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, jck, and Besame. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) Man Oh Man, wader, palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse (RIP), ek hornbeck, ScottyUrb, Doctor RJ, BentLiberal, Oke (RIP) 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. Or sometimes a little bit later if the diarist is me. I have a terrible habit of cutting things close.
Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.
Thanks to those that filled in for me while I was off at conferences, summer school, and other excursions. Now back to the news.
Pictures of the week come from the Atlantic, National Geographic, Roll Call, CNN, BBC Africa, and Buzzfeed and The Guardian (wildlife).
We begin with news about the space race (then and now) from The Guardian:
The Apollo 11 mission inspired the world. What has happened in the ensuing half-century?
When Neil Armstrong stepped on to the moon 50 years ago, it was down to a giant leap of political and scientific imagination. His footprints on the powdery lunar surface changed the way we saw ourselves, confirming that humanity could escape its earthly coils. The mission unleashed a dream of what we as a species might do. Yet only a dozen people have walked on the moon, all between the summer of 1969 and the end of 1972.
Did we lose our primordial urge to explore? Almost certainly not – though Buzz Aldrin this week decried “50 years of non-progress”, probes have travelled to Pluto and beyond. But times have changed. The cold war rivalry that catalysed the space race vanished. The Soviet Union was first with a satellite, dog and astronaut in space. Today Washington and Moscow play the great game in the Middle East, not the heavens, although both are now contemplating a return to the moon: Donald Trump wants to make America great again by putting astronauts there by 2024, though some think China may get there first; Russia talks of landing cosmonauts by 2030.
News from India, from CNN (where you might be tempted to route for the intruder):
By Zoe Sottile and Manveena Suri, CNN
(CNN)A family in India found a wild tiger "relaxing on a bed" in their house following a deadly monsoon which flooded parts of South Asia this week, according to Indian conservationists.
In an image released by India's Wildlife Trust, the massive predator can be seen lounging on a bed in the unnamed family's home in the village of Harmuti, in the northeastern state of Assam.
From US News:
The country’s attempt to become the fourth nation to achieve a moon landing has been rescheduled for Monday.
Cecelia Smith-Schoenwalder
India's attempt to become the fourth country to land on the moon has been rescheduled for Monday due to a "technical snag."
The first attempt, which was set for July 14, was called off because of a technical problem just an hour before it was scheduled to launch, according to the Indian Space Research Organization.
Another story from India, via Al Jazeera:
Samson D'Souza handed maximum sentence for drugging and killing Scarlett Keeling on a Goa beach in 2008.
A court in
India has sentenced a bartender to 10 years in prison for drugging and killing a British schoolgirl whose body was found on a beach in the western state of Goa in 2008.
Mumbai High Court Justices R D Dhanuka and Prithviraj Chavan handed Samson D'Souza the maximum sentence on Friday for culpable homicide, provision of drugs and destruction of evidence, two days after overturning his acquittal in the attack on 15-year-old Scarlett Keeling.
The acquittal of a second suspect, Placido Carvalho, in the teen's death was upheld on Wednesday.
Moving further west, news from Egypt, from the Washington Post:
EL-ARISH, Egypt — Egyptian security officials say airstrikes targeting Islamic militants are underway in the restive northern Sinai Peninsula, killing at least 20 insurgents.
Officials said that Egypt’s air force on Friday hit more than 100 mountainous hideouts of militant groups in the city of El-Arish and the small town of Bir al-Abd. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.
From Global Construction Review:
The army-controlled company delivering Egypt’s new capital city in the desert east of Cairo has launched a competition to find a name for it.
Since the ambitious project’s unveiling in 2015, the city, intended as the new home for the sprawling Egyptian government as well as a thriving business and finance hub, has been called only the “New Administrative Capital”.
Yesterday ACUD, the 51% army-owned delivery agency, offered $4,500 (E£75,000) to the person whose suggestion for a name and logo gets picked by a panel of judges, Egypt Today reports.
Analysis of Turkish foreign relations, from Lawfare Blog:
Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared on Order from Chaos.
On June 6, then-Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan sent a strongly-worded letter to his Turkish counterpart over Turkey’s planned purchase of S-400 air defense system from Russia. The letter outlined a timeline to remove Turkey from the F-35 fighter jet program, should Turkey move forward with the purchase. Washington argues that if installed in Turkey, the S-400 system will compromise the F-35 technology.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan chafed at threats of sanctions and said that the S-400 purchase is a done deal. And indeed, last week Russia began delivering the system to Turkey.
From Hurriyet Daily:
A newly discovered canyon in the eastern province of Elazığ has been dazzling local people with its natural beauty since a local stumbled upon it by accident a few months ago.
The canyon, dubbed Saklıkapı, which means “hidden door” in Turkish, is located in Akuşağı village.
Fethi Ak, the local who discovered the canyon around a dam lake in the region, shared the images he took on social media and with the academics of the Elazığ’s Fırat University.
From Time Magazine:
A strong earthquake centered northwest of Athens shook Greece on Friday, causing frightened residents to run into the capital’s streets and damaging several buildings. Authorities said four people were hospitalized with injuries, none of them serious.
The Athens Institute of Geodynamics gave the earthquake that struck at 2:13 p.m. local time (1113 GMT) a preliminary magnitude of 5.1. The U.S. Geological Survey reported a magnitude of 5.3.
Firefighters checked for people trapped in elevators amid power outages after the brief but jolting quake.
From Deutsche Welle:
Italy has been clamping down on anti-social or unwanted behavior in its tourist centers. In Trieste it involved a hammock, in Venice a camping stove and a cup of coffee by the ancient Rialto bridge.
An Austrian tourist was fined €300 ($340) after taking a siesta in a hammock in the Italian city of Trieste this week.
The 52-year-old man had hung the hammock between two trees and thus broke city rules on green spaces that prevent the attachment of anything to vegetation. He also caused disruption to locals as they went about their daily lives.
From the BBC:
The French army is to create a "red team" of sci-fi writers to imagine possible future threats.
A new report by the Defence Innovation Agency (DIA) said the visionaries will "propose scenarios of disruption" that military strategists may not think of.
The team's highly confidential work will be important in the fight against "malicious elements", the report states.
It comes amid efforts by the French to innovate its approaches to defence.
And finally, also from the BBC:
Claim: EU regulations require kipper suppliers to keep their products cool with ice pillows when they are delivered.
Verdict: This is not true. EU regulation covers fresh fish, not smoked fish. The UK's Food Standard Agency says food manufacturers must transport food so it is fit to eat. This might require a "cool bag".
Speaking at the final hustings before the next prime minister is announced, leadership candidate Boris Johnson pulled a kipper out from under the podium.
And now, news from the arts world, beginning with this, from Anadolu Agency:
Mosaics show sea creatures, domestic, wild animals under glass protection at Bodrum hospital
Ali Balli
Visitors marvel at centuries-old mosaics featured under the garden of a hospital in western Turkey.
Unearthed during excavations in Mugla’s resort district of Bodrum, the late Roman-era houses and mosaics covered with figures of sea creatures, domestic and wild animals are exhibited under glass protection.
The exhibit offers visitors and patients of the hospital enjoy historical art and glimpse into the ancient life style.
"The [Bodrum] peninsula has a very rich texture," Chief Physician Dr. Yusuf Babayigit told Anadolu Agency,
From Al Jazeera:
Mechanisation and competition from China and Iran are disrupting Kashmir's ancient crafts - and hurting livelihoods.
Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir - As he puts the finishing touches on a delicate, woven mauve pashmina wool shawl that has taken around three months to make using ancient skills, Mehrajdin Dar says he has bittersweet feelings about the end of this particular project.
For his work, he will be paid slightly less than $290. Similar shawls can sell for up to 10 times that online.
On a wooden loom next to him is his father, Ghulam Ahmed Dar. He has been weaving a silk carpet and earns about $57 a month, also a fraction of the final retail price of one of his products.
From the New York Times:
New research is helping the hunt for missing art, largely amassed by Hitler, then re-stolen by desperate Germans in the closing days of the war.
By Catherine Hickley
Chaos reigned in the bomb-ravaged streets of Munich on April 29, 1945. American troops were closing in. Hitler was a day away from killing himself in his bunker in Berlin. The Nazi guards who protected important buildings had fled.
Hungry crowds stormed the Führerbau, the Führer’s building. First they looted the food, the liquor and the furniture. Then they turned to the air-raid cellar, which was filled with art, climbing over piles of Panzerfaust anti-tank grenades to get at the paintings.
“By the end of the second day,” Edgar Breitenbach, an art intelligence officer in the United States Army, wrote in a 1949 report “when the looting was finally stopped, all the pictures were gone.”
From the Los Angeles Times:
By Julia Wick
Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It’s Friday, July 19, and I’m writing from Los Angeles.
Once upon a time, the California coast was a place where one could live strangely and cheaply, out on the fringes.
There were wild, sacred landscapes, like something out of a Robinson Jeffers poem. Rugged places that still had room for restless eccentrics and searchers and cranks.
From OPB.org:
by April Baer
The Portland Art Museum has announced staff cutbacks, trimming 14 of the museum’s 177 full-time positions. The reductions are concentrated in visitors services, although one assistant curatorial job was cut, as well.
Museum director and chief curator Brian Ferriso said three factors led to the restructuring, including a new pay equity law, and an effort to retool the customer experience, as other West Coast museums have done recently.
But Ferriso also pointed to a shift in city and philanthropic funding, away from the larger arts organizations like the Portland Art Museum, and toward support for smaller institutions.