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, Besame and jck. 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 featureon 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.
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US NEWS
DW News
Perpetrators of mass shootings in the US have used the website to disseminate white nationalist propaganda. A cybersecurity firm has withdrawn its services to 8chan, saying: "They have proven themselves to be lawless.”
US cybersecurity firm Cloudflare on Monday said it would withdraw its services from the online forum 8chan after the main suspect in the deadly El Paso shooting posted a white nationalist manifesto on the controversial website.
"Based on evidence we've seen, it appears that he posted a screed to the site immediately before beginning his terrifying attack on the El Paso Walmart, killing 20 people," Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince said in a blog post.
8chan administrators had "voluntarily taken it down" while they shifted services, according to founder and former administrator Fredrick Brennan, who has disavowed the site.
DW News
The president said he supported increased mental health assessments to prevent more attacks. He also advocated restricted access to violent video games and stronger criminal punishments for shootings.
In an address on Monday following two mass shootings over the weekend that left 30 dead in Texas and Ohio, US President Donald Trump said that the country must "condemn racism, bigotry, and white supremacy."
There have been more than 250 mass shootings in the US so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which counts a mass shooting as any attack in which four or more people, excluding the shooter, are killed or wounded.
In his speech, Trump blamed mental illness and violent video games for the propensity of gun violence. He called for stronger mental health assessments in relation to firearms licenses and purchases.
"We vow to act with urgent resolve," he said.
Yahoo News
In his first formal comments on two mass shootings over the weekend that left over 30 people dead, President Trump mistakenly identified Sunday’s killings in Ohio as having occurred in Toledo rather than Dayton. The mistake was not lost on the mayors of both cities.
“May God bless the memory of those who perished in Toledo,” the president said in an address on Monday from the White House. “May God protect them. May God protect all of those from Texas to Ohio.”
In a statement posted to Twitter, Toledo Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz said that while it was “pretty obvious” Trump misspoke, the city was “happy to accept his prayers, even if they were meant for #Dayton.”
[...]
Kapszukiewicz quickly pivoted to criticizing lawmakers in Washington, D.C., for not doing more to curb gun violence.
BuzzFeed News
Online trolls and far-right accounts went back to their standard playbook to spread false information during the El Paso terror attack and Dayton mass shooting — a mundane but terrifying fact that hoax campaigns continue, even at one of the nation’s lowest moments, and despite efforts by social platforms to crush them.
The trolls began posting false information about the gunman’s identity before the public even knew how many people died in the attack. And there were false implications that anti-fascist activists or cartels were responsible for the violence that far outpaced the actual facts being released by police on the scene.
The result is a continuous targeting of institutions — including news outlets, law enforcement officials, and elected officials — by either fostering disbelief in them or getting them to repeat the hoaxes.
Hours after the shooting, the suspect was identified as 21-year-old Patrick Crusis and the attack is being treated as “domestic terrorism” by authorities. — he’s not in a cartel. Crusis left behind a document filled with explicing anti-immigrant, white nationalist hatred — he’s not an anti-fascist. At least 22 were killed and 26 were injured in the attack.
The Guardian
I don’t know if this reporter (Victoria Bekiempis) is just not a very good writer or if she always repeats the language change made by Republicans, but the last sentence should read, “… Democratic presidential candidate ...”. I added the [sic].
Cesar Sayoc, who in March admitted to mailing more than one dozen bombsto prominent critics of Donald Trump before the 2018 midterm elections, was sentenced in New York to 20 years in prison on Monday.
Known as a fanatical Trump supporter, Sayoc was also reportedly a former bodybuilder and male exotic dancer. He sent 16 crude explosives to 13 intended victims across the US, prosecutors said.
None of the bombs, which prosecutors called “improvised explosive devices”, exploded.
Sayoc’s targets included the former vice-president Joe Biden, senator and Democratic 2020 presidential candidate Cory Booker, former CIA director John Brennan, former national intelligence director James Clapper, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, the New York offices of cable news network CNN, actor Robert De Niro, Democratic senator and 2020 candidate Kamala Harris, former attorney general Eric Holder, former US president Barack Obama, billionaire liberal philanthropist George Soros, Democrat (sic) presidential candidate Tom Steyer and US congresswoman Maxine Walters.
CNN
"We should soundly reject language coming out of the mouths of any of our leaders that feeds a climate of fear and hatred or normalizes racist sentiments; leaders who demonize those who don't look like us, or suggest that other people, including immigrants, threaten our way of life, or refer to other people as sub-human, or imply that America belongs to just one certain type of people," Obama said.
"It's time for the overwhelming majority of Americans of goodwill, of every race and faith and political party, to say as much -- clearly and unequivocally," he added.
DW News
Protesters should "say no to chaos," city leader Carrie Lam said in her first media appearance in days. Police said they had made a record 82 arrests after demonstrations held as part of a general strike turned violent.
Carrie Lam, Hong Kong's chief executive, vowed on Monday to maintain law and order on the day of a citywide strike that crippled parts of Hong Kong.
Protesters targeted the city's public transport during the Monday morning rush hour. At least seven railway lines were shut down as protesters blocked entrances to commuter trains. More than 200 flights were canceled at Hong Kong's airport and the airport's express train service was also suspended.
Al Jazeera
The Indian government's decision to abolish a special status for India-administered Kashmir has been widely criticised and opposed, as tensions prevail over the constitutional autonomy of the disputed region.
Monday's announcement sparked chaotic scenes in parliament, with opposition politicians condemning the presidential decree revoking Article 370 of the constitution that gives the state of Jammu and Kashmir a substantial degree of autonomy.
The government led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) also moved a bill proposing the Jammu and Kashmir state be divided into two "union territories" directly ruled by New Delhi.
Al Jazeera
Pakistan has summoned the Indian High Commissioner to Islamabad to register the country's "unequivocal rejection" of India's decision to scrap a special status for India-administered Kashmir, simultaneously ramping up efforts to mobilise international support against the move.
"[Pakistan's] foreign secretary conveyed Pakistan's unequivocal rejection of these illegal actions as they are in breach of international law and several UN Security Council resolutions," read a Pakistani government statement released after Monday's meeting.
Earlier in the day, India's Minister of Home Affairs Amit Shah told parliament in New Delhi that the president signed a decree abolishing Article 370 of the constitution that gave special autonomy to the India-administered portion of the Muslim-majority Himalayan region.
The Guardian
Financial markets around the world have fallen sharply amid growing fears that the US-China trade dispute could escalate into a full-scale currency war, with damaging consequences for the world economy.
Stocks plunged on Wall Street as the Dow Jones Industrial Average sank by more than 500 points on Monday in a wave of sustained selling pressure around the world as the trade war intensifies.
London-listed shares on the FTSE 100 fell by about 180 points, almost 2.5%, following steep losses on Asian markets overnight.
Donald Trump renewed his attack on China, arguing in a flurry of tweets that Beijing was using currency manipulation and unfair trading practices to undermine jobs and company profits in America.
“China is intent on continuing to receive the hundreds of billions of dollars they have been taking from the US with unfair trade practices and currency manipulation. So one-sided it should have been stopped many years ago!” he said.
The latest Twitter tirade from the White House came after China allowed its currency, the yuan, to devalue against the dollar on Monday against a background of increasing tension in the long-running trade dispute between the world’s two largest economies.
Reuters
Scottish voters would back independence and they want another referendum in the next two years, a poll published on Monday showed, indicating that the United Kingdom could be wrenched apart shortly after it leaves the European Union.
Asked how they would vote in an independence referendum, 46% of the 1,019 surveyed Scottish voters said they would vote for independence and 43% said they would vote against, according to a poll by Michael Ashcroft.
Excluding those who said they did not know or would not vote, this amounted to 52% to 48% for an independent Scotland.
“I found a small majority in favor of a new vote – and the first lead for an independent Scotland for more than two years,” Ashcroft, a Conservative who opposed Boris Johnson’s successful bid to be prime minister, said.
Johnson, who took over from Theresa May last month and is unpopular in Scotland, was booed as he entered a meeting last week with Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon who is demanding London agree to another referendum.
ENVIRONMENT, SCIENCE, HEALTH AND TECHNOLOGY
The Guardian (8/3/2019)
Dating back to late February, about 550,000 acres of land have been underwater in the rural Yazoo backwater area of the lower Mississippi delta. About half of the acreage is farmland, creating devastating effects in a region where agriculture is the lifeblood of the economy. While flooding in the region is common, this year’s floodwater has hung around longer than ever.
Carmen Hancock, James Hancock and Rodney Porter have spent the past five months helping their elderly neighbors survive in their homes surrounded by floodwater. “We’re living by the good Lord to do what’s right,” said James Hancock. “There’s a number of older people living in this neighborhood, and it’s just the right thing to do. When the going gets tough, the tough get going. That’s what I live by. You do what has to be done.”
Compounding the problem was a high Mississippi River, which remained near or above flood stage for the longest span since 1927. The perfect storm of historic rainfall and a high river resulted in a backwater flood that has lingered beyond anything the region has ever seen.
Only within with the past couple weeks has the water receded, and for the first time in nearly half a year, farmers are finally beginning to see their land re-emerge.
The Guardian
Scotland
It is fascinating to ponder what brought a group of ancient settlers to the windswept islands of Orkney. One thing is certain: 5,000 years ago the Neolithic village of Skara Brae, fed by a bountiful supply of sealife, was a thriving community. Tucked away in the dunes, on the edge of a horseshoe bay, the inhabitants built comfortable dwellings furnished with stone dressers and beds, played games, made pottery and tools, and even found time to craft jewellery from walrus tusks and whale teeth.
No one can be certain when or why, but at some point an apparently abrupt event emptied the village of its inhabitants, leaving the nearby dunes to blanket Skara Brae for thousands of years.
The village is once again under threat – a recent climate vulnerability study, carried out by a group of environment and heritage experts on behalf of Historic Environment Scotland, concluded the Unesco-protected settlement was extremely vulnerable to sea-level change, increased precipitation and storm intensity.
The Guardian
Western Australia
Port Beach in Fremantle and South Thomson Bay at Rottnest Island have been identified as the top two Western Australian locations at risk of coastal erosion.
In a report released on Monday, the state government listed 55 places where coastal erosion is expected to threaten homes, roads and other public assets over the next 25 years.
At Port Beach, which is among 15 hotspots in the Perth metropolitan area, this winter’s storms caused a car park to collapse and left buildings teetering on the edge.
The WA government estimated the cost for managing the 55 locations could be up to $110m over the next five years and said it was seeking federal funding contributions.
It is focused on seawalls and groynes, and the premier, Mark McGowan, said retreat was a last resort.
McGowan said he wrote to the prime minister, Scott Morrison, about the federal government working with the states to tackle the climate crisis-related issue, which needed more than piecemeal solutions.
The council used earthmovers to pile up sand as a temporary protective measure but the Fremantle mayor, Brad Pettitt, said substantially pushing back existing infrastructure, including Port Beach Road, was needed in the long term.
NPR
The Benioff Children's Hospital at the University of California, San Francisco is a sleek new building with state-of-the-art facilities — a place where the sickest children go for leading-edge treatments.
Which is why it might be surprising to find Robyn Adcock, who practices acupuncture and acupressure, walking the halls.
Though Adcock practices ancient arts of traditional Chinese medicine, she is an integral part of the hospital's integrative pediatric pain and palliative care — or IP3 — team. It's sort of an emergency response team for pain that combines traditional pharmaceutical pain care with other techniques to ease the suffering of the sick children who populate the rooms here.
The interdisciplinary team includes anesthesiologists and nurses, as you might expect. There's also a clinical psychologist, a massage therapist and someone who practices hypnosis — as well as Adcock, who treats patients with both acupuncture and acupressure.
"We see cases in the hospital that are end of life or very chronic serious illness, or extreme pain cases — where their primary team maybe wants more support and managing the pain piece," Adcock says.
NPR
Low calorie! Less than 1 gram of sugar! Gluten-free! While these phrases are commonly plastered on food packaging, it's now not unusual to find wine and spirits brands touting these attributes.
Nowadays, the talk is less about the body of a wine and more about what alcohol is doing to your body. Recent data show wine sales are declining, and many point to the wellness trend pervasive among millennials as the cause. In response, brands are making claims about the health properties of their beverages as a way to attract consumers. But health researchers and scientists are raising concerns about these claims.
"I think in general, when [brands] have these health claims on these products, it takes away from the important fact that you're still ingesting alcohol," says Lisa Fucito, associate professor of psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine, who focuses on tobacco and alcohol addiction.
"No matter how many other healthy things you try to put in something, you can't undo the fact that there's alcohol in there. And alcohol, at the end of the day, is the most dangerous part of what people will be exposed to."
#MyPresident is trending on Twitter. Rightly so!