Welcome to Wednesday OND, tonight's edition of the daily feature. The Overnight News Digest crew consists of founder Magnifico, regular editors jlms qkw, Bentliberal, wader, Oke, rfall, and JML9999, alumni editors palantir and ScottyUrb, guest editors maggiejean and annetteboardman, and current editor-in-chief Neon Vincent.
I try to select articles by the original authors. Occasionally, the AP or another service has the best or only writing on a topic. I have never harmed a link.
The bestest pirate pix are in this comment, imho:
J-town anchor TLAP
This concludes my celebration of pirate-speak. On to the news.
Sugar Daddy: Utahns are looking for the sweet life
"Men who are economically or politically powerful are often interested in engaging in these kinds of sexual-exchange relationships,” says Elizabeth Clement, an associate professor of history at the University of Utah. Clement’s book Love For Sale focuses on turn-of-the-century prostitution and how American’s views on morality and sexuality have changed over time. “They don’t just want to have a wife; they want to have a wife and a mistress. It’s not like powerful men couldn’t get sex for free, but there’s something that they like about the encounter. Perhaps … expressing sexuality through money.”
For Clement, these types of relationships aren’t surprising. “Men are attracted to the physical attributes of youth. And woman are attracted to power—and in particular, economic power,” she says. “What makes [sugar daddies in Utah] different is how invested they are in keeping it from their wives while maintaining this facade of respectability within the church and politically. There’s a cost to having a mistress here in Utah that you may not see in other places.”
According to Seeking Arrangement’s data, 71 percent of the site’s users in Utah are Mormon. And, like our man Ron, 52.1 percent of sugar daddies in Salt Lake City are married. This statistic makes Salt Lake City the second-highest in the country for having cheating sugar daddies, right behind Birmingham, Ala., at 58.2 percent.
Cover story from local alt-weekly.
Legislative committee puts Lake Powell pipeline on hold
A proposed bill that would loan money to Washington County to build the controversial 129-mile Lake Powell pipeline to St. George was put on hold Wednesday in the Revenue and Taxation Interim Committee at the Utah State Capitol.
The delay comes not from concerns about whether the pipeline is needed — as its opponents voiced in meetings Tuesday.
Sen. Howard Stephenson, R-Draper, started, and essentially ended, expected debate about the bill by pointing out that not enough information has been gathered about the possibility of private enterprise funding water projects across the state, including the Lake Powell pipeline.
Meanwhile the Trib checks out the legislative committee meetings, where a small amount of sanity is breaking out.
The legislature makes me laugh. When it doesn't make me cry. Image Library.
Utah lawmakers continue push for ownership as public lands war gains traction
Utah's public policy makers are chafing against the federal government's continued control over an estimated two-thirds of the land in Utah. They assert that ownership locks up millions of dollars in potential revenue because of environmental regulations that hamstring the oil and gas industry, livestock grazing or even timber harvesting.
Federal land ownership in states west of Colorado far eclipses counterparts in the East, for example, because land promised at statehood was not granted, according to the movement.
Ivory's measure to gain those lands is making traction in other Western states because of the pushback over federal ownership. It sets aside money for Utah to sue the federal government if certain lands aren't relinquished, but exempts certain areas such as national parks or congressionally designated wilderness areas.
The LDS news site is worried about Sagebrush II.
Feds approve California high-speed rail construction
The decision is the last of four votes needed before the project could kick off, with the state and federal governments each approving funding and environmental planning for the line. The most significant -- and controversial -- verdict came in July when Brown and lawmakers approved $8 billion in funding. The environmental approval process is also pivotal, largely because it allows opponents to sue to block the railroad.
Three Central Valley groups in June filed lawsuits after the state signed off on its environment plan, and now they are expected to sue again over the federal approval.
"There are quite a few coalitions that have been ramping up for months waiting for this to drop," said Anja Raudabaugh, executive director of the Madera County Farm Bureau, one of the groups suing. "I expect there will be a legal challenge mounted against this."
This is of course good news, but seems to be another step in a long process. This comes to us from the host city of NN13.
Ohio's execution drug supply expires in 1 year
The state plans to put a killer of two men to death Thursday and has executions scheduled through March 2014. Those include three executions after the drug expires at the end of September 2013.
Prisons agency spokeswoman JoEllen Smith told the AP on Tuesday that the department will be working with state pharmacists and the attorney general's office to address the issue. She declined further comment.
It's unclear what Ohio would do once the supply runs out. Prisons director Gary Mohr testified in federal court in March that an altered version of pentobarbital or a supply imported from overseas would not necessarily violate the prison's execution policies. Expired batches of the drug would violate the policies, he said.
This AP article picked up in the Sandusky Register reminds us that "pro-life" only goes so far, and the death penalty is still with us at this late date.
Image Library
Shuttle Endeavour Tours Southern California
Disneyland, the Getty Center and Griffith Observatory are already on the list, but space shuttle Endeavour will see a lot more of Southern California before landing in Los Angeles on Friday morning.
Weather permitting, the retired orbiter will also be flown over Venice Beach, Universal Studios, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Long Beach Aquarium and the Queen Mary, officials with the California Science Center announced Wednesday.
The shuttle will also fly over the Exposition Park museum, its new permanent home.
Something lighter from LA.
SAS sent to Afghanistan for retribution attack
Prime Minister John Key today confirmed four SAS logistics officers were sent to Afghanistan to gather intelligence on the insurgents who killed five New Zealand troops.
The intelligence would be used in a retribution attack on the insurgents, to be carried out by US special forces.
New Zealand deals with recent activity in Afghanistan.
Controversial sheikh condemns violence
The controversial Sheikh Feiz Mohammed has spoken out against the violence at the Sydney anti-Islamic film protests, calling it "absolutely shocking" and "against every facet and tenet of the Islamic teachings".
Sheikh Feiz, who cancelled a lecture and meeting about the demonstrations yesterday, told MuslimVillage.com in a video interview published overnight, that violence at the protests was "Islamically unacceptable" and "condemned".
"Many people, due to emotion and sensitivity, they lose their sense of reasoning and that results in a catastrophic kind of ramification. That is why, in Islam, we are taught to never ever lose focus of who we are and that which we represent.
This cleric is controversial because of certain statements made when he was younger. He claims to be more wise now. Also, saw a headline that France is closing embassies around the Muslim areas . . .
Gay Players in The Closet: Coming Out Remains Taboo in German Football
Germany's foreign minister is gay and so is the mayor of Berlin, but gay players in the Bundesliga top football league remain firmly in the closet. Last week one of them spoke out -- anonymously -- about the strain of denying his identity for fear of hurting his career. Chancellor Angela Merkel says athletes shouldn't be afraid to come out. But the obstacles are high.
For the first time last week, a current member a Bundesliga team, under the cloak of anonymity, came forward in an interview about being gay and closeted as a football player in Germany's top league. The interview, conducted by Adrian Bechtold, a 25-year-old journalist, appeared on Tuesday in the online edition of Fluter, a youth magazine published by the respected Federal Agency for Civic Education (BPB).
"I pay a high price for living my dream of playing in the Bundesliga," the athlete said. "I have to put on a show and deny my true identity every day." Bechtold worked for almost a year to get the athlete's story, gaining his trust and promising "a hundred times" that his name wouldn't be revealed.
The interview paints an unsurprisingly grim picture of life in the closet as a professional soccer player in Germany. Does the player know of other gay players in the league? Yes, several. Does he pay women to appear with him in public? No, he has plenty of female friends who will make appearances with him. Do gay Bundesliga players have secret meetings? No.
The recent news involving the
NFL player supports who marriage equality drew my attention to the headline for the parallel league in Germany.
Utah GOP deploying to Nevada for Romney
Utah may be the least competitive state in the country in the presidential election -- even without Romney's strong connection to the LDS community, it's just a very conservative place. But the Utah Republican Party is still finding a way to pitch in for the Romney cause: in an email to supporters today, the party announced it would start busing supporters down to Nevada to help work for the GOP ticket.
From the email:
Starting this weekend, we will be busing volunteers down to Las Vegas to help with the Romney Victory efforts. All expenses will be paid, and you will have the chance to experience the excitement of campaigning in a battleground state! ...
This just came to me via twitter, and I had to LOL.
Multiple Sclerosis & the Presidential Campaign
Regardless of your political leanings, at least one group of Americans was grateful for the Republican and Democratic National Conventions: Those affected by MS.
People with multiple sclerosis appreciated the shout-out from Ann Romney, wife of presidential nominee Mitt Romney, at the Republican National Convention in Tampa and from first lady Michelle Obama with the Democrats a week later in Charlotte, N.C.
Romney has been living with MS since 1998. Obama's father lived with the disease for about 30 years before his death at age 66. Both women related how their lives were affected by MS.
That kind of exposure does more than increase awareness of an often misunderstood disease that afflicts 400,000 Americans, experts said.
Soldier gives birth at Camp Bastion
A British servicewoman has given birth while serving in Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defence has said.
The woman, who is understood to have been unaware of her pregnancy, had a son at Camp Bastion on Tuesday. Mother and baby are in a stable condition and are due to fly home in the next days after a specialist medical team from the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford arrives in the Helmand province base.
An MoD spokesman said: "We can confirm that on 18 September a UK servicewoman serving in Afghanistan gave birth in the Camp Bastion field hospital to a baby boy.
"Mother and baby are both in a stable condition in the hospital and are receiving the best possible care.
A story I never thought possible from Afghanistan.
Cat with Headache, Image Library
Painkillers 'are the cause' of millions of headaches
Most of the people affected are thought to have started with either everyday, tension-type headaches or migraines. The headaches then became worse as they treated themselves at home.
Manjit Matharu, a consultant neurologist at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, said there was a tipping point at 10 to 15 days of using pain relief each month when the drugs became the issue.
He said: "This is a huge problem in the population. The figures in terms of the number of people who have medication overuse headache are one in 50, so that is approximately a million people who have headaches on a daily or near daily basis because they're using painkillers."
A sidebar notes there are more than 200 types of headaches.