Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, current leader Neon Vincent, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, Besame, Doctor RJ, Magnifico and annetteboardman. 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.
I have no furnace on this chilly evening. I am thawing out my hands in front of a space heater. Thank heavens there is such a thing. Now that I have shared my sorry story, here are the pictures of the week, from the Buzzfeed, Reuters, CNN, the Atlantic, BBC, BBC Africa, and The Guardian (wildlife photos).
And, although this would normally go in the arts section, this is a story about documentary photography and the world outside the US, so we’ll start with it this evening, from The Guardian:
When the train has gone and a hotel is too expensive, pavements and benches are the only option. Paweł Jaszczuk on how he captured a new phenomenon
Simon Bowcock
A well-to-do man is dressed for success: black lace-ups, tie and a sharp pinstripe suit. So why is he asleep on a Tokyo pavement in the dead of night, curled up like a foetus in the womb?
High Fashion, a new book, shows that this is no isolated incident. In photograph after photograph, lone suited-and-booted businessmen sleep in the middle of the city. A couple of drinks after work can sometimes get out of hand – many of us have been there. But in the deferential, work-hard/play-hard, corporate culture of Japan, getting drunk and ending up stranded without a bed seems to happen all the time.
Another from East Asia, from the Beeb:
Nearly £50,000 worth of cryptocurrency was mined using the stolen power
A man in China has been sentenced to three and a half years in prison after stealing electricity from a train network in order to mine bitcoin.
Xu Xinghua from Shanxi province pleaded guilty to stealing 104,000 yuan (£11,300), which was used to mine 3.2 bitcoins.
At the current price of bitcoin, Mr Xinghua's bounty would be worth around £15,000, however at bitcoin's peak, it would have been worth close to £48,000.
From The Guardian:
There is no blueprint for healing and rebuilding. But there are common challenges that we can understand, and imagine
“I cannot imagine what happened to you” – people would often remark to me.
I lost my world in the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004. We were on holiday. I survived the deadly wave that struck the southeastern coast of Sri Lanka. My two young sons, my husband and my parents did not.
“I can’t imagine the horror of it,” I’ve heard people say this week as news of the Sulawesi earthquake and tsunami in Indonesia reached us. We heard about Rori, a 29-year-old woman who fled her home with her husband and baby daughter as the earth shook and the floor split and her mother got swallowed into the moving ground.
From Quartz.com:
In a week when autocratic governments seemed more emboldened than ever to flex their power, and Brazil, a major Latin American democracy, looks set to vote a misogynistic populist into power, Malaysia seems to be bucking that trend.
The Southeast Asian country—which earlier this year ousted its corruption-embroiled prime minister to vote a 93-year-old former strongman back into power—took a series of steps this week suggesting it’s keen to shed some of its less-than-democratic vestiges.
From the BBC:
By Mal Siret
Doctors' use of Caesarean section to deliver babies has nearly doubled in 15 years to reach "alarming" proportions in some countries, a study says.
Rates surged from about 16 million births (12%) in 2000 to an estimated 29.7 million (21%) in 2015, the report in the medical journal The Lancet said.
The nation with the highest rate for using the surgery to assist childbirth is the Dominican Republic with 58.1%.
From the sixth continent, this story by the BBC:
By Frances Mao
Many drought-stricken regions in Australia have finally received much-needed rain in recent days.
Parts of New South Wales (NSW) - a state declared to be 100% in drought - have enjoyed their best rainfalls in two years, according to meteorologists.
But while the drenching has provided some relief, forecasters say it is nowhere near enough.
Farming regions in NSW and Queensland have been bone dry for months - years in some cases - meaning there is no quick fix to end the drought. So what would it take?
From news.com.au:
WHILE Australia is seen as a geologically stable continent, experts have revealed Australia is at risk of a devastating tsunami.
WHILE Australia is seen as a nation largely immune from the risks of earthquakes, experts have revealed that Australia is susceptible to a devastating tsunami.
Given that more than 85 per cent of Australians live within 50km of the coast, the consequences could be devastating.
Geoscience academics say tsunamis have reached Australia multiple times in the past century, lashed by waves caused by earthquakes as far away as South America.
From abc.net.au:
While reports of tornadoes in Australia can be met with surprise, there are dozens of reports of tornadoes in the country every year, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.
Yesterday afternoon the bureau confirmed atornado had ripped through the small Queensland town of Tansey, near Kingaroy.
Meteorologist Diana Eadie said public awareness of tornadoes had increased in recent years, particularly through social media.
A couple of stories, beginning with this from the BBC:
A man in Mexico City is refusing to give up the three lions he keeps on his terrace.
Federal inspectors say the trio should be moved into more appropriate care.
Their roars have caused concern in the highly built-up area, according to local media, and neighbours have voiced their complaints on social media.
Omar Rodríguez says he keeps them because he wants his grandchildren to get to know the endangered white species, says El Universal newspaper.
Followed by this, from The Independent:
Daniel Lingham was found hoarding 5,200 eggs at his Norfolk home
Colin Drury
A man caught wearing "head-to-toe camouflage" as he illegally collected rare bird eggs, has been warned that he faces prison time.
Police found more than 5,000 eggs as they searched the home of Daniel Lingham, 65, who kept his illegal trove in tubs under his bed, across his living room floor and in kitchen cupboards.
Eggs from nightingales, nightjars, turtle doves, chiffchaffs, little-ringed plovers, woodlarks and kingfishers were all found around his house in Newton St Faith, Norfolk.
And one, also from The Independent, is also an environment story, sort of:
Analysis suggests the funny smell may have been carried on the wind from Austria or Germany, but no one knows precisely what chemicals caused a stench that was like 'chlorine meets TCP/Dettol meets battery acid'
Accompanied by reports of some sort of fog, the stench – or at least awareness of it – seemed to spread east and west along the river, inviting comparisons with “chlorine meets TCP/Dettol meets battery acid” near Waterloo Bridge, and prompting Billy Kingsmill in East Ham to demand: “What the eff is it?”
As reports of the “burning/chemical/metallic” smell crept past the Houses of Parliament towards Victoria and Paddington stations, comparisons were made with the Great Stink of London of 1858, which forced even MPs to do something about the dreadful state of sanitation in the capital.
Another environmental story from the Independent:
Potential carcinogens could have health implications for local residents, Professor Anna Stec warns
Soil tests around Grenfell Tower have reportedly revealed “huge concentrations” of toxins in the soil and dust around the west London tower block.
Professor Anna Stec, who conducted a toxicology study, early findings of which have been seen by The Guardian, is said to have found potential carcinogens that could have health implications for local residents.
The professor in fire chemistry and toxicity at the University of Central Lancashire warned senior health officials, the police and the
Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea council (RBKC) of the need for further tests.
One final one from The Independent, as well:
Abigail Smith stole £200 worth of items, including a £70 moisturiser
Shehab Khan
A police officer has been sacked for shoplifting £200 worth of items while on duty.
Among the items taken by Abigail Smith was £70 of moisturiser from Selfridges in Birmingham's Bull Ring shopping centre while she was supposed to be working.
The misconduct hearing heard how the disgraced West Midland's Police officer pocketed the moisturiser.
From Sky News comes news of the season:
The discovery of a 10-year-old's body at a Roman site in Italy provides "eerie and weird" evidence of ancient "vampire burials".
Archaeologists have discovered the body of a 10-year-old child at an ancient Roman site in Italy which they believe was ritually buried to prevent it rising again from the dead.
The skeletal remains were found by archaeologists from the University of Arizona (UA) and Stanford University, alongside Italians, with a stone placed purposefully in the child's mouth.
According to researchers, the stone was intentionally inserted as part of a funeral ritual designed to stopper disease and the body from rising after being buried.
And another, from The Independent:
Three in five people have said they have seen a ghost in their lifetime, according to a new poll.
With Halloween just around the corner, a new survey of 2,000 people found most believed they had had a supernatural experience, with 40 per cent saying they thought their pet had had one too.
One in three had either lived or stayed in a house they felt was haunted.
And a couple of stories of the arts, beginning with one from freemuse.org:
The Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy has joined the list of hundreds of foreign films blacklisted in Uzbekistan, local news site Kun.uz reported on 5 October 2018.
Lars von Trier’s two-part Nymphomaniac film also made the list, as did Hollywood horror flicks IT and Leatherface. But the bulk of the 103 titles are low-budget horror and thriller movies, such as The Human Centipede series.
Check out the full list here.
From Vox:
The Museum of Metropolitan Art’s Catholic fashion exhibit, “Heavenly Bodies,” has broken every record.
At New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, fashion reigns supreme. In early May, all eyes were on the opening of a new exhibit from the Met’s Costume Institute, “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination,” which showed potential to draw record crowds to the museum and provide it with a major source of income at a moment of financial uncertainty.
That’s exactly what it did. The show closed out its five-month run as the museum’s most popular show of all time, beating out 1978’s “Treasures of Tutankhamun” for the top spot. All told, 1,659,647 people turned out for the Costume Institute’s dramatic depiction of Catholic fashion, according to a release from the museum. This final figure cements fashion’s dominance at the nation’s best-known art institution.
From the Lincoln Journal-Star:
A little mindfulness is part of the collection at many American art museums, which are offering yoga, meditation and other wellness programming as part of the art-viewing experience.
In New York City, the Brooklyn Museum offers yoga and meditation sessions. The Metropolitan Museum of Art last year featured workouts taught by professional dancers. And the Museum of Modern Art has long offered "quiet mornings," when museum-goers can enjoy the art in a more contemplative atmosphere, without the usual ambient chatter.
And, finally, this from Vox:
I don’t know what to do with good art by predatory artists. So I asked some literary critics.
For a few years when I was a teenager, my favorite movie was Edward Scissorhands.
I loved its spiky early-’90s Tim Burton aesthetics; I loved the sweetness of its story, hiding under so much self-conscious weirdness; and I loved Johnny Depp’s wounded, vulnerable performance as the titular scissor-handed boy, who couldn’t get close to anyone without hurting them. I laughed when Edward accidentally punctured a waterbed in a wordless, humiliated frenzy. I cried when he accidentally injured his girlfriend. I cried more for Edward than for the bleeding girlfriend, actually, because I could see that it hurt him to hurt her, and I was more interested in his pain than in hers.