Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, eeff, Magnifico, annetteboardman, Besame, jck, and JeremyBloom. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) Interceptor 7, Man Oh Man, wader, Neon Vincent, palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse (RIP), ek hornbeck (RIP), rfall, 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.
As usual, we leave aside the more covered stories this week. There is plenty of coverage of Israel/Hamas, Ukraine/Russia, and (although we did cover it last week) the rapidly growing concern/conflict between Guyana and Venezuela. If I do have a story on these, it is because it covers an aspect that has been less prominently featured on these pages and broader media.
We begin with the one relatively cheerful story of the week. The more serious ones are beneath the fold. This comes from the Washington Post:
‘I’m not pregnant, I actually lost my uterus to cancer last year,’ Leslie Horton told her viewers after reading the insulting email on the air
While at work on a recent morning, Leslie Horton, an on-air traffic reporter, received an email from a viewer during a commercial break that criticized her body. Less than five minutes later, Horton, 59, was back on the air.
“I’m just going to respond to an email that I just got, saying ‘congratulations on your pregnancy; if you’re going to wear old bus driver pants, you have to expect emails like this,” Horton, a
Canadian broadcaster for Global News Calgary, said on live TV. “No, I’m not pregnant, I actually lost my uterus to cancer last year. And this is what women of my age look like. So, if it is offensive to you, that is unfortunate.”
From Al Jazeera:
Thousands of asylum seekers in the UK may soon find themselves expelled to Rwanda. It’s a plan that has been tied up in court since June 2022, but Rishi Sunak’s government has signed a new treaty with Rwanda and is pursuing legislation in the UK to make the deportations happen. What are the chances this latest move will materialize?
From NBC News (AP):
The Scottish bill would have allowed anyone 16 or older to change the gender designation on their identity documents by self-declaration, removing the need for a diagnosis of gender dysphoria.
LONDON — Scotland’s highest civil court on Friday upheld the British government’s move to block a landmark gender-recognition law passed by the Scottish parliament, underscoring the growing divide over local control of legislation in the nations of the United Kingdom.
The ruling by the Court of Session in Edinburgh is a setback for Scotland’s semi-autonomous government, which overwhelmingly approved a bill allowing anyone 16 or older to change the gender designation on their identity documents by self-declaration, removing the need for a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria.
From Deutsche Welle:
France: Six teenagers convicted in teacher murder trial
A French juvenile court convicted six teenagers on Friday over the 2020 killing of teacher Samuel Paty. An extremist beheaded him after he showed caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad to his class for a debate on freedom of expression.The court found five of the defendants — who were mostly between 14 and 15 at the time — guilty of staking out the teacher and identifying him to the attacker. They were charged with criminal conspiracy with the aim of preparing aggravated violence.
From euronews (Reuters):
A new proposal would make it easier for EU member states to phase out Russian gas completely.
A new EU proposal would give member states the power to stop companies in Russia and Belarus from accessing European pipelines and LNG terminals, partially or completely, the Financial Times reported citing a draft legal text proposed by Brussels.
If adopted, EU energy companies could have a legal basis to get out of contracts with Russian gas providers without having to pay compensation, writes the report citing a senior official of the EU.
From the BBC:
Armenia and Azerbaijan say they will move towards normalising relations, and will exchange prisoners captured during recent fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh.
The two neighbours have been involved in a decades-long conflict over the disputed territory.
In a joint statement released on Thursday night, the two countries said they saw a "historical chance" for "long-awaited peace".
From the Washington Post:
A standstill over the next host shows signs of ending after warring neighbors Azerbaijan and Armenia struck a deal
DUBAI — Azerbaijan appears poised to host next year’s global climate summit after longtime adversary Armenia on Friday agreed to stop blocking its bid.
The development means another oil-producing country could host the world’s most important gathering on global warming, a problem caused in large part by fossil fuels. The United Arab Emirates, the world’s seventh-largest producer, is currently hosting the U.N. Climate Change Conference, known as COP28, in Dubai.
From Reuters:
Things started out slow. January 2023 was warmer than usual, but still only the seventh warmest January on record.
From CBS News:
A zoo in Pakistan has been shut down after a man was mauled to death by tigers in an attack discovered during routine cleaning, officials said Thursday. The body was found on Wednesday morning in Bahawalpur's Sherbagh Zoo in the eastern province of Punjab after staff spotted one of the three tigers with a shoe in its mouth.
"The zoo is closed right now as we determine how the man got in," Ali Usman Bukhari, a senior officer of the province's wildlife department, which operates the zoo, told AFP.
From NDTV:
Panel On Mahua Moitra: Serious Misdemeanors, Severe Punishment
How is the Trinamool Congress preparing for the Lok Sabha elections after Mahua Moitra's expulsion especially in Krishnanagar from where she has been elected to the Lok Sabha? As Mamata Banerjee dropped a broad hint about her candidature on the ground, the Congress is already talking about backing her.
From Reuters:
Volunteers waded through stagnant water to hand out food and supplies, and some manufacturing plants remained shut in India's southern tech-and-auto hub district of Chennai on Friday, four days after cyclone Michaung lashed the coast.
At least 14 people, most of them in Chennai and its state of Tamil Nadu, have died in the flooding, triggered by torrential rains that started on Monday.
From The Hindu:
Weather disturbances in 1976, 1982, 1984, 1996 and 2005 brought intense rainfall that left the city flooded with both the Cooum and Adyar rivers, running through the course of the city, in full flow
Five weather systems in the Bay of Bengal had paths similar to the recent Cyclone Michaung since 1971, bringing with it heavy rainfall over Chennai.
November 1976 and June 1996 were among those years when Chennai received similar downpour. Y.E.A. Raj, former deputy director general of meteorology, Chennai, said the depression in 1976 scraped both Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh coasts and then recurved. The depression dumped nearly 45.2 cm of rainfall in Nungambakkam and 35 cm of rains in Meenambakkam. It is still an all-time record high rainfall in November.
From the Deccan Herald:
Modi had given a similar call during his last Mann Ki Baat programme to affluent business families to hold destination weddings in the country instead of going abroad.
Dehradun: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said India needs a movement like 'Wed in India' on the lines of 'Made in India' and asked affluent industrialists to hold at least one destination wedding in their families each year in Uttarakhand saying it will help the hill state emerge as a wedding destination.
"There is an old saying that marriages are made in heaven. But then why are young couples going abroad for their wedding instead of coming to the land of gods (Devbhoomi). My prescription to the young and rich couples is that there should be a movement like 'Wed in India' on the lines of Made in India," he said.
From USA Today:
James Powel
Thousands of tons of dead fish were found on the northern coast of Japan and no one seems to know why.
The sardines and mackerels were found on an over half-mile stretch of beach in Hakodate, Hokkaido on the country's northern main island, according to the Associated Press.
From the Associated Press:
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and several key Cabinet ministers were grilled by opposition lawmakers in parliament on Friday over a widening fundraising scandal and an alleged connection to the Unification Church which threaten to further drag down the government’s sagging popularity.
Support ratings for Kishida’s government have fallen below 30% because of public dissatisfaction over its slow response to rising prices and lagging salaries, and the scandal could weaken his grip on power within the governing Liberal Democratic Party. Still, the long-ruling party remains the voter favorite in media polls because of the fragmented and weak opposition.
We will conclude with a few arts/heritage/entertainment articles. The first up is from the NY Times:
Excavations in the ancient ruins have unearthed a cramped space where enslaved workers and donkeys performed their grueling tasks.
Archaeologists excavating parts of the ancient city of Pompeii made public new discoveries on Friday that provide a grim glimpse into the bleak existence of enslaved people two millenniums ago, including the existence of a “bakery-prison.”
The newly excavated area consists of a cramped space where donkeys and enslaved people lived, slept and worked together, milling flour to make bread. The single window that was found there provided dim light: it opened not to the outside world but to another room in the house, and was crossed with iron bars.
From NPR:
Curators of Israeli and Palestinian history and art have found themselves confronted by very different realities in the scramble to preserve museum works in the middle of an ongoing war.
In the frightening early hours of the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, some museums in Israel worked quickly to remove priceless artifacts and art from their walls into safe bunkers in the basements of institutions like the Israel Museum in Jerusalem and the Tel Aviv Art Museum.
From Artnet:
Museu de l'Art Prohibit has more than 200 artworks by the likes of Andy Warhol, Pablo Picasso, and Gustav Klimt.
Adam Schrade
The Museu de l’Art Prohibit, a new museum in Barcelona, seeks to inform viewers about censored art all around the world, using the word loosely to describe everything from social pressure to government restriction.
The museum has been in the works for at least two years, artistic director Carles Guerra said in an interview with Artnet News, after the Spanish media mogul and collector Tatxo Benet acquired a piece by Santiago Sierra from the ARCO fair in 2018. The artist had presented a series of portraits of what he called “political prisoners” after an illegal referendum for Catalan independence led to the arrests of politicians.
From Maui Now:
Noʻeau Visual Arts Center is seeking experienced Teaching Artists to support a wide range of arts programs for youth and adults; including arts outreach serving keiki and families in Lahaina.
Hui Teaching Artists engage and encourage students of all ages to explore the beautiful world of creating art through varied media, including through native Hawaiian art forms.
From AV Club:
The legendary creator of shows like All In The Family and The Jeffersons died Tuesday at 101 years old
Norman Lear passed away listening to the sound of his own legacy. The legendary TV producer and writer died Tuesday at 101 years old, surrounded by his family as they serenaded him with some of his favorite songs. This comes via his son-in-law, Dr. Jonathan LaPook, who told
CBS Mornings that Lear’s family “did what we knew he would want us to do” as he died. “We were singing songs from
Les Mis, which he loved, and also some of the songs from his TV shows,” LaPook said.
Lear created multiple iconic series throughout his career, like
All In The Family,
Maude,
One Day At A Time,
Sanford And Son,
Good Times,
Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman,
Fernwood 2 Night, and
The Jeffersons. While singing the
theme song from this last show, LaPook felt a flood of emotion. “We were singing ‘movin’ on up to the East Side’ and I heard myself saying ‘to a deluxe apartment in the sky,’ I just lost it. Because he’s going to some deluxe apartment in the sky,” he said.