Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, current leader Neon Vincent, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, wader, Doctor RJ, rfall, JML9999 and Man Oh Man with guest editors annetteboardman and Chitown Kev. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse, ek hornbeck, ScottyUrb, Interceptor7, BentLiberal, Oke 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 12:00AM Eastern Time.
Tonight's featured story, in honour of the season, is about collecting stories of the dreaded hell hound (from the BBC):
The terrifying story of the 'hell hound'
By Katy Prickett BBC News
Terrifying tales of "hell hounds" - ferocious black dogs, eyes glowing and teeth bared as they wreak vengeance on the population - have been the stuff of legend for centuries. It has cemented the place of these mythical beasts in English folklore, but how and why have accounts of their terrifying marauding spread so far and wide?
In 1577, according to one particularly poetic account, a snarling beast broke into a church, rampaged through the congregation and bit the necks of two people - who promptly dropped dead.
Having traumatised the churchgoers of Bungay in Suffolk, the mythical dog - known as Black Shuck - next cropped up on the county's coast at Blythburgh.
Again, it targeted worshippers - bursting though the doors of Holy Trinity Church before killing a man and boy and causing the steeple to collapse.
The beast left scorch marks on the church door, according to legend.
Photographer and researcher Nick Stone is mapping similar stories and has so far collected between 400 and 500 accounts.
More below the folded sheet (the orange one, not that one floating midair over there):
The world is horrible enough without these supernatural beings, however.
From Romania, via CNN:
Romanian nightclub fire leaves 27 dead, scores injured
By Steve Almasy, Elwyn Lopez and Annie Ramos, CNN
Hundreds of young people were packed into a music club in central Bucharest, Romania, jamming to the head-pounding heavy metal music filling their ears.
It was almost Halloween. The band, Goodbye to Gravity, was celebrating a new album with a free concert. For the young partygoers life was awesome.
But suddenly the 300 or 400 people were scrambling toward the one exit at Colectiv, a club built inside a Communist-era factory.
Witnesses say pyrotechnics sparked a fire that quickly became a widespread blaze with dark, blinding smoke. Authorities say the cause is something that needs to be figured out.
At least 27 people died and 162 were injured when the blaze broke out late Friday, authorities said.
From the
Russian Times comes this notice of a different scapegoat for the refugee crisis:
Hungarian PM blames Soros for fueling refugee crisis in Europe
The Hungarian Prime Minister has lashed out at billionaire George Soros, criticizing the support he has expressed towards refugees from the Middle East heading to Europe, saying that he undermines stability on the continent.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said that George Soros, an American billionaire and human rights advocate, was responsible for the ongoing refugee crisis. Soros belongs to a group of “activists” that encourages migrants to head to Europe and thus intentionally aggravates the situation, Orban said.
From the
New York Times:
Netanyahu Retracts Assertion That Palestinian Inspired Holocaust
By JODI RUDORENOCT.
JERUSALEM — After more than a week of local and international condemnation, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel issued a statement on Friday retracting his accusation that it was a Palestinian cleric who gave Hitler the idea of annihilating Europe’s Jews during World War II.
Mr. Netanyahu, criticized even by Israeli historians for distorting facts, had already said he never intended to absolve Hitler of responsibility for the Holocaust by blaming the mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, but the new statement went further.
From the AP, via the
Washington Post comes this story about defamation of a real hero to many"
Pope denounces priests, bishops who ‘defamed’ Oscar Romero
By Nicole Winfield
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis has strongly denounced the Catholic priests and bishops who “defamed” Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero after his murder in a campaign that delayed his beatification until earlier this year.
Francis spoke off-the-cuff Friday to a group of Salvadoran bishops and pilgrims who traveled to Rome to thank history’s first Latin American pope for beatifying the hero to the continent’s poor and oppressed.
And mother nature has some comments as well, as this story from the
New York Times illustrates:
Cyclone Chapala, Gathering Strength, Heads Toward Oman and Yemen
By LIAM STACKOCT. 30, 2015
A cyclone gained strength rapidly on Friday as it spun westward through the Arabian Sea, becoming one of the most powerful storms ever recorded in the region and threatening the coasts of Yemen and Oman with a potentially destructive landfall.
The storm, called Chapala, intensified to the equivalent of a powerful Category 4 hurricane on Thursday and Friday, packing maximum sustained wind speeds of almost 150 miles per hour and gusts of over 180 miles per hour, according to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center, a project of the United States military based in Hawaii.