Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, eeff, Magnifico, annetteboardman, Besame and jck. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) Man Oh Man, wader, Neon Vincent, palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse (RIP), ek hornbook (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
Indonesia landslide: Rescuers buried as they help victims
Rescuers searching for victims of a landslide in Indonesia were buried by a second mudslide just hours later, officials say.
The first landslide, in Cihanjuang village, West Java, was triggered by torrential rain.
Another struck as survivors were still being evacuated. At least 12 people died and dozens more are missing.
Landslides are common in Indonesia during rainy season, and often blamed on deforestation.
The latest disasters hit the villagers in Sumedang regency, about 150km (95 miles) southeast of the capital Jakarta, three and a half hours apart on Saturday.
The first happened at 16:00 (09:00 GMT) and the second at 19:30 (12:30 GMT), disaster agency spokesman Raditya Jati said in a statement.
"The first landslide was triggered by high rainfall and unstable soil conditions. The subsequent landslide occurred while officers were still evacuating victims around the first landslide area," he added.
BBC
Indonesia Sriwijaya Air Boeing 737 'black boxes' located
"Black boxes" from a passenger plane that crashed into the sea soon after take-off in Indonesia on Saturday have been located, officials say.
Navy divers are confident that they will be able retrieve the two flight recorders when the search operation resumes on Monday.
Aircraft parts and human remains have been found.
The Sriwijaya Air Boeing 737 was carrying 62 people when it vanished from radar on its journey to Borneo.
"We have located the position of the black boxes, both of them," said Soerjanto Tjahjono, head of Indonesia's transport safety committee, quoted by AFP earlier on Sunday.
"Divers will start looking for them now and hopefully it won't be long before we get them."
The flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder, or black boxes as they are often called, store data about planes. They can provide vital information in air accident investigations.
NPR
More Than A Dozen GOP State Lawmakers Attended Rally That Gave Way To Riots
Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate and state Sen. Amanda Chase is facing calls to resign after attending the pro-Trump rally in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday. Chase addressed a crowd at the event but said she departed "just in time" before a mob began to riot and force its way into the U.S. Capitol.
Chase is one of more than a dozen state lawmakers from across the country who were in the nation's capital Wednesday, including newly elected West Virginia state Del. Derrick Evans, a Republican who is now facing charges after a video he live-streamed showed him entering the Capitol building.
Republican lawmakers from at least eight other states — Michigan, Missouri, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Alaska, Arizona and Illinois — were present ahead of the riot or said they departed as the mob began to storm. Two outgoing state representatives — Rep. Anthony Kern of Arizona and Rep. Vernon Jones of Georgia, who announced earlier that day he had become a Republican — were in attendance. Another Virginia lawmaker, Del. Dave LaRock, was also at the rally.
The Guardian
Covid sleuth shames Brazil's party people as deaths pass 200,000
Fuelled by black coffee, yellow-tipped cigarettes and white, incandescent rage, the faceless sleuth lurks on social media poised to unmask his next target.
“It’s outrageous, bizarre, it’s horrifying – a collective genocide,” fumed the twentysomething activist who burns the midnight oil scouring the internet for footage of parties being thrown despite a rapidly deteriorating Covid crisis that has killed more than 200,000 Brazilians.
“I truly believe people have been infected with the stupidity virus,” added the amateur investigator who publishes images of the hedonism on a Twitter account called Brazil Covidfest.
The smartphone gumshoe, a journalist from the southern city of Curitiba who asked not to be named, is one of several Brazilian activists who have begun shaming unrepentant party people online as their country’s epidemic again spirals out of control.
Brazil’s crisis, which peaked last July, has intensified in recent weeks, with many hospitals struggling to cope and the number of daily deaths hitting levels not seen since August. On Thursday 1,524 new fatalities took Brazil’s official toll to 200,498, the world’s second highest after the US.
The Guardian
'I'm not an anti-vaxxer, but...' US health workers' vaccine hesitancy raises alarm
With up to 40% of frontline workers in LA county refusing Covid-19 inoculation experts warn that understanding and persuasion are needed.
Susan, a critical care nurse based in Alaska, has been exposed to Covid-19 multiple times and has watched scores of people die from the illness. But she did not want to get the vaccination when she learned it would soon be available.
“I am not an anti-vaxxer, I have every vaccine known to man, my flu shot, I always sign up right there, October 1, jab me,” said Susan, who didn’t want to give her last name for fear of retaliation. “But for this one, why do I have to be a guinea pig?”
The two authorized vaccines, made by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech, are safe according to leading experts and clinical trials – for one thing they contain no live virus and so cannot give a person Covid – and with tens of thousands of patients, they have had about 95% efficacy. But across the country, health workers with the first access to the vaccine are turning it down.
The rates of refusal – up to 40% of frontline workers in Los Angeles county, 60% of care home workers in Ohio – have prompted concern and in some cases, shaming. But the ultimate failure could be dismissing these numbers at a critical moment in the US vaccination campaign.
New York Times
Cuomo Widens Eligibility After Vaccine Goes Unused or Is Even Thrown Out
Under increasing pressure to relieve a backlog of hundreds of thousands of unused coronavirus vaccine doses, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Friday expanded the eligibility groups to include three million more people, including those 75 and older.
In the weeks since vaccinations began in mid-December, stories of doses sitting in freezers for weeks or being discarded have emerged, offering a glimpse of what public health experts have characterized as a troubled rollout in New York.
Mr. Cuomo had stuck to rigid guidelines that prioritized health care workers, and residents and staff of nursing homes and group homes. But on Friday, after repeated criticism from Mayor Bill de Blasio and local officials around the state, the governor announced that this new group — which also includes many essential workers — could begin scheduling vaccinations as soon as Monday, one month after New York City received its first doses.
Reuters
Mixed signals for N.Korean leader's sister as Kim seeks to cement power
SEOUL (Reuters) - The name of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s sister was missing from a new list of the ruling Workers’ Party’s powerful politburo, according to state media KCNA on Monday, sending mixed signals about her status after years of increasing clout.
The party held elections on Sunday for its Central Committee during its ongoing multi-year congress which maps out diplomatic, military and economic policy goals over the next five years.
Kim Yo Jong, Kim Jong Un’s sister, remained a member of the Central Committee but was not included on its politburo list, KCNA showed, confounding widespread expectations from observers of the reclusive regime.
The change came days after Kim Yo Jong took the leadership podium for the first time alongside 38 other executives as the congress kicked off.
Her influence has grown dramatically in recent years, initially as what appeared to be the young leader’s personal secretary, and then his special envoy to South Korea and a deputy director of a key party department overseeing personnel and organisational affairs.
Washington Post
Minister: Massive power outage leaves Pakistan in the dark
ISLAMABAD — A major technical fault in Pakistan’s power generation and distribution system caused a massive power outage that plunged the country into darkness overnight, the energy minister said.
Hours after the late Saturday outage, Energy Minister Omar Ayub said on Twitter that power was being restored in phases, starting with Islamabad. He said later Sunday that power had been restored to much of the country.
The blackout was initially reported on social media by residents of major urban centers, including Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad and Multan. The minister and his spokesman then took to Twitter to update the country.
Ayub urged people to be patient. He said the cause of the power outage was being investigated and work was being done to fire up Pakistan’s main Tarbela power station in the northwest, which would lead to a restoration of power in the rest of the country in phases.
Al Jazeera
Bumper wheat crop helps Australia look beyond China
From mounting tensions with China to trade disruptions caused by the pandemic, agriculture in Australia has been hit by a few curved balls in recent months. Still, for wheat farmers, the outlook has seldom been better.
Australia is one of the world’s biggest exporters of the ubiquitous staple used in everything from bread to cakes and pasta, and this year the country’s on track for its second-largest crop ever — more than 30 million tons — after widespread rains turbocharged production.
Increased export supplies from Australia and weather woes in other parts of the world mean that the top buyers in the region — including Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam — are likely to pivot back to Australia, according to Andrew Whitelaw, an agricultural analyst at Thomas Elder Markets in Melbourne.
“In recent years, we haven’t had the volumes to meet the demand of Southeast Asia,” said Whitelaw. “Not only do we have a bumper crop, but we’ve also got the potential for poor crops” in other parts of the world, he said.
Christian Science Monitor
Points of Progress: Denmark ends hunt for oil deposits, and more
Denmark is canceling future oil and gas expeditions in the North Sea, ending the Nordic country’s hunt for new fossil fuel deposits.On Dec. 3, the Ministry of Climate, Energy and Utilities announced it will terminate the current licensing round and not consider any further applicants. The European Union’s largest oil and gas producer, Denmark will stop all oil and gas extraction after 2050. The canceled tender and 2050 deadline are expected to cost the nation roughly $2.1 billion, but experts say the continued exploration of the North Sea undercuts the country’s ambitious climate goals. Norway and the United Kingdom, both larger oil and gas producers, are not part of the EU. (Reuters)
Other good news stories at the link.
Raw Story
QAnon congresswoman faces calls for arrest after live-tweeting Nancy Pelosi's location to rioters
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), a gun-toting supporter of the QAnon movement, is facing backlash after she was accused of live-tweeting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-CA) location during the attack on Capitol Hill last week.
Boebert shared the tweet soon after President Donald Trump's supporters stormed the Capitol with deadly results.
"The Speaker has been removed from the chambers," Boebert wrote.
Twitter users responded by calling for the freshman representative to be jailed and removed from Congress.
"@FBIWFO please arrest @laurenboabert for aiding and abetting those who were hunting down @SpeakerPelosi on Jan, 6th by tweeting the Speaker's whereabouts," one person responded. "She's 5ft tall, 100 pounds and carries a Glock (and won't stop telling everyone)."