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
China infections rise, as new city cluster emerges.
Summary
- China reported 17 new virus cases on Monday, its second consecutive double-digit increase
- Five of the new cases were reported in Wuhan, where the virus first emerged
- There is growing concern over a cluster of cases in north-eastern Shulan city in Jilin province
- UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson unveiled a cautious easing of lockdown conditions in England
- People can now spend more time outdoors, but quarantine for those who arrive by air will be introduced
- France and Spain are set for an easing of tight restrictions from Monday
- But official data from Germany shows the infection rate rising, days after lockdown was eased.
The Guardian
Coronavirus economic shocks could prove catalyst for Erdoğan's political decline
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is a populist juggernaut, fond of suggesting that his leadership is the only way to protect the country from enemies both real and imagined. The coronavirus pandemic, however, is an existential crisis unlike anything he has faced before.
“Erdoğan has gradually managed to reform Turkey’s constitution, consolidating power into the presidency’s hands,” said Nate Schenkkan, the director for special research at Freedom House, a US-based democracy watchdog.
“When the country grapples with the economic fallout from coronavirus, there will be few scapegoats left to blame. He may become a victim of his own success.”
There is little doubt a major pandemic-induced financial crisis is about to hit Turkey. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecasts that the country’s economy will shrink by 5% for 2020, driving up inflation to 12% and unemployment to 17.2%. Some predictions paint an even grimmer picture in which unemployment could reach 30%.
NPR
FDA Grants Emergency Use Authorization For 1st Coronavirus Antigen Test
The Food and Drug Administration announced Saturday that it has granted its first emergency authorization to a new type of test that can detect the coronavirus, called an antigen test.
The test looks for protein fragments associated with the virus. The sample is collected with a nasal swab. It can produce a result in minutes, the FDA said in a statement. The agency notes that compared to already approved genetic testing, the antigen test is cheaper and easier to use and could "potentially scale to test millions of Americans per day" once multiple manufacturers enter the market.
So far, only San Diego-based Quidel Corporation has received authorization for the tests. That authorization was granted late Friday. Antigen testing is not without its shortcomings. The FDA notes that this test is less reliable at ruling out infection in patients and that negative results "may need to be confirmed with a PCR test prior to making treatment decisions or to prevent the possible spread of the virus due to a false negative."
Reuters
Oil prices drop amid supply glut, fears of 2nd coronavirus wave
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Oil prices slid nearly $1 a barrel on Monday as concern over a persistent glut and economic gloom caused by the coronavirus pandemic combined to cancel out support from supply cuts at some of the world’s top producers.
But possible signs of a second wave of coronavirus infections in northeast China and South Korea worried investors even as more countries started to pivot towards easing pandemic restrictions in moves that could support oil demand.
“They’ve removed some of the lockdowns but does that mean the worse is over for now?” said Tony Nunan, a senior risk manager at Mitsubishi Corp in Tokyo.
The Guardian
Trump charges Obama with 'biggest political crime in American history'
Donald Trump continued to fume over the Russia investigation on Sunday, more than a year after special counsel Robert Mueller filed his report without recommending charges against the president but only three days after the justice department said it would drop its case against Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser.
“The biggest political crime in American history, by far!” the president wrote in a tweet accompanying a conservative talk show host’s claim that Barack Obama “used his last weeks in office to target incoming officials and sabotage the new administration”.
The tweet echoed previous messages retweeted by Trump, which earned rebukes for relaying conspiracy theories. On Sunday afternoon the president continued to send out a stream of tweets of memes and rightwing talking heads claiming an anti-Trump conspiracy. One tweet by Trump simply read: “OBAMAGATE!”
The New York Times
The Airline Business Is Terrible. It Will Probably Get Even Worse.
Delta Air Lines started 2020 celebrating what it said was the most successful year in company history. Not long after, it shared a record $1.6 billion in profits with its 90,000 employees. But with air travel nearly shut down by the coronavirus, the airline is now bleeding money and will drop 10 more airports from its already skeletal network on Wednesday.
Even as Delta and the other major airlines in the United States dramatically slash schedules, they are averaging an anemic 23 passengers on each domestic flight and losing $350 million to $400 million a day as expenses like payroll, rent and aircraft maintenance far exceed the money they are bringing in. Passenger traffic is down about 94 percent and half of the industry’s 6,215 planes are parked at major airports and desert airstrips, according to Airlines for America, a trade group.
Yet, devastating as the downturn has been, the future is even more bleak. With much of the world closed for business, and no widely available vaccine in sight, it may be months, if not years, before airlines operate as many flights as they did before the crisis.
The New York Times
Concert to Test Whether America Is Ready to Rock Again
Being first is often a good thing, but the opening this week of what could be the first major concert in the United States is turning into a fraught affair.
While the world’s big touring acts remain on hiatus or confined to sporadic online performances, Travis McCready, a country-rock singer, is set to take the stage Friday for an intimate acoustic live performance at a venue in Fort Smith, Ark.
The performance, though modest, is attracting outsized attention, not only because it’s testing whether people are ready to return in numbers to listen to live music but also because it is challenging the restrictions the governor put on such performances.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson has said indoor venues such as theaters, arenas and stadiums can reopen on May 18 as long as they limit their audiences to fewer than 50 people. The venue, Temple Live, a former Masonic Temple, is saying the show will be held three days earlier, with more than four times that number of fans allowed in — 229 in the 1,100-seat theater.
The New York Times
Will the Coronavirus Crisis trump the Climate Crisis?
BRUSSELS — With the global paralysis induced by the coronavirus, levels of pollution and carbon emission are dropping everywhere — leaving bluer skies, visible mountains, splendid wildflowers. Even Venice’s famously murky canals are running clear.
After decades of industry and government slow-walking the climate issue, for some it is proof that effective action can be achieved.
But nature’s revival has come at enormous cost, with Europe’s economy projected to decline 7.4 percent this year. So for many, like the suddenly unemployed, concerns about climate — which seemed urgent just a few months ago — can seem less so now.
Those competing camps are now locked in debate over how and what to rebuild — between those who want to get the economy moving again, no matter how, and those who argue that the crisis is a chance to accelerate the transition to a cleaner economy.
Raw Story
Crisis lays bare poverty in Geneva, as thousands queue for food
Geneva (AFP) - In one of the world's most expensive cities, thousands of people lined up Saturday for free food, as the COVID-19 crisis casts a spotlight on Geneva's usually invisible poor.
In the Swiss city famous for its private banks, luxury watchmakers and fancy boutiques, people began lining up at 5:00 am (0300 GMT) Saturday, according to the association Caravane de Solidarite, the main organiser of the event.
By the time the distribution at Geneva's Vernets hockey stadium began four hours later, the queue of people, most wearing masks and standing two metres (six feet) apart, stretched and wound for about 1.5 kilometres (1 mile).
Organisers said they believed at least as many people had showed up as a week earlier, when well over 2,000 took part.
Washington Post
Rockefeller heirs to Big Oil find dumping fossil fuels improved bottom line
Five years ago, members of the Rockefeller family walked away from the fossil fuels that made them rich, alarmed that burning oil and gas was causing climate change. Now it also seems like a smart financial move. The $1.1 billion Rockefeller Brothers Fund — largely free of oil and gas — has outpaced financial benchmarks, defying predictions of money managers.
Stephen B. Heintz, president of the fund, said the financial performance should bolster those trying to stop investment in industries linked to climate change. “This has become not a symbolic gesture, as might have been viewed at the time we announced,” Heintz said. “It’s become a movement.”
No other name reverberates in the oil industry quite like Rockefeller. John D. Rockefeller Sr. built the Standard Oil empire 150 years ago and became one of the richest Americans in history. An antitrust case in 1911 resulted in the breakup of the trust into the companies that became Exxon, Mobil, Amoco and Chevron, among others.