Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, Interceptor7, Magnifico, annetteboardman, Besame and jck. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) Man Oh Man, wader, Neon Vincent, 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.
BBC
Hopes have been dashed an experimental vaccine could protect people against HIV, the virus that causes Aids.
The National Institutes of Health has stopped its HVTN 702 trial, of more than 5,000 people in South Africa, as it found the jab did not prevent HIV.
Experts expressed "deep disappointment" but added the search for a preventive HIV vaccine must continue.
Such vaccines do not contain HIV and therefore do not pose any danger of giving HIV to an individual.
BBC
Joaquin Phoenix has received praise for using his Baftas speech to call out "systemic racism" in the film industry.
Phoenix collected the best actor award for Joker on Sunday, and his comments followed an outcry about the all-white acting nominations line-up.
"I think that we send a very clear message to people of colour that you're not welcome here," he said.
Actress Viola Davis and director Lulu Wang, who made The Farewell, were among those to applaud him on Twitter.
BBC
Is it a way to show disbelief, a way to ask others to be quiet, or a cute gesture popularised by a K-Pop star?
It's called "pinched fingers" and depending on where you are in the world, a new emoji announced by the Unicode Consortium, which approves standard emojis worldwide, could have a completely different meaning.
Its official purpose, according to the emoji's creators, is to represent the way an Italian might ask "what do you want?".
But that has not stopped its differing interpretations worldwide since the icon was debuted in January 2020.
In a 14-page proposal for the emoji, creators of the "pinched fingers" icon suggested that the gesture would be representative of Italian culture because "everybody knows Italians speak with their hands" - but may have other meanings elsewhere.
NPR
Davenport, Iowa, faced some of the worst flooding in its history last year.
Flooding isn't uncommon to Iowa's third-biggest city. For years, Davenport has resisted efforts to build a flood wall on its banks of the Mississippi River.
But last spring, businesses along the riverfront scrambled to save their spaces when floodwaters breached temporary barriers.
"It didn't get as bad as it could have got," says Dan Bush, a co-owner of multiple bars near the river. "The last big event was in 1993. I don't expect it to be another 25, 27-odd years before it happens again."
NPR
Scientists have found a clue to how autism spectrum disorder disrupts the brain's information highways.
The problem involves cells that help keep the traffic of signals moving smoothly through brain circuits, a team reported Monday in the journal Nature Neuroscience.
The team found that in both mouse and human brains affected by autism, there's an abnormality in cells that produce a substance called myelin.
That's a problem because myelin provides the "insulation" for brain circuits, allowing them to quickly and reliably carry electrical signals from one area to another. And having either too little or too much of this myelin coating can result in a wide range of neurological problems.
AFP
China's top leadership has admitted "shortcomings and difficulties" in its response to the coronavirus outbreak, as state media said a new hospital built at breakneck pace began receiving patients in the epicentre of the crisis.
Sixty-four new deaths were confirmed on Tuesday -- surpassing Monday's record to post the new biggest daily increase since the virus was detected late last year in the central city of Wuhan.
The death toll in China stood at 425, exceeding the 349 mainland fatalities from the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak of 2002-03, which killed nearly 800 globally.
AFP
Shanghai equities plunged almost eight percent Monday as nervous traders returning from an extended Lunar New Year break finally weighed in on a public health crisis that has slowed the Chinese economy and roiled international stock markets.
Oil prices also suffered a big drop, while equity markets in New York and Europe recovered some of their losses from Friday's rout.
Investors remained fixated on the coronavirus, which has afflicted more than 17,000 people in China and 150 beyond the country.
China's elite Politburo Standing Committee called for improvements to the "national emergency management system" following "shortcoming and difficulties exposed in the response to the epidemic," according to the official Xinhua news agency.
DW News
State law does not currently permit authorities to impose such a ban, the court said in a statement. The girl, who is studying retail sales, has a "right to unconditional protection of her freedom of religion," said the statement.
The ruling, which cannot be appealed, is being met with some controversy. Hamburg's social-democratic education senator Ties Rabe said that to implement the ban, he would seek to change state law.
"No matter what culture or religion prescribes, everyone shows their faces openly at school," he said, according to public broadcaster NDR.
According to Rabe, the school authority believes it's important that children and young people from all cultures and religions can participate in lessons in an equal way. When the face is completely veiled, a line is being crossed that makes a successful learning process impossible, he said.
DW News
Three days after Brexit, the differences between the EU and the UK are again pronounced. The issue of free trade remains difficult as one side insists on rules, the other rejects them. Bernd Riegert from Brussels.
The fact that the European Union will insist on a level playing field in its future relations with the United Kingdom should come as "no surprise" to the UK, said the EU's chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, in Brussels.
Barnier, who presented his negotiating mandate, recommended British Prime Minister Boris Johnson take a look at the EU-UK joint political declaration of October 2019. Article 17 states that both sides will strive for a fair trading relationship based on the same rules — the level playing field.
The closer the British government adheres to bloc rules, the closer the economic relationship could be, Barnier said. If Britain wanted to say goodbye to the EU internal market and its rules, and to the customs union, it's their choice, he added. He said that the negotiations on a free trade agreement that are due to start in a few weeks' time are apparently not about moving closer together, but about moving further apart. "In future, Britain cannot be as close as it was as a member of the EU," Barnier said in Brussels.
Al Jazeera
Four years ago, Mohamed Ali, a volunteer with the Bernie Sanders campaign, said it was hard getting those in his community to take part in Iowa's caucuses.
"They just didn't have the confidence" or they felt uncomfortable, Ali, who is a Palestinian-American real estate agent in the Des Moines area, told Al Jazeera by phone. Others, he said, didn't want to be involved in politics for fear of being targeted or discriminated against.
But this year participation of the Arab-Muslim community "has been huge ... it's been really amazing", he said.
Al Jazeera
At least 13 students have been killed and dozens wounded in a stampede at a primary school in western Kenya, according to local media reports.
At least 39 pupils "were seriously wounded" at Kakamega Primary School on Monday, the Daily Nation newspaper reported.
"We have lost 13 children in this stampede and we have others in hospital with injuries," police chief David Kabena told journalists in Kakamega town.
The stampede occurred at approximately 5:00 pm (14:00 GMT) when panic broke out as the students went home for the day from Kakamega Primary school.
The reason for the panic was not immediately unclear.
"We have launched an investigation to establish what exactly happened," Kabena said.
The Guardian
Warning that “history will not be kind to Donald Trump,” the Democratic representative Adam Schiff mounted an impassioned closing argument in the Senate impeachment trial on Monday, urging the chamber to hold the president to account.
The House impeachment managers, who are prosecuting Trump, pleaded with Senate Republicansto find Trump guilty of the charges in the two articles of impeachment: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
“History will not be kind to Donald Trump,” Schiff said. “I think we all know that. And if you find that the House has proved his case and still vote to acquit, your name will be tied to his with a cord of steel for all of history.”
Schiff blasted Trump in personal terms, warning that Trump had tried to cheat in the 2020 election and will keep trying if acquitted.
The Guardian
Google’s YouTube advertising revenues topped $1bn a month in 2019, the company announced on Monday, the first time it has revealed how much money the streaming service brings in.
But the news was not enough to satisfy investors who sold off shares in Alphabet, Google’s parent company, when it announced revenues for the last quarter that were below expectations. Shares fell 4% after the markets closed.
Sundar Pichai, Alphabet’s chief executive, has promised more transparency at the company following his elevation and the decision of founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page to step down from day-to-day operations.
In his first quarterly earnings release as head of Alphabet, Pichai revealed YouTube had revenues of $15.15bn in revenue in 2019, with $4.72bn in the fourth quarter alone. The figures do not include YouTube’s non-advertising revenue, like subscriptions for YouTube TV, which are included in Google’s other revenue segment.
The Guardian
A new report has revealed that a prominent white nationalist author, activist and podcaster known as “Paul Kersey” has in fact worked for more than a decade at mainstream conservative institutions and media outlets under his real name.
The Guardian has uncovered additional material that supports reporting by RWW, and further indicates Thompson’s role in moulding rightwing activists from a position near the heart of America’s most influential conservative institutions.
The RWW investigation, published on Monday, reveals the work of “Paul Kersey”, whom it calls a “barely underground member of the white nationalist movement” and a fixture on the roster of racist media outlets and campaign groups.
The Guardian
The pace of sea level rise accelerated at nearly all measurement stations along the US coastline in 2019, with scientists warning some of the bleakest scenarios for inundation and flooding are steadily becoming more likely.
Of 32 tide-gauge stations in locations along the vast US coastline, 25 showed a clear acceleration in sea level rise last year, according to researchers at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (Vims).
The selected measurements are from coastal locations spanning from Maine to Alaska. About 40% of the US population lives in or near coastal areas.
The gathering speed of sea level rise is evident even within the space of a year, with water levels at the 25 sites rising at a faster rate in 2019 than in 2018.
Reuters
Two women were killed and a toddler was wounded on Monday in a shooting at a residence hall on the Texas A&M University campus in Commerce, authorities said.
The wounded toddler, a boy about 2 years old, was in stable condition at a local hospital, Texas A&M-Commerce Police Chief Bryan Vaughn said in a briefing. He provided no more information about the women or the child.
The three victims were found by officers responding to a phone call by a student at 10:17 a.m., he said.
Earlier, the university said in a statement that police were actively investigating three gunshot victims at the residence.
Officials at the campus, located about 65 miles (105 km) northeast of Dallas, did not respond to a request for further comment.
Reuters
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A month after a U.S. missile killed him, Qassem Soleimani looms as large over Iraq’s fractured democracy as he ever did alive.
The death of the Iranian general removed a shrewd guiding hand on the pro-Tehran Shi’ite militias who revered him, setting off a menacing new instability in Iraq’s fragile political arena.
Now the shadowy power structure he helped to build — a state above the state made up of Iraq’s formal institutions — risks colliding ever more bloodily with a powerful youth-led anti-Iranian protest movement.
That in turn poses a quandary for Iraq’s leaders, torn by a choice between Iranian tutelage and meeting the demands of a generation seeking an end to Iran’s dominance.