I
Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, current leader Neon Vincent, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, Besame, Doctor RJ, Magnifico and annetteboardman. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) wader, planter, JML9999, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse, ek hornbeck, ScottyUrb, Interceptor7, BentLiberal, Oke 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.
A week ago Saturday I fell flat on my face and dislocated my right elbow and so it is challenging to type. I’m a one-handed typist with my left non-dominant hand. And slow. Please add the things I miss in the comments! National Geographic provides this week’s photos.
From the BBC:
The daughter of top Nazi Heinrich Himmler was hired by West Germany's foreign intelligence agency (BND) in the 1960s, officials have confirmed.
The revelation about Gudrun Burwitz was first reported in the German newspaper Bild following her death aged 88.
Her father was in Hitler's inner circle and is viewed as the chief architect of the Holocaust. He killed himself in custody in 1945.
Burwitz never disavowed Nazism and defended her father's reputation.
Reuters:
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union issued Prime Minister Theresa May a final Brexit warning on Friday — put your cards on the table, offer ways to overcome “huge” differences and prevent Britain from crashing out of the bloc without a deal.
On the second day of a summit more focused on migration than Brexit, leaders of the other 27 EU countries were united in stepping up the pressure on May to overcome rifts in her government and move forward with all-but-stalled talks.
May, who left the summit after the first day, has been reluctant to spell out detailed Brexit plans because of deep divisions in her Conservative Party over the terms of Britain’s biggest foreign policy shift in almost half a century.
From The Independent:
Enjoy them while you still can
No one really knows what will happen after Brexit, but as we venture into the unknown, perhaps one of the biggest causes for concern is how our supermarket shelves, fridges and stomachs will be affected.
Yes, various of your favourite foods may be at risk due to Brexit.
In fact, the government’s recently-unveiled doomsday no-deal scenario predicts severe food shortages within two weeks of leaving the European Union.
Also from The Independent:
Employee caught on video putting powder in lunchbox - prompting investigation into more than 20 deaths at company since 2000
A German worker was allegedly caught on camera poisoning a colleague’s lunch – prompting authorities to investigate the deaths of 21 other employees.
Police have arrested a 56-year-old man on suspicion of trying to kill his colleague at ARI Armaturen, which makes industrial components such as valves, in the town of Schloss Holte-Stukenbrock.
More than 20 employees have died before retirement since the turn of the millennium, many of them from heart attacks – which could potentially have been brought on by heavy metal poisoning.
From The Independent as well:
After three Arab-Israeli wars, tens of thousands of Palestinian deaths and millions of refugees, does Kushner really believe that the Palestinians will settle for cash?
Robert Fisk
Is there no humiliation left for the Palestinians? After Oslo, after the “two state solution”, after the years of Israeli occupation – of “Area A” and “Area C” to define which kind of occupation the Palestinians must live under – after the vast Jewish colonisation of land thieved from its Arab owners, after the mass killings of Gaza, and Trump’s decision that Jerusalem, all of Jerusalem, must be the capital of Israel, are the Palestinians going to be asked to settle for cash and a miserable village? Is there no shame left?
For the Palestinians are soon to be awarded the “ultimate deal” – “ultimate”, as in the last, definitive, terminal, conclusive, no-more-cards-to-play, cash-in-your-chips, go-for-broke, take-it-or-leave-it, to-hell-with-you, cease-and-desist, endgame “deal”. A pitiful village as a capital, no end to colonisation, no security, no army, no independent borders, no unity – in return for a huge amount of money, billions of dollars and euros, millions of pounds, zillions of dinars and shekels and spondulix and filthy lucre, the real “moolah”.
From Al Jazeera:
Economists and political observers urge President Rouhani to take specific steps to fix the currency woes.
At the end of a tumultuous week, marked by a currency crunch and rare protests by vendors in Tehran, economists are urging Iran's President
Hassan Rouhani to take decisive steps to deal with the country's pressing economic challenges.
On Tuesday, Iran's exchange rate hit 79,000 rials to a US dollar on the black market - up at least 110 percent from the same period last year.
A convergence of factors, including the uncertainty over the survival of the nuclear deal in the wake of Washington's withdrawal and the return of US sanctions, as well as fading consumer sentiment and soaring prices of imported goods have contributed to the turmoil, experts said.
Corruption and economic mismanagement further complicated the problem.
From The Guardian:
Mobs beat three people to death in three separate incidents in state of Tripura
Agence France-Presse in New Delhi
Authorities in north-eastern India have cut internet access after mobs beat three people to death in lynchings sparked by rumours spread on smartphones, officials have said.
They were the latest in a string of more than 25 similar killings in recent months across India, according to press reports, which have been carried out iafter false information was spread on the messaging service WhatsApp.
From CBS News:
MAE SAI, Thailand -- Thailand's prime minister on Friday visited a flooded cave complex where rescuers have been searching for 12 boys and their soccer coach missing for six days and urged their relatives not to give up hope.
"There has to be faith. Faith makes everything a success," Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, the country's military ruler, told families waiting outside the cave. "Faith in the actions of officials. Faith in our children who are strong and vigorous. Everything will go back to normal."
The boys, aged 11 to 16, and their coach entered the sprawling Tham Luang Nang Non cave after a soccer game on Saturday afternoon, but near-constant rains since then have thwarted the search for them. Authorities have nevertheless expressed hope the group has found a dry place within the cave to wait, and that they are healthy enough to stay alive.
From The Insider:
How old were the American Revolutionaries when the colonies declared independence from Britain in 1776?
Some were older, like Thomas Jefferson who was 33, John Hancock who was 39, or Benjamin Franklin who was 70. Others were shockingly young — even teenagers. James Monroe, for example, was 18 and Alexander Hamilton was 21.
All Things Liberty compiled a list of the ages of famous people at the start of the American Revolution.
Now for news of the ARTS, beginning with one from The Chicago Tribune:
Lisa Stone and Kenneth Burkhart wanted art that represented the “pulse of the city” for their show, “Chicago Calling: Art Against the Flow” at Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art — but they had a problem: Of the 10 artists featured in the exhibit, only one is still living.
“Chicago Calling” will run Friday to Jan. 6 at Intuit. The exhibit is part of Art Design Chicago, an initiative by the Terra Foundation for American Art that highlights Chicago as an art mecca through more than 25 exhibitions, and hundreds of public art programs, including conferences and symposiums in 2018.
Stone and Burkhart curated the exhibit. Stone works as the curator of the Roger Brown Study Collection of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, while Burkhart is an independent curator who organized shows for the Chicago Cultural Center. They met at an artist meetup in the 1980s. The board at Intuit approached them three years ago with the idea to craft a show for Art Design Chicago that would tell a story about the city the two of them loved.
They dove right in.
From The Cut:
By Kelly Conaboy
Do you remember the restoration of Ecce Homo? The 19th-century painting by artist Elías García Martínez was given a fresh coat of paint in 2012 by an 81-year-old amateur, well-intentioned (or was she?) art restorationist in the Spanish city of Borja, turning it instantly from fresco to oh no. Perhaps a photo would jog your memory:
Ah, yes. At the time, city councilor Juan María de Ojeda said the woman had acted “spontaneously and with good intentions.” An interesting theory.
On Tuesday, the world got word of a second Catholic restoration disaster, this time in the Spanish town of Estella, about 78 miles southeast of Borja. Hm. Perhaps it is simply a coincidence that Matthew 7:8 reads, “For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”
Or is it?
From The Highlands Current:
A new chapter for two Beacon residents
By Alison Rooney
Paulette Myers-Rich wants people to touch her art. Even flip through it.
With her husband, David Rich, this past September she opened The No. 3 Reading Room & Photo Book Works at 469 Main St. in Beacon, where she displays and sells handmade artist’s books, works on paper, photobooks and poetry from independent presses.
“I’m a trained librarian and I love to talk to people who pop in,” she says. “I want people to be able to handle the books. The ‘so precious it can’t be touched’ thing does not apply here. The material is part of the content, as is the structure. A well-made art book should be designed to be handled. So often the works are only seen in a controlled environment, under glass.”
From the BBC:
By Imran Rahman-Jones & Sinead Garvan
XXXTentacion has scored his highest position in the UK's Official Chart, with his track Sad climbing up to number five.
The 20-year-old was shot dead in his car in Florida on 18 June.
Radio 1 didn't play XXXTentacion on its Official Chart Show, even though he currently has three songs in the UK Top 40: Changes (22) Moonlight (17) and Sad.
And this last one from The Guardian:
16th-century Kenyan dry-stone walled settlement, ancient city in Oman and oasis in Saudi Arabia recognised by UN body
Matthew Taylor
Three new sites have been awarded world heritage status by Unesco, including a remote Kenyan settlement and an ancient city in Oman.