The Guardian — Bolivia’s president sees off attempted coup after urging citizens to take to streets
Luis Arce said the country’s democracy was at stake after army troops seized control of La Paz’s political heart and military police storm palace
Bolivia’s President Luis Arce appears to have seen off an attempt to topple his leftwing government after a dramatic afternoon in which heavily armed troops, seemingly commanded by a top army general, stormed the government palace before beating a retreat and seeing their alleged leader detained.
On Wednesday afternoon Arce urged citizens to take to the streets to defend the country’s democracy from an apparent coup attempt, after troops seized control of a central square in La Paz which houses government buildings.
...By the evening there were reports that Zúñiga had been detained on suspicion of the crimes of terrorism and armed uprising at the entrance to the general staff headquarters in La Paz. Footage showed him being driven away in a white police pickup truck.
This is an open thread where everyone is welcome, especially night owls and early birds, to share and discuss the happenings of the day. Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments
Heatmap — Utah Is Sending a Conservative Climate Believer to the Senate
The United States Senate is almost certainly getting another Republican who at least thinks climate change is a real problem.
Utah Congressman John Curtis, the founder of the Conservative Climate Caucus, won the Republican primary for Mitt Romney’s Senate seat over a gaggle of more conservative opponents, including one endorsed by former president Donald Trump. The primary victory puts Curtis in position to win the general election in November. (Utah hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1970.)
His victory was fueled in part by conservative environmental groups and donors, who put considerable resources toward his campaign. American Conservation Coalition Action, which seeks to mobilize young conservatives around climate, endorsed Curtis and hosted events with him...
During his four terms in the House, Curtis largely steered clear of large scale, Democrat-backed climate and energy bills, instead supporting energy policies that have or could have broad, bipartisan support. He worked on the legislation that would become the ADVANCE Act, the nuclear regulatory reform bill that passed the House and Senate with huge bipartisan majorities; he’s also a supporter of geothermal energy, and has introduced legislation to ease the permitting process for new projects...
...But Curtis is still unmistakably a Republican. Yes, he attended the United Nations climate conference in the United Arab Emirates and told Fox News, “the goal at COP should be to reduce global emissions, not energy choices;” but afterward, he also told the Deseret News, “you’re not going to replace [fossil fuels] with windmills and solar farms,’ and “we need to start having a discussion about the role of fossil fuels in our clean energy future.”When he appeared on the Climate One podcast, he said his interest in climate change derived from “an innate desire to be good stewards over this earth,” but also insisted that “it’s been a mistake to focus solely on fossil fuels [as] the problem here.
CBS — Former CNN anchor John Avlon could help Democrats take control of the House, expert says. Here's how
George Latimer's blowout 17-point victory over incumbent Rep. Jamaal Bowman in New York's 16th Congressional District got national attention, but the races that will determine whether the Democrats prevail in Washington were often a whole lot quieter.
As CBS New York political reporter Marcia Kramer reports, should Latimer prevail in November, it won't change the political scorecard in Congress. That's not the case in the Suffolk County Primary, where moderate John Avlon won the opportunity to take down Nick LaLota, one of the freshman Republicans Democrats are targeting.
The former CNN anchor is one of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries' best hopes of helping Democrats take control of the House.
After winning his Primary, he wasted no time in going after LaLota, one of nearly half a dozen suburban freshmen in New York that have targets on their backs.
"I'm not going to let Nick LaLota play the same old game we've seen here on Long Island, in Suffolk County, of pretending to be moderate at home then voting MAGA in Washington. I'm not going to let folks forget that he celebrated the overturning of Roe v. Wade," Avlon said.
Cory Doctorow’s Pluralistic — Cleantech has an enshittification problem
EVs won't save the planet. Ultimately, the material bill for billions of individual vehicles and the unavoidable geometry of more cars-more traffic-more roads-greater distances-more cars dictate that the future of our cities and planet requires public transit – lots of it.
But no matter how much public transit we install, there's always going to be some personal vehicles on the road, and not just bikes, ebikes and scooters. Between deliveries, accessibility, and stubbornly low-density regions, there's going to be a lot of cars, vans and trucks on the road for the foreseeable future, and these should be electric.
Beyond that irreducible minimum of personal vehicles, there's the fact that individuals can't install their own public transit system; in places that lack the political will or means to create working transit, EVs are a way for people to significantly reduce their personal emissions.
In policy circles, EV adoption is treated as a logistical and financial issue, so governments have focused on making EVs affordable and increasing the density of charging stations. As an EV owner, I can affirm that affordability and logistics were important concerns when we were shopping for a car.
But there's a third EV problem that is almost entirely off policy radar: enshittification.
Also, check out Xaxnar’s diary for more on Project 2025
NPR — This Colorado 'solar garden' is literally a farm under solar panels
Getting to this point, a community solar garden that sells 1.2 megawatts of power back into the local grid, wasn't easy, even in a progressive county like his that wanted to expand renewable energy. When Kominek approached Boulder County regulators about putting up solar panels, they initially told him no, his land was designated as historic farmland.
"They said, land's for farming, so go farm it," Kominek says. "I said, well, we weren't making any money, you all want to be 100% renewable at some point so how about we work together and sort this out."
They eventually did, with help from researchers at nearby Colorado State University and the National Renewable Energy Lab, which had been studying how to turn all that otherwise unused land beneath solar panels into a place to grow food.
With close to two billion dollars devoted to renewable power in the newly passed infrastructure bill, the solar industry is poised for a win. But there have long been some tensions between renewable developers and some farmers. According to NREL, upwards of two million acres of American farmland could be converted to solar in the next decade.
But what if it didn't have to be an either or proposition?
Slate — The Taylor Swift Economy Has Overtaken London. I Went to Its Epicenter.
I’ve never seen anything quite like what the superstar is doing to my city.
Taylor Swift is in London. Even the least culturally clued-in person could not have failed to notice. The city is full of people in “Eras” merch, and social media is awash in concert footage from the tour dates at Wembley Stadium: Travis Kelce donning a top hat and tails to make his own onstage debut, Prince William celebrating his 42nd birthday by shaking it off in his private box. We’ve got an election going on here at the moment, so candidates are busy doing things in public to appear maximally normal. Keir Starmer, leader of the opposition, posted a photo of himself on what he described as a “Swift campaign pitstop” at the “Eras” tour on Friday. Mayor Sadiq Khan posted a version of London’s underground map with all the stops replaced by Taylor Swift song titles and captioned it “London (Taylor’s Version).” For better or worse, this has indeed felt like her town, for a weekend.
But one specific place in London is an interesting Petri dish in which to examine the Taylor Swift effect. Before April of this year, the Black Dog pub, in south London’s Vauxhall neighborhood, was an unremarkable sort of place. I live nearby and had been once or twice before. It’s a local joint that does decent food and serves beer—just a pub, in other words. However, after Swift released The Tortured Poets Department, the establishment found itself catapulted to international recognition. The extended, Anthology edition of the album features a song called “The Black Dog,” in which Swift as narrator describes realizing that a lover—presumably one of the two Londoner boyfriends that most of the album is about—had forgotten to turn off location sharing, and she then works out that he is cheating on her by tracking him to a bar by that name.
Science Alert — Parkinson's Link to Gut Bacteria Suggests Unexpected, Simple Treatment
Researchers have suspected for some time that the link between our gut and brain plays a role in the development of Parkinson's disease.
A new study just identified gut microbes likely to be involved and linked them with decreased riboflavin ( vitamin B2) and biotin (vitamin B7), pointing the way to an unexpectedly simple treatment that may help: B vitamins.
...Previous research found people with Parkinson's disease also experience changes in their microbiome long before other signs appear. So analyzing fecal samples from 94 patients with Parkinson's disease and 73 relatively healthy controls in Japan, Nishiwaki and team compared their results with data from China, Taiwan, Germany, and the US.
While different groups of bacteria were involved in the different countries examined, they all influenced pathways that synthesize B vitamins in the body. The researchers found the changes in gut bacteria communities were associated with a decrease in riboflavin and biotin in people with Parkinson's disease.
No doubt the universe is unfolding as it should…
And what’s unfolding in your life? Tell us all about it in the comments!
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