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, jck, and Besame. 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 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.
Subbing for maggiejean tonight, who subbed for me yesterday.
BBC
Booker Prize: Margaret Atwood and Bernardine Evaristo share award
Margaret Atwood and Bernardine Evaristo have been named the joint winners of the 2019 Booker Prize after the judges broke their rules by declaring a tie.
Atwood's The Testaments, the Canadian writer's follow-up to The Handmaid's Tale, was recognised alongside Londoner Evaristo's novel Girl, Woman, Other.
The pair will split the literary award's £50,000 prize money equally.
The Booker rules say the prize must not be divided, but the judges insisted they "couldn't separate" the two works.
Atwood, 79, is the oldest ever Booker winner, while Evaristo is the first black woman to win.
After their names were called, the pair stood arm-in-arm on stage and Atwood joked: "I would have thought I would have been too elderly, and I kind of don't need the attention, so I'm very glad that you're getting some.
"It would have been quite embarrassing for me… if I had been alone here, so I'm very pleased that you're here too."
BBC
Fourteen police dead in Mexico gun ambush
Fourteen police officers have been killed and three injured following a shooting in western Mexico.
The police were carrying out a court order in El Aguaje, Michoacán state, when their convoy was ambushed.
A powerful criminal group, the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel, is believed to have carried out the attack.
Authorities said all resources would be put into finding those responsible. The region is a hotspot for violence linked to turf wars between drug cartels.
Police patrol vehicles were ambushed as they passed through the town.
Reports say the convoy was surrounded by heavily armed men in a number of pick-up trucks who then fired on the officers and set their vehicles on fire.
BBC
Typhoon Hagibis: Satellites show Japan rivers in flood
The biggest typhoon to hit Japan in decades has left a trail of destruction in its wake. More than 40 people died as a result of Typhoon Hagibis and hundreds have been rescued after being stranded by flooded rivers and landslides.
Satellite images show how the river Naka in Hinuma burst its banks, flooding nearby homes.
The typhoon battered eight prefectures across Japan, with wind speeds of up to 225km/h (140mph).
Akigase Park, on the Arakawa River flood plain near Saitama City, was submerged after the typhoon.
The Guardian
Native American canoes circle Alcatraz to honor 50 years since occupation
Native American tribes from up and down the west coast came together on the San Francisco Bay to celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day on 14 October. Starting at dawn people rode traditional tribal canoes around Alcatraz Island – the famous former prison site which was occupied by Native Americans from 1969-71. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the historic act of resistance that launched the modern era of indigenous rights. People gathered on the shores of San Francisco Bay to celebrate the day.
We remember that MB was there.
The Guardian
Outcry after Trump fails to condemn fake video of him shooting opponents
Slamming journalists to the floor, attacking the most senior black congresswoman and shooting critics in the face. These are not scenes normally associated with the highest office in the land, but they appear in a doctored video of Donald Trump shown at a pro-Trump conference in Miami last week.
The two-minute clip is taken from a famous scene from the end of the movie Kingsman, in which the lead character, played by Colin Firth, goes on a killing spree in a church.
On Monday, a list of high-profile figures slammed the president for failing to condemn the video.
In the edited video, Trump’s face is digitally superimposed on to Firth’s body, and he is depicted shooting, stabbing and attacking adversaries in the “Church of Fake News”.
It includes a scene of him setting the 2020 Democratic hopeful Bernie Sanders on fire, stabbing the comedian Rosie O’Donnell in the face and throwing the Californian congresswoman Maxine Waters out of a window.
Reuters
Saudi visit signals Putin's growing Middle East influence
RIYADH (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin signalled Moscow’s growing Middle East clout on Monday on his first visit to Saudi Arabia in over a decade, buoyed by Russian military gains in Syria, strong ties with Riyadh’s regional rivals and energy cooperation.
Moscow accrued power in the Middle East in 2015 by sending troops to Syria, where it and Iran have been key backers of President Bashar al-Assad amid civil war, while the United States pulled back. Saudi Arabia sided with Syrian rebels.
On the eve of Putin’s trip, U.S. troops abruptly retreated from northern Syria as Russian-backed government forces deployed deep inside Kurdish-held territory under a deal to help fend off a Turkish cross-border offensive.
Russia has also strengthened ties with both Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia and Shi’ite Iran, which are locked in a decades-old contest for influence that veered towards open conflict after a recent spate of attacks on oil assets in the Gulf that Riyadh and Washington blame on Tehran. Iran denies the charges.
Reuters
Pentagon chief Esper says will press NATO allies to take measures against Turkey
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said on Monday he will meet with NATO allies next week to press them to take “diplomatic and economic measures” in response to Turkey’s incursion into Syria.
In a statement, Esper said Turkey’s military action “was unnecessary and impulsive” and could result in the resurgence of Islamic State.
Al Jazeera
London climate change activists zero in on BlackRock
Climate activists targeted BlackRock, the world's biggest asset manager, in London on Monday to demand that financial institutions starve fossil fuel companies of money to build new mines, wells and pipelines.
Extinction Rebellion relies on civil disobedience to highlight the risks posed by global warming and the accelerating loss of plant and animal species and is half-way through a two-week wave of actions in cities around the world, particularly in the United Kingdom.
Activists thronged the financial heart of the UK capital on Monday, unfurling banners, addressing passersby by megaphone and blocking streets - around locations that included BlackRock, the Bank of England, Bank of China and Barclays.
New York Times
Ohio Was Set to Purge 235,000 Voters. It Was Wrong About 20%.
(This is the kind of stuff that will compromise the 2020 election.)
COLUMBUS, Ohio — The clock was ticking for Jen Miller.
The state of Ohio had released names of 235,000 voters it planned to purge from voter rolls in September.
Ms. Miller, director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio, believed thousands of voters were about to be wrongly removed.
Over the summer, the Ohio secretary of state had sent her organization and others like it a massive spreadsheet with the 235,000 names and addresses that would be purged from the state’s voter rolls in just a month — a list of people that, state officials said, some part of the bureaucracy flagged as deceased, living somewhere else or as a duplicate. The League of Women Voters had been asked to see if any of those purged qualified to register again.
She went online and discovered that her name had also been flagged as an inactive voter. The state was in the process of removing her from its voter rolls.
“I voted three times last year,” said Ms. Miller.“I don’t think we have any idea how many other individuals this has happened to.”
NPR
Overturned Cargo Ship In Georgia Stuck On Side, Leaking Fuel
The Golden Ray cargo ship was carrying more than 4,000 new cars when it capsized off the coast of Georgia last month. The crew survived, but the 656-foot ship is still there, lying half-submerged at about 90 degrees, on its side.
Despite lots of effort, it's been leaking an unknown amount of fuel and oil, which has local environmental advocates and commercial fishermen concerned. Oil has been found in sheens in the water, in bits on some beaches and in the marsh itself, indicated by black stains on the spartina grass.
Crews in yellow protective suits have been working 12 hours a day trying to mitigate the effects of the oil, setting up thousands of feet of containment boom, spraying sphagnum moss, a peat absorbent on the grass to keep it from sticking to other surfaces and animals, and removing already dead, oiled marsh grass.
They're part of what's known as Unified Command, a joint recovery and salvage effort between the state of Georgia, the Coast Guard and the shipping company, Hyundai Glovis's contractor, Gallagher Marine Systems. There are about 400 people and 70 vessels participating.
Washington Post
Tropics come alive as Atlantic and Pacific systems may draw downpours into Lower 48 states
Despite firmly being on the downslope of traditional hurricane season, the Atlantic is showing signs of life again, with a trio of disturbances marching across the basin; one of them is likely to become a named storm, while another could bring rain to portions of the Gulf Coast and Florida later this week.
Meanwhile, a pair of tropical waves in the Pacific are catching eyes. One of these two could enhance or trigger bouts of heavy rainfall in West Texas on Monday into Tuesday.
Area to watch may produce heavy rainfall along Gulf Coast
A strong tropical wave is chugging along over central Honduras. It will bring heavy rain to Belize and parts of the Yucatán Peninsula, which will spur the risk of dangerous mudslides — especially in the higher terrain. By Thursday or Friday, the system will emerge toward the Bay of Campeche, where it will encounter waters running about 3½ degrees warmer than normal.
NPR
Pumping Oxygen In A Lake To Try To Save Fish Facing Climate Change
You'd never suspect it on a whisper-still morning, with the mountains and marsh reflecting off the water, but Upper Klamath Lake in southern Oregon is a tough place to be a fish.
The shortnose and Lost River suckers provide a case in point. The two species of fish, which look like a big-lipped cross between a carp and cod, used to be common in this lake. For millennia, they were an important traditional food source for the local tribes. The federal government considers them endangered species.
Poor water quality — exacerbated by the warming climate — is considered a significant cause of the sucker death. One key problem for the Upper Klamath is a low dissolved oxygen issue called hypoxia.
Fish breathe oxygen out of the water, and the oxygen levels here can drop extremely low, especially in late summer. That coincides with the time juvenile suckers appear to just vanish from the lake.
When Terry learned that low oxygen levels were one of the suspected reasons the endangered suckers aren't surviving into adulthood, he had an idea.
"I thought, Why don't we do what they do in fish ponds or in your aquarium? Why don't we just try and bubble some air down in there and see what happens?" he says. "See if there's just a little boost to affect this one factor that might be a cause of their mortality."