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Overnight News Digest: Climate Change effects are driving the news [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2023-07-16

The Guardian

Cooling centers extended their hours in some cities and emergency rooms prepared to treat more people with heat-related illnesses.

Residents were warned to “take the heat seriously and avoid time outdoors” by the National Weather Service, which said it was “potentially deadly to anyone without effective cooling and/or adequate hydration”.

There were advisories from coast to coast, with the south-west and parts of the west hard hit and officials warning that conditions could get worse in Arizona, California and Nevada.

More than 100 million people, around a third of Americans, were under extreme heat advisories this weekend and that record-breaking heat was expected to continue into the new week.

'French icon' actress Jane Birkin dies aged 76

BBC

Her relationship with Gainsbourg made her internationally famous following their hit song "Je t'aime... moi non plus", which he originally wrote for former girlfriend Brigitte Bardot.

Birkin was born in London but found fame singing in French, relocating there in the 1970s.

She also inspired Hermès' Birkin handbag, which is popular around the world.

The English-French star was known for her personal and artistic relationship with songwriter Serge Gainsbourg, recording the iconic track "Je T'aime...moi non plus" with him.

The singer, actress and fashion icon Jane Birkin has died at the age of 76.

BBC

"That has to start with responsible economics and it has to be coupled with reform," he added.

The Labour leader told the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg his party would always invest in public services but to do this it needed to grow the economy.

Sir Keir Starmer has refused to say whether a Labour government would spend more money on public services.

NPR

A heat wave is ramping up across the Western United States this weekend, when millions of Americans are expected to see record-breaking temperatures. With heat alerts extending well into the week ahead, West Coast and Southwest residents may not see relief for days. About one-third of Americans were under excessive heat warnings, watches or advisories over the weekend, according to the National Weather Service, after a persistent heat dome hovering over Texas expanded to California, Nevada and Arizona.

Deutsche Welle

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is preparing to spend three days touring the Arab Gulf states: Saudi Arabia on Monday, Qatar on Tuesday and the United Arab Emirates on Wednesday. During his visit, the Turkish leader expects to firm up multibillion-dollar deals that could include everything from privatizing Turkish state assets to direct investments, defense industry deals and business acquisitions or contracts. "During our visit, we will have the opportunity to personally follow up on the support these countries will provide to Turkey," Erdogan recently told the Turkish press. "They've already expressed that they were ready to make serious investments in Turkey during my previous contacts. I hope we will finalize these during this visit." Senior Turkish officials told the Reuters news agency they hope to confirm direct investments of around $10 billion (€8.9 billion) from the Gulf states shortly after Erdogan's trip, and then between $25 billion and $30 billion in total over a longer period of time.

Deutsche Welle

A "mass stranding" event caused over 50 pilot whales to die on a remote Scottish island, marine rescuers said on Sunday. The British Divers Marine Life Rescue charity (BDMLR) said 55 of the animals washed up on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. Police alerted the BDMLR to the beached pilot whales on Sunday morning. The responders came to administer first aid and managed to refloat two animals, but one of them become restranded and died, and only one of the whales got away safely. "Unfortunately, none (apart from one that was refloated early on) survived the ordeal," the charity said in a later statement.

Al Jazeera

Idlib, Syria – Under a scorching sun, Hamida Dandoush sprinkles water on her tent in an attempt to cool it down, hoping to alleviate the high temperatures for herself and her family. The 62-year-old woman from the town of Maardabsah is residing in the Saharah camp near the Syrian-Turkish border, where approximately 80 displaced families are enduring harsh living conditions amid the intense heatwave striking the region. We live as if we are inside an oven, struggling to breathe due to the heat inside the tent. If it weren’t for the water we sprinkle on the tent, we would have died from the intense heat,” Dandoush told Al Jazeera on Saturday. Dandoush, who lives in a tent with her daughter and grandchild, said that every day she makes seemingly futile attempts to cool things down, including placing her grandchild in a plastic container and pouring cold water over him.

Al Jazeera

At least 4,000 people have been evacuated as a wildfire rages “out of control” on the Spanish Canary Island of La Palma while Europe struggles to cope with a heatwave, according to authorities. The fire in La Palma started in the early hours of Saturday in El Pinar, a wooded area in the northern part of the island. The blaze forced the evacuation of people from the villages of Puntagorda and neighbouring Tijarafe. Ten aerial units and 300 firefighters on the ground sought to bring the wildfire under control on the island, which forms part of a Spanish archipelago off the coast of western Africa. At least 13 houses were destroyed as the fire advanced, and it has now affected more than 4,650 hectares (11,490 acres) of land, local authorities said on Sunday.

USA Today

At least four people are dead and three others are missing, including a 9-month-old boy and his 2-year-old sister, after they were swept away by fast-rising floodwaters in Pennsylvania on Saturday, officials said. "It's very possible" there could be more victims, Bucks County Coroner Meredith Buck told the Bucks County Courier Times, part of the USA TODAY Network. For two hours, rain fell like a waterfall, which turned a creek into a raging rapid that swept away nearly a dozen cars and more than a dozen people in what officials described as a "new benchmark" for flash flooding in Upper Makefield. Two of the dead were found together in one area and the third was found in a separate location. All three were found outside their vehicles, Buck said. Officials are trying to sort out which vehicles belong to which victims as many drivers abandoned their cars in the water, which in some places rose to 5 feet above the roadway.

The Guardian, Australia

Real government funding to private schools has increased almost twice as much as funding to public schools in the decade since the landmark Gonski review recommended changes designed to fund Australian schools according to need. From 2012 to 2021, per student funding to independent and Catholic schools rose by 34% and 31% respectively, while funding to public schools increased by just 17%, according to parliamentary library data provided exclusively to Guardian Australia. In Queensland, the growth in government funding to independent schools per student has been nine times greater than to public schools. The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (Acara) data shows that 98% of private schools are funded above the Schooling Resource Standard (SRS) recommended by Gonski and more than 98% of public schools are funded below it.

The Guardian, UK

The EU has signed off on a €1bn (£860m) deal with Tunisia to help stem irregular migration, as the president of the north African country denounced those who offer migrants “sympathy without respect” for their goal to have equity in life. Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, hailed the deal with Tunisia, including significant measures to stem deadly irregular migration across the mediterranean, as an investment in shared prosperity and stability. The partnership with Tunisia on migration comes just days after the country’s president, Kais Saied, revealed the “shocking” scale of people-smuggling in his country, with officials revealing it was worth about £760m in the first half of 2023 in remittances from sub-Saharan Africa

New York Times (subscription not required)

It was a grisly scene of bloody limbs and crumpled vehicles as a series of Russian mines exploded across a field in southern Ukraine. One Ukrainian soldier stepped on a mine and tumbled onto the grass in the buffer zone between the two armies. Nearby lay other Ukrainian troops, their legs in tourniquets, waiting for medical evacuation, according to videos posted online and the accounts of several soldiers involved. Soon, an armored vehicle arrived to rescue them. A medic jumped out to treat the wounded and knelt on ground he deemed safe — only to trigger another mine with his knee. Five weeks into a counteroffensive that even Ukrainian officials say is off to a halting start, interviews with commanders and soldiers fighting along the front indicate the slow progress comes down to one major problem: land mines.

The crew of the Overnight News Digest consists of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, jeremybloom, Magnifico, annetteboardman, rise above the swamp, Besame and jck. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) eeff, 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.

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