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
Huff Post
A Jewish man was shot multiple times in a drive-by shooting outside a North Miami Beach synagogue on Sunday evening in an attack the synagogue president called an act of cowardice.
Yosef Lipshultz, 68, was shot six times, including four times in a leg, just after 6:30 p.m. as he waited for services to begin at Young Israel of Greater Miami, synagogue president Damon Salzman said. Lipshultz, whose Hebrew name is Yoseph Noach ben Leah Tzivyah, was reported in stable condition after surgery.
[…]
Police said a gunman in a black Chevy Impala drove past, circled and then opened fire, striking Lipshultz in his lower extremity.
“It’s too early to tell if this is going to be categorized as a hate crime,” police spokesman Alvaro Zabaleta told HuffPost. “In order to classify a crime a hate crime, there are several elements that need to be present, and that’s what investigators are looking into as we speak.”
The Guardian — Interview with Mark Lawson
Many birthday presents are rapidly discarded or forgotten, but a gift given to a 17-year-old Michigan high-school student, on 29 July 1970, changed American television. Ken Burns received an 8mm movie camera, the first step on a path that made him such a revered figure in documentary film-making that, five decades later, his birthday this year will be celebrated with a whole day of his work on the PBS network.
If 66 seems an odd birthday to be so honoured, it is because, on the more conventional landmark last year, Burns was locked away editing his latest eight-part, 16-hour series, Country Music, which airs in September. That work forms, with Baseball and Jazz, a loose trilogy about emblematically American sports and culture. Those series are a peacetime balance to another thematic trio: The Civil War, The War and The Vietnam War, grippingly authoritative revisitings of the conflicts in which America was engaged between 1861-65, 1941-45, and 1954-73.
NBC News
GILROY, Calif. — The gunman who killed three people and wounded a dozen more at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in Northern California was an angry 19-year-old who had recently waded into the world of white supremacy.
Santino William Legan, who was shot dead by police Sunday before he could do more damage, posted online about an 1890 racist manifesto, “Might is Right or The Survival of the Fittest,” NBC News confirmed.
“Read Might is Right by Ragnar Redbeard,” Legan posted on his Instagram page. He then used a slurs against mixed-race people and misogynistic descriptions of white Silicon Valley workers, complaining about "hordes" of them "overcrowding" towns.
Redbeard, which was a pseudonym, argued that only strength and violence determined what is morally right. The work, which is filled with misogynistic and anti-Semitic rhetoric, is a staple among neo-Nazis and white supremacists on extremist sites.
Reuters
U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration imposed another obstacle for asylum-seekers on Monday, finding that being persecuted on the basis of threats against a family member is usually not enough to be granted asylum in the United States.
Attorney General William Barr issued a ruling that will set the standard for all immigration judges, using the same power his predecessors Jeff Sessions and Matthew Whitaker used to try to narrow the field of people potentially eligible for asylum.
The Trump administration is actively seeking to reduce the number of asylum cases, saying the system is overwhelmed by fraudulent claims. The number of people apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border has surged under Trump, with many Central Americans asking for refuge in the United States even though the vast majority
Reuters
Capital One Financial Corp (COF.N) said on Monday personal information including names, addresses, phone numbers and credit scores of about 100 million individuals in the United States and 6 million people in Canada were obtained by a hacker who has been arrested.
The U.S. credit card issuer said it identified the hack on July 19 and the individual responsible has been arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
WORLD NEWS
AFP
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday urged EU leaders to drop their opposition to renegotiating Brexit, as the pound slumped on growing concerns about a no-deal departure.
Johnson, who took office last week, wants to change the exit terms struck by predecessor Theresa May but insists he will leave the European Union without any agreement at all if necessary on October 31.
Brussels has said it will not reopen the text.
"The withdrawal agreement is dead," Johnson told reporters during his first visit to Scotland.
“I am confident we will get a deal but it is also right we prepare for no deal," he said.
The government has not yet announced plans for Johnson to visit EU capitals, and a spokeswoman indicated he would not go until Brussels changes its stance.
DW News
German police arrested a man after he allegedly shoved a boy and his mother onto train tracks at Frankfurt railway station. The child was hit by a train and lost his life. The motive was not immediately clear.
An eight-year-old boy was killed when a man apparently pushed him and his mother from a train platform at Frankfurt's main railway station, German police said on Monday. The boy's mother survived the incident.
The 40-year-old attacker also tried to push another man onto the train tracks as the high-speed train was approaching, but the would-be victim managed to move away, according to preliminary information shared by the police. The authorities have opened a murder probe.
Passers-by capture suspect
The suspect tried to flee the scene and managed to exit the station, but passers-by held him up outside the building. The motive for the attack was not immediately clear, and the police believe the suspect did not know his victims. Investigators are looking for additional witnesses and information.
DW News
Germany's coalition government is split over whether to contribute to the UK's proposed mission to protect shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. The Social Democrats say military options would only escalate the conflict.
The German government is struggling to find a clear line on whether or not to take part in a European naval mission in the Strait of Hormuz. The UK government last week proposed a joint European mission to defend shipping in the region, with both Iran and Britain seizing a tanker flagged by the other country in recent weeks.
Norbert Röttgen, a senior figure in Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and chairman of the parliamentary foreign affairs committee, responded by suggesting that Germany had a moral duty to engage, given the country's economic dependency on exports.
"Our prosperity lives on free shipping," Röttgen told DW last week. "And we have to make clear that we stand alongside our British friends, partners and allies who are affected. There must be joint European action. Unfortunately there are fundamental differences in Iran policy with the US, which is why we can't cooperate with the US just like that."
But the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), the conservatives' junior coalition partners who currently run the Foreign Ministry under Heiko Maas, have been much more circumspect.
Al Jazeera
China has said the anti-government protests in Hong Kong have become a "serious challenge to the rule of law", reiterating its support for the financial hub's leader and police in the wake of another day of street clashes.
The semi-autonomous territory has been rocked by demonstrations over the past two months that began over changes to extradition laws but have since grown into a wider movement against the Beijing-backed government and alleged police brutality.
On Sunday, police repeatedly fired rubber bullets and tear gas to drive back protesters blocking Hong Kong streets with signs and umbrellas.
The Guardian
The pound has slumped to a 28-month low as investors reacted with alarm to the escalation of no-deal rhetoric by Boris Johnson’s government.
Sterling dropped below $1.23 against the US dollar and fell sharply against the euro to below €1.10 on the international currency markets on Monday, as cabinet ministers began meetings to prepare for a no-deal Brexit.
But while the pound suffered, there was confusion from Johnson’s government about whether a no-deal Brexit is the main working assumption. The prime minister himself insisted there was an “assumption that we can get a new deal” and that he wanted to reach out to European leaders.
However, his deputy official spokeswoman reinforced the position of Michael Gove, the cabinet lead for no-deal preparations, that “we must assume that there will be a no-deal Brexit on 31 October” unless EU leaders agree to reopen talks on the withdrawal agreement. The spokeswoman also made clear Johnson would not be meeting EU leaders until they agree to make a new deal that does not involve the Irish backstop.
NBC News
Only days after Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered last October, Saudi Arabia rushed to contain the diplomatic fallout by calling the crime a “rogue operation.” But the incident was hardly unique. Within months, The New York Times and other news organizations reported that the regime had been sending squads across sovereign borders to physically repatriate Saudi dissidents.
Since then, in interviews by NBC News on three continents with more than 30 individuals — activists, national security experts, relatives of the "forcibly disappeared," and American, European and Middle East government officials — a clearer picture has emerged about the extent to which Saudi Arabian authorities have gone to imprison, repatriate and even murder fellow Saudis who dare to protest the kingdom’s policies or somehow malign its image.
The interviews detailed how American citizens and Saudi families have been caught up in the kingdom's operations to silence critics, who include members of the royal family, students, activists and businessmen. Some of these missions to curtail Saudi dissidents have occurred in western countries closely allied with Riyadh.
BBC
Gang members from one prison block invaded another part of Altamira jail in Pará state.
Sixteen of the dead were decapitated and the remainder suffocated after part of the prison was set on fire, officials said at a news conference.
Two prison officers who were taken hostage have since been freed.
The violence began at about 07:00 local time (10:00 GMT), and ended at around noon, officials said.
Members of the Comando Classe A (CCA) gang set fire to a cell where rival gang members from Comando Vermelho (Red Command) were kept, the Pará state government said in a statement.
ENVIRONMENT, SCIENCE, HEALTH AND TECHNOLOGY
McClatchy
Trump administration officials vowed on Thursday to proceed with a sweeping rule that will lower national standards on vehicle tailpipe emissions, dismissing a deal brokered by California with four of the world’s largest automakers meant to reduce air pollution.
The deal between California and Ford, Honda, BMW of North America and Volkswagen Group of America fuels a growing feud between the Trump administration and the automotive industry.
It also escalates a yearlong struggle between California and President Donald Trump over how much to raise standards on vehicular greenhouse gas emissions, a critical battlefront in the fight over climate change.
Reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Colorado and major automakers said on Monday they have reached a deal on the state’s plan to adopt California’s zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) requirements after earlier talks had ended without a deal.
The state, which plans to join the California program starting in the 2023 model year, has agreed to allow automakers to earn credits for selling electric vehicles in the two model years prior and use other transitional credits available in other states.
Two major auto trade groups representing 99% of U.S. car and truck sales including General Motors Co (GM.N), Volkswagen AG (VOWG_p.DE), Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) and Hyundai Motor Co (005380.KS), said the state agreed to address concerns “by providing the support Coloradans need to buy electric vehicles while allowing auto manufacturers to transition into Colorado’s ZEV program.”
The Guardian
At sunrise, the misty fields around the village of Guior are already dotted with men, women and children sowing maize after an overnight rainstorm.
After several years of drought, the downpour brought some hope of relief to the subsistence farmers in this part of eastern Guatemala.
But as Esteban Gutiérrez, 30, takes a break from his work, he explains why he is still willing to incur crippling debts – and risk his life – to migrate to the United States.
“My children have gone to bed hungry for the past three years. Our crops failed and the coffee farms have cut wages to $4 a day,” he says, playing nervously with the white maize kernels in a plastic trough strapped to his waist.
“We hope the harvest will be good, but until then we have only one quintal [46kg] of maize left – which is barely enough for a month. I have to find a way to travel north, or else my children will suffer even more.”
The Guardian
Devils Hole pupfish – among the rarest fish on earth – know a thing or two about earthquake safety. After all, they managed to ride out a huge wave triggered by the recent tremors in California.
Found only inside an inconceivably deep, sweltering geothermal pool called Devils Hole near Death Valley, and numbering fewer than 200, Devils Hole pupfish are endangered, but not helpless.
As the 7.1-magnitude Ridgecrest earthquake ripped through southern California, it trigged a 10ft wave inside Devils Hole. A video released by the US National Park Service shows the wily pupfish swimming deeper and deeper into the water to avoid getting swept up and smashed.
“And if you study the fish, you can see that they seem to know that something’s going to hit maybe five, six seconds before it happens,” said Kevin Wilson, an aquatic ecologist at Death Valley national park. “It’s wild.”
So named because they reminded a biologist of overexcited puppies at play, Devils Hole pupfish are not unused to earthquakes. Possibly because of its depth – divers have ventured more than 400ft down and not been able to see a bottom – Devils Hole responds to quakes as far away as China. But the Ridgecrest earthquake, which was the largest to hit the state in decades and was centered about 70 miles away, caused an especially violent reaction.
The Guardian
About 350m trees have been planted in a single day in Ethiopia, according to a government minister.
The planting is part of a national “green legacy” initiative to grow 4bn trees in the country this summer by encouraging every citizen to plant at least 40 seedlings. Public offices have reportedly been shut down in order for civil servants to take part.
The project aims to tackle the effects of deforestation and climate change in the drought-prone country. According to the UN, Ethiopia’s forest coverage was just 4% in the 2000s, down from 35% a century earlier.
Ethiopia’s minister of innovation and technology, Dr Getahun Mekuria, tweeted estimates of the number of trees planted throughout the day. By early evening on Monday, he put the number at 353m.
The previous world record for the most trees planted in one day stood at 50m, held by India since 2016.
Dr Dan Ridley-Ellis, the head of the centre for wood science and technology at Edinburgh Napier University, said: “Trees not only help mitigate climate change by absorbing the carbon dioxide in the air, but they also have huge benefits in combating desertification and land degradation, particularly in arid countries. They also provide food, shelter, fuel, fodder, medicine, materials and protection of the water supply.
Reuters
This is why meat companies are going after veggie burgers. Remember the law suit: “Don’t call veggie burgers veggie burgers”.
Beyond Meat Inc (BYND.O) on Monday said demand for its plant-based burgers and sausages soared in the second quarter and prompted an increase in its full-year forecast but shares tumbled when the company announced plans for a stock offering.
The company’s shares initially traded higher after the close of regular trading, but tumbled more 10% to $199.21 when it said it will offer 3 million shares from selling stock holders and 250,000 from the company itself to raise funds to expand its manufacturing facilities that are being stretched by booming demand for its plant-based burgers and sausages.