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.
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BBC
Dozens of Yazidis enslaved by IS in Iraq now free
Thirty-six members of the Yazidi religious minority are free after nearly three years in the hands of so-called Islamic State (IS), the UN says.
They have been taken to UN centres in Dohuk in Kurdish northern Iraq.
It is unclear whether they escaped in Iraq or were freed, as the UN declined to give more information to avoid jeopardising future releases.
IS killed and enslaved thousands of Yazidis after seizing the northern town of Sinjar in 2014.
Kurdish Peshmerga forces regained control in 2015 but many Yazidis were held captive by IS elsewhere as the group took over large swathes of northern Iraq.
The 36 survivors include men, women and children who were enslaved, the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.
BBC
Indian brides given bats to keep abusive husbands in check
Hundreds of brides at an Indian mass wedding have been given wooden bats and urged to use them as weapons if their husbands turn abusive.
Messages such as "for use against drunkards" are written on the paddles, which measure about 40cm (15in) and are more traditionally used for laundry.
Gopal Bhargava a state minister in Madhya Pradesh, said he wanted to highlight the issue of domestic abuse.
He told the women to try to reason with their husbands before using them.
But if their spouses refuse to listen, they should let the paddles - known as mogri and usually used to beat dirt out of clothes - "do the talking", he said.
Mr Bhargava posted pictures of the brides with the bats on his Facebook page.
He told AFP news agency that he had become concerned about the numbers of rural women who faced abuse from alcoholic husbands.
"Women say whenever their husbands get drunk they become violent. Their savings are taken away and splurged on liquor," he said.
BBC
Social media giants 'shamefully far' from tackling illegal content
Social media firms are "shamefully far" from tackling illegal and dangerous content, says a parliamentary report.
Hate speech, terror recruitment videos and sexual images of children all took too long to be removed, said the Home Affairs Select Committee report.
It called for a review of UK laws and stronger enforcement around illegal material.
And the government should consider making the sites pay to help police what people post, it said.
The cross-party committee took evidence from Facebook, Twitter and Google, the parent company of YouTube, for its report.
It said they had made efforts to tackle abuse and extremism on their platforms, but "nowhere near enough is being done".
The Guardian
Pentagon puts civilian deaths in strikes on Isis way lower than outside groups
At least 352 civilians have been killed in US-led strikes against Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria since the operation began in 2014, the US military said on Sunday.
The military tally is far below those of other outside groups. Monitoring group Airwars, for example, estimates that 3,164 civilians have been killed by coalition air strikes. Reports from Mosul, Iraq, last month detailed one strike in which at least 150 civilians were killed.
“We regret the unintentional loss of civilian lives ... and express our deepest sympathies to the families and others affected by these strikes,” the Pentagon said in a statement.
“All feasible precautions were taken”, the statement said, but strikes resulted in “unintentional” loss of civilian life.
The Combined Joint Task Force, in its monthly assessment of civilian casualties from the US-led coalition’s operations against Isis, said it was still assessing 42 reports of civilian deaths.
The Guardian
Sebastian Gorka to leave White House amid accusations of links to far-right
Sebastian Gorka, an adviser to Donald Trump who has been under pressure over his links to Hungarian far-right groups, is leaving the White House.
A senior official said Gorka, a former counterterrorism analyst for Fox News who joined the administration as an adviser, will be leaving the White House in the coming days.
The official said that Gorka had initially been hired to sit on the strategic initiatives group, an advisory panel created by Trump’s chief strategist Steve Bannon to run parallel to the national security council.
But that group fizzled out in the early months of the administration. Gorka was unable to get clearance for the national security council after he was charged last year with carrying a weapon at Ronald Reagan Washington national airport.
The Guardian reported in April that Gorka attempted to push a plan to partition Libya into three as part of an effort to be named special envoy to the country by Trump.
The Guardian (Breaking)
Congress agrees $1 trillion budget deal – but no money for border wall
Negotiators have reached a bipartisan agreement on a spending package to keep the US federal government funded until the end of September, according to congressional aides.
The House of Representatives and Senate must approve the deal before the end of Friday and send it to Donald Trump for his signature to avoid the first government shutdown since 2013.
The Washington Post and wire agencies reported that Congress was expected to vote early this week on the agreement that is likely to include increases for defense spending and border security, citing aides who wished to remain anonymous.
No money will be allocated for Donald Trump’s pet project of a border wall with Mexico after the president bowed to Democratic resistance to the plan.
On Friday, congressional sources familiar with the negotiations said the deal could include an increase in defense spending for this year totaling around $15bn. But details of the agreement were not immediately available on Sunday night.
Democrats were pushing to protect funding for women’s healthcare provider Planned Parenthood and sought additional Medicaid money to help the poor in Puerto Rico get healthcare.
The Guardian
France on extra high alert for May Day as protesters march against Le Pen
France will be on extra high alert on Monday as workers and protesters use the traditional 1 May marches to stage a show of force against the far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen.
Up to 250 events have been planned across France on a day of symbolic importance in the Front National calendar when it holds its annual gathering to honour the party’s heroine, Joan of Arc.
In Paris, union leaders and political militants have urged a massive turnout to march between three of the capital’s most symbolic squares: from Place de la République to Place de la Nation via Bastille, in opposition to the FN and Le Pen.
The challenge for the city’s forces of law and order will be keeping the two sides apart in an already extremely volatile atmosphere and when the country is still under a state of emergency put in place after the November 2015 terrorist attack.
Police have said their biggest concern was of a potential lone act similar to that on the Champs Elysées 10 days ago when a man armed with an automatic rifle shot dead a police officer, Xavier Jugelé, and injured two of his colleagues.
In Paris, more than 9,000 police, gendarmes and soldiers will be on duty and have been authorised to stop and search vehicles and pedestrians and to conduct identity checks in four central arrondissements.
Al Jazeera
North Korea warns of 'catastrophic consequences'
South Korea and the United States wrapped up their annual large-scale military drills on Sunday but continued a separate joint naval exercise that has triggered the threat of nuclear war from North Korea.
The USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier group arrived in waters near the Korean peninsula and began exercises with the South Korean navy late on Saturday. The South Korean navy declined to say when the exercises would be completed.
North Korea has threatened to sink the American armada.
Tensions on the Korean peninsula have been running sky-high for weeks, with signs the North might be preparing a sixth nuclear weapon test - and with Washington refusing to rule out a military strike in response.
READ MORE: Philippines leader says N Korea 'wants to end world'
The massive Foal Eagle military exercises - which the defence ministry in Seoul said ended as scheduled on Sunday - involved about 20,000 South Korean and 10,000 US troops. Another annual joint manoeuvre known as Key Resolve ended last month.
Reuters
White House defends Trump invitation to Duterte despite human rights criticism
The White House on Sunday defended President Donald Trump's decision to invite Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte to Washington, saying his cooperation was needed to counter North Korea, even as the administration faced human rights criticism for its overture to Manila.
Trump issued the invitation on Saturday night in what the White House said was a “very friendly” phone conversation with Duterte, who is accused by international human rights groups of supporting a campaign of extrajudicial killings of drug suspects in the Philippines.
“There is nothing right now facing this country and facing the region that is a bigger threat than what’s happening in North Korea,” White House chief of staff Reince Priebus told ABC’s “This Week” during a weekend in which Trump sought to firm up support in Southeast Asia to help rein in North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.
Priebus insisted the outreach to Duterte “doesn't mean that human rights don't matter, but what it does mean is that the issues facing us developing out of North Korea are so serious that we need cooperation at some level with as many partners in the area as we can get to make sure we have our ducks in a row.”
The invitation for Duterte to the visit White House at an unspecified date appeared to be the latest example of the affinity Trump has shown for some foreign leaders with shaky human rights or autocratic reputations.
Raw Story
Trump didn’t consult State Department before inviting brutal Philippine strongman to White House
President Donald Trump invited brutal Philippine strongman Pres. Rodrigo Duterte to the White House without first consulting the State Department or the National Security Council to ask about our country’s relationship to the Duterte regime, said The Hill on Sunday.
According to the New York Times, both the National Security Council and the State Department were caught completely by surprise when the White House announced on Sunday that Pres. Trump had invited Duterte to Washington — in spite of the fact that the Philippine president has overseen the mass execution of 7,000 people as part of his government’s “war on drugs.”
“Now, administration officials are bracing for an avalanche of criticism from human rights groups. Two senior officials said they expected the State Department and the National Security Council, both of which were caught off guard by the invitation, to raise objections internally,” reported the Times.
Human rights groups heaped scorn upon Trump’s decision, calling it ill-advised and under-informed.
Al Jazeera
Libya seizes oil tankers after shootout at sea
Libya's coastguard has seized two foreign-flagged tankers and detained their crews for allegedly smuggling oil after an hours-long gun battle off the west coast.
The coastguard spotted the vessels on Thursday night about 2km off Sidi Said near Zuwara, a town on the central coast, authorities said.
"The Libyan coastguard boarded the two tankers, one flying the Ukrainian flag, the Ruta, and the other, the Stark, flying the Congolese flag," said General Ayoub Qassem.
"The coastguards had monitored them from afar and waited until Friday morning to act," he told AFP news agency on Sunday.
Qassem said the oil traffickers were heavily armed and were supported by small boats.
They put up fierce resistance, but the tankers were eventually seized by Libyan authorities "after more than three hours of exchange of fire".
Washington Post
A skeptical climate-change column whips up a storm among N.Y. Times readers
The New York Times thought it was bringing a fresh voice and some ideological diversity to its influential op-ed pages when it hired conservative columnist Bret Stephens from the Wall Street Journal two weeks ago.
Readers weren’t impressed by Stephens’s debut column, to say the least.
The cancel-my-subscription outrage flowed freely after Stephens challenged the certitude about climate science in his first piece for the newspaper on Friday. While acknowledging that the planet has warmed over the past century and that humans have contributed to it, he wrote, “much else that passes as accepted fact is really a matter of probabilities. That’s especially true of the sophisticated but fallible models and simulations by which scientists attempt to peer into the climate future.”
Stephens’s timing was impeccable, with his column hitting just as tens of thousands gathered around the nation and in Washington for the Peoples Climate March, in protest of President Trump’s rollback of regulations protecting the environment.
Raw Story
‘Stray’ black hole found hiding nearby has scientists puzzled
Finding a black hole when it is floating all alone in space is nearly impossible because there are no emissions to be seen.
So imagine the surprise researchers must have felt when, while examining molecular clouds around the supernova remnant W44, they stumbled across signs of a hidden black hole at the remnant's edge.
Located around 10,000 light-years away in the constellation of Aquila, W44 (SNR W44) is one of the best examples of a supernova remnant interacting with its parent molecular cloud.
The research team - led by graduate student Masaya Yamada and Professor Tomoharu Oka, both from Keio University in Japan - was initially looking at the remnant to find out how much energy was being transferred from the supernova explosion to the surrounding molecular gas.
See Also: Record-Breaking Black Hole Feeding Frenzy
To do so, they used the ASTE Telescope in Chile and the 45-m Radio Telescope at Nobeyama Radio Observatory, both operated by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan.
During their survey, the team found a compact molecular cloud, nicknamed the "Bullet," with enigmatic motion and a speed of more than 100 km/s. That means it exceeds the speed of sound in interstellar space by more than two orders of magnitude! This cloud, which is roughly two light-years across, was also found to be moving backward against the rotation of the Milky Way galaxy.