Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, Interceptor7, 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 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.
BBC
Coronavirus: Israel to impose three-week national lockdown
Israel is to impose a new national lockdown to contain the spread of coronavirus - with tough restrictions coming into effect on Jewish new year.
The country's second lockdown begins on Friday and lasts at least three weeks.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the measures would "exact a heavy price on us all", but the country faced a surge with 4,000 new daily infections.
A minister has resigned to protest against the restrictions that overlap with important Jewish festivals.
Housing Minister Yaakov Litzman, who leads an ultra-Orthodox Jewish party, said the measures would prevent Jewish people from celebrating their religious festivals, including Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, on 27 September.
He also threatened to pull his party out of the governing coalition.
Looking bad worldwide.
BBC
Coronavirus: WHO reports record daily rise in new infections
The World Health Organization (WHO) has recorded a record one-day rise in the number of new coronavirus infections, with 307,930 reported over 24 hours.
The agency said that deaths rose by more than 5,500, bringing the global total to 917,417.
The biggest increases in infections were reported in India, the US and Brazil.
Worldwide there have been more than 28 million confirmed cases, half of which have been in the Americas.
The previous one-day record for new cases was on 6 September when the WHO reported 306,857 new infections.
According to the WHO, India reported 94,372 new cases on Sunday, followed by the US with 45,523 and Brazil with 43,718.
BBC
US West Coast fires: Wind warning prompts fears of further spread
The US National Weather Service has issued a "red flag warning" for areas of the West Coast, as high winds threaten to spread devastating wildfires still further.
Gusts of up to 40 mph (64 km/h) are expected in parts of southern Oregon, with no rain.
Fires have been raging for three weeks in Oregon, California and Washington, burning land and destroying homes.
Tens of thousands of people have had to flee and at least 33 have died.
Dozens of people are missing in Oregon alone, with one emergency official saying the state should be preparing for a "mass fatality incident".
Cooler, moister conditions on Saturday allowed firefighters to make some progress with the fires.
However, the forecast for Sunday prompted a warning of winds of 15-25 mph and gusts of 30-40 mph in the Shasta Valley and east of the Southern Oregon cascades.
A red flag warning is the highest alert for events which could result in major fires, and which demands extreme caution by residents.
The Guardian We must learn from this for Nov 3.
Belarus: 100,000 join rally against Lukashenko on eve of Putin showdown
Attempts by Belarus’s president, Alexander Lukashenko, to crush popular protests against him failed on Sunday when more than 100,000 people marched on his residence in the capital, Minsk, with other demonstrations across the country.
There was no sign that the anti-Lukashenko movement is declining or fading away. Instead protesters took to the streets in huge numbers for the fifth weekend in a row, defying riot police who blocked off the city centre with military vehicles.
The continuing scale of the protests are an embarrassment for Lukashenko, who will meet Vladimir Putin on Monday in the Russian resort of Sochi. It will be their first face-to-face encounter since Belarus’s presidential election on 9 August, widely seen as rigged.
Al Jazeera
Hurricane Paulette rolls toward Bermuda as Sally approaches US
Residents of Bermuda were urged to prepare to protect life and property ahead of Hurricane Paulette, while Tropical Storm Sally threatened to intensify into a hurricane as it approached the United States' Gulf Coast.
Paulette gained hurricane status late Saturday and was expected to bring storm surge, coastal flooding and high winds to Bermuda, according to a US National Hurricane Center advisory.
Bermuda's government announced that LF Wade International Airport would close Sunday evening, and government buildings would be closed on Monday and Tuesday. It opened several shelters for evacuees.
Buzzfeed
These Updating Maps Show Where Storm Sally Could Hit Hardest
Less than three weeks after Hurricane Laura ravaged parts of Louisiana and Texas with winds of up to 150 mph, the US Gulf Coast is bracing to be hit by storm Sally, expected to strengthen to a hurricane by Monday.
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards declared a state of emergency on Saturday. “Louisiana suffered a devastating blow when Hurricane Laura came ashore as the strongest hurricane ever to make landfall in Louisiana history, leaving a trail of destruction in its path,” Edwards said in a statement. “This, when combined with the COVID-19 pandemic, can make us all weary. I implore Louisianans to take their preparations seriously.”
Sally is currently projected to make landfall late on Monday or early Tuesday. In contrast to Laura’s extreme winds, the main threat is expected to be major flooding, with storm surges of up to 11 feet at the coast and strong downpours from New Orleans to the Florida Panhandle.
NPR
A COVID-19 Vaccine May Be Only 50% Effective. Is That Good Enough?
As we get closer to a COVID-19 vaccine, it's exciting to imagine a day when the virus is gone. But a vaccine will not be a magic bullet. In fact, it may be only about 50% effective.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief of the National Institute of Health and Infectious Disease, has tried to set realistic expectations when discussing the importance of a vaccine. "We don't know yet what the efficacy might be. We don't know if it will be 50% or 60%," Fauci said during a Brown University event in August.
"I'd like it to be 75% or more," Fauci said, but he acknowledged that may not be realistic.
The Food and Drug Administration has said that once a vaccine is shown to be safe and at least 50% effective, it could be approved for use in the U.S.
This may not sound like an impressive rate of infection prevention, but there are other potential benefits to individuals and the community from getting vaccinated.
"It's possible that the [COVID-19] vaccine will reduce the severity of disease" in the other 50% who do get sick, says physician Bill Miller of The Ohio State University College of Public Health. "It may mean that people are less likely to be hospitalized, require ICU care or die."
Reuters
Fossil fuel demand to take historic knock amid COVID-19 scars: BP
LONDON (Reuters) - Fossil fuel consumption is set to shrink for the first time in modern history as climate policies boost renewable energy while the coronavirus epidemic leaves a lasting effect on global energy demand, BP said in a forecast.
BP’s 2020 benchmark Energy Outlook underpins Chief Executive Bernard Looney’s new strategy to “reinvent” the 111-year old oil and gas company by shifting renewables and power.
London-based BP expects global economic activity to only partially recover from the epidemic over the next few years as travel restrictions ease. But some “scarring effects” such as work from home will lead to slower growth in energy consumption.
BP this year extended its outlook into 2050 to align it with the company’s strategy to slash the carbon emissions from its operations to net zero by the middle of the century.
It includes three scenarios that assume different levels of government policies aimed at meeting the 2015 Paris climate agreement to limit global warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels.
New York Times
Missed Vaccines, Skipped Colonoscopies: Preventive Care Plummets
When the coronavirus pandemic hit, Americans vastly scaled back their preventive health care, and there is little sign that this deferred care will be made up.
Vaccinations dropped by nearly 60 percent in April, and almost no one was getting a colonoscopy, according to new data from the nonprofit Health Care Cost Institute.
The data, drawn from millions of health insurance claims, shows a consistent pattern, whether it was prostate screenings or contraceptives: Preventive care declined drastically this spring and, as of late June, had not yet recovered to normal levels. Many types of such care were still down by a third at the start of this summer, the most recent data available shows, as Americans remained wary of visiting hospitals and medical offices.
Washington Post
Boris Johnson’s ‘Operation Moonshot’ envisions weekly coronavirus tests for every person in Britain
LONDON — No masks. No distancing. The ability to go to work or school, the theater or a soccer match, as if living in a virus-free world.
That’s the vision British Prime Minister Boris Johnson pitched this past week, as he unveiled “Operation Moonshot” — a plan to test 10 million Brits every single day, or everyone in the country every week, at a cost of $130 billion.
The prospect of a return to normal has wide appeal, especially at a moment Britain is about to implement a new round of social distancing measures, prompted by rising coronavirus infections.
But many public health experts are dubious. Some say the plan is not a moonshot, but a Jules Verne fantasy.
Such massive population-wide testing for disease would be unprecedented. Though some countries have deployed mass screening during this pandemic, “Operation Moonshot” would go where no public health campaign has gone before — and yet Britain doesn’t have the best track record on coronavirus testing.
BBC
Climate change: Warmth shatters section of Greenland ice shelf
A big chunk of ice has just broken away from the Arctic's largest remaining ice shelf - 79N, or Nioghalvfjerdsfjorden - in north-east Greenland.
The ejected section covers about 110 square km; satellite imagery shows it to have shattered into many small pieces.
The loss is further evidence say scientists of the rapid climate changes taking place in Greenland.
"The atmosphere in this region has warmed by about 3C since 1980," said Dr Jenny Turton.
"And in 2019 and 2020, it saw record summer temperatures," the polar researcher at Friedrich-Alexander University in Germany told BBC News.
Nioghalvfjerdsfjorden is roughly 80km long by 20km wide and is the floating front end of the Northeast Greenland Ice Stream - where it flows off the land into the ocean to become buoyant.
At its leading edge, the 79N glacier splits in two, with a minor offshoot turning directly north. It's this offshoot, or tributary, called Spalte Glacier, that has now disintegrated.