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.
BBC
A senior Saudi security official who for years was the key go-between for Britain's MI6 and other Western spy agencies in Saudi Arabia is now being persecuted along with his family, according to former Western intelligence officials.
Dr Saad al-Jabri, who helped foil an al-Qaeda bomb plot against the West, fled into exile three years ago, ahead of a purge by the all-powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Now his children have been seized as "hostages", according to his eldest son, Khalid.
"Omar and Sarah were kidnapped at dawn on 16 March and taken out of their beds by about 50 state security officers who arrived in 20 cars," says their brother, Khalid al-Jabri.
BBC
Germany's highest civil court has ruled that Volkswagen must pay compensation to a motorist who had bought one of its diesel minivans fitted with emissions-cheating software.
The ruling sets a benchmark for about 60,000 other cases in Germany.
The plaintiff, Herbert Gilbert, will be partially reimbursed for his vehicle, with depreciation taken into account
VW said it would now offer affected motorists a one-off payment. The amount will depend on individual cases.
The company has already settled a separate €830m (£743m) class action suit involving 235,000 German car owners.
NPR
The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted the illegal drug trade in ways not seen since World War II, affecting nearly every country and many different kinds of drugs, according to a report compiled by the United Nations.
"It's a completely different scale," said lead researcher Angela Me, who works with the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, in Vienna. She said small-scale disruptions are common in the illegal drug trade but the chaos seen in recent months is nearly unprecedented. "Here everything has been disrupted," she added.
In many ways, turmoil in the black market for narcotics and other drugs appears to mirror the pandemic's impact on legal industries struggling with labor and transportation. It's harvest season right now in the poppy fields of Afghanistan, the world's biggest heroin supplier, but the U.N. report found a sudden shortage of field workers.
NPR
Since the U.S. and the Taliban agreed to a deal that American officials applauded as a path to peace, Afghanistan has endured months of anything but. The spring has brought bloodshed, acrimony and few signs that the Afghan government and the Islamist militant group were any closer to reconciliation — until Sunday.
That glimmer of hope arrived with the first day of the Eid al-Fitr holiday, commemorating the end of the holy month of Ramadan, when the Taliban unilaterally declared a three-day cease-fire beginning Sunday. Shortly afterward, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani announced that the government had accepted the truce proposal and was initiating a process to release up to 2,000 Taliban prisoners.
The prisoner release is a "good will gesture" carried out specifically in response to the Taliban's decision, according to presidential spokesperson Sediq Sediqqi. Ghani's government "is extending the offer of peace and is taking further steps to ensure success of the peace process," Sediqqi tweeted Sunday.
Reuters
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Americans paid a low-key tribute to those who died serving in the U.S. Armed Forces on Monday, with many Memorial Day events canceled because of the coronavirus epidemic that has killed nearly 100,000 people in the United States alone.
In some places, scaled-down ceremonies were broadcast over the internet, as shutdowns to curb the spread of the virus put a damper on what is usually a day of flag-waving parades and crowds celebrating the unofficial start of the U.S. summer.
Spots that would be bustling on a normal Memorial holiday had noticeably thinner crowds.
Perhaps half of those gathered at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington wore face coverings, recommended as one way to fight infection. Only about one in 10 did so on the boardwalk by the beach in Ocean City, New Jersey.
Reuters
(Reuters) - Renault (RENA.PA) and Nissan (7201.T) have shelved plans to push towards the full merger former leader Carlos Ghosn craved and will instead fix their troubled alliance to try to recover from the coronavirus pandemic, five senior sources told Reuters.
Nissan has long resisted Renault’s proposals for a full-blown merger as executives felt the French carmaker was not paying its fair share for the engineering work it did in Japan, sowing discord that some feared could wreck the partnership.
Now, with carmakers around the world reeling from the pandemic, the partners are planning to overhaul an alliance that largely failed to convert its global scale into a competitive advantage beyond the joint procurement of parts.
Reuters
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain will reopen thousands of high street shops, department stores and shopping centres next month, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Monday, setting out a timetable for businesses as part of moves to ease the coronavirus lockdown.
He told a news conference that from June 1, outdoor markets and car showrooms could be reopened as soon as they are able to meet the COVID-19 secure guidelines, and all other non-essential retail from June 15 if the government’s tests are met.
Johnson is keen to restart an economy which has been all but shut down since Britain entered a lockdown to try to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus, but also fears a second peak of infection if measures are eased too quickly.
The Guardian
Here’s a great example of assuming you’re entitled to do as you please because entitlement.
The crisis that has engulfed the government over Dominic Cummings’ conduct continued to rage unabated after an unprecedented press conference in which the prime minister’s chief aide repeatedly refused to resign or apologise for breaking lockdown rules.
After an outpouring of public anger rattled No 10, Cummings attempted to explain why he drove 264 miles from London to his parents’ estate in Durham despite suspecting that both he and his wife had coronavirus.
No 10 had hoped the move would draw a line under fury about Cummings’ behaviour after at least 20 Tory MPs called for him to quit and senior scientists accused him of undermining public health advice.
But his appearance in the Rose Garden of No 10 raised yet more questions after Cummings admitted he had suspected both he and his wife had coronavirus when they made the decision to travel across the country with their son.
During the lengthy press conference, Cummings claimed he drove to Durham because he needed possible back-up childcare from his teenage niece. He insisted he and his wife and child stayed in a separate building and communicated with his parents by shouting from a distance.
The Guardian
It started with a routine admission from another hospital on Friday 3 April. An elderly patient came on to ward 15 of the Western General in Edinburghwith a mild cough, but not the kind of cough to worry the medical staff in charge.
Two days later the woman’s cough became more severe and a fever set in. The staff decided to test her for Covid-19, and a day later the result came back: positive.
The nurses who had treated the patient without any face protection for two days were ordered to wear full PPE when they entered her single room, but it seems the virus had already spread widely among medics and support staff. Within a week it had affected the entire ward.
By Tuesday 14 April, sources say, more than 24 members of medical staff who worked on ward 15 were off work with confirmed or suspected Covid-19, and more than 20 patients were also affected, either testing positive for the virus or showing worrying symptoms.
The Guardian
Eight chimneys at Victoria’s defunct, coal-fired Hazelwood power station have been demolished.
The chimneys, which soared 137 metres above the town of Morwell in the Latrobe Valley, came down just before 12.30pm on Monday.
Owner Engie provided a live stream of the chimney demolition, which took about a minute and was viewed by thousands.
The chimneys were built in the 1960s and operated for more than half a century before the brown, coal-fuelled power station was shut down in March 2017.
There is about 50kg of asbestos in each chimney and about 12 tonnes of concrete, which will be monitored following the demolition in line with Victorian environment laws.
Engie head of corporate affairs in Australia and New Zealand, Ryan Auger, said the asbestos was in the base of the chimneys, but it was far enough from the detonation site not to become airborne.
“There is absolutely no risk that asbestos will be anywhere other than on the ground, and ultimately remediated on site and stored in an approved cell,” Auger said
Al Jazeera
A Guatemalan man held in United States immigration detention died after contracting the novel coronavirus, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) confirmed on Monday. He is the second known migrant to die of COVID-19 while in immigration custody.
In a statement, ICE said Santiago Baten-Oxlag, 34, died early on Sunday at a hospital in Columbus, Georgia, after being transferred there on April 17 from the Stewart Detention Center, a privately operated prison near the state's border with Alabama.
Al Jazeera
Eid al-Fitr in the US state of Michigan this year is going to be very different, said Mahmoud Al-Hadidi, a physician and chairman of the Michigan Muslim Community Council.
There will be no mass prayers in the mosques, no communal breakfasts, no carnival and no evening parties. Even family gatherings will be limited.
But the curbs on mass social gatherings put in place to contain the spread of the coronavirus, expected to last through at least May 28, have not dampened the holiday spirit. And residents of southeast Michigan, home to one of the largest Muslim communities in the United States, say they have found innovative ways to welcome the three-day holiday marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, while adhering to social-distancing measures.
"We are determined to celebrate and be happy despite all the circumstances, we will adapt," Al-Hadidi added.
Deutsche Welle
As Germany eases coronavirus restrictions, hotels in some states are starting to reopen. But hygiene rules will often remain in place, and hotel owners still expect huge losses.
Hotels in the German capital, Berlin, the surrounding state of Brandenburg and the northwestern state of Lower Saxony reopened on Monday as restrictions imposed to stem the spread of the coronavirus are gradually loosened across the country.
Other states are to follow in the course of the week.
Read more: German doctors warn of second wave ahead of holiday season
But some rules remain, with the northeastern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, for example, restricting hotels to 60% of capacity.
The state, which has had no confirmed coronavirus infections for five days, is now allowing visitors from other states to stay in them after opening them only to locals last week. In this state and several others, staff will be required to wear masks. Lower Saxony is also not allowing hotel capacity to exceed 60%.
Deutsche Welle
Evariste Ndayishimiye — Burundi's ruling party presidential candidate — has been declared the winner of the country's bitterly disputed election, with 68.72% of the vote.
The election commission said that Ndayishimiye's main rival, Agathon Rwasa of the National Freedom Council (CNL), scored 24.19% of last week's vote which saw 87.7% voter turnout.
"We will swallow our dark past which does not deserve to be our prison," Evariste Ndayishimiye said at a presidential campaign rally outside the capital, Bujumbura, during the election campaign. He assured his supporters that he would do everything possible to address the causes of conflict that have engulfed this central African nation.
A former army general, Ndayishimiye has been secretary of the ruling CNDD-FDD party since 2016. Before becoming president, he was head of the Military Affairs Department under former President Pierre Nkurunziza. Ndayishimiye also served as interior minister from 2006 to 2007.
Agence France Presse
Suriname went to the polls on Monday with strongman President Desi Bouterse seeking a third term, battling to hold onto power to avoid spending his twilight years in prison after being convicted of murder.
The former military dictator turned politician has dominated his tiny South American country for four decades but polls suggested his National Democratic Party (NDP) was likely to lose its majority in the 51-member parliament which elects the president.
The 74-year-old and his wife Ingrid Waaldring were among the first people to vote at a school in the capital Paramaribo, surrounded by supporters and media.
Authorities lifted a partial coronavirus lockdown for the day and voters lined up at 1.5-meter (five-foot) intervals before the polls opened at 7:00 am (1000 GMT).
"Just a few more hours then we have liberated Suriname," said Bouterse's main rival Chandrikapersad Santokhi as he walked from his house to vote.
Agence France Presse
Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, emerged from more than two months of seclusion Monday, wearing a black face mask during a visit to lay a wreath on the day the United States honors its war dead.
Biden's last public appearance was March 15 when he faced off against his former Democratic rival Bernie Sanders for a debate in a television studio held with no live audience.
"It feels good to be out of my house," said the 77-year-old, who has remained in isolation at his home in Wilmington, Delaware in keeping with recommended measures to protect the elderly and prevent the spread of COVID-19.
According to the candidate, he and his wife have left their home only for occasional walks or bike rides since mid-March.
"Thank you for your service," the former vice president said to a well-wisher after paying his respects at the Veterans Memorial Park in New Castle, Delaware.
New York Times
A multibillion-dollar institution in the Seattle area invests in hedge funds, runs a pair of venture capital funds and works with elite private equity firms like the Carlyle Group.
But it is not just another deep-pocketed investor hunting for high returns. It is the Providence Health System, one of the country’s largest and richest hospital chains. It is sitting on nearly $12 billion in cash, which it invests, Wall Street-style, in a good year generating more than $1 billion in profits.
And this spring, Providence received at least $509 million in government funds, one of many wealthy beneficiaries of a federal program that is supposed to prevent health care providers from capsizing during the coronavirus pandemic.
With states restricting hospitals from performing elective surgery and other nonessential services, their revenue has shriveled. The Department of Health and Human Services has disbursed $72 billion in grants since April to hospitals and other health care providers through the bailout program, which was part of the CARES Act economic stimulus package. The department plans to eventually distribute more than $100 billion more.
Washington Post
Tyson Foods, the largest meat processor in the United States, has transformed its facilities across the country since legions of its workers started getting sick from the novel coronavirus. It has set up on-site medical clinics, screened employees for fevers at the beginning of their shifts, required the use of facial coverings, installed plastic dividers between stations and taken a host of other steps to slow the spread.
Despite those efforts, the number of Tyson employees with covid-19 has exploded from under 1,600 a month ago to more than 7,000 today, according to a Washington Post analysis of news reports and public records.
What has happened at Tyson — and the meat industry overall — shows how difficult getting the nation back to normal is, even in essential fields such as food processing. Meat companies are spending hundreds of millions of dollars — on everything from protective gear to paid leave to ventilation systems — since they were forced to shut dozens of plants that were among the top covid-19 hot spots outside of cities.
And lastly, the entitlement behavior of a Franklin Templeton Veep: