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 JeremyBloom. 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.
OND is a regular community feature on Daily Kos, consisting of news stories from around the world, sometimes09OP0az 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.
Let’s start with some of the odder news of the week. More serious stories are below the fold.
From the New York Post (apologies for the source, but I like the story):
China needs to call Rihanna for some umbrellas to weather this phenomenon of nature.
Citizens of the Chinese province of Liaoning were told to find shelter after it looked like it started to rain worms.
A viral clip showed the area apparently being showered with little worms, which were splattered all over cars.
From CNN:
By Xiaofei Xu and Amy Woodyatt, CNN
apanese authorities have vowed to take action following reports that visitors to a
theme park showcasing scenes from beloved animated films have been taking indecent photographs of themselves with statues of the characters.
In February, photos were posted to social media showing men “pretending to sexually assault young female characters” in Ghibli Park, Singapore’s Straits Times newspaper reported.
From Insider:
A TikToker said she accidentally bought flights to Bucharest instead of Budapest in a viral videoHu.
ndreds of viewers gave the TikToker recommendations on where to visit in the Romanian capital.
She told viewers she and her friend decided to go to Bucharest after all, and "it was great."
From NPR:
The gesture is considered rude, offensive and inappropriate but one thing it is not — at least under Canadian law — is illegal.
A Canadian judge ruled last month that giving someone the finger is protected under the country's Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
"It is not a crime to give someone the finger. Flipping the proverbial bird is a God-given, Charter enshrined right that belongs to every red-blooded Canadian," Judge Dennis Galiatsatos wrote in the Feb. 24 ruling.
And from People:
"Police determined the motives were pure and genuine," a Hanover police chief said after investigating reports of a man approaching children and offering them chocolate
A "suspicious older male" who was handing out chocolates to kids in Ontario was simply acting out of kindness, according to local authorities who investigated the incident.
Two on the same topic from The Guardian:
Exclusive: Decision to make episode about natural destruction available only on iPlayer angers programme-makers
The BBC has decided not to broadcast an episode of Sir David Attenborough’s flagship new series on British wildlife because of fears its themes of the destruction of nature would risk a backlash from Tory politicians and the rightwing press, the Guardian has been told.
The decision has angered the programme-makers and some insiders at the BBC, who fear the corporation has bowed to pressure from lobbying groups with “dinosaurian ways”.
and…
For years the great presenter was criticised for not speaking out. Now he has his voice, fear and politics can’t get in the way
Is there no limit to the timidity of the BBC? Bang in the middle of the row over tweeting by the widely respected Gary Lineker, it now seems to be muzzling the most trusted Briton of them all – David Attenborough.
As the Guardian reports today, it has decided not to broadcast the sixth and last programme of the veteran broadcaster’s widely hailed new series on Britain’s wildlife, in which he exposes its dramatic decline, and what has caused it. While the other five episodes of Wild Isles will go out in prime time, amid enormous hype, it will be available only to those who look for it on the BBC’s iPlayer service.
From Al Jazeera:
Lineker was removed as presenter of BBC’s Match of the Day show after criticising the UK government’s asylum-seeker policy.
Former England team captain Gary Lineker has been temporarily removed from his role as presenter of the BBC’s flagship football highlights Match of the Day show in the wake of his criticism of the UK government’s new policy towards asylum seekers.
From Reuters (via NBC News):
A Dutch historian found a unique 1,000-year-old medieval golden treasure, consisting of four golden ear pendants, two strips of gold leaf and 39 silver coins, the Dutch National Museum of Antiquities announced Thursday.
Lorenzo Ruijter, 27, who told Reuters he has been treasure hunting since he was 10, discovered the treasure in 2021 in the small northern city of Hoogwoud, using a metal detector.
From the Independent (registration required):
Editorial: The French president seemed visibly relieved to be negotiating with someone realistic about overcoming the problems of Brexit
Rishi Sunak laid it on thick in Paris. “We left the EU, but we did not leave Europe,” he told his new best ami, Emmanuel Macron. Mr Macron was entitled to be a little sceptical of this Brexiteer cliche. One of the sentiments behind Britain’s departure from the EU was the desire to draw a line down the middle of the Channel and to separate our affairs from theirs.
From Euronews:
European Union countries have agreed to push for the global phaseout of fossil fuels at COP28.
It is part of the bloc’s promise to support and accelerate the energy transition ahead of the climate summit in Dubai this November.
Faced with climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution and the fallout of Russia’s attack on Ukraine, the EU says that our dependence on fossil fuels leaves us vulnerable.
From NPR:
Three years ago, on March 11, 2020, COVID-19 was officially designated a pandemic by the World Health Organization. The novel coronavirus had fanned out across the globe, and the world had lost its ability to contain it. Countries reacted to the emerging disease with a mix of denial, incredulity and fear. Here's what global health officials and political leaders were saying in the weeks leading up to that WHO declaration.
From the Deseret News:
WHO calls on government to practice sodium-reducing policies and says it could save millions of lives in the long run.
Seven million people could be at risk of dying of diseases caused by uncontrolled sodium intake by 2030, according to a recent study by the World Health Organization.
The first-of-its-kind report tracked the progress countries made when they applied public policies to reduce sodium, using a scale of 1 to 4. The higher number indicates satisfactory policy completion.
From the Washington Post:
Berlin’s authorities want to make it very clear: Women are free to swim topless in municipal pools, as are those who identify as nonbinary, if that’s what they want.
Topless swimming in public pools wasn’t forbidden in the German capital anyway, but a woman recently lodged a complaint alleging discrimination after a pool prevented her from swimming without covering her chest, a restriction that wasn’t applied to the male swimmers.
From Euronews:
By Una Hajdari
A documentary focused on Pope John Paul II’s alleged knowledge of paedophilia and sexual assault within the Catholic Church in Poland has caused widespread outcry and debate in the country after being broadcast earlier this week on the independent TVN channel.
The ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) has characterised this as an attack on Polish identity.
From Reuters (via Yahoo! News):
By Susana Vera and Ceyda Caglayan
ANTAKYA/ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Mehmet Alkan, a shoe-sole manufacturer in Turkey's earthquake-hit south, doesn't know what will become of his company after some of his 220 employees died and half fled, reflecting the difficult transformation ahead for industry in the region.
Forty of his workers and some families sheltered for a while in the undamaged Alkan Taban factory in Antakya after the massive quakes on Feb. 6.
From CNN:
Lagos State governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu has temporarily halted his reelection campaign after a train rammed into a public bus in the country’s commercial hub Thursday, killing six people and injuring dozens of others.
The accident happened at a bus stop in the Ikeja area of Lagos, a city of around 20 million people, Lagos state emergency services said in a statement.
From Reuters:
MAPUTO, March 10 (Reuters) - Tropical storm Freddy is due to hit the coast of Southern Africa again early on Saturday, after killing at least 27 people in Mozambique and Madagascar since it first made landfall last month.
One of the strongest storms ever recorded in the southern hemisphere, Freddy may also have broken the record for the longest-lasting tropical cyclone, according to the World Meteorological Organization, which said the current record is held by a 31-day hurricane in 1994.
From CNN:
Editor’s Note: Will Cathcart is an American freelance journalist based in Tbilisi. He was previously a media adviser to Mikheil Saakashvili, former president of Georgia. The views expressed in this commentary are his own.
From the Times of Israel:
Seriously injured man’s girlfriend asks Israelis to pray for his recovery; hundreds show up for vigil at attack site; hospital notes small improvement in their conditions
The three Israelis shot in a Palestinian terror attack in Tel Aviv were on their way to a friend’s wedding, one of the victims revealed Friday.
Or Asher, 32, and Rotem Mansano, 34, were critically and seriously injured respectively, and Michael Osdon, 36, suffered moderate wounds when a 23-year-old Palestinian terrorist opened fire on them on Thursday night as they were walking outside a cafe on the corner of Dizengoff Street and Ben Gurion Street in the center of the city. The attacker, Mutaz Salah al-Khawaja, fled the scene before being gunned down in a shootout with police officers.
Also from the Times of Israel:
Military admits head of Air Force Maj. Gen. Tomer Bar was under ‘false impression’ when he suspended Col. (res.) Gilad Peled
The chief of the Israeli Air Force on Friday returned to service a reservist fighter pilot who had been suspended indefinitely for allegedly leading calls to refuse to show up for duty over the government’s proposal to radically weaken the judiciary.
The reservist officer, Col. (res.) Gilad Peled, had said IAF chief Maj. Gen. Tomer Bar’s original Thursday decision was unjust and that he would appeal it.
From CNN:
The United Nations has released a plan to offload 1 million barrels of oil off a rusting supertanker that has been moored off the coast of Yemen for more than 30 years.
In an attempt to avert what could be one of the worst environmental disasters in history, a very large crude carrier was purchased by the UN to get the oil off the FSO Safer.
The 47-year-old tanker has not been maintained since 2015 because of the conflict in Yemen, the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Achim Steiner told a briefing on Thursday.
From WION:
A Taliban governor has been killed in a suicide attack in the Afghan province of Balkh. The governor, Mohammad Dawod Muzammil, was in his office during the blast. Who is targeting the Taliban and why? Molly Gambhir tells you.
From ABC News:
BY ALIZA CHASAN
It's been nine years since Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, a Boeing 777 with 239 people on board, vanished. Now the story of its disappearance, along with the fruitless search for survivors, is being explored by Netflix.
An Australian led-hunt for the plane ended in 2017 and a private firm's search ended the following year. The investigation searched nearly 50,000-square miles of sea floor. Searchers spent around $160 million in the hunt for the plane — and found only some debris from the flight. The plane itself has never been located.
And finally, from CNN:
When a Chinese high-altitude balloon suspected of spying was spotted over the United States recently, the US Air Force responded by sending up a high-flying espionage asset of its own: the U-2 reconnaissance jet.
It was the Cold-War era spy plane that took the high-resolution photographs – not to mention its pilot’s selfie – that reportedly convinced Washington the Chinese balloon was gathering intelligence and not, as Beijing continues to insist, studying the weather.