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, annetteboardman and Man Oh Man. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse, ek hornbeck, ScottyUrb, Interceptor7, BentLiberal, Oke, JML9999, Chitown Kev 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.
BBC
Ecuador earthquake: Deaths rise to 246
At least 246 people have been confirmed dead and more than 1,500 people injured after Ecuador was hit by its most powerful earthquake in decades.
Some 10,000 troops and 3,500 police are being deployed in the affected areas, as rescue operations continue.
The magnitude-7.8 quake struck on Saturday evening.
Coastal areas in the north-west were closest to the epicentre and officials say the death toll is likely to rise as information begins to come in.
Ecuador's President Rafael Correa has cut short a visit to Italy to deal with the crisis.
He has declared a state of emergency and said the priority is finding survivors.
"Everything can be rebuilt, but lives cannot be recovered, and that's what hurts the most," he said.
Japan earthquake: Thousands remain without vital services
Japan is struggling to restore services in the south-western island of Kyushu after it was hit by two powerful earthquakes.
Some 180,000 people are set to spend a third night in temporary shelters, including cars and tents.
More than 62,000 homes remain without electricity and 300,000 homes have no water, Japanese media report.
At least 11 people are still missing following the quakes which killed 41 people and wounded hundreds.
Rescuers used improved weather on Sunday to fly helicopters to the worst-affected areas of Kumamoto prefecture as tremors continued.
The BBC's Robin Brant says concerns persist that another big quake may further damage houses already weakened.
BBC
Ethiopia: Armed men 'kill 140' near South Sudan border
Ethiopia says armed men have killed 140 people near its border with South Sudan and abducted at least 39 children.
Ethiopia's Communications Minister Getachew Reda said the attackers were members of South Sudan's Murle tribe.
He said security forces were chasing the attackers and had killed 60 so far.
Ethiopia is hosting thousands of South Sudanese refugees who fled the 2013 clashes that began when President Salva Kiir sacked his deputy Riek Machar, accusing him of plotting a coup.
Mr Machar denied the charges, but then mobilised a rebel force to fight the government. He is due to return to the capital Juba to form a transitional government as part of a peace deal.
BBC
Brussels attacks: Thousands take to streets in anti-terror march
At least 7,000 people took to the streets of Brussels in a march "against terror and hate".
Heading the processions were some of those caught up in the suicide bomb attacks on Belgium's airport and metro station that killed 32 people.
Belgian broadcaster described the march as "calm and silent".
The march had been due to be held a week after the 22 March attacks, but officials asked for it to be postponed because of the security threat.
Relatives of victims, and paramedics and airport staff affected by the attacks joined people of several religious faiths on Sunday's march. Flowers were carried in memory of those who lost their lives.
Breaking! (At least as I’m writing this.)
Al Jazeera
Brazil Congress votes to impeach Dilma Rousseff
Brazilian legislators have voted in favour of impeaching President Dilma Rousseff, a move that could see the country's first female leader removed from power.
Tens of thousands of pro- and anti-impeachment protesters gathered in the capital Brasilia and other cities to watch the dramatic vote, broadcast live on national television on Sunday.
The impeachment motion will next go to the Senate which will vote, probably in May, whether to open a trial.
The impeachment battle, which comes during Brazil's worst recession since the 1930s, has divided the country of 200 million people more deeply than at any time since the end of its military dictatorship in 1985.
The 513 legislators voted one by one, all of them given 30 seconds to speak before casting their ballots.
Al Jazeera
Syrians reject Israel's vow to control Golan 'forever'
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has for the first time held his weekly cabinet meeting in the occupied Golan Heights, amid criticism from local Syrian activists.
Speaking in the Jewish-only settlement of Maaleh Gamla on Sunday, Netanyahu declared that the 70 percent of the Golan, which Israeli forces occupied during the 1967 Middle East war, will "always remain" under Israeli control.
"I convened this celebratory meeting in the Golan Heights to send a clear message: The Golan will always remain in Israel's hands. Israel will never withdraw from the Golan Heights," he said
The move came on the 70th anniversary of Syria's independence, marking the withdrawal of French colonial forces from the country in 1946.
Mais Ibrahim, a Syrian human rights activist from the Golan's Majdal Shams, criticised the decision to hold the meeting there - but added that this did not come as a surprise.
"On the contrary, I'd be more surprised if Netanyahu did not mention the Golan on Syrian Independence Day," she told Al Jazeera.
The Guardian
Murder of football hero Will Smith leaves New Orleans aching for change
On Friday evening the Saints football team hosted a memorial and viewing for former player Will Smith, who on 9 April was shot to death in an apparent road rage incident. The ceremony was muted and meticulous – belying the confused circumstances of Smith’s death and the city of New Orleans’s broader reaction.
Smith’s shooting represents a collision of two of the most powerful and ever-present forces in the city: the threat of public violence, and the saving grace of the New Orleans Saints.
Both, like so much of what happens here, may be difficult at first for outsiders to understand.
Smith died a week ago, about 11.30pm, collapsed halfway into the driver’s seat of his silver Mercedes SUV. Initial reports were tragic but relatively simple: the 34-year-old athlete had died after the the driver of an orange Hummer, 28-year-old Cardell Hayes, hit Smith’s car and then shot him in an ensuing confrontation.
Since then, though, the picture has grown more complex.
N Y Times
Focus on Chief Justice as Supreme Court Hears Immigration Challenge
WASHINGTON — Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. twice voted to save President Obama’s health care law, infuriating his usual allies on the right. Now, conservatives are nervous that the chief justice will disappoint them again in a challenge to another major Obama initiative, this one on immigration.
The case, to be argued on Monday at the Supreme Court, presents fundamental questions about executive power against the backdrop of a wrenching national debate over Mr. Obama’s plan to spare millions of immigrants from deportation. But Chief Justice Roberts’s record suggests that he may avoid taking a position on such a divisive and partisan issue, focusing instead on the more technical question of whether the states challenging the Obama administration’s immigration plan have suffered the sort of direct and concrete injury that gives them standing to sue.
That jurisprudential off-ramp would avoid a deadlock or a grand pronouncement from a short-handed court on a politically charged issue in a presidential election year. And that may prove attractive to a chief justice who has said he does not want the Supreme Court to be viewed as a forum where “partisan matters would be worked out.”
BBC
Roman villa unearthed 'by chance' in Wiltshire garden
An "elaborate" Roman villa has been unearthed by chance by a homeowner laying electric cables in his garden in Wiltshire.
It was discovered by rug designer Luke Irwin as he was carrying out some work at his farmhouse so that his children could play table tennis in an old barn.
He uncovered an untouched mosaic, and excavations revealed a villa described as "extraordinarily well-preserved".
Historic England said it was "unparalleled in recent years".
Thought to be one of the largest of its kind in the country, the villa was uncovered in Brixton Deverill near Warminster during an eight-day dig. It is being compared in terms of its size and its owners' wealth to a similar, famous site at Chedworth in Gloucestershire.
Raw Story
The public has spoken!: Boaty McBoatface wins poll to name new British research vessel
Forget the EU referendum . The major test of modern democracy has fallen into the hands of the Natural Environment Research Council – over the naming of a boat.
As the polls finally closed for the naming of its new polar research ship , the NERC confirmed that the votes were overwhelmingly in favour of RRS Boaty McBoatface.