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Overnight News Digest: 18th century love letters to French sailors opened for first time [1]
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Date: 2023-11-06
The Guardian
A forgotten bundle of love letters sent to French sailors more than 260 years ago – but never before opened or read – has been discovered among British naval archives, revealing intimate details of 18th-century marital and family life. The remarkable stash of more than 100 letters was discovered by chance at the National Archives in Kew by Renaud Morieux, professor of European history at the University of Cambridge, who asked archivists if they could be opened so he could read them for the first time. Inside, he found deeply personal and often passionate messages intended for the sailors, who had been captured in 1758 onboard a French warship during the seven years’ war
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Feeling Stuffy? What to Know Before You Reach for Your Go-To Decongestant
C/NET
In September, a panel that advises the FDA deemed a popular decongestant ineffective. Now that cold and flu season is here, here's what you should know. A committee that advises the US Food and Drug Administration found in September that a popular decongesting ingredient -- phenylephrine -- doesn't actually work at decongesting or "unstuffing" your nose when it's taken orally. There are no safety issues with phenylephrine, and the FDA itself still hasn't yet issued new rules on the ingredient or how it's sold. It's included in many popular medications like some NyQuil, Mucinex and more name- and store-brand kinds of oral medications, though of them contain other ingredients besides phenylephrine that may ease symptoms.
BBC
The father of a man accused of mass murder at a Fourth of July parade has pleaded guilty to reckless conduct for helping his son obtain the gun allegedly used in the attack. Robert Crimo Jr was sentenced to 60 days in jail, two years of probation and 100 hours of community service as part of a plea deal. Crimo Jr sponsored a firearms ownership card for his son, Robert Crimo III, despite the son's history of mental illness and threats of violence. Police were called to the Crimo household at least twice in 2019, once after a suicide attempt by Robert Crimo III, and another time when he threatened to kill family members. Officers confiscated knives, according to police reports, but did not charge anyone with a crime in connection with the incidents. The elder Crimo sponsored his son's firearms ownership card several months after the police calls. Robert Crimo III was 19 at the time. Illinois residents under age 21 need parental permission to obtain a card.
NPR
With few journalists on the ground and frequent phone and internet blackouts, it has been hard to get a clear picture of what life is like for people in Gaza. It is becoming a little more clear now that some foreign nationals have been allowed to cross from Gaza into Egypt. One of them is 65-year-old Qassem Ali. Ali grew up in the northeast Gaza village of Beit Hanoun and worked as a journalist. He studied in America, and in 1997, got U.S. citizenship. Over a Zoom call, he told NPR he was visiting his 90-year-old mother in northern Gaza — about two miles from the border with Israel – when, on Oct. 7, Hamas insurgents crossed into Israel, killing more than 1,400 people and taking more than 200 others hostage.
Reuters
NEW YORK, Nov 6 (Reuters) - As Donald Trump on Monday began using his time on the witness stand at his civil fraud trial to air grievances and avoid direct answers to questions, Arthur Engoron, the trial judge and a prime Trump target, decided enough was enough. "Mr. Kise, can you control your client?" Engoron asked Trump's lawyer, Christopher Kise. "This is not a political rally. This is a courtroom." It wasn't the first time the 74-year-old Engoron, a former taxicab driver who has spent two decades on the bench, lost patience with the defense in New York Attorney General Letitia James' lawsuit.
Reuters
LOS ANGELES, Nov 6 (Reuters) - The Hollywood actors' union on Monday responded to the latest offer from the major studios and streamers, saying they have yet to reach agreement on several items, including the use of artificial intelligence. The SAG-AFTRA union posted a message on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, saying its negotiating committee is determined to secure the best deal and bring a responsible end to the strike. "We're at a critical point in our industry," the union said. "We need a fair contract to make sure this career is viable now AND in the future." SAG-AFTRA members walked off the job in July to demand higher compensation in the streaming TV era plus protections around the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and other gains.
Deutsche Welle
A 22-year-old woman arrived at a hospital in Wroclaw, Poland, with a dead fetus. She said she'd had a miscarriage, but hadn't known she was pregnant. Her apartment, which was subsequently raided by Polish authorities, told a different story. Officials found painkillers, antibiotics, a used pregnancy testing kit and tablets commonly dubbed "abortion pills" scattered around the home. The woman's blood sample was sent to researchers at Wroclaw Medical University's Department of Forensic Medicine for analysis. Using a new testing method that can detect whether a woman has used these pills, they found traces of mifepristone, one of two drugs commonly used to induce medication abortions. They published the results in the journal Molecules. In another study also published in Molecules, members from the same team used the technique to analyze two independent samples containing traces of misoprostol, the other drug commonly known to induce pregnancy. This time, they did not trace the drug in maternal blood, but in miscarried fetuses.
Al Jazeera
Belfast, Northern Ireland – An algal bloom resurgence at Lough Neagh, the biggest freshwater body in the United Kingdom and Ireland, has renewed public debate about its ownership and management. For months, extensive blue-green algal (cyanobacteria) growths have led to animal deaths, human sickness, temporary beach closures, and the permanent closure of businesses along the lake and connecting waterways. Regional agencies say the summer’s bloom reached “levels not seen since the 1970s”, while lough residents say they were the “worst” they have ever seen.
Al Jazeera
The mother of two has worked as a farmer with her parents since her childhood in the town of Abasan al-Kabira in southern Gaza, close to the border with Israel. “My land has olive trees and greenhouses planted with tomatoes and livestock,” she says. She can no longer tend to those trees or tomatoes: The 40-year-old was displaced with her family and is living in a United Nations-run school in the centre of Khan Younis due to near-continuous Israeli bombing since October 7. “I have no idea what state they are in. I just want to reach my land to see what has become of it,” she says. It’s a sentiment echoed by farmers across Gaza.
The Guardian
Almost 300,000 women at higher risk of developing breast cancer are being given access to a drug that can halve their risk in a “major step forward” in the fight against the disease. An estimated 289,000 women in England who are at moderate or high risk of breast cancer will from Tuesday be able to take the tablet to try to prevent it from developing, NHS bosses said. The drug, anastrozole, is being made available to women who are in greater danger because they have been through menopause and have a major family history of Britain’s commonest form of cancer. It displays “remarkable” potential to reduce the number of people who go on to develop the disease, the head of the NHS said last night.
The Guardian
A close adviser to the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s army has been killed after a booby-trapped birthday present he was given exploded. “Under tragic circumstances, my assistant and close friend, Major Gennadiy Chastiakov, was killed … on his birthday,” Gen Valery Zaluzhny posted on Telegram on Monday, saying that an “unknown explosive device detonated in one of his gifts”. Chastiakov leaves a wife and four children, he said. Zaluzhny added that since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Chastiakov had been “fully devoting his life to the armed forces of Ukraine and the fight against Russian aggression”. Attacks targeting Ukrainian leaders have been relatively rare since Moscow invaded, but there have been several attacks on Russian nationalists, which Russia has blamed on Ukraine. In April, a blast from a statuette rigged with explosives killed the 40-year-old pro-Kremlin military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky.
New York Times (gift subscription)
The big gun rights case the Supreme Court is set to hear on Tuesday presents the justices with a tricky problem. They must start to clear up the confusion they created last year in a landmark decision that revolutionized Second Amendment law by saying that long-ago historical practices are all that matter in assessing challenges to gun laws. That standard has left lower courts in turmoil as they struggle to hunt down references to obscure or since-forgotten regulations. […] Ever since last year’s gun rights decision, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, judges have complained about the nature and volume of the work it entails, involving historical inquiries in which they have no expertise. Unable to settle on a consistent methodology, they have issued diverging decisions on not only the domestic violence law but also on ones disarming felons, 18- to 20-year-olds and users of illegal drugs.
I am going to need coverage for Monday, November 20 and November 27. I’ll be in Ohio visiting family. Any help would be appreciated.
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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