Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, eeff, Magnifico, annetteboardman, Besame, jck and Rise above the swamp. . Alumni editors include (but not limited to) Interceptor 7, Man Oh Man, wader, Neon Vincent, palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse (RIP), ek hornbeck (RIP), rfall, ScottyUrb, Doctor RJ, BentLiberal, Oke (RIP) and jlms qkw.
Since 2007 the OND has been 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.
Subbing for annetteboardman tonight. Here are some stories.
- ‘Anything goes’: how 9/11 led to a global security clampdown
- Boys more at risk from Pfizer jab side-effect than Covid, suggests study
- Afghans at risk of near-universal poverty, UN report warns
- Former Giuliani associate Igor Fruman guilty in campaign charge
- What The Ruling In The Epic Games V. Apple Lawsuit Means For iPhone Users
- The Number Of People Accused Of Stealing IDs Of Surfside Victims Has Now Grown To 4
- Firefighters retreat as Spanish blaze rages on
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Republicans fume at Larry Elder for blowing their chance to bring down Gavin Newsom: report
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Denmark lifts all coronavirus restrictions and celebrates ‘a whole new era’
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Bruce Is a Parrot With a Broken Beak. So He Invented a Tool.
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See the Stunning Trove of Iron Age Gold Discovered by a Rookie Metal Detectorist Now on View in a Danish Museum
The Guardian
‘Anything goes’: how 9/11 led to a global security clampdown
From Northern Ireland to Tel Aviv, governments had responded to terrorism before by granting extra powers to police and curtailing civil rights. But the US in 2001 was arguably at the peak of its international influence. The attack in New York, perhaps the world’s most recognisable city, was broadcast into homes in every country. The backlash, too, would be globalised.
What followed has been described by a UN human-rights watchdog as an ongoing “security pandemic”. More than 140 countries pushed through counter-terrorism legislation in the months and years after the New York skyscrapers were brought down. Muslim minorities around the world suddenly felt the glare of security services. In some countries, it was political dissidents, environmentalists or anti-corruption campaigners who now found themselves labelled terrorists.
The Guardian
Boys more at risk from Pfizer jab side-effect than Covid, suggests study
Healthy boys may be more likely to be admitted to hospital with a rare side-effect of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid vaccine that causes inflammation of the heart than with Covid itself, US researchers claim.
Their analysis of medical data suggests that boys aged 12 to 15, with no underlying medical conditions, are four to six times more likely to be diagnosed with vaccine-related myocarditis than ending up in hospital with Covid over a four-month period.
Most children who experienced the rare side-effect had symptoms within days of the second shot of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, though a similar side-effect is seen with the Moderna jab. About 86% of the boys affected required some hospital care, the authors said.
The Guardian
Afghans at risk of near-universal poverty, UN report warns
Afghanistan’s population of 38 million people risks being plunged into near-universal poverty faced with a “catastrophic deterioration” of the country’s heavily aid-dependent economy, according to a warning issued by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
The study, which examines a series of scenarios facing the already impoverished country under the Taliban’s new hardline rule, suggests a worst-case scenario where as many as 97% of Afghans would sink below the poverty line by next year – a staggering increase of 25%.
It comes before Monday’s UN donor pledging conference for Afghanistan, convened by the UN secretary general, António Guterres.
“We are facing a full-on development collapse on top of humanitarian and economic crises,” Kanni Wignaraja, the UN assistant secretary general, said of the report, which warned of the need to avert a “national implosion at all costs”
Al Jazeera
Former Giuliani associate Igor Fruman guilty in campaign charge
Igor Fruman, who tried to find damaging information in Ukraine about then-US presidential candidate Joe Biden before the 2020 election, pleaded guilty on Friday to one criminal count in a campaign finance case.
Fruman, 56, a former associate of former US President Donald Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, admitted at a US District Court hearing in New York City to soliciting money from a foreign national.
Fruman becomes the latest person associated with Trump to face criminal charges. Eight others have been charged or pleaded guilty to crimes including lying to Congress, obstruction of justice, lying to the FBI, conspiracy, witness tampering, and bank and tax fraud.
The Belarus-born Fruman and his former business partner, Ukraine-born businessman Lev Parnas, were charged in October 2019 with concealing an illegal $325,000 donation to support Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign.
NPR
What The Ruling In The Epic Games V. Apple Lawsuit Means For iPhone Users
A federal judge on Friday issued a long-awaited ruling in Fortnite maker Epic Games' legal battle with Apple over its App Store policies.
Both sides are using the 185-page ruling to vindicate their own positions, which is possible because the details are complicated.
U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said Apple is breaking the law by forcing people to pay for apps and in-app items through the App Store, where it usually takes a 30% slice of the payment as commission. Gonzalez Rogers told Apple to ease up, within 90 days. That's a win for Epic.
But Gonzalez Rogers upheld the App Store's overall structure as legal. She said Apple does not have an illegal monopoly over how developers can process payments for mobile games. That's a victory for Apple.
"It's a split decision," said Mark Lemley, a Stanford Law School professor who studies antitrust issues and technology. "It will improve competition on the edges, but it's not the fundamental change that Epic and advocates of the antitrust case would have hoped for."
NPR
The Number Of People Accused Of Stealing IDs Of Surfside Victims Has Now Grown To 4
MIAMI — A fourth person has been accused of stealing the identities of victims in the South Florida condominium collapse that killed 98 people, officials said.
Nelson Ronaldo Garcia-Medina, 20, was arrested Wednesday, but his name was not included when Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle held a news conference that afternoon to announce three arrests on multiple charges. She said then that there could be other co-conspirators in the case.
News outlets reported that Garcia-Medina is accused of assuming the identity of someone killed in the June 24 collapse of the Champlain Towers South to buy a $130 pair of Air Jordan sneakers.
"These individuals appear to be very skilled identity thieves, they're professionals," Fernandez Rundle said on Wednesday. "Except for their names, almost nothing else about them seems to be true."
Authorities were first notified of possible fraudulent activity on July 9, when the sister of one of the deceased victims contacted Surfside police, officials said. The sister had noticed password changes to the victim's bank accounts and credit cards, as well as new addresses and contact information.
Reuters
Firefighters retreat as Spanish blaze rages on
ESTEPONA, Spain, Sept 10 (Reuters) - Worsening weather conditions on Friday afternoon forced the retreat of firefighters battling a wildfire near a popular Costa del Sol resort that has driven over 1,000 people from their homes and killed an emergency worker.
Andalucia's regional forest fire agency ordered the withdrawal of most of its firefighters on the ground as strong winds and high late-summer temperatures created a dangerous pyrocumulus, or fire cloud, in the area, it said on Twitter.
"This fire has extreme conditions that make almost any intervention useless," it tweeted.
Since erupting on Wednesday evening, the blaze has burned through around 3,600 hectares (8,896 acres) of forest in the mountainous Sierra Bermeja above Estepona, a Mediterranean resort favoured by British tourists and retirees.
Raw Story
Republicans fume at Larry Elder for blowing their chance to bring down Gavin Newsom: report
Recent polls are showing that California Gov. Gavin Newsom is in far less danger of being recalled than he was just a month ago, and California Republican operatives are telling the Washington Examinerthat talk-show host Larry Elder bears much of the blame.
Rob Stutzman, a GOP operative in Sacramento, tells the Examiner that Elder's penchant for making controversial statements helped Newsom change the race away from being a referendum on his governorship and into a choice between a Democratic governor and a Trump-loving Republican.
"Newsom has successfully framed the race as him versus Elder, and Democratic voters are responding by voting," he said. "Elder has no appeal outside of GOP voters."
An unnamed Republican consultant similarly fumed to the Examiner that Elder's emergence as GOP frontrunner completely changed the course of the campaign. Elder last week gave Newsom some last-minute campaign material when he boasted to right-wing radio host Mark Levin that he would replace Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) with a Republican if she died while he was governor.
Washington Post
Denmark lifts all coronavirus restrictions and celebrates ‘a whole new era’
Some countries are setting records for daily coronavirus infections. Others are pursuing sweeping rules to mandate vaccination. But in Denmark, something like normal life has resumed.
After nearly 550 days, the Scandinavian country has lifted the last of its domestic pandemic-era restrictions, declaring that the coronavirus is no longer a “critical threat to society.” Denmark appears to be the first European Union member to issue such a declaration, potentially providing a glimpse into the future of the bloc’s recovery — or serving as a cautionary tale of a nation that moved too quickly.
The country’s leaders have pointed to its high vaccination rates — among the best in the world, with nearly 75 percent of residents fully immunized — as evidence that the step is justified, though they have not claimed herd immunity has been reached. Denmark also has one of Europe’s lowest levels of newly reported infections.
New York Times
Bruce Is a Parrot With a Broken Beak. So He Invented a Tool.
Many animals are known to use tools, but a bird named Bruce may be one of the most ingenious nonhuman tool inventors of all: He is a disabled parrot who has designed and uses his own prosthetic beak.
Bruce is a kea, a species of parrot found only in New Zealand. He is about 9 years old, and when wildlife researchers found him as a baby, he was missing his upper beak, probably because it had been caught in a trap made for rats and other invasive mammals the country was trying to eliminate. This is a severe disability, as kea use their dramatically long and curved upper beaks for preening their feathers to get rid of parasites and to remove dirt and grime.
But Bruce found a solution: He has taught himself to pick up pebbles of just the right size, hold them between his tongue and his lower beak, and comb through his plumage with the tip of the stone. Other animals use tools, but Bruce’s invention of his own prosthetic is unique.
ArtNet News
See the Stunning Trove of Iron Age Gold Discovered by a Rookie Metal Detectorist Now on View in a Danish Museum
Ole Ginnerup Schytz’s first time using a metal detector proved a rewarding one last December when the rookie treasure hunter found a stunning cache of 6th century gold jewelry in a field near the town of Jelling in Denmark.
When the device’s sensors activated, Schytz started digging, unearthing a small piece of twisted metal. “It was scratched and covered in mud,” he told the state television station TV Syd. “I had no idea, so all I could think of was that it looked like the lid of a can of herring.”
The reality was far more exciting: In an astounding bit of beginner’s luck, Schytz had stumbled across no fewer than 22 pieces of gold treasure from the Iron Age, weighing just over two pounds in total. It had been buried for some 1,500 years.
Now, eight months later, the stunning find, which predates the Viking era, has been revealed in all its glittering glory by the Vejlemuseerne in southern Jutland.
The bulk of the treasure are bracteates, a kind of flat thin medallion with engravings on one side that was common in northern Europe during the Migration Period (375–568). The jewelry is decorated with runes, magical symbols, and religious imagery such as the Norse god Odin, all reflecting delicate craftsmanship of the highest order. Women would have worn the amulets for protection.
Other gold pieces are coins from the Roman Empire, including one from the reign of Constantine the Great, who was in power from 285–337, hundreds of years before the gold was buried in a village longhouse. That suggests a robust trade network across the European continent, while the treasure’s enormous wealth suggests the area around Jelling was a seat of power.