Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, current leader Neon Vincent, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, Doctor RJ, Magnifico, annetteboardman and Man Oh Man. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) wader, planter, JML9999, 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 12:00 AM Eastern Time.
Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.
BBC
Turkey referendum grants President Erdogan sweeping new powers
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has narrowly won a referendum to expand presidential powers, which could keep him in office until 2029.
With 99.45% of ballots counted, the "Yes" campaign had won 51.37% and "No" 48.63%, and the electoral board called victory for "Yes".
Erdogan supporters say replacing the parliamentary system with an executive presidency will modernise the country.
Turkey's two main opposition parties said they would challenge the results.
The Republican People's Party (CHP) demanded a recount of 60% of votes. They criticised a decision to accept unstamped ballot papers as valid unless proven otherwise.
As jubilant Erdogan supporters rallied in the big cities, pots and pans were banged in Istanbul by opponents of the referendum, in a traditional form of protest.
BBC
Syria war: 'At least 68 children among 126 killed' in bus bombing
At least 68 children were among 126 people killed in Saturday's bomb attack on buses carrying evacuees from besieged Syrian towns, activists say.
A vehicle filled with explosives hit the convoy near Aleppo.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said at least 109 evacuees from government-held towns were killed, along with aid workers and rebel soldiers.
Many more were injured in the attack, the group said.
The explosion shattered buses and set cars on fire, leaving a trail of bodies, as the convoy waited in rebel territory near Aleppo.
Separately, several people, mostly children, are reported to have been injured by shelling in the capital, Damascus.
Raw Story
The US bombed ISIS, but the Taliban are taking over
The U.S. military's decision to drop its largest conventional weapon Thursday on positions held by the Islamic State group (ISIS) in Afghanistan came as a surprise to many who noted that the jihadists had only managed to instigate a low-level insurgency in the Central Asian nation. While the huge, costly blast may have sent a message about President Donald Trump's willingness to use extreme measures against his opponents, one of America's biggest bombs may have missed the true target.
The U.S. Air Force dropped an 11-ton explosive, known as the "mother of all bombs" or Massive Ordinance Air Blast (MOAB), on a system of caves and tunnels previously identified as a known hub for ISIS activity in Afghanistan's restive Nangahar province. The 30-foot-long, $16 million bomb was capable of causing a nearly 500-foot blast radius and Thursday's attack killed an estimated 36 militants loyal to the ISIS. Trump lauded the mission, which appeared to be authorized directly by the military, as "another very, very successful mission." Elsewhere in Afghanistan, however, another hardline Sunni Muslim group, the Taliban, has been regrouping.
"The Taliban have good reason to believe they're winning," Marvin Weinbaum, former State Department analyst for Afghanistan and Pakistan and resident scholar at the Middle East Institute, told Newsweek.
BBC
Migrant boats: Thousands saved off Libyan coast over Easter
Thousands of migrants have been saved from the sea near Libya during one of the busiest weekends of the year for rescue workers.
More than 2,000 people were rescued on Friday and 3,000 on Saturday in dozens of separate rescues, the Italian Coast Guard said.
But at least seven people drowned as aid workers struggled to rescue more than 1,500 migrants in one operation.
An eight-year-old boy was among the dead, rescue workers said.
An earlier agency report said 20 bodies had been recovered by the Migrant Offshore Aid Station (Moas), but this was later corrected.
Moas said its rescue started in the early hours of Saturday and had continued non-stop into Sunday afternoon.
The group said it had rescued at least 453 people, but more than 1,000 remained in danger.
Reuters
China's economy grew 6.9 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, slightly faster than expected, supported by a government infrastructure spending spree and a frenzied housing market that is showing signs of overheating.
Analysts polled by Reuters had expected the economy to expand 6.8 percent in the first quarter, the same pace as in the fourth quarter of 2016.
First-quarter growth was the fastest since the third quarter of 2015, with March data showing investment, retail sales, factory output and exports all grew faster than expected.
The strong reading should help underpin wobbly global financial markets but adds to worries that China's government is still relying too heavily on stimulus and "old economy" growth drivers and is not doing enough to tackle risks from an explosive build-up in debt.
While China's data has been largely upbeat so far this year, many analysts widely expect the world's second-largest economy to lose steam later in the year as the impact of earlier stimulus measures starts to fade and as local authorities step up their battle to rein in hot housing prices.
Real estate investment growth accelerated to 9.1 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, as the pace of new construction starts quickened despite intensified government cooling measures.
Reuters
Flooding has made all bridges across the Tigris in and out of western Mosul impassable, cutting off aid supplies and escape routes for people fleeing the Islamic State-held part of the Iraqi city.
With the bridges down, hundreds of civilians crossed the surging river on small wooden boats on Sunday, some carrying babies and all carting suitcases or bags full of clothes.
They were some of the around 400,000 people still in western Mosul where Iraqi military forces are trying to dislodge IS from the Old City.
Mosul's permanent bridges over the Tigris river have been destroyed during the fighting, but the army had built two pontoon bridges which had allowed people to flee to safety in the east, and aid to get through to a camp for the displaced on the western side of the river.
But since the bridges were closed on Friday, no aid convoy has reached the Hammam al-Alil camp, southwest of Mosul, the main arrival point for displaced fleeing the fighting, a camp and a U.N. official said.
The Guardian
US officials warn tensions with North Korea are 'coming to a head'
Donald Trump and senior officials said on Sunday the US would consider any lever – diplomatic, economic or military – to forestall North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, a day after the vice-president arrived in the area and the isolated nation launched a missile test that failed.
The president and his national security adviser, HR McMaster, said they first hoped that China would act on its neighbor, which depends on Beijing to prop up its trade and finances. Trump said he had backtracked on a campaign promise to immediately denounce China, in order to push the country on North Korea.
“Why would I call China a currency manipulator when they are working with us on the North Korean problem?” he wrote on Twitter from his resort in south Florida. “We will see what happens!”
McMaster also hailed the president’s new relationship with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, whom he hosted in Florida earlier this month.
Raw Story
Russia and China send ships to chase US carrier in waters off Korean peninsula as tensions mount
Russia and China have both dispatched intelligence-gathering vessels to follow the U.S.S. Carl Vinson in waters off of the Korean Peninsula, according to officials in the Japanese government.
TheHill.com reported Sunday night on an Associated Press bulletin that cited a story in the Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shinbun saying that both Russian and Chinese navy officials are tracking the movements of U.S. ships in the region.
“It appears that both countries aim to probe the movements of the United States, which is showing a stance of not excluding military action against North Korea,” said the AP.
Japanese Self-Defense Forces are reportedly increasing their maneuvers in the waters and airspace around the area in order to beef up their surveillance and warning capabilities.
The ships may be intended as a warning to Washington, the AP said.
N Y Times
Hacking Group Claims N.S.A. Infiltrated Mideast Banking System
For the past few months, an elite hacking group calling itself the Shadow Brokers has sporadically leaked sensitive data from the National Security Agency. On Friday, just when its leaks had appeared to slow, the group released what appears to be its most damaging leak so far: a trove of highly classified hacking tools used to break into various Microsoft systems, along with what it said was evidence that the N.S.A. had infiltrated the backbone of the Middle East’s banking infrastructure.
The timing of the leaks coincides with the United States’ recent shift in policy in Syria, which has escalated the conflict with the Syrian government’s main backer, Russia. The Shadow Brokers wrote in broken English in an online post, which cited the American missile attack on a Syrian air base among other reasons for the leak, that after a hiatus, it had returned to leaking because it was upset that President Trump was abandoning “the peoples who getting you elected.”
Among the leaks on Friday was an extensive list of PowerPoint and Excel documents that, if authentic, indicate that the N.S.A. has successfully infiltrated EastNets, a company based in Dubai that helps to manage transactions in the international bank messaging system called Swift.
Buzzfeed
"Fate Of The Furious" Just Destroyed Global Box Office Records (could only copy big font, sorry)
It earned more money worldwide than Star Wars: The Force Awakens — and most of it was made internationally.
L A Times
More rainstorms prompt the reopening of the damaged Oroville Dam spillway
State officials have reopened the damaged spillway at Oroville Dam as another set of rainstorms began moving across Northern California.
Water resumed gushing through the partly collapsed concrete chute Friday morning, said Kristyne Van Skike, who is on the state Department of Water Resources team that’s managing the spillway.
The rainfall Sunday was not strong enough to match the amount of water that was flowing out of the reservoir and into the spillway, she said. Water will continue pouring down the spillway for up to two weeks, depending on how much more rain falls.
On Saturday, the state received bids to fix the spillway at a cost ranging from $275 million to $344 million. State officials hope to award the contract by Tuesday.