Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, current leader Neon Vincent, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, wader, Doctor RJ, rfall, JML9999 and Man Oh Man. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse, ek hornbeck, ScottyUrb, Interceptor7, BentLiberal, Oke 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 12:00AM Eastern Time.
Special thanks to JekyllnHyde for the OND banner.
Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.
The Guardian
More than nine months after the paramilitary response to anti-police protests sent shockwaves around the world from the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, Barack Obama is taking matters into his own hands.
The president will ban the US government from providing certain types of military-style equipment to local police departments and sharply control other weapons and gear provided to law enforcement, White House officials announced on Monday.
The announcement coincides with the release of a long-awaited report from a task force on policing assembled by Obama in response to the turmoil in Ferguson following the death of teenager Michael Brown in August.
Al Jazeera America
President Barack Obama announced plans to ban the federal government from providing some military-style equipment to local police departments and place stricter controls on other weapons and gear distributed to law enforcement.
Monday's announcement came after the White House suggested last year that Obama would maintain programs that provide the type of military-style equipment used to respond to demonstrators last summer in Ferguson, Missouri, because of their broader contribution to public safety. But an interagency group found “substantial risk of misusing or overusing” items such as tracked armored vehicles, high-powered firearms and camouflage.
With scrutiny on police only increasing in the ensuing months after a series of highly publicized deaths of black suspects nationwide, Obama also is unveiling the final report of a task force he created to help build confidence between police and minority communities in particular. The announcements come as Obama is visiting Camden, New Jersey, one of the country's most violent and poorest cities.
NPR
President Obama will ban local police forces from acquiring some types of military-style equipment from federal agencies.
That's one of several recommendations made by a White House task force that Obama is putting into place using an executive order on Monday.
According to a report issued by the White House, the task force recommended banning the sale of some equipment — such as tracked armored vehicles, weaponized aircraft and high-caliber weapons and ammunition — after weighing their utility to local police and the "the potential negative impact on the community if the equipment was used arbitrarily or inappropriately."
Local police departments can still buy this equipment on their own. They just can't buy them from the feds or buy them using federal money.
BBC
President Barack Obama has banned the US government from giving certain kinds of military-style equipment to local police forces.
The announcement follows criticism that police were too heavy handed in dealing with protests in Ferguson, Missouri, that turned violent last summer.
It means armoured vehicles on tracks, camouflage uniforms and grenade launchers will no longer be given out.
Tensions between police and African-American communities are strained.
McClatchy
WASHINGTON — A first-of-its-kind provision that prevents welfare recipients in Kansas from withdrawing more than $25 a day from an ATM might violate federal law, and could jeopardize the state’s federal funding if not amended.
The Social Security Act requires states to ensure that recipients of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF, “have adequate access to their cash assistance” and can withdraw money “with minimal fees or charges.”
At stake is about $102 million in TANF block grant funds that Kansas receives every year from the federal government.
The state’s controversial ATM limit was added as an amendment to a welfare overhaul bill signed in April by Gov. Sam Brownback, a Republican. The new law also bars welfare recipients from spending their benefit money at certain places, including movie theaters, massage parlors, cruise ships and swimming pools. It also sets stricter eligibility requirements and shortened the amount of time people can receive assistance.
The Guardian
With five days in the legislative calendar remaining before a pivotal aspect of the Patriot Act expires, a new poll shows widespread antipathy to mass surveillance, a sense of where the debate over the National Security Agency’s powers stands outside of Washington.
Commissioned by the American Civil Liberties Union and carried out by the Global Strategy Group and G2 Public Strategies, the poll of 1,001 likely voters found broad opposition to government surveillance across partisan, ideological, age and gender divides.
Sixty percent of likely voters believe the Patriot Act ought to be modified, against 34% that favor its retention in its current form. The NSA uses Section 215 of the Patriot Act as the legal basis for its daily collection of all Americans’ phone data, as the Guardian revealed in June 2013 thanks to whistleblower Edward Snowden, a practice that a federal appeals court deemed illegal on 7 May.
Opposition to reauthorizing the Patriot Act without modification cuts against a bill by the GOP Senate leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. The poll found 58% of Republicans favor modification, the subject of a rival bipartisan bill that recently passed the House, with only 36% of them favoring retention. Self-identified “very conservative” voters favor modification by a 59% to 34% margin.
Reuters
Four passengers on the Amtrak commuter train that derailed in Philadelphia last week filed a federal lawsuit on Monday against the U.S. rail service, as operations resumed on the heavily traveled Northeast Corridor.
The lawsuit, filed in Philadelphia, cited "serious and disabling" injuries from the May 12 derailment that killed eight people and injured more than 200 others.
The case appeared to be the first filed by a non-employee of the U.S. passenger rail service. Last week, an Amtrak worker who was riding the train as a passenger, filed the first lawsuit, citing a brain injury he said he suffered in the crash.
The latest passengers' lawsuit, seeking unspecified damages, accused Amtrak and train engineer Brandon Bostian of negligence and recklessness.
Bostian, 32, who suffered a concussion, told investigators he has no memory of what occurred after the train pulled out of the North Philadelphia station, just before the crash.
Reuters
Police worried about retaliation attacks after 170 people were charged on Monday in connection with Sunday's shootout between motorcycle gangs that left nine dead and 18 wounded at a Waco, Texas, restaurant turned into a blood-soaked shambles.
Bikers from at least five rival gangs attacked each other with guns, knives, brass knuckles, clubs and motorcycle chains at a Twin Peaks Sports Bar and Grill in the central Texas city. No bystanders or police were injured, police said.
When the bikers began shooting, officers moved in, some of them also firing their weapons. When the shooting ended, bodies were scattered in the restaurant and across two parking lots.
"I will tell you that we have had threats against law enforcement officers throughout the night," Waco Police Sergeant Patrick Swanton told a news briefing, adding that hospital staff have also been threatened and bikers were reported to be traveling to the city following the shooting.
USA Today
The motorcycle gangs involved in Sunday's shootout in a Waco, Texas, restaurant parking lot are a breed apart from weekend hobbyists on bikes, authorities say.
The groups are serious criminal organizations — including one that the FBI alleges is among the largest outlaw motorcycle gangs in the USA.
Police in Waco say the melee involved five gangs, including the Bandidos and the Cossacks, who clashed at a weekend recruiting event. The FBI says on its organized crime Web page that the Bandidos is one of the largest outlaw motorcycle gangs (OMGs) in the USA, with about 900 members and 93 chapters. The group itself says it has over 200 chapters with more than 2,500 members in 16 countries.
NPR
The world of climbing lost a daring innovator Saturday when Dean Potter, 46, died during a wingsuit flight from Yosemite National Park's Taft Point. Potter was killed along with Graham Hunt, 29, as they attempted to soar above Yosemite Valley and El Capitan.
The pair attempted their wingsuit flight on Saturday around dusk — a time that National Geographic says many athletes choose for BASE jumping, which is illegal in all of America's national parks. They were found Sunday by a search and rescue helicopter.
BASE jumping is the sport of parachuting from a fixed point, such as a cliff or structure. The acronym stands for the leaping-off point: a building, antenna, span or the Earth. It has also gained a reputation for being deadly. Since the early 1980s, 256 people have died while taking part in the sport, according to Blinc magazine.
DW
Defense and foreign ministers from the European Union have agreed to launch a naval mission targeting boats used by people smugglers in the Mediterranean. Thousands of migrants have died attempting to reach Europe.
In several hours of talks in Brussels on Monday, EU foreign and defense ministers laid the foundations for an unprecedented military mission aimed at targeting people smugglers and preventing migrants drowning in the Mediterranean.
EU foreign policy head Federica Mogherini said she hoped to have the legal framework for launching the operation in June.
DW
After reporting that they had captured two Russian soldiers fighting near Luhansk, Ukrainian authorities have vowed to present them to the public. Kyiv hopes to prove Russian involvement in the conflict.
The Ukrainian government promised on Monday to publicly present the two Russian soldiers it claimed to have apprehended while fighting the pro-Moscow rebels entrenched in the country's restive east.
As the Kremlin has consistently rejected allegations of involvement in the conflict, Ukrainian military spokesman Vladislav Seleznev told French news agency AFP that "it is very important to present to the world Russian soldiers who supposedly do not exist on our land."
"These are fighters from the third nondivisional brigade of the special forces. They are based in [the Russian city of] Togliatti," Seleznev added.
Al Jazeera America
For hundreds of migrants stranded at sea in sinking boats, the first helping hand came not from governments but from fishermen who towed them to safety. The desperation of migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh has not compelled neighboring countries to take them in, but has inspired compassion — and pleas for help — from ordinary people across Southeast Asia.
Sympathetic Malaysians have launched donation drives to help feed migrants who have flooded ashore in the past two weeks. In Indonesia, where fisherman rescued three boats last week and saved 900 lives, villagers have donated clothing and home-cooked meals.
Aid groups estimate that thousands more migrants, who fled persecution and poverty in Myanmar and Bangladesh, are stranded in the Andaman Sea after a crackdown on human traffickers prompted captains and smugglers to abandon their boats.
But more than two weeks into the humanitarian crisis, the stance of Southeast Asian governments remains unchanged — none wants to take the migrants in, fearing that accepting a few would result in an unstoppable flow.
Spiegel Online
In an interview with SPIEGEL, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif discusses his optimism that a deal will be reached over Tehran's nuclear program. But he warns this does not mean the country is seeking rapprochment with the West.
Mohammad Javad Zarif, 55, is relaxed and cheerful during an interview that takes place in his office in Tehran, telling jokes in perfect English. He studied political science in the United States before becoming Tehran's ambassador to the United Nations. Since 2013, he has served as foreign minister under President Hassan Rouhani. He recently negotiated the preliminary agreement in the country's nuclear dispute with the international community. He is well-liked by his Western negotiating partners and a star in his home country, where his autobiography is a best-seller. Some see a future president in the making, but he smiles and shrugs off the suggestion. "Domestic policy is not for me," he says.
Reuters
The United States and China are discussing imposing further sanctions on North Korea, which is "not even close" to taking steps to rein in its nuclear weapons program, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Monday.
Speaking in the South Korean capital, Kerry said Washington had offered the North the chance of an improved relationship in return for signs of genuine willingness to end its nuclear program.
"To date, to this moment, particularly with recent provocations, it is clear the DPRK is not even close to meeting that standard," Kerry told a joint news conference with South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se.
"Instead it continues to pursue nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles."
The secretive North, officially named the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is already under heavy U.N., EU and U.S. sanctions for its missile and nuclear tests.
The Guardian
The shop assistant is abrupt when the question comes.
“We are not going to sell that one. Sorry,” he says, when asked for a copy of one of Hong Kong’s most eagerly searched-for books.
And how about Zhao Ziyang’s bestselling Prisoner of the State – an explosive account of what happened behind the scenes during the pro-democracy protest of 1989 in Beijing?
“It might come back,” he says vaguely.
On the surface, there seems to be no censorship in Hong Kong. Unlike the mainland, the web is free, a wide range of newspapers is available, TV news covers demonstrations and protests, and nobody needs to apply for permission to print books.
“In 40 years, I know of only one book that has ever been stopped from distribution,” says Wong Sheung Wai, director of Greenfield Bookstore, a shop and distribution company, “and that was the Chinese translation of a guide to suicide.
“Taiwan translated it, but the Hong Kong authorities did not allow for it to be published and distributed here,” he says.
THE ENVIRONMENT, SCIENCE, HEALTH AND TECHNOLOGY
|
AFP
"Hello, Twitter! It's Barack. Really! Six years in, they're finally giving me my own account."
With that inaugural Tweet sent from a smart phone in the Oval Office before jumping on Marine One Monday, the President of the United States Barack Obama -- or @POTUS -- cast off security and bureaucratic chains in place since he was elected.
The account -- which already had nearly 150,000 followers in the first half hour -- will instantly become one of the world's top hacking targets, but it will also allow Obama to communicate directly for the first time.
Al Jazeera America
This is part one of a three-part series examining the effects of climate change on the Marshall Islands and what is being done to adapt to the increasing threats it poses.
MAJURO, Marshall Islands — “They came and told us to evacuate to the next house, which is stronger, because there will be a flood. The tide went up to the front porch and I was scared because of the big waves,” said 7-year-old Keslynna Myo Sibok, a resident of Majuro, the capital of the Republic of the Marshall Islands — a remote chain of 29 low-lying coral atolls and five islands that lies in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and has found itself on the front lines of climate change.
Keslynna sat in the front yard of her grandmother’s home, located on their atoll’s most vulnerable edge, where there is nothing to protect it from increasingly unpredictable and severe inundations.
A rooftop garden in Yalda, a neighborhood bordering Yarmouk on the southeastern outskirts of Damascus. Yarmouk has endured a siege since 2012, and one key to survival has been for residents to grow their own food.
Al Jazeera America
In a dark kitchen, by the flickering light of a single safety candle, two men bundled in hats and jackets against the cold put on an impromptu video satire: live from Yarmouk, at the southernmost edge of Damascus, a cooking show for people under siege.
“This is the new dish in the camp of Yarmouk. It hasn’t even hit the market yet,” said the man on the right, 40-year-old Firas Naji, the blunt and humorous host.
He picked up a foot-long paddle of sobara, Arabic for prickly pear cactus. Holding it carefully by one end to avoid thorns, he displayed first one side and then the other for the camera.
“In the U.S., they get Kentucky [Fried Chicken], hot dogs. In Italy, spaghetti and pizza,” he said, his raspy voice caressing the names of unattainable foods. “Here in Yarmouk, we get sobara.”
“It’s not enough we have checkpoints in the streets and shelling,” he added, laying the cactus back on the counter with a sad laugh. “Even our cooking has thorns.”
McClatchy
WASHINGTON — Five months into a new Congress, and deep into a lasting drought, California water legislation still stymies and splits the state’s lawmakers.
Draft copies are tightly held, as if stamped Top Secret. Myriad details are in flux. The legislative timing, though a June 2 Senate hearing could yet happen, remains unsettled. Democrats are divided; some are distinctly unhappy.
It all sounds so familiar, and yet there’s still no telling how this movie ends.
“Right now, I don’t know,” a gloomy sounding California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Thursday, when asked about the prospects for a bill. “It’s very difficult to put something together. Obviously change is controversial, so to propose something and then not to be able to do it makes no sense.”
NPR
Keeping food out of sight could be a way to keep it out of your mouth. That's the hunch of Charles Emery, a psychologist at Ohio State University, anyway. His latest research suggests that how food is set up around the house could be influencing how much people eat and, ultimately, how heavy they might be.
There are a lot of factors that scientists say explain obesity — defined as a body-mass index over 30 — from genetics to lifestyle changes to socio-economic status.
But Emery says the home environment and how it may influence eating behaviors has largely been left unexamined. So his team decided to "look at every aspect of the home environment related to food," he says.
Starting in 2013, Emery and his colleagues went into the homes of 100 people, half of whom were medically obese. They took notes on what kind of food people had in their homes, how much they had and where they kept it.
New York Times
A new study offers help to patients and doctors who are trying to deal with mammogram results that many women consider troubling and confusing: the finding of “dense” breast tissue.
Not only is breast density linked to an increased risk of cancer, it also makes cancer harder to detect because dense tissue can hide tumors from X-rays. But the new research indicates that not all women with dense breasts are at very high risk.
Patient advocates urge women with dense breasts to ask doctors about extra tests like ultrasound or an M.R.I. to check for tumors that mammography might have missed. Studies have found that those exams can improve detection of tumors over mammography alone in dense breasts.
Climate Central
The ravages of climate change could severely hurt the ability of utilities in the 11 Western states to generate power unless they “climate proof” their power grid using renewables and energy efficiency, something they are not prepared for, according to a new study.
For nearly half of the West’s existing power plants, climate change could reduce their ability to produce electricity by up to 3 percent during an average summer and possibly up to nearly 9 percent during a decade-long drought, according to the study published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change by researchers at Arizona State University. Coal-fired power plants in Wyoming, Utah, Arizona and Colorado are especially vulnerable, the study says.