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.
Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.
NPR
Hong Kong Police Fire Tear Gas As Demonstrations Continue
Protests continued in Hong Kong for a 10th straight weekend on Saturday as demonstrators organized across the city, blocking multiple roads and a key tunnel under Victoria Harbor.
The protests checkered much of Hong Kong. At the airport, demonstrators dressed in black filled the arrivals hall with a massive sit-in, cheering in Cantonese, "Go, Hong Kong people!" and calling for the resignation of Hong Kong's chief executive, Carrie Lam. It was the second day of what protesters said would be a three-day occupation at the airport.
Protesters also demonstrated outside China's military garrison in Hong Kong and marched through the city's Central District, parts of the Kowloon Peninsula and a neighborhood in the New Territories, where police officers in riot gear cleared the demonstration with tear gas.
In Hong Kong's Tsim Sha Tsui district, protesters set fires outside a police station, prompting the police to release a statement that the fires posed "a serious threat" to public safety.
NPR
Cash Back Guarantee: The U.S. Redeems Damaged Bills Because The Dollar Depends On It
Confettied scraps of shredded money blanket a table as a federal employee inspects each piece beneath a magnifying glass. A sliver containing Benjamin Franklin's face is examined before being placed in a pile with matching fragments.
Meticulously, workers piece together bills, as if solving a jigsaw puzzle. Noting the serial numbers, they deem that this pile of shreds contains value and move on to the next task, peeling apart waterlogged bills congealed into a sodden slab, probably recovered from a flood-hit home.
These bills are among about 24,000 claims annually that the U.S. Treasury Department reviews from people seeking reimbursement for their mutilated currency. It redeems an average of $30 million a year of that damaged money.
But the Treasury's Mutilated Currency Division has another important role: helping reinforce "the credibility and confidence the world places in the U.S. dollar," says Lydia Washington, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, which oversees the division.
Al Jazeera
Death toll from Indian floods reaches 147, thousands evacuated
The death toll from floods in the Indian states of Karnataka, Kerala and Maharashtra has risen to at least 147, according to authorities, as rescue teams raced to evacuate people and waters submerged parts of a world heritage site.
Heavy rain and landslides forced hundreds of thousands of people to take shelter in relief camps, while train services were cancelled in several flood-hit areas.
In the southern state of Kerala, at least 57 people were killed in rain-related incidents while more than 165,000 were in relief camps in the state, local authorities said on Sunday.
"Several houses are still covered under 10-12 feet deep mud. This is hampering rescue work," state chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan said. Authorities worried that rescue operations would be hit by thunderstorms and rainfall predicted in some parts of Kerala.
Deutsche Welle
Amazon deforestation prompts Germany to suspend Brazil forest projects
Germany said Saturday it would suspend aid to Brazil aimed at helping protect the Amazon forest in light of the stark increase in rainforest clearings since President Jair Bolsonaro took office.
"The policy of the Brazilian government in the Amazon raises doubts as to whether a consistent reduction of deforestation rates is still being pursued," German Environment Minister Svenja Schulze told Saturday's edition of the Berlin daily Tagesspiegel.
Initially the amount that will be stopped is around €35 million ($39.5 million), the newspaper reported.
Brazil is home to more than 60% of the Amazon forest, which is being cleared at an increasing rate to create more cropland.
Concern about the forest has grown even more since Bolsonaro took office in January. The Brazilian leader doesn't want to designate any further protected areas, pledging instead to allow more clearances and make more economic use of the Amazon region.
The former military officer also scorns any advice from abroad.
Deutsche Welle
Raging Canary Islands wildfire sparks mass evacuation
A wildfire on the Spanish holiday island of Gran Canaria has devastated at least 1,000 hectares (2,500 acres) and forced the evacuation of hundreds of people.
Firefighters, backed by aircraft and helicopters, were trying to contain the blaze that started on Saturday. An emergency military unit specialized in fighting fires has also been deployed, said the regional government of the Canary Islands.
On Sunday, police said they had detained and questioned a man for allegedly starting the fire using welding equipment.
Emergency services evacuated around 1,000 people overnight as a precaution, although the fire has not reportedly destroyed any homes.
Televised images showed the fire burning on a hillside on the volcanic island near the western municipality of Artenara. The regions of Tejeda and Galdar were also affected.
The Canary Islands are located in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Morocco.
Reuters
Between gun massacres, a routine, deadly seven days of U.S. shootings
Reuters) - A boy accidentally killed by his father during a fishing trip in Montana. A woman dead and her husband behind bars after a single gunshot in a Dallas hotel room. A teenager cut down on his porch on a warm day in Washington state.
During the week bookended by mass shootings in Gilroy, California; El Paso, Texas; and Dayton, Ohio, in which gunmen killed 34 people, hundreds of others were shot to death across 47 U.S. states, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit group that uses local news and police reports to track gun incidents.
The deaths were the sort of everyday murders, suicides and accidents that may not grab the headlines of mass shootings, but in many ways show the true toll of the gun violence endemic to the United States.
More than 36,000 people are shot to death every year on average in America, according to U.S. government data compiled by the gun-control advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety. That works out to about 100 a day, or one every 14-1/2 minutes. Suicides account for more than 60 percent of those deaths. Slightly more than a third are homicides.
The Guardian
New Zealand gun buyback: 10,000 firearms returned after Christchurch attack
More than 10,000 firearms have been bought by New Zealand’s government in less than a month as part of its gun buyback scheme following the Christchurch mosque shootings in March.
Following the killing of 51 people in two inner-city Christchurch mosques by an Australian white supremacist, prime minister Jacinda Ardern’s government rushed through legislation to ban military-style semi-automatic weapons and set aside NZ$150m to buy firearms that were now illegal.
A bill outlawing most automatic and semi-automatic weapons, and components that modify existing weapons, was passed by a vote of 119 to 1 in April.
“I could not fathom how weapons that could cause such destruction and large-scale death could be obtained legally in this country,” Ardern said at the time. “I struggle to recall any single gunshot wounds. In every case they [victims] spoke of multiple injuries, multiple debilitating injuries that deemed it impossible for them to recover in days, let alone weeks. They will carry disabilities for a lifetime, and that’s before you consider the psychological impact. We are here for them.”
Reuters
Hong Kong mops up after weekend of violence, braces for more protests
HONG KONG (Reuters) - Metro stations in Hong Kong resumed regular service on Monday and streets were being cleaned of debris as the city recovered from another night of violent clashes between anti-government protesters and police, with more protests planned this week.
Police fired volleys of tear gas at protesters across the territory on Sunday and staged baton charges in flashpoints in downtown Hong Kong and in working class districts.
Protesters threw two petrol bombs, which police said injured an officer, and used flash-mob strategy, withdrawing when pressed to reappear elsewhere, to combat police.
At one stage police stormed some underground train stations, firing tear gas and arresting protesters.
The protests blocked multiple roads in key commercial and shopping districts and shuttered public facilities across the Asian financial hub.
Protesters are expected to gather at the city’s international airport for a fourth day in a row on Monday and plan to rally outside police headquarters on Monday night.
Washington Post
Matteo Salvini is already Italy’s most powerful politician. So why is he trying to bring down the government?
ROME — Over a span of 14 months in government, Matteo Salvini has remade Italian politics in his image. He has passed anti-migrant laws, jabbed opportunistically at European Union rules, and prevailed time and time again in policy struggles with his coalition partner. Officially, he is Italy’s interior minister. Unofficially, he has become the nationalist and nativist face of the country.
But now, Salvini is making a play for more power, while pushing to upend the populist two-party coalition he dominates.
His goal: to provoke a crisis, force new elections in the fall, and become prime minister — steps that would leave no doubt about Italy’s ascendant nationalist identity.
This past week, during the middle of a tour of beach towns where he sipped cocktails and DJ’d, Salvini announced that he had lost faith in the coalition, a mash-up of his far-right League and the more politically amorphous Five Star Movement.
Some good news?
Christian Science Mnitor
Points of Progress: 271 million lifted out of poverty in India, and more
Over a 10-year period, 271 million people were lifted out of poverty. The United Nations has expanded its definition of poverty to include not just economic poverty, but also lack of electricity, malnutrition, and limited access to education. The 2019 U.N. Multidimensional Poverty Index found that 23% of 1.3 billion people studied are in poverty. India has made the most progress against poverty. Before Narendra Modi assumed power in 2014, only 40% of the population had access to a household toilet; according to the government, 99% of households have toilets as of last month. According to the World Bank, the percentage of Indians with access to electricity has increased from 70% to 93% since 2007.
(The Hindu)
Plus: Kyrgyzstan, United States, Guinea-Bissau, And United Kingdom.