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Overnight News Digest March 26, 2023 [1]

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Date: 2023-03-26

Tomorrow's News Today

Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, eeff, Magnifico, annetteboardman, Besame, jck, and JeremyBloom. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) Interceptor 7, Man Oh Man, wader, Neon Vincent, palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse (RIP), ek hornbeck (RIP), rfall, 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.

BBC

Strike brings Germany's public transport network to halt

Germany's transport network will be at a near standstill on Monday as two of the country's largest unions strike. Staff at airports, ports, railways, buses and subways walked out shortly after midnight for a 24-hour stoppage. Unions are demanding higher wages to help their members cope with the rising cost of living across the country. There have been multiple smaller walkouts by other public service sectors, but Monday's will be the largest in decades in the country. The two unions involved in the strike are among the largest in Germany. Verdi represents around 2.5 million employees across the public sector including in public transport and at airports. EVG represents around 230,000 employees at Deutsche Bahn - Germany's national rail operator, and other bus companies. They hope it will increase pressure on employers ahead of another round of pay negotiations on Monday.

BBC

Ukraine war: Drone downed over Russia, Moscow says “Oh, no. You hit me back.”

A Ukrainian drone has been shot down by Russian air defences, Moscow says. The drone came down in the town of Kireyevsk - some 400km (249 miles) from the Ukraine border - on Sunday, the defence ministry has said. Russia state media is reporting that at least three people had been injured in an explosion after it was brought down. Ukraine has dismissed previous claims that it has attacked Russian civilian targets with explosive drones and has not yet commented on this incident. Moscow has deployed hundreds of drones against Ukraine. Russian law enforcement authorities say the drone - said to be a Strizh-type (Tu-141) UAV packed with explosives - was brought down at 15:20 local time (13:20 BST), causing a large crater in the heart of the town.

The Guardian

Cryptocurrencies add nothing useful to society, says chip-maker Nvidia

The US chip-maker Nvidia has said cryptocurrencies do not “bring anything useful for society” despite the company’s powerful processors selling in huge quantities to the sector. Michael Kagan, its chief technology officer, said other uses of processing power such as the artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT were more worthwhile than mining crypto. Nvidia never embraced the crypto community with open arms. In 2021, the company even released software that artificially constrained the ability to use its graphics cards from being used to mine the popular Ethereum cryptocurrency, in an effort to ensure supply went to its preferred customers instead, who include AI researchers and gamers. Kagan said the decision was justified because of the limited value of using processing power to mine cryptocurrencies. The first version ChatGPT was trained on a supercomputer made up of about 10,000 Nvidia graphics cards.

The Guardian

Syria: 19 killed in retaliatory US strikes on Iran-linked groups

The death toll from retaliatory US strikes on Iran-linked groups in Syriaafter a deadly drone attack has risen to 19, a war monitor said, as Washington insisted that it was not seeking conflict with Tehran. Further rocket attacks by Iran-backed militias took place late on Friday, prompting more strikes by coalition warplanes, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported. Washington carried out the initial strikes after the Pentagon said a US contractor died – and another contractor and five military personnel were wounded – by a drone “of Iranian origin” that struck a US-led coalition base near Hasakeh in north-eastern Syria on Thursday.

Al Jazeera

Mass protests in Israel after Netanyahu fires defence minister

Tens of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets in cities across Israel in a spontaneous outburst of anger after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu abruptly fired his defence minister for challenging his judicial overhaul plan. Protesters in Tel Aviv, many wearing blue and white Israeli flags, blocked a main highway late on Sunday and lit large bonfires, while police scuffled with protesters who gathered outside Netanyahu’s private home in Jerusalem.The unrest deepened a monthslong crisis over Netanyahu’s plan to overhaul the judiciary, which has sparked mass protests, alarmed business leaders and former security chiefs, and drawn concern from the United States and other close allies. Netanyahu’s dismissal of Defence Minister Yoav Gallant signalled that the prime minister and his allies will barrel ahead this week with the overhaul plan. Gallant had been the first senior member of the ruling Likud party to speak out against it, saying the deep divisions were threatening to weaken the military.

Deutsche Welle

EU weighs up future of wood-burning as renewable energy

The European Union’s race to rid itself of dependence on Russian fossil fuels is well underway. The International Energy Agency says widespread bids to beef up energy security "turbocharged" growth of green power in 2022, and EU parliamentarians hope to ramp up renewables targets to reach 45% of bloc-wide energy consumption by 2030. The word "renewable" often conjures up images of wind farms or solar panels — less so scenes of burning trees. But biomass, which includes firewood, plants and other organic materials, makes up 60% of the EU’s renewable energy mix according to the European Commission. As the bloc now reviews its landmark renewable power legislation, a political battle over firewood’s future is playing out in Brussels. Because new trees can be planted after others have been chopped down, firewood gets the renewable seal of approval under EU law. That means member countries can subsidize wood burning, as long as certain sustainable sourcing rules are met. But Martin Pigeon of Brussels-based forest protection campaign group Fern argues the subsidy setup is "insane" as it means "EU citizens are paying energy companies to burn forests in the midst of a climate and biodiversity crisis."

BBC

Police monitor first Hong Kong protest since 2020

The first protest in two years has taken place in Hong Kong under close monitoring by police. The small rally was the first since China imposed sweeping restrictions on the rights and freedoms of people living in the territory. Only 100 people were allowed to attend. They were also required to wear number tags and their banners were examined in advance. Sunday's march was against a land reclamation plan in the city's east. Police required organisers to follow stringent conditions and surrounded the marchers with a cordon that kept media and protesters separated. The participants were allowed to chant slogans against the project. An anonymous attendee told AFP that the arrangements were "ridiculous": "I am here to join a march, not a shame parade," he said. Another commented that the measures under which they were allowed to hold the march amounted to "intimidaHongJongtion".

New York Times

Twitter Says Parts of Its Source Code Were Leaked Online

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