Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, current leader Neon Vincent, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, interceptor7, Magnifico, annetteboardman and Besame. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) wader, palantir, JML9999, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse, ek hornbeck, ScottyUrb, Man Oh Man, Doctor RJ, 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.
At least 14 people, some children, have been killed after tornadoes struck Lee County, Alabama, authorities said.
Sheriff Jay Jones told local news outlets they were still pulling people from the rubble, and some had been hospitalised with serious injuries.
"The challenge is the sheer volume of the debris where all the homes were located," he told CNN.
Alabama Governor Kay Ivey posted on Twitter to warn residents there could be more extreme weather to come.
"Our hearts go out to those who lost their lives in the storms that hit Lee County today," she wrote.
The National Weather Service (NWS) classified the first tornado to strike as at least an EF-3 - meaning winds of up to 165 miles per hour (266km/h).
Sheriff Jones described the damage as "catastrophic", saying one tornado cut a path of destruction quarter of a mile (0.4km) wide and several miles long.
Venezuela's self-proclaimed interim president Juan Guaidó has called for mass protests as he announced his return to the crisis-stricken country.
"I call on Venezuelans to gather across the country tomorrow at 11am," he tweeted on Sunday.
Mr Guaidó, who has been recognised by over 50 countries, has called on President Nicolás Maduro to resign.
But Mr Maduro insists he is the legitimate president, and is backed by China, Russia and Cuba.
It is now unclear how he will return to Venezuela, and what action Mr Maduro will take if he does.
The Supreme Court placed a travel ban on Mr Guaidó after he proclaimed his interim presidency.
EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini has warned that any harm to Mr Guaidó "would represent a major escalation of tensions" and be met with international condemnation.
One month on from Juan Guaido's decision to declare himself acting president of Venezuela in parallel to President Nicolas Maduro, the country remains in a strange and dangerous limbo. Guaido has unified an opposition prone to fragmentation, received recognition from scores of foreign countries, and gained the support of various international institutions.
But despite his offer of an amnesty for military personnel transferring their allegiance to his presidency, only a handful of Venezuela's thousands of generals have made the switch. Even a major standoff over allowing US aid into the country on February 23 saw only a small number of defections by low-ranking officials.
So what went wrong? In short, Guaido's plan to remove Maduro with military help was undermined by his misjudgment of how the military perceives the opposition and how resilient the decades-old civil-military alliance in Venezuela would prove.
Reuters
Russia tells U.S. it is ready for bilateral talks on Venezuela
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia is ready to take part in bilateral talks with the United States over the issue of Venezuela, Russia’s foreign minister told his U.S. counterpart late on Saturday.
The situation in Venezuela was the main topic in a phone call between Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that took place on March 2, Russia’s foreign ministry said on its website.
“In connection with Washington’s proposal to hold bilateral consultations on the Venezuelan topic, it was stated that Russia is ready to participate in this,” the ministry said in a statement.
It was “vital to be strictly guided by the principles of the UN Charter since only the Venezuelan people have the right to determine their future,” the statement said.
Russia and the United States have been at loggerheads over a U.S.-led campaign for international recognition of Juan Guaido, the Venezuelan opposition leader who declared himself the interim head of state, over President Nicholas Maduro.
There is a flash of light in the dark town as an airstrike hits an Islamic State weapons depot. A few seconds later, a ball of flame engulfs the entire neighbourhood. The sonic boom sends shockwaves through Baghuz, shaking the ground miles away, and for a second everything and everyone is stunned into silence. Then the artillery fire starts up again.
Five years after Isis swept across Syria and Iraq, all that remains of the “caliphate” that at its peak stretched across two countries and controlled 10 million people is a handful of streets in a bend of the Euphrates river running through this desert town, which will be retaken in the next few days.
Trapped from the east and the west by advancing Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and by the Syrian regime and Russia on the other side of the river, the caliphate is a hellscape of smoke and fire. There is nowhere left for the fighters to go.
The US-led coalition is making up for lost time in the fight to drive Isis out of its last stronghold. After a 10-day truce to evacuate women and children from the town, the offensive restarted this weekend at a tempo not seen even in the major battles for the cities of Mosul and Raqqa.
Al Jazeera
Hottest summer on record for Australia
Temperatures in Hobart hit a new March record of 39.1C on Saturday, the day after official figures released by Australia's Bureau of Meteorology showed that Australia had just suffered its hottest summer on record.
As heat continued to grip the continent, the Tasmania Fire Service (TFS) said the conditions forecast for Friday and Saturday were "equal to the worst we have seen this bushfire season".
As of 8:30 GMT on Saturday, 39 wildfires were still burning in Tasmania, and 23 in Victoria. According to the TFS and VicEmergency, a number of the fires remained out of control, with more than 300 firefighters battling out-of-control blazes in Victoria.
Reuters
Australia planning to import LNG: What's next? Coals to Newcastle?
MELBOURNE (Reuters) - Australia is on the verge of becoming the biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas, with dozens of tankers a week carrying fuel to North Asia. It could also soon be importing LNG as supply sources in its southern states run out.
Five LNG import projects are vying to start up between 2021 and 2022, possibly forcing gas users in New South Wales, South Australia, Tasmania and Victoria into more direct competition with Asian buyers for gas from northern Australia.
Those states represent a yearly market of 420 petajoules (PJ), equivalent to 7.8 million tonnes of LNG worth about $3 billion. That represents just 2 percent of global LNG trade, but import proponents say the terminals would be another key outlet for spot cargoes of the fuel, especially during periods of low demand in the northern hemisphere.
Piping gas from Queensland in northern Australia to southern markets is expensive, making LNG imports potentially viable.
Reuters
France's Macron looks to overcome Italy row, warns against nationalism
ROME (Reuters) - French President Emmanuele Macron, warning against the dangers of resurgent nationalism, said on Sunday that France and Italy needed to overcome their recent diplomatic clash and work together again for the good of Europe. Ties between the traditionally close allies have grown increasingly tense since mid-2018, with Italy’s Deputy Prime Ministers Luigi Di Maio and Matteo Salvini firing verbal pot-shots at Macron and his government, mostly over migration.
France briefly recalled its ambassador to Rome last month in protest, but Macron told state Italian television RAI that the two nations had shared interests that needed to be nurtured.
“There was a misunderstanding. The most recent upset is not serious as far as I am concerned and we must get over it,” Macron said in an interview with RAI.
This is terrible, and predictable.
Reuters
Emboldened by Bolsonaro, armed invaders encroach on Brazil's tribal lands
CAMPO NOVO DE RONDONIA, Brazil (Reuters) - Ten days after Brazil’s right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro took office, dozens of men entered protected indigenous land in a remote corner of the Amazon, hacking a pathway beneath the jungle canopy.
Inspired by Bolsonaro’s vow to open more native territory to commercial development, the men, armed with machetes, chainsaws and firearms, had come to stake their claims.
A tense stand-off ensued with members of the Uru-eu-wau-wau tribe, who captured the January confrontation on a cellphone video viewed by Reuters. The trespassers threatened to set fire to their villages to drive them out, tribal members said. Tribesmen readied poison-tipped arrows in their bows.
The invaders retreated. But a bullet-riddled sign at the entrance to their sprawling reservation now serves as their calling card.
The placard is emblazoned with the acronym FUNAI, a federal agency charged with protecting indigenous land rights that is widely loathed by agricultural interests.
“It was a warning that they are coming back,” Awip Puré Uru-eu-wau-wau, a 19-year-old tribal member, told Reuters a few weeks after the encounter in the northwestern state of Rondonia.
Deutsche Welle
France to set new €500 million digital tax for 30 tech giants
France's finance minister will bring forward legislation this week for a 3 percent tax on companies including Google and Facebook. Public anger about tax avoidance by digital giants has prompted the move.
Around 30 companies will be affected by a tax on digital giants, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Sunday.
Most of the companies subject to the proposed 3 percent tax will be American, but Chinese, German, Spanish, British and one French firm are also expected to have to pay it, Le Maire told Le Parisiennewspaper.
The paper listed Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple but also Uber, Airbnb, Booking.com and French online advertising specialist Criteo as targets.
Le Maire said the tax was a matter of "fiscal justice" aimed at companies with worldwide digital revenue of at least €750 million ($853 million) and French revenue of more than €25 million. The tax would yield French tax authorities some €500 million per year, he added.
Raw Story
Americans hate Socialism — but they love socialist policies: Polling expert ( Expert is Nate Silver, who was poblano on Daily Kos. )
FiveThirtyEight founder Nate Silver warned people against reading too much into the recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll.
According to the results, only 18 percent of Americans view the word “socialism” positively, presumably this is why Republicans keep trying to align Democrats with the governing philosophy. Only 25 percent of Americans said that they would be comfortable with a socialist as a president.
Silver noted that “public opinion is complicated.” He explained that so-called “socialist” goals like greater income redistribution “are often quite popular. But ‘socialism’ as a brand or label is really unpopular.” Programs like Medicare, Social Security, public education, fire departments, police, libraries, public parks and others are all examples of socialist programs or socially funded projects are all popular, and the public wants to see more significant investments.
NPR
United Methodists Face Fractured Future
For decades, the United Methodist Church has officially judged homosexual activity to be immoral, barred gays and lesbians from serving as clergy, and opposed same sex marriage.
Those conservative doctrinal positions went against prevailing cultural and social trends, at least in the United States, but they didn't split the church into rival conservative and progressive camps because church leaders rarely enforced them.
No more.
Delegates at the church's General Conference, meeting in St. Louis, Mo., Feb. 23 to Feb. 26, adopted several resolutions that not only reaffirmed the church's longstanding conservative positions but also introduced tough new measures for their enforcement. Methodist clergy who officiate at any marriage not involving a man and a woman will now face a one-year suspension for the first offense and permanent removal from the ministry for any subsequent offense.
In the aftermath of the conference action, the United Methodist Church is likely to lose some of its unity.
Washington Post
A massive aquifer lies beneath the Mojave Desert. Could it help solve California’s water problem?
CADIZ VALLEY, Calif. — The landscape here is more Martian than Earthly, rust and tan plains that rise in the distance to form the Old Woman Mountains to the east and the Bristols and Marbles to the north and west.
Almost everything here is protected by the federal government. The opportunity or threat, depending on your point of view, lies beneath the dusty surface that, after a recent rain, blooms with sprays of yellow desert dandelion.
There is water here in the Mojave Desert. A lot of it.
Whether to tap it on a commercial scale or leave it alone is a decades-old question the Trump administration has revived and the California legislature is visiting anew. The debate will help resolve whether private enterprise can effectively manage a public necessity in a state where who gets water and where it originates endures as the most volatile political issue.It also is among several critical decisions on water policy facing the new Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, who in his first State of the State addressin February highlighted what he called California’s “massive water challenges.” He already has scaled back one major water project — turning a proposed twin-tunnel pipeline to run beneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta into a single tunnel — and will soon consider changes in river-water allocations for urban and agricultural users.