Freedom Plaza into an alternate reality Saturday. Within that zone, there was no question that they numbered a million. Trump did not lose the election; it was stolen. Antifa is the nation's gravest threat. Socialism is lurking around the corner. The pandemic is hype. Children are being trafficked by a cabal of global elites. And the nation's valiant, outnumbered police are under attack.
NPR
Four astronauts are set to lift off Sunday night from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard a SpaceX rocket bound for the International Space Station.
The crewed flight will be the second for SpaceX's Dragon capsule and the first since NASA officially certified the small spacecraft to carry people. Aboard will be NASA astronauts Mike Hopkins, Shannon Walker, and Victor Glover, along with Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi.
"As a crew, we are ready," said Hopkins, the mission commander, in a press conference last week. "We are ready for this launch, we are ready for the six months of work that is waiting for us on board the International Space Station, and we are ready for the return."
Reuters
LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is self-isolating after coming into contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19, a fresh setback after infighting amongst his top advisers plunged Downing Street into chaos last week.
Johnson, who was admitted to hospital with the novel coronavirus earlier this year, is well and does not have any symptoms, a spokesman for the prime minister said on Sunday.
Reuters
ROME (Reuters) - The new coronavirus was circulating in Italy since September 2019, a study by the National Cancer Institute (INT) of the Italian city of Milan shows, signaling that COVID-19 might have spread beyond China earlier than previously thought.
The World Health Organization has said the new coronavirus and COVID-19, the respiratory disease it causes, were unknown before the outbreak was first reported in Wuhan, in central China, in December.
Italy’s first COVID-19 patient was detected on Feb. 21 in a little town near Milan, in the northern region of Lombardy.
The Guardian
Barack Obama would not take a position in Joe Biden’s cabinet if the president-elect offered it – because if he did, he fears, Michelle Obama would leave him.
The 44th president made the remark in an interview with CBS Sunday Morning, two days ahead of publication of his memoir, A Promised Land. He was due to speak to CBS again, for 60 Minutes, on Sunday night.
Biden, Obama’s vice-president from 2009 to 2017, is preparing to become the 46th president in January, having defeated Donald Trump at the polls.
Asked how he will help Biden, Obama said: “He doesn’t need my advice, and I will help him in any ways that I can. Now, I’m not planning to suddenly work on the White House staff or something.”
The Guardian
The US recorded 166,555 new coronavirus cases on Saturday, down from more than 184,000 on Friday but still its second-highest daily total and a 12th day in a row above 100,000.
Dr Anthony Fauci, the top US infectious diseases expert, said it was “possible” the country would see 200,000 deaths in the next four months, which would put the toll of the pandemic above 400,000 in slightly more than a year.
In Washington DC on Saturday, thousands attended the “Million Maga March”, a gathering of supporters of Donald Trump, who lost the presidential election to Joe Biden but has refused to concede. The president has heralded news of an imminent Pfizer vaccine but he and members of his family, top aides and senior Republicans have all tested positive for Covid-19.
The Guardian
The killing of a rare “spirit” moose in Canada has shocked residents of a northern Ontario community and prompted one First Nations man to offer a reward to anyone who can help officials apprehend the suspected poachers.
Residents around the city of Timmins have long swapped stories of a ghostly white moose population occasionally spotted moving silently through forests of aspen and pine.
But poachers recently killed two female moose, including one white cow. The remains, including their heads, were left discarded along a remote service road.
“Everybody is outraged and sad. Why would you shoot it? No one needs one that bad,” said Chief Murray Ray of nearby Flying Post First Nation. “If you have a license to shoot a cow moose, you could shoot another one. Just leave the white ones alone.”
The moose are not albinos, but get their colour from a recessive gene. Among Indigenous peoples in the region, white animals like bison, raven and grizzly bears, are considered sacred and shouldn’t be harmed.
Al Jazeera
Coming to power on a wave of optimism in April 2018, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed was at the time cautiously seen as a remedy to decades of effective one-party rule with his promised programme of radical reform.
But now, as nearly two weeks of deadly fighting between the federal government and a defiant northern leadership that for decades dominated Ethiopia’s politics intensifies, the future of the country balances on a knife edge.
The standoff in the northern Tigray region began almost as soon as Abiy took office after mass protests forced Hailemariam Desalegn – the country’s beleaguered prime minister and chair of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), the Tigray-led four-party governing coalition – to resign in February 2018.
Al Jazeera
Peru’s interim president, Manuel Merino, has resigned less than a week into his new administration, after a night of protests calling for his removal and a subsequent police crackdown left at least two dead and dozens wounded.
“I want to let the whole country know that I’m resigning,” Merino said in a televised address on Sunday. He added the move was “irrevocable” and called for “peace and unity”.
Merino assumed the presidency on Tuesday after the opposition-dominated Congress voted to remove his predecessor Martin Vizcarra over bribery allegations. Vizcarra has denied any wrongdoing.
Protesters have since decried Merino’s rise to power, accusing the legislature of staging a parliamentary coup. The unrest had been largely peaceful until Saturday night, with Peru’s Ombudsman warning on Twitter late Saturday that security forces had begun “misusing force and throwing tear gas without justification” against young protesters who had gathered in the center of the capital city of Lima.
Deutsche Welle
On January 27, 2018, the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp, an energetic pensioner in the Black Forest was scrolling through her list of Facebook friends. And she was furious.
She wanted to do something, but her computer was slow, perhaps because she's saved so many documents and photos to her desktop. Little by little, the website loads: a new Facebook group. The woman gives the group a name and sends invitations to all her contacts. Soon the membership will grow to number in the thousands.
Anna Ohnweiler, 70, said there have been several moments in her life when she has been "galvanized into action." Moments when she — a former teacher, the head of a social services provider in Baden-Württemberg — felt she had to speak out. She's written more letters and started more petitions than she can remember — some of them going to Helmut Kohl back when he was chancellor. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has received some both recently and back when she was the minister for women and youth.
Deutsche Welle
The German federal government on Saturday released an online video praising an unexpected hero in the country's fight against the coronavirus: the couch potato.
The ad, entitled "#specialheroes — Together against corona," is a 1.35-minute video and calls on people in Germany to follow the honorable example of the modest couch potato citizen.
A Twitter user has even posted an English translated version of the ad.
Raw Story
Emergency room nurse Jodi Doering took to Twitter this weekend with horrific stories of patients dying of the coronavirus while still denying COVID-19 is real.
Doering is working in a South Dakota hospital as the state becomes among the top ten-riskiest states to visit right now because of the outbreak.
“I can’t help but think of the Covid patients the last few days,” she wrote after a shift this weekend. “The ones that stick out are those who still don’t believe the virus is real. The ones who scream at you for a magic medicine and that Joe Biden is going to ruin the USA. All while gasping for breath on 100% Vapotherm. They tell you there must be another reason they are sick.”
Ed. note: South Dakota’s governor will not enforce mask mandate if President Biden calls for a national mandate. Do people use seat belts in South Dakota?
NBC News
The resurgence in coronavirus cases led the governor of North Dakota to issue a statewide mask mandate after months of resisting such action, while Oregon and New Mexico ordered partial lockdowns.
“New Mexico is at the breaking point,” New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said.
The toughened restrictions come as the United States broke yet another record, with 176,309 new coronavirus cases on Friday, bringing the nationwide total to 10,818,345, according to NBC News' tally. The country has now had more than 100,000 new cases daily for 10 consecutive days.