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Overnight News Digest: Assault victim and Disney may bring down two vile GOP politicians [1]

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Date: 2023-05-08

First and last, though, some birdies.

x Video calling has gone to the birds!



Fifteen pet parrots have been taught by researchers to video call one another in an effort to improve socialization. pic.twitter.com/2MgAjmlJWB — USA TODAY (@USATODAY) April 26, 2023

Here are the winners of the 2023 Pulitzer Prizes — npr

All the winners are listed at the link.

x We just won The Pulitzer Prize in Breaking News Photography for our coverage of Ukraine. Proud to be part of this @AP team @BernatArmangue, @felipedana, @RodrigoabdAbd, @NMofty, @EvgenyMakloleta and @VadimGuirda and the great AP editors @EFM1959 and @BennySnyderAP. pic.twitter.com/LOBagQ7RDg — Emilio Morenatti (@EmilioMorenatti) May 8, 2023

Wildfires Burn Nearly 1 Million Acres in Western Canada — ny times

Nearly a million acres and it isn’t even summer yet.

A shift in weather conditions brought much-needed relief to firefighters in Western Canada, where around 964,000 acres have burned since wildfires started more than a week ago, destroying dozens of structures and forcing nearly 30,000 residents of Alberta to evacuate. Cooler temperatures and light, scattered showers allowed firefighters to reach wildfires over the weekend that they had not been able to access “because of extreme wildfire behavior,” Christie Tucker, an information officer with Alberta Wildfire, a firefighting agency, said at a news conference on Sunday. [...] Alberta declared a state of emergency on Saturday as more than 110 wildfires burned across the province. That number had dwindled, but only slightly, by Monday afternoon, when there were 98 active wildfires in the province. Parts of Yellowhead, Big Lakes and Lac Ste. Anne Counties were still under evacuation orders on Monday.

Donald Trump is a habitual liar and sexual abuser who destroyed E Jean Carroll’s reputation in order to protect his own after she accused him of rape, a New York jury heard on Monday. In closing arguments in Carroll’s civil lawsuit against Trump for sexual battery and defamation, the advice columnist’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, told jurors they could believe the evidence of 10 witnesses for her client or the former president who declined to testify.

x BREAKING: Trump gets slapped with a gag order in the Manhattan criminal case against him.



He is prohibited from commenting or posting evidence re: the case.



Otherwise he will be held in contempt.



Welcome to the criminal Justice system, Mr. Trump. — Jack E. Smith ⚖️ (@7Veritas4) May 8, 2023

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador slammed Florida’s new anti-immigration bill on Monday, calling it “immoral” and “politicking” after lawmakers passed a bill last week that gives Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis $12 million for migrant transports. “Why does [DeSantis] have to take advantage of people’s pain, of migrants’ pain, of people’s need for political gain,” López Obrador said at a press conference. “This is immoral. This is politicking.”

The Walt Disney Co. on Monday expanded its lawsuit alleging retaliation by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to include new regulations passed by the state’s legislature that allow officials to nullify development agreements brokered by the entertainment giant. DeSantis (R), who is weighing a presidential run, signed legislation Friday giving the special board that oversees government services in and around the Walt Disney World Resort the authority to void existing contracts. The law disallows any Florida special district from complying with a development agreement executed within three months of any separate law modifying how board members are selected. Disney, in an amended legal complaint, said the legislation signed Friday was drafted to solely target its development. “Governor DeSantis and his allies have no apparent intent to moderate their retaliatory campaign any time soon,” Disney’s complaint reads.

The federal government will no longer buy up tests or vaccine doses or treatments to give out to the American public for free. The health insurance system will take over – patients will have to go to the doctor, get a prescription, perhaps pay a copay when it comes to COVID tests and treatments, just like they do for all other illnesses. [...] The CDC announced it will sunset some of its COVID data tracking efforts, including tracking and reporting new infections. It will continue to track COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths, do genetic analysis to identify worrisome variants, and monitor spread through wastewater surveillance. A key provision in one of the first COVID relief laws gave states extra federal funding for Medicaid – the public health insurance program for low income people – but required states not to disenroll anyone for as long as the public health emergency was in effect. [...] Medicaid grew to be bigger than it's ever been, with an estimated 95 million beneficiaries, which is more than 1 in 4 Americans. This provision actually ended a bit ahead of the public health emergency – states could start disenrolling people as of April 1.

x In the time it takes you to read this tweet, the expansion of the universe will carry this gorgeous spiral galaxy, called NGC 3147, another 31,000 miles away from us. That’s about four Earth diameters. #MondayMotivation pic.twitter.com/f5xseRFJ27 — NASA Universe (@NASAUniverse) May 8, 2023

Thousands march in silence in Serbia after mass shootings — ap news

Thousands marched in silence on Monday in Serbia in a major outpouring of grief and anger against the populist government and how it reacted after two mass shootings last week that left 17 people dead and 21 wounded, many of them children. The gatherings in Belgrade and the northern city of Novi Sad were dubbed “Serbia against violence.” They were called by opposition parties, which demanded the resignations of government ministers and the withdrawal licenses to the state controlled mainstream media that promote violence and often host convicted war criminals and crime figures on their programs.

Indian farmers break down barricades to join protesting wrestlers — aljazeera

Dozens of Indian farmers have broken down police barricades in New Delhi to join wrestlers protesting against the sport’s federation chief over allegations of sexual harassment and intimidation. Several of the wrestlers are from the nearby state of Haryana, a rice-producing area where many people make their living from farming. The farmers were led by one of the groups behind the protests that had opposed three farm laws passed by parliament in 2020 that loosened rules around the sale, pricing and storage of farm produce. The wrestlers, including Olympic medallists and Commonwealth champions, have been demanding an investigation and arrest of Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) President Brijbhushan Sharan Singh, who is also a parliamentarian from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Researchers have identified a gene that is associated with taller noses in humans and found it likely comes from Neanderthals, an extinct hominin group intimately related to our own species. [...] “It has long been speculated that the shape of our noses is determined by natural selection; as our noses can help us to regulate the temperature and humidity of the air we breathe in, different shaped noses may be better suited to different climates that our ancestors lived in,” said Qing Li, a geneticist at Fudan University and lead author of the study, in the same release. “The gene we have identified here may have been inherited from Neanderthals to help humans adapt to colder climates as our ancestors moved out of Africa,” Li Added. Among Neanderthals’ physiological characteristics was a broad, tall nose with wide nostrils. As reported in 2018 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, one theory is that the Neanderthal nose size was helpful for breathing deeply in cold, dry climates.

Microbes play important roles in ecosystems, and these roles are changing with global warming. Scientists also now know that most types of microbes are infected by viruses, but they know relatively little about how these viral infections could change how microbes react to warming. In a study published in FEMS Microbiology Ecology, scientists describe many different ways that increasing temperatures could affect viruses and their microbial hosts. These changes could ultimately affect the responses of whole ecosystems to warming. The work exposes several important gaps in researchers' current knowledge about the connections between viruses, warming, and ecosystem functioning. Filling these gaps is crucial for understanding and predicting the effects of climate change on ecosystems. This study creates a roadmap for understanding the many different ways that viruses could modify the effects of warming on communities of microbes. Viruses likely have strong effects on processes with microbes and the ways ecosystems function. Incorporating these previously ignored effects into ecosystem models will help scientists improve their predictions of how ecosystems could respond to climate change.

x *gestures to my unmown yard*



"I'm choosing to let my yard grow wild, to help the pollinators."



*waves at a stack of dirty dishes*



"This, too, is for the pollinators."



*trips over a pile of dirty laundry"



"Pollinators." — James L. Sutter (@jameslsutter) May 8, 2023

x What a sight. After getting dragged under three times, this Osprey emerges with a massive pompano. Go bird go! pic.twitter.com/mVGyc3jX9r — Mark Smith Photography (@marktakesphoto) May 8, 2023

Overnight News Digest is published each night around 9 pm Pacific time. Please share your news stories in the comments.

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