NPR
The Food and Drug Administration has approved the first RSV vaccine for expectant mothers aimed at protecting their newborn babies.
Given during the third trimester of pregnancy, Pfizer's new shot – Abrysvo – protects infants from lower respiratory tract disease caused by RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, through their first six months of life.
RSV is a common respiratory virus that usually results in mild symptoms, but can be serious in infants, young children and older adults. Each year, up to 80,000 children under 5 are hospitalized with RSV, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That makes it the leading cause of hospitalization among infants.
NPR
Hilary, the first tropical storm to hit Southern California in over 80 years, began to dissipate on Monday after walloping the region with record-breaking rainfall.
The storm is moving on to Nevada with less vigor after leaving millions of California residents under flood risk warnings, causing thousands of homes and businesses to lose power and shutting down major school districts.
The storm dropped as much as 7 inches of rainwater in some mountain regions and up to 4 inches in lower-lying areas as it moved from northern Baja California in Mexico into the United States, drenching California along the coast, in the mountains and in the Coachella Valley, home to the desert city of Palm Springs.
Deutsche Welle
France issued an extreme heat warning Monday for four regional departments as temperatures scorched the country once again.
The "red alerts," which allow local authorities to take measures to protect people from the heat, are in place in the southern regions of Rhone, Drome, Ardeche and Haute-Loire.
Temperatures are expected to peak at 41 degrees Celsius (105.8 degrees Fahrenheit) in Rhone. This is the first time weather service Meteo France issued the alert this year.
Meteo France issued an "orange alert" for half of the country as well, saying temperatures will reach between 35 and 38 degrees Celsius (between 95 and 100.4 Fahrenheit).
Temperatures are expected to rise between 40 and 42 degrees Celsius on Tuesday afternoon in the southern administrative regions of Ardeche, Drome, Vaucluse and Gard, Meteo France said.
France recorded its highest temperature in June 2018, when mercury levels in Verargues in southern France hit 46 degrees Celsius.
Deutsche Welle
Greek firefighters battled wildfires that broke out amid scorching temperatures, with two villages north of the capital Athens evacuated, reviving fears after the country suffered major wildfires last month during its longest heat wave ever.
A forest fire broke out on Monday in the central Viotia region, some 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of Athens.
What happened in Greece?
People in two communities near the fire site were told to evacuate. Around 56 firefighters faced the blaze, the French AFP news agency reported, assisted by four water-dropping aircraft.
Fire protection authorities warned of an "extreme" fire risk around Athens and in other parts of southern Greece.
"The [firefighting] system is on alert, and we must be, too. The risk of wildfires remains high," government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis said.
Al Jazeera
Voters in Ecuador have passed a referendum to prohibit oil drilling in a protected area of the Amazon rainforest, a move hailed as “historic” by environmental activists.
With nearly all the votes counted on Monday, almost 60 percent supported the ban on oil development in Yasuni National Park, often described as one of the world’s greatest havens of biodiversity.
The referendum was part of a snap general election on Sunday that included votes for the presidency and National Assembly.
“Today we made history,” Yasunidos, an environmental group that backed the referendum, said in a social media post. It applauded the vote as a “historic victory for Ecuador and for the planet”.
Al Jazeera
South Africa will not be forced to side with any global powers, President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Sunday as he readied to host a summit of major emerging economies.
The meeting in Johannesburg this week of BRICS nations — Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa — will seek to widen their influence and push for a shift in global geopolitics.
South Africa’s hosting of the summit has turned a spotlight on its ties with the Kremlin, especially as it has refused to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“While some of our detractors prefer overt support for their political and ideological choices, we will not be drawn into a contest between global powers,” Ramaphosa said in a televised State of the Nation address.
The Guardian
It was a triumphant moment across Spain and around the world, a precedent-setting show of talent that offered a tantalising preview of what lies ahead for women’s football. But the day after Spain’s women won the World Cup, it was the country’s football chief – a 45-year-old man – dominating domestic headlines.
The rumbling started soon after Spain’s 1-0 victory over England in the final in Sydney on Sunday night. As the Spanish team collected their gold medals, Luis Rubiales, the president of the Spanish football federation, grabbed the forward Jenni Hermoso by the head, pulling her towards him and planting a kiss on her lips.
Soon after, Hermoso said on a live stream that she “didn’t like it”. She later added: “But what can I do?”
Video of the unwanted kiss circulated swiftly online, sparking outrage at home and abroad. The minister of equality in the caretaker government, Irene Montero, described it as “a form of sexual violence that we women suffer on a daily basis and until now has been invisible”. She added: “We can’t normalise this.”
The Guardian
As Storm Hilary continues to batter California and the US south-west, questions loom about what role the climate crisis played in supercharging the storm and whether there could be more like it in the future.
After a year of weather extremes in California and the US west – including record-breaking winter rain and snowfall and punishing summer heatwaves – the tropical cyclone’s appearance in the region remains extraordinary.
The last time a tropical storm made landfall in southern California was in 1939, according to the National Weather Service. And meteorologists believe the only tropical cyclone churning at hurricane force was in 1858.
The storm reached the strength of a category 4 hurricane but was downgraded to a tropical storm before making landfall on Sunday. It then barreled north through southern California and Nevada dumping historic amounts of rain, causing flash floods and knocking out power for tens of thousands of people.
The Guardian
The serial killer nurse, Lucy Letby, will never be released from prison after she was sentenced to a rare whole-life term for the “sadistic” murders of seven babies.
Letby, who is Britain’s worst child serial killer, refused to leave the court cells as the parents of her newborn victims described the horrifying impact of her crimes.
One bereaved mother called Letby’s absence “one final act of wickedness from a coward”.
A father, sobbing, said the murder of his two identical triplet sons had torn his family apart, leaving him suicidal and ruining their trust in medical professionals. “It has destroyed me as a man and as a father,” he said.
Letby, 33, became only the third woman alive to be handed a whole-life jail term as she was sentenced for murdering seven babies and trying to kill another six.
Reuters
REVELSTOKE, British Columbia, Aug 21 (Reuters) - Millions of people in the western Canadian province of British Columbia were under air quality warnings on Monday as hundreds of wildfires filled the skies with smoke and turned the sun orange.
In the cities of Kelowna and Kamloops, the air quality index (AQI) was above 350, a "hazardous" level, real-time air quality information platform IQAir showed. AQI measures major pollutants including particulate matter produced by fires
In comparison, Lahore in Pakistan was the world's most polluted major city in 2022 with an average AQI of 97, according to IQAir.
Reuters
Aug 21 (Reuters) - The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco filed for bankruptcy on Monday, saying a Chapter 11 reorganization will facilitate a settlement of about 500 lawsuits accusing the church of enabling childhood sexual abuse by priests.
The filing in U.S. bankruptcy court in San Francisco will put the lawsuits on hold and buy time for settlement talks, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone said in a statement.
"We believe the bankruptcy process is the best way to provide a compassionate and equitable solution for survivors of abuse while ensuring that we continue the vital ministries to the faithful and to the communities that rely on our services and charity," Cordileone said.
The "overwhelming majority" of the alleged abuse occurred in the 1960s and 1970s, involving priests who are deceased or no longer in ministry, Cordileone said.
The crew of the Overnight News Digest consists of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, jeremybloom, Magnifico, annetteboardman, rise above the swamp, Besame and jck. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) eeff, 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.