Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, Interceptor7, Magnifico, annetteboardman, Besame and jck. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) Man Oh Man, wader, Neon Vincent, palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse (RIP), ek hornbeck, 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.
Al Jazeera
Beijing, China - It was in early January that Summer Yang first heard about a mysterious virus sickening people in her home city of Wuhan.
The 40-year-old property investor was concerned for her elderly parents. But authorities told the public on January 5 there was no evidence the new type of coronavirus could be transmitted from human to human.
So, Summer put her fears away.
Then, on January 17, Summer's 64-year-old mother came down with a fever. Following a CT scan and a blood test, doctors said they suspected a coronavirus infection. The family decided to keep her at home, believing she was safer there.
A week later, soon after Chinese authorities confirmed human-to-human transmission and imposed a virtual lockdown on Wuhan and Hubei province in an effort to contain the virus, Summer's 65-year-old father also contracted a fever.
Al Jazeera
Korat, Thailand - The day of horror started like any other Saturday for Tanatit, "Tok", 43, a moto-taxi driver who works in front of Nakhon Ratchasima's Terminal 21 shopping centre.
He was sitting with a group of other riders - making light of another busy day - chatting, laughing between rides. The men could not have known they were about to witness a massacre.
"He just walked up and started shooting. He killed two people right here," Tok told Al Jazeera, pointing to a street curb just metres away. "He then walked inside and kept shooting. Everyone started running," he said.
AFP
More than 300 Americans rescued from a cruise ship quarantined off Japan because of the new coronavirus arrived back in the US Monday to begin a further two-week period of medical seclusion, as the epidemic claimed more lives in China to push the death toll above 1,700.
The COVID-19 virus has infected more than 70,500 people in China, and hundreds more elsewhere, sparking panic buying, economic jitters and the cancellation of high-profile sporting and cultural events.
With fresh cases emerging daily in Japan, the government has advised citizens to avoid mass gatherings, and cancelled public events -- including annual celebrations in central Tokyo for the Emperor's birthday and the amateur portion of the city marathon, affecting around 38,000 runners.
Beijing's municipal authorities have ordered everyone arriving in the capital to self-quarantine for 14 days, the presumed incubation period of the virus. State media said China may postpone its annual parliamentary session, which has been held in March for the last 35 years.
AFP
The future of the planet is the greatest challenge facing humanity. Devastating fires, record temperatures, superstorms and melting icesheets - day after day, extreme weather events amplified by global warming make headlines. Following the warnings of scientists, the world's youth has been at the forefront of raising awareness about the climate emergency, pollution levels, and the environmental degradation threatening humanity and biodiversity.
Reporting from Antarctica and Alaska, the forests of the Amazon and equatorial Africa, the wildfires in California and Australia and on the trail of waste management in Asia, AFP text, video and photo journalists are on the ground providing live and in-depth coverage.
Worldwide, the Agency's editorial teams work around-the-clock to decode the causes and impact of the environmental crisis on our lifestyles, economies and politics. Going beyond the numbers and the science reports, rigorous and often exclusive AFP reports reveal the human dimension of a crisis that has led millions of people to protest, seek solutions and change their lifestyles, and many millions more to suffer its consequences, from conflict to migration.
BBC
"Moon dust" could be a vital source of fuel, building material and even drinking water for astronauts, according to the Open University.
Researchers in Milton Keynes are investigating ways humans can "live off the land" when they set foot on the moon.
The team is basing its study on lunar soil collected by Neil Armstrong during the first moon landing in 1969.
BBC
A document that appears to give the most powerful insight yet into how China determined the fate of hundreds of thousands of Muslims held in a network of internment camps has been seen by the BBC.
Listing the personal details of more than 3,000 individuals from the far western region of Xinjiang, it sets out in intricate detail the most intimate aspects of their daily lives.
The painstaking records - made up of 137 pages of columns and rows - include how often people pray, how they dress, whom they contact and how their family members behave.
China denies any wrongdoing, saying it is combating terrorism and religious extremism.
DW News
The crisis in northwest Syria has reached a "horrifying new level," according to a United Nations statement released on Monday.
The UN now believes the number of people displaced by the violence in the region to be 900,000, which is 100,000 more than the intergovernmental organization had previously recorded.
Read more: 'I feel totally alone': Life under siege in Idlib
Mark Lowcock, the UN chief for Humanitarian Affairs, said the majority of those affected are women and children who are "traumatized and forced to sleep outside in freezing temperatures because camps are full. Mothers burn plastic to keep children warm. Babies and small children are dying because of the cold."
DW News
One week after Storm Sabine wreaked havoc in northern Germany, the offshoot Storm Dennis, named Victoria in Germany, swept across the country, causing accidents on Sunday and Monday.
Germany's weather service (DWD) said the storm had wind speeds of up to 172 kilometers per hour (107 miles per hour). Several people were injured in storm-related incidents, often involving forms of transport and fallen trees, though no deaths thus far have been reported.
The most serious accident occurred in Trippstadt, a town along Germany's border with France near Kaiserslautern. Seven men, aged 19 to 47, were injured after a man driving a vehicle crashed into a fallen tree shortly after 1:00 a.m. local time (midnight UTC), according to state police.
On Sunday morning, a 33-year-old woman was lightly injured after a gust of wind caused her to drive into a ditch in Schneverdingen, a town in Lower Saxony between Bremen and Hamburg. Later that evening, a 21-year-old female driver and a 20-year-old male passenger were injured when the woman crashed into a fallen tree in the Güstrow forest, near the northeastern city of Rostock.
The Guardian
Ted Cruz, the Republican Texas senator, has given an unwitting boost to an Alabama lawmaker’s attempt to push back on restrictive abortion laws in her state, by tweeting about her proposal to force men to have vasectomies when they reach the age of 50.
Democratic representative Rolanda Hollis introduced the measure to the state House last week, intending it as protest against a law passed by the Alabama legislature last year to outlaw abortion in almost every case unless the life of the mother was at risk.
“The responsibility is not always on the women. It takes two to tangle [sic],” Hollis wrote in a tweet acknowledging that her long-shot House bill, which would also a mandate a vasectomy after the birth of a father’s third biological child, was intended to “neutralize the abortion ban bill”.
The Guardian
Fort Lauderdale officials say 211.6m gallons of sewage has spilled into Fort Lauderdale waterways in the past few months.
The Sun-Sentinel reports that’s enough to fill 320 Olympic-sized pools.
The city’s aging sewer pipes broke six times in December and spewed 126.9m gallons of sewage – ranking as one of South Florida’s biggest spills ever. The spills fouled the Tarpon River, the Himmarshee Canal and streets in three neighborhoods.
According to what officials told the state Department of Environmental Protection, 79.3m gallons spilled into George English Lake over a 10-day period that began 30 January and ended 8 February. Then an additional 5.4m gallons flooded streets near park right across from a popular mall.
In recent weeks, crews also have rushed to fix another string of water main breaks, forcing the city to warn residents to boil their tap water before drinking, brushing their teeth or washing dishes.
The Guardian
John Bolton celebrated Presidents’ Day by breaking his silence for the first time since Donald Trump’s impeachment trial – speaking of his frustrations and teasing the content of his forthcoming book.
But when it came to his former boss, the president’s former national security adviser was scant on details, hinting that he is restricted in what he can say.
Bolton, who left the White House in September following foreign policy disagreements, was interviewed on stage on Monday night at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.
It was his first public speech since Trump’s impeachment trial where – despite repeated appeals by Democrats for him to testify, and Bolton’s stated willingness to do so if subpoenaed – he did not speak.
But following the leak of a draft of his unpublished forthcoming memoir, which reportedly described how Trump told him he wanted to delay US military aid to Ukraine until it agreed to investigate Democrats, including presidential hopeful Joe Biden, his shadow loomed large over proceedings – which ended in Trump’s acquittal.
Reuters
TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares fell and Wall Street retreated from record highs on Tuesday after Apple Inc (AAPL.O) said it will not meet its revenue guidance for the March quarter as the coronavirus outbreak slowed production and weakened demand in China.
The warning from the most valuable company in the United States sobered investor optimism that economic stimulus by Beijing and other countries would protect the global economy from the effects of the epidemic.
S&P500 e-mini futures ESc1 dipped as much as 0.3% in Asian trade.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS fell 0.65% while Tokyo's Nikkei .N225 slid 1.0%. Shanghai shares .SSEC dipped 0.2%, having gained in nine of the past 10 sessions largely on hopes for policy support by Beijing.
Reuters
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Amazon (AMZN.O) Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos will commit $10 billion to fund scientists, activists, nonprofits and other groups fighting to protect the environment and counter the effects of climate change, he said on Monday.
Cutting emissions will be challenging for Amazon. The e-commerce company delivers 10 billion items a year, has a massive transportation and data center footprint, and has faced criticism from within its own workforce.
Bezos, the world’s richest man, is among a growing list of billionaires to dedicate substantial funds to battling the impact of global warming.
“Climate change is the biggest threat to our planet,” Bezos said in an Instagram post. “I want to work alongside others both to amplify known ways and to explore new ways of fighting the devastating impact of climate change on this planet we all share.”
NPR
Johnpeter Mwolo was 15 when he was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes.
His body, unable to produce the hormone critical for regulating blood sugar, would now rely on manufactured insulin. He learned to give himself the treatment — four injections a day.
But as he was growing up in Tanzania, insulin was expensive and not always available. Mwolo resorted to rationing his insulin, sharing a vial with his cousin, who also had Type 1 diabetes. "It was one vial to two people," he says. "Many of the necessities that we are supposed to have are not there."
It's a global problem that the World Health Organization is now working to address. In November, the WHO launched a pilot program to boost the availability of insulin worldwide. The idea is to work with insulin manufacturers to increase the global supply — and in the process, potentially drive down the price of the treatment. Since then, seven pharmaceutical companies have shown interest in participating in the program.
NY Times Magazine
For hundreds of years, enslaved people were bought and sold in America. Today most of the sites of this trade are forgotten.
SARAH ELIZABETH ADAMS was around 5 when her mother was sold to a slave dealer in Lynchburg, Va. The auction took place in the mid-1840s, in the town of Marion, Va. Sallie, as she was called, was herself sold that day, but not with her mother: A man named Thomas Thurman purchased Sallie to take care of his sick wife. She would never see her mother again. For the remainder of her childhood, whenever she could, Sallie would slip away and find solace under a tall white-oak tree. All alone, she would wrap her arms around the tree’s wide trunk and cry. The tree became the place where she would recall the names and faces of her family members sold away; a place where she could grieve, but also a place where she could find shade and respite from her sorrow.
This story was told many years later by Sallie’s granddaughter, Evelyn Thompson Lawrence, a local educator and historian in Marion. Thompson’s efforts led to the founding of the Mount Pleasant Heritage Museum — housed in a former black Methodist church that Sallie and other freed men and women founded after the Civil War — to preserve the history and culture of African-Americans in the county. We know that Sallie was sold at an auction held at the Smyth County Courthouse, a brick building that was torn down after the turn of the century, when Marion’s current courthouse was constructed. And yet many details of her story have been lost: We don’t know exactly what happened to Sallie’s mother, or how much Sallie was sold for, or even exactly when the auction took place.