Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, eeff, Magnifico, annetteboardman, Besame and jck. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) Interceptor 7, Man Oh Man, wader, Neon Vincent, palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse (RIP), ek hornbeck (RIP), 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.
Reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives delivered to the Senate on Monday a charge that former President Donald Trump incited insurrection in a speech to supporters before the deadly attack on the Capitol, setting in motion his second impeachment trial.
Nine House Democrats who will serve as prosecutors in Trump’s trial, accompanied by the clerk of the House and the acting sergeant at arms, carried the charge against Trump to the Senate in a solemn procession across the Capitol.
Wearing masks to protect against COVID-19, they filed through the ornate Capitol Rotunda and into the Senate chamber, following the path that a mob of Trump supporters took on Jan. 6 as they clashed with police.
On arrival in the Senate, the lead House impeachment manager, Representative Jamie Raskin, read out the charge. “Donald John Trump engaged in high crimes and misdemeanors by inciting violence against the government of the United States,” he said.
C/NET
With lucid dreaming, you can control your dreams and perform impossible feats. Here's how to master it.
We've all had weird dreams, strangely normal dreams and bad dreams. But most of the time, our dreams are a product of our subconscious. We're not in control -- our brain creates the images we see in dreams, despite how we feel about them.
However, some people can fully control their dreams or at least control certain variables through lucid dreaming. These people are aware of their dreams (and aware of their awareness). If you've ever wanted to try lucid dreaming, keep reading for information about what it really is and how-to tips from sleep experts.
C/NET
On Birdwatch's Twitter page, you can sign up to help spot misleading tweets.
Twitter on Monday announced a new community-driven forum called Birdwatchthat's meant to combat misinformation and disinformation on the site. The pilot forum allows Twitter users to identify information in tweets they believe to be misleading and add notes that provide helpful context, the social media site explained in a blog post.
"We believe this approach has the potential to respond quickly when misleading information spreads, adding context that people trust and find valuable," Keith Coleman, Twitter's vice president of product, said in the blog post.
ESPN
The most unusual season in NFL history will end with something (else) that has never happened: The Tampa Bay Buccaneers will become the first team to compete for a Super Bowl title in its home stadium. Super Bowl LV will be played on Feb. 7 at the Buccaneers' Raymond James Stadium, a date the NFL awarded years before quarterback Tom Bradydecided to leave the New England Patriots and make a couple more runs at a championship in Tampa.
After winning the first NFC Championship Game he has ever played in, a 31-26 victory over the Green Bay Packers, Brady will face the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs. After a 38-24 victory over the Buffalo Billsin the AFC Championship Game, the Chiefs are seeking their second title of the Patrick Mahomes era. Let's take a closer look at this exciting Super Bowl matchup.
BBC
Moderna's Covid vaccine appears to work against new, more infectious variants of the pandemic virus found in the UK and South Africa, say scientists from the US pharmaceutical company.
More studies are needed to confirm this is true for people who have been vaccinated.
The new variants have been spreading fast in a number of nations.
They have undergone changes or mutations that mean they can infect human cells more easily than the original version of coronavirus that started the pandemic.
Experts think the UK strain, which emerged in September, may be up to 70% more transmissible.
BBC
Russian President Vladimir Putin says an opulent palace featured in a video by his arch-critic Alexei Navalny "doesn't belong to me".
The palace, by the Black Sea, was allegedly financed by billionaires close to Mr Putin. It is said to have a casino, skating rink and vineyard.
Thousands of people rallied for Mr Navalny across Russia on Saturday.
The 44-year-old, Russia's most prominent opposition leader, was jailed a week ago for 30 days, accused of parole violations. The survivor of a near-fatal nerve agent attack last August, he was arrested upon his return to Moscow from Berlin on 17 January.
Mr Putin called the palace video a "compilation and montage" and said he found it "boring".
NPR
California is lifting stay-at-home orders for all regions in the state, including Southern California, the Bay Area and the San Joaquin Valley — the three regions that had still been under the order — citing a drop in intensive care unit projections. But health officials warn that most counties still need to follow strict guidelines.
"COVID-19 is still here and still deadly, so our work is not over, but it's important to recognize our collective actions saved lives and we are turning a critical corner," said Dr. Tomás Aragón, the state's public health officer and director of the California Department of Public Health.
More than 40 million people live in the 54 California counties where the state deems COVID-19 risk to be "widespread," according to the latest official assessment. Only four counties, with a total population a bit more than 35,000, are currently in lower-risk tiers. Still, for many businesses, the new change is good news.
NPR
Ronell Foster was riding his bicycle through the hushed streets of Vallejo, Calif., one evening when a police officer noticed that the bike had no lights and that he was weaving in and out of traffic.
The officer, Ryan McMahon, went after Foster with lights flashing, siren blaring and the car's spotlight pointed directly at him. Foster stopped. The pair exchanged words before Foster, who was on community supervision for a car theft conviction a month earlier, fled, eventually ditching the bicycle. McMahon caught up with Foster and jumped on top of him. The two struggled. McMahon, a rookie on the force, tasered the father of two and struck him several times with his department-issued flashlight. Gunfire erupted — seven shots total. When it was over, Foster, 33, lay dying in the bushes in a darkened courtyard near an apartment complex.
Solano County District Attorney Krishna Abrams declined to bring charges against McMahon, who is white, saying the February 2018 fatal shooting of Foster, who was Black and unarmed, was justified. In a Jan. 31, 2020, letter to the Vallejo police chief, Abrams said Foster "posed an immediate and extreme threat" to McMahon and that it was "objectively reasonable for Officer McMahon to defend himself and open fire on Foster."
A year later, he shot again.
Reuters
Transatlantic relations cooled sharply under former President Donald Trump, who attacked Germany repeatedly for its export strength and its relatively low defence spending within the NATO alliance.
After bruising meetings of the G7 group of wealthy nations and NATO with Trump in 2017, Merkel said Europe could no longer completely rely on its allies and the continent must become more independent.
In their first phone call after Biden took office last week, Merkel congratulated him on his inauguration, German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said in a statement.
Reuters
(Reuters) - The United States reported a 21% drop in new cases of COVID-19 last week, as all but one state reported declines in new infections, and the number of coronavirus patients in hospitals also fell.
The country reported 1.2 million new cases in the week ended Jan. 24, down from 1.5 million new cases in the previous week. It was the biggest decline on both a percentage and absolute basis in the past year, according to a Reuters analysis of state and county reports.
New Hampshire is the only state where cases rose. In California, a hotspot where hospitals have been overwhelmed by the number of patients, new cases fell 32% in the past week.
CNN
(CNN)The contours of former President Donald Trump's second impeachment trial are starting to take shape, with the Senate's longest-serving Democrat expected to preside over the trial and Democrats still weighing whether to pursue witnesses during proceedings that could take up a chunk of February.
Chief Justice John Roberts will not be presiding like he did for Trump's first impeachment trial, according to two sources familiar with the matter. Instead, Sen. Patrick Leahy, the president pro tempore of the Senate, is expected to preside, the sources said. The Constitution says the chief justice presides when the person facing trial is the current president of the United States, but senators preside in other cases, one source said.
As the fourth Senate impeachment trial of a president in US history gets underway, there are still two big looming questions over the Democrats' impeachment case: Whether they will seek witnesses and how long the trial will take. The answers to both are still not known yet, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.
The Guardian
Italy’s prime minister Giuseppe Conte will resign on Tuesday in a tactical move aimed at maximising his chances of leading a new government.
Conte will hold a cabinet meeting at 9am CET before officially handing in his resignation to president Sergio Mattarella, his office announced in a statement.
Conte survived confidence votes in both houses of parliament last week after former prime minister, Matteo Renzi, triggered a political crisis by withdrawing his small Italia Viva party from the ruling coalition. However, the confidence votes left Conte with only a slim majority and he has since failed to strengthen support.
With a weak majority, Conte was expected to be defeated in a vote in the senate on a judicial report on Wednesday.
The Guardian
Downing Street has been warned by Brussels that downgrading the status of the EU’s ambassador to the UK will poison diplomatic relations for years to come.
The UK has so far declined to grant the bloc’s representative, João Vale de Almeida, and his 25-strong mission the privileges and immunities afforded to diplomats under the Vienna convention.
The British government’s approach has stirred anger in Brussels as the EU has 143 delegations around the world, each of which has full diplomatic status.
Speaking after a meeting of foreign ministers for the 27 member states, Josep Borrell, a former Spanish minister who is the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs, said there was “clear view” in the capitals at the apparent snub.
Al Jazeera
Ankara, Turkey – Two years ago, relations between Turkey and Saudi Arabia stood at one of the lowest points in the history of the two regional powers following the murder in Istanbul of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
His killing in October 2018 at the hands of Saudi agents in the kingdom’s consulate led to unprecedented Turkish denouncements of the Saudi government, highlighting what it said was the role of those close to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the country’s de facto ruler, in the assassination plot.
Today, however, ties between Ankara and Riyadh appear on the verge of a return to cordiality, thanks in part to the detente between Turkey’s ally Qatar and the four-nation Saudi-led bloc that imposed an embargo on Doha in 2017.
Earlier this month, a meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) saw Saudi Arabia and its allies agree to restore ties with Doha, including reopening airspace and borders.
The move was welcomed by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as “very beneficial”.
He added: “We hope that our position in Gulf cooperation will be re-established. This will make Gulf cooperation stronger.”
Al Jazeera
Toronto, Canada – Activists in the Canadian province of Ontario have staged a protest at the site of a transport company they say is involved in transporting Canadian-made, light armoured vehicles (LAVs) to Saudi Arabia.
Approximately 30 demonstrators blocked Paddock Transport International trucks in Hamilton, a city about 70km west of Toronto, for a few hours on Monday as part of a global day of action against the ongoing war in Yemen.
The conflict broke out in late 2014 when Yemen’s Houthi rebels seized much of the country, prompting Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to assemble a Western-backed military coalition to try to restore the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
Since then, rights groups and activists around the world, including in Canada, have sought to end their governments’ support for the Saudi-led coalition, as well as suspend weapons sales to Riyadh and Abu Dhabi that could worsen the devastating humanitarian crisis in Yemen.
DW News
The declaration allows for more resources and a special representative to be appointed to combat gender-based violence. Last year, the US territory recorded 60 femicides and six murders of transgender people.
The government of the US territory of Puerto Rico has declared a state of emergency over widespread violence against women.
The declaration, announced by Governor Pedro Pierluisi, allows for:
- More resources to be allocated to the fight against gender-based violence in the US territory;
- The appointment of a special government representative on the issue;
- New programs to integrate women into the labor market.
"For too long, vulnerable victims have suffered the consequences of systematic machismo, inequality, discrimination, lack of education, lack of guidance and, above all, lack of lack of action," Pierluisi tweeted on Sunday.
DW News
The bloc condemned Russia's detention of longtime Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny but stopped short of backing new sanctions. The dissident is facing jail time for breaching the conditions of an earlier sentence.
European Union foreign ministers meeting in Brussels on Monday decided to hold off on slapping new sanctions on Moscow in response to the arrest of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.
The talks came two days after a police crackdown on Navalny's supporters in which more than 3,500 people were detained during demonstrations that attracted tens of thousands of people.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the bloc's 27 members had condemned the mass arrests and agreed that Navalny's detention was "completely unacceptable." But ministers ultimately decided imposing fresh sanctions was "premature," according to one diplomat cited by AFP.
Borrell is set to visit Moscow early next month to press the Kremlin over Navalny's arrest and discuss the EU's concerns.