Welcome to the Overnight News Digest
(graphic by palantir)
The OND is published each night around midnight, Eastern Time.
The originator of OND was Magnifico.
Regular editors are jlms qkw, Bentliberal, wader, Oke, rfall, JML9999, and chief cat herder NeonVincent; with guest stints from maggiejean and annetteboardman. .
Egypt President-elect Mohamed Morsi moves into Mubarak palace - Egyptian President-elect Mohamed Morsi on Monday moved into the palace of the man who once jailed him.
His swift settling in to deposed leader Hosni Mubarak's office was a potent symbol as Morsi begins forming a Cabinet and works to calm a politically divided and economically frayed nation. Declared the country's first freely elected president on Sunday, Morsi also met with advisors to discuss strategies for strengthening his hand against Egypt's military leaders, who remain suspicious of his Islamist leanings.
Once a political prisoner, the Muslim Brotherhood candidate now leads the Arab world's most populous nation. His election victory and subsequent police escort to the Orouba palace in the capital's Heliopolis neighborhood were stunning moments in an Egypt where the once inconceivable has turned real in unpredictable and potentially dangerous ways.
By Jeffrey Fleishman, Los Angeles Times
Saudi Arabia to allow women to compete for the first time - Saudi Arabia will enter women athletes in the Olympics for the first time ever in London this summer, the Islamic kingdom's London embassy said on Sunday.
Human rights groups had called on the International Olympic Committee to bar Saudi Arabia from competing in London, citing its failure ever to send a woman athlete to a Games and its ban on sports in girls' state schools.
Powerful Muslim clerics in the ultra-conservative state have repeatedly spoken out against the participation of girls and women in sports.
By Angus McDowall and Asma Alsharif, Reuters via Christian Science Monitor
Ecuador studying asylum bid by WikiLeaks founder - Ecuador's foreign minister says lawyers convened by the government are studying the political and legal implications of granting exile to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
Minister Ricardo Patino did not indicate when a decision might come. Ecuador's ambassador to Britain returned to Quito over the weekend and discussed the case Monday with Patino and President Rafael Correa.
Assange took refuge in Ecuador's London Embassy last Tuesday in a last-ditch attempt to avoid extradition to Sweden
AP via sfgate
Latest Syrian Defectors Are From Higher Ranks - Syria’s armed forces have been slowly bleeding defectors and deserters since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began 16 months ago. But now the military arrivals reaching Syria’s neighbors are more likely than ever to have stars on their epaulets.
n just the past five days, a Syrian general, two colonels, a major and a lieutenant defected with 33 other soldiers and arrived in Turkey on Sunday night; two brigadier generals and two colonels from Aleppo announced their defection in an opposition video on Thursday; and on the same day a Syrian Air Force pilot, who was both a colonel and a squadron commander, flew his MIG-21 to Jordan to seek asylum.
Then over the past few days, an official of the Free Syrian Army, the main rebel force, said that eight more Syrian pilots had fled across Syria’s land border with Jordan, amid reports that fear of defections had essentially grounded the air force since Friday.
By ROD NORDLAND, nytimes.com
Turkey warns UN over Syrian 'threat to security' Turkey has warned the UN Security Council that Syria's shooting down of a Turkish military plane represents a "serious threat" to regional security.
Turkey's deputy prime minister also said Syria's actions "would not go unpunished", but made it clear it was not seeking military action.
The comments come as Nato's governing body prepares to hold an emergency meeting to discuss Friday's incident.
Damascus insists the F-4 jet was shot down inside Syrian airspace.
--BBC
Cyprus to ask for bailout from eurozone partners - Cyprus has told the European authorities that it intends to apply for financial assistance, the fifth eurozone member to do so.
It said it needs help to shore up its banks, which are heavily exposed to the Greek economy.
The announcement came on another day of nervousness about the single currency.
Shares in Italy, Spain and Greece fell sharply amid concerns that an EU summit this week will again fail to produce a deal to shore up the euro.
--BBC
Postal workers hunger strike
WASHINGTON, June 25 (UPI) -- Ten postal workers said they launched a hunger strike Monday to protest U.S. Postal Service plans to close or consolidate 48 mail processing plants.
The strikers -- who call themselves Community and Postal Workers United -- said they want Congress to drop an annual mandate requiring the U.S.P.S. to prefund healthcare benefits for future retirees, CNN reported.
"That payment is causing great hardship to the Postal Service," said Nannette Corley, a Maryland mail clerk participating in the hunger strike
UPI.com
Editorial
Citizens United
Published: June 25, 2012
The Supreme Court examined the Arizona immigration law in minute detail, but when it came to revisiting the damage caused by its own handiwork in the 2010 Citizens United case, it couldn’t be bothered. In a single dismissive paragraph on Monday, the court’s conservative majority refused to allow Montana or any other state to impose limits on corporate election spending and wouldn’t even entertain arguments on the subject.
... They could hardly have missed the $300 million in outside spending that deluged the 2010 Congressional elections, or the reports showing that more than $1 billion will be spent by outside groups on Republican candidates this year, overwhelming the competition.
They might also have seen that many of the biggest donations are secret, given to tax-free advocacy groups in defiance even of the admonition in Citizens United that independent contributions should be disclosed.
If the justices were at all concerned about these developments, they could have used the Montana case to revisit their decision and rein in its disastrous effects. The only conclusion is that they are quite content with the way things worked out.
NY Times Editorial
Jesse Jackson Jr. Takes Medical Leave for Exhaustion
CHICAGO – Representative Jesse L. Jackson Jr., a Democrat from Illinois and the son of the civil rights leader, is on a medical leave of absence, being treated for exhaustion, his office announced on Monday.
The statement from Mr. Jackson’s office said the congressman has actually been on leave for several weeks since June 10 but gave few other details
By MONICA DAVEY, The Caucus, nytimes
Rate of Killings Rises 38 Percent in Chicago in ’12 - Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s first reading material each morning, at 5:30, is not a budget update, a legislative proposal or a packet of headlines. It is an e-mail from the Chicago Police Department listing the crimes that were committed during the night that just ended. By 7 a.m., he is calling Garry F. McCarthy, the police superintendent. That is unlikely to be their final conversation of the day, or even of the morning.
Mr. Emanuel listed safer streets among his top three priorities when he became mayor a year ago, but Chicago, the nation’s third-largest city, is now testing that promise. Homicides are up by 38 percent from a year ago, and shootings have increased as well, even as killings have held steady or dropped in New York, Los Angeles and some other cities. As of June 17, 240 people had been killed here this year, mostly in shootings, 66 more deaths than occurred in the same period in 2011.
“That’s somebody’s husband, somebody’s son, and they’re dying right on our block,” said Maya Hodari, who lives on a South Side street where two shootings have already taken place this year, one of them fatal and another as a toddler looked on. “It hurts.”
By MONICA DAVEY, nytimes.com
Conservationists hail birth of rare rhino
Baby Sumatran rhino. Credit: International Rhino Foundation.
A rare Sumatran rhino has given birth at an Indonesian sanctuary, encouraging researchers concerned for the species' survival, officials said.
A baby male rhino was born to Ratu, a 12-year-old Sumatran rhino living at the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary in Indonesia's Way Kambas National Park, the International Rhino Foundation reported Monday.
With fewer than 200 Sumatran rhinos living in Indonesia and Malaysia, it is one of the world's most endangered species. Their survival is threatened by loss of its tropical forest habitat and hunting pressure from poachers, who kill rhinos for their valuable horns, conservationists said.
UPI.com
Last Pinta giant tortoise Lonesome George dies - Lonesome George, a giant tortoise, was believed to be the last of his subspecies.
Staff at the Galapagos National Park in Ecuador say Lonesome George, a giant tortoise believed to be the last of its subspecies, has died.
Scientists estimate he was about 100 years old.
Park officials said they would carry out a post-mortem to determine the cause of his death.
With no offspring and no known individuals from his subspecies left, Lonesome George became known as the rarest creature in the world.
---BBC
What NASA’s Next Mars Rover Will Discover
Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory is on its way. In a little more than a month, the 1-ton rover, which launched in November, will descend to the Martian surface.
The nuclear-powered robot is designed to make spectacular new discoveries about the Red Planet. It will drill and analyze the Martian soil to search for signs of water, past or present, and determine whether or not the planet was ever able to support life.
MSL dwarfs its immediate predecessors, the rovers Spirit and Opportunity and could almost crush the first Martian rover, Sojourner, beneath one wheel. Bringing a robot this large down safely necessitates a never-before-attempted landing system, though the increased size has let scientists pack 10 state-of-the-art instruments aboard and should allow the robot to rove farther than any before.
By Adam Mann, wired.com
There are more pictures at the link. --BentLiberal
SFPD will wear Dodgers unis for sting - Some San Francisco police officers are going undercover – waaayyy undercover – this week. They’ve agreed to, gasp, wear L.A. Dodgers jerseys at AT&T Park.
The Giants start a three-day series against their dreaded rivals Monday night, and Police Chief Greg Suhr and Mayor Ed Lee announced they’re sending many officers posing as Dodgers fans to the games in hopes of catching any over-the-top behavior before it erupts into violence. Lee said it’s an effort to prevent an incident like the beating of Giants fan Bryan Stow after a Dodgers game last year.
“We want to make sure there isn’t anyone out there intent on doing harm,” Lee said. “We’re going to keep our city safe for everyone to enjoy the game.”
Heather Knight, City Insider, sfgate.com