Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, current leader Neon Vincent, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, wader, Man Oh Man, rfall, and JML9999. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse, ek hornbeck, ScottyUrb, Interceptor7, BentLiberal, Oke and jlms qkw. The guest editors are Doctor RJ and annetteboardman.
Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.
Reuters
Meb Keflezighi on Monday became the first U.S. male athlete to win the Boston Marathon in three decades, an emotional performance in a city still recovering from last year's fatal bombing attack on the world-renowned race.
Keflezighi, who was born in Eritrea but is now a U.S. citizen, pulled ahead of a pack of elite African runners a little more than halfway into the race and held off a late challenge by Kenya's Wilson Chebet as the Boston crowd chanted "USA! USA!" His official time: two hours, eight minutes and 37 seconds.
Among the women, Kenya's Rita Jeptoo notched her second consecutive win of the race, smashing a 12-year course record with a blistering official time of two hours, 18 minutes and 57 seconds, reeling in American Shalane Flanagan, who had led the women for the first 20 miles of the 26.2-mile (42.2-km) race, setting a punishing pace.
The Guardian
The American Meb Keflezighi has won the men's race at the Boston Marathon, a year after the race was hit by two fatal bombings. In the women's race, Rita Jeptoo of Kenya successfully defended the title she said she could not enjoy a year ago.
On 15 April 2013, blasts near the finishing line of the race, in Copley Square, killed three and injured 260.
Keflezighi, 38, from San Diego and an Olympic silver medallist in 2004, crossed the finish line in an unofficial time of two hours, eight minutes and 37 seconds – a personal best if confirmed. He is a previous winner of the New York Marathon.
He ran from Hopkinton to the finish on Boylston Street in Boston's Back Bay and held off Wilson Chebet of Kenya, who finished 11 seconds behind.
Keflezighi looked over his shoulder several times over the final mile. After realising he wouldn't be caught, he raised his sunglasses, began pumping his right fist and made the sign of the cross.
No US runner had won the race since Lisa Larsen-Weidenbach took the women's title in 1985; the last American man to win was Greg Meyer in 1983.
NPR
In the men's field of the 118th Boston Marathon, American Meb Keflezighi ended a 31-year drought for U.S. runners, after holding off Wilson Chebet of Kenya in a race that came down to the final mile.
According to race officials, Keflezighi, 38, ran a 4:56 split at mile 23, when he built a 20-second lead. That lead dwindled as the runners neared the finish line, but Keflezighi held off all challengers to win the race with an unofficial finishing time of 2:08:37.
The crowd roared as the Eritrean-born runner who lives in San Diego crossed the finish line, celebrating a much-needed U.S. victory in the historic race.
Before today, no American had finished first in the men's field since Gregory Meyer won in 1983. The last American woman to win was Lisa Larsen Weidenbach in 1985.
New York Times
BOSTON — When the digital clocks along Boylston Street flashed 2:49 on Marathon Monday, nothing out of the ordinary happened. And that was reason for joyous celebration.
At that moment last year, the first of two bombs exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three spectators and wounding more than 260 people. At that same moment this year, as the city held its collective breath for a moment of silence, runners crossed the line without incident. That feat sent up a Super Bowl’s worth of cheers from throngs of spectators, who clapped, hooted and rang cowbells under the warm afternoon sun.
“They got their city back!” said Kay Weir, 50, a runner from San Diego, who was one of several people crossing the finish line at that moment. “I’m stoked,” she said, despite having just run 26.2 miles, the first mile of which she spent in tears remembering the events of last year.
Reuters
The number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan may drop well below 10,000 - the minimum demanded by the U.S. military to train Afghan forces - as the longest war in American history winds down, Obama administration officials briefed on the matter say.
Since Afghanistan's general election on April 5, White House, State Department and Pentagon officials have resumed discussions on how many American troops should remain after the current U.S.-led coalition ends its mission this year.
The decision to consider a small force, possibly less than 5,000 U.S. troops, reflects a belief among White House officials that Afghan security forces have evolved into a robust enough force to contain a still-potent Taliban-led insurgency. The small U.S. force that would remain could focus on counter-terrorism or training operations.
That belief, the officials say, is based partly on Afghanistan's surprisingly smooth election, which has won international praise for its high turnout, estimated at 60 percent of 12 million eligible votes, and the failure of Taliban militants to stage high-profile attacks that day.
Reuters
A federal appeals court ordered the U.S. Department of Justice to turn over key portions of a memorandum justifying the government's targeted killing of people linked to terrorism, including Americans.
In a case pitting executive power against the public's right to know what its government does, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court ruling preserving the secrecy of the legal rationale for the killings, such as the death of U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki in a 2011 drone strike in Yemen.
Ruling for the New York Times, a unanimous three-judge panel said the government waived its right to secrecy by making repeated public statements justifying targeted killings.
These included a Justice Department "white paper," as well as speeches or statements by officials like Attorney General Eric Holder and former Obama administration counterterrorism adviser John Brennan, endorsing the practice.
DW
Responding to a groundswell of domestic pressure, the Obama administration has denied a visa to Iran's new UN ambassador, Hamid Aboutalebi. The White House decision goes against normal diplomatic protocol, raising questions about Washington's ability to unilaterally veto another country's choice of representation at the world body.
Aboutalebi was a member of the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line. The student group seized the US embassy and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days during the 1979 Islamic revolution, which ousted the US-backed Shah dictatorship and brought Ayatollah Khomeini's theocratic regime to power. Aboutalebi says he worked for the student group only as a translator and negotiator.
"Given his role in the events of 1979, which clearly matter profoundly to the American people, it would be unacceptable for the United States to grant this visa," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters in Washington last Tuesday.
McClatchy
Employees of U.S. intelligence agencies have been barred from discussing any intelligence-related matter - even if it isn’t classified - with journalists, under a new directive issued by Director of National Security James Clapper.
Intelligence agency employees who violate the policy could suffer career-ending losses of their security clearances or out-right termination, and those who disclose classified information could face criminal prosecution, according to the directive signed by Clapper on March 20.
Under the order, only the director or deputy head of an intelligence agency, public affairs officials and those authorized by a public affairs official may have contact with journalists on intelligence-related matters.
The order, which was made public on Monday by Steven Aftergood, who runs the Federation of American Scientists’ Project on Government Secrecy, is sweeping in its definition of intelligence-related matters.
Al Jazeera
A teenager has survived a trip across the Pacific Ocean hiding in the wheel well of an airliner, enduring frigid temperatures and a lack of oxygen at altitudes of 11,000 metres, authorities say.
The boy was found wandering around Maui airport on Sunday night after his five-and-a-half-hour flight from San Jose, California, Tom Simon, an FBI spokesman, said.
Video footage from San Jose showed that the boy scaled a fence to get to Hawaiian Airlines Flight 45.
When the airliner landed in Maui, the boy jumped from the wheel well and started wandering around the airport grounds, Simon said.
"He was unconscious for the lion's share of the flight," Simon said. "Doesn't even remember the flight ... kid's lucky to be alive."
Simone said that the youth, who had run away after a family argument, appeared unharmed.
The teenager would not be charged and was referred to child protective services, he said.
The Guardian
Oklahoma plans to kill Clayton Lockett by lethal injection on Tuesday, after judges could not agree which court has the authority to stay his execution amid questions over the constitutionality of the state’s capital punishment law.
The Oklahoma court of criminal appeals and the state supreme court last week both declined to stay the executions of Lockett and Charles Warner, scheduled for April 29, with each court saying it did not have the authority to grant a stay.
The inmates have sued over the constitutionality of Oklahoma’s secrecy about execution drugs, and an Oklahoma county district court judge has ruled that keeping the source of the drugs confidential is a violation of their rights. The state is defending a law that allows it to keep the source of the drugs secret, on the argument that suppliers would be in danger if their identities were made public.
Lockett, 38, was convicted of killing a 19-year-old woman in 1999. He was also convicted of rape. Warner, 46, was convicted of raping and killing an 11-month-old baby in 1997.
The Guardian
The major fissure concerning the controversial military commissions at Guantánamo Bay is no longer between civil liberties and national security. It’s between the commissions and the intelligence services, with the future of the 9/11 war crimes tribunal hanging in the balance.
On one side are both the commission prosecutors and defense attorneys, all of whom grapple in different ways with bringing justice to defendants who spent years in the brutal black box that was CIA custody. The prosecution in particular is laboring to send the message that, after years of stop-and-start proceedings, the commissions are now a viable, professional complement to federal courts.
On the other side are the CIA and the FBI, which have gone to extraordinary lengths to prevent information about the detainees – particularly about their torture in CIA custody – becoming public. The intelligence and law enforcement agencies’ equities at Guantánamo, at a minimum, conflict with the successful military prosecution of the detainees. At worst, they undermine the venue meant to provide a final dispensation for alleged post-9/11 war crimes.
New York Times
SEATTLE — The Boy Scouts of America, which voted last year to allow gay Scouts but not openly gay Scout leaders, has revoked the charter of a church-sponsored troop here for refusing to fire its adult gay scoutmaster.
The decision, which one gay rights organization said was a first since the policy change last year, essentially bars the Rainier Beach United Methodist Church and its 15 Scouts from using logos, uniforms or names associated with the Boy Scouts as long as the scoutmaster and Eagle Scout Geoffrey McGrath, 49, remains in charge.
The church’s pastor, the Rev. Dr. Monica K. Corsaro, said Monday that Mr. McGrath was there to stay, and so was the youth group he leads, though perhaps without the familiar uniforms and the Scout oath.
Reuters
South Korean President Park Geun-hye said on Monday the actions of some crew of a ferry that sank with hundreds feared dead were tantamount to murder, as a four-year-old video transcript showed the captain promoting the safety of the same route.
Sixty-four people are known to have died and 238 are missing, presumed dead, in the sinking of the Sewol ferry last Wednesday. Most of the victims are high school children.
Captain Lee Joon-seok, 69, and two other crew members were arrested last week on negligence charges, with prosecutors announcing four further arrests - two first mates, one second mate and a chief engineer - on Monday.
Lee was also charged with undertaking an "excessive change of course without slowing down" while traversing a narrow channel.
DW
The UN mission in South Sudan issued a report on Monday outlining the findings of human rights investigators on the ground in Bentiu, the capital of oil-producing Unity State.
It said more than 200 people were found dead and hundreds more injured in the city's Kali-Ballee mosque last week.
Detailing the atrocity, it said rebels "separated individuals of certain nationalities and ethnic groups and escorted them to safety, while the others were killed."
The report said several men, women and children from the Nuer ethnic group were also found dead inside Bentiu Hospital. They were reportedly killed for hiding and declining to join other Nuers who had come out to cheer for the rebels as they seized the town.
Similar massacres also took place at a Catholic church and an abandoned UN World Food Programme compound, where people were sheltering.
Thousands of people have been killed across South Sudan since December when former Vice President Riek Machar reportedly attempted to seize control from President Salva Kiir.
Al Jazeera
Yitzhar, Occupied West Bank — In two weeks, the residents of this settlement, known as one of the West Bank’s most ideological and uncompromising, will vote on whether it’s acceptable to fight the army that is assigned to protect them.
Yitzhar is a small town of about 1,100 people perched on a hill outside of the Palestinian city of Nablus, but it has developed an oversized reputation. In 2011, it earned the distinction of carrying out more attacks on Palestinians than any other settlement in the occupied West Bank: One out of every six incidents documented by the United Nations that year involved a resident of Yitzhar.
Earlier this month, though, residents went after a less common target. Six officers from the Israeli border police were injured by stone-throwing settlers on April 8 when they demolished a house that was built without the proper permits. Settlers also trashed an army post and slashed the tires of a colonel’s jeep.
The army responded by closing a notorious Yitzhar yeshiva, or Jewish seminary, called Od Yosef Chai ("Joseph Still Lives"). Border police took control of the site on April 11 after the local army commander declared it a military zone. His order forbids anyone from entering for two months, and today the site is barricaded and guarded by armed officers.
Al Jazeera
The actual number of girls are missing from the northeast Nigerian school attacked last week is 234, significantly more than the 85 reported by education officials, parents have told the state governor.
The higher figure came out on Monday, a week after the kidnappings when the Borno state governor insisted a military escort take him to the town, AP news agency reported.
Parents told the governor that officials would not listen to them when they drew up their list of names of missing children, reaching 234.
The discrepancy in the figures could not immediately be resolved.
The kidnappings are believed to have been carried out by Nigeria's Islamic rebels, Boko Haram, which has been violently campaigning to establish an Islamic Shariah state in Nigeri
Security officials had warned Governor Kashim Shettima that it was too dangerous for him to drive to Chibok, 130 kilometres from Maiduguri, the Borno state capital.
Spiegel Online
On Feb. 24, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni signed a law allowing for life sentences for homosexuals. Since then, members of the country's gay and lesbian community have been going into hiding or leaving the country. Western pressure has been ineffective.
Michael Kawuba is sitting in his church office reflecting on tumescence. "We Ugandans get an erection when we see a beautiful woman," he says. "Anything else is unnatural."
During the day, Kawuba works as a financial advisor, but once he is finished, he rejoins the battle against homosexuality. A friendly man of 31, Kawuba is married and has three children -- and he is not one to rant. But every second Sunday, he preaches to the Kakumba congregation. "The Bible forbade homosexuality. God rained down fire onto Sodom and Gomorrah" -- he continues in this vein for hours at a time, standing behind a wooden pulpit. The sanctuary is spacious with a roof made of palm fronds. A band including guitar, bass and drums players pumps out gospel music while worshippers sing along, sway to the rhythm and stretch their arms heavenward as they call out "praise the Lord!"
The Guardian
It was a classic political rally. There were emotional speeches, flags and homemade banners. But the small middle-class crowd that gathered on Monday in the eastern town of Khartsyzk, close to the border with Russia, had turned up to support Ukraine. They waved blue-and-yellow flags. They showed placards. One read: "Goodwill to all". Another held aloft by two smiling white-haired ladies read: "Make love not war."
Pro-Russian groups have seized a string of town halls across eastern Ukraine. They have occupied and barricaded the administration building in Khartsyzk, a town of 65,000 people 40km from Donetsk, and known for its giant tube factory. The separatists are demanding a referendum. They have proclaimed a "Donetsk people's republic" whose goals include separation from Kiev and – it appears – swift union with Russia.
The Kremlin, meanwhile, appears to be threatening to send in troops. On Monday Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, accused the government in Kiev of violating a deal struck in Geneva last week under which illegal groups were supposed to give up their arms. Lavrov said Kiev had failed to protect ethnic Russians from far-right extremists. His comments follow a murky shoot-out over the weekend in the town of Slavyansk, occupied by angry anti-western gunmen.
NPR
The renegade Islamist group known as ISIS now controls swaths of Syria and Iraq, and it's partly because the fighters are so rich. ISIS, or the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, is known for having the biggest guns and paying the highest salaries.
While kidnapping, oil smuggling and donations from sympathizers have been well-known sources of money, the groups also run complex and brutal protection rackets, according to analysts.
Charles Lister of the Brookings Institution in Doha, Qatar, says Iraqi intelligence sources estimate that extremist militants take in more than $1 million a month in extortion from the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.
THE ENVIRONMENT, SCIENCE, HEALTH AND TECHNOLOGY
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DW
Atomic energy experts are expressing concern over the problems that North Korea appears to be experiencing at its Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center, which has been reportedly shut down earlier this year when the supply of cooling water from a nearby river was halted.
Analysis of satellite images by the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University, released on the 38 North website, suggest that extensive rainfall and flooding in July 2013 dramatically altered the course of the Kuryong River away from the facility and may have filled collection cisterns and ponds with sand or river silt, as well as destroying pipes to deliver the cooling water to the reactor.
Images show that steam was released from the turbine building in February, suggesting that the turbines had been halted down ahead of the reactor shutdown, while snow had collected on the normally warm roof of the reactor building.
North Korean engineers were quickly called in to carry out excavations and the construction of a new dam, the institute confirmed, but the repairs appear to be insubstantial.
NPR
America is less religious than ever before. The number of Americans who reported no religious affiliation has been growing rapidly, doubling since 1990. That kind of rapid change matches another societal trend — growth in Internet use. The percentage of Americans who say they used the Internet went from nearly zero in 1990 to 87 percent this year. Now, a detailed data analysis finds the two trends aren't just related, but that wider Internet use may actually be leading us to lose our religion.
Knowing that correlation doesn't necessarily mean causation, computer scientist Allen Downey, who teaches at Massachusetts' Olin College of Engineering, set out to further analyze religious disaffiliation.
NPR
It's not just kids who are overdoing screen time. Parents are often just as guilty of spending too much time checking smartphones and e-mail — and the consequences for their children can be troubling.
Dr. Jenny Radesky is a pediatrician specializing in child development. When she worked at a clinic in a high-tech savvy Seattle neighborhood, Radesky started noticing how often parents ignored their kids in favor of a mobile device. She remembers a mother placing her phone in the stroller between herself and the baby. "The baby was making faces and smiling at the mom," Radesky says, "and the mom wasn't picking up any of it; she was just watching a YouTube video."
CNET
Netflix's profit surged again in the first quarter, growing more than was expected thanks to better cost handling, as the online video service had more international sign-ups than it projected it would -- while warning that new subscribers may face a monthly bill increase of $1 to $2 later this quarter.
"In the US we have greatly improved our content selection since we introduced our streaming plan in 2010 at $7.99 per month. Our current view is to do a one or two dollar increase, depending on the country, later this quarter for new members only. Existing members would stay at current pricing (e.g. $7.99 in the US) for a generous time period," the company wrote in a letter to shareholders.
That follows Amazon earlier this year increasing the price of its Prime service -- which includes Netflix rival Prime Instant Video -- to $99 from $79 annually.
Netflix, which has its sights on becoming the world's foremost online television network, relies on the US for most of its business but has set plans in motion to significantly expand abroad this year. The strategy not only reflects the company's hunt for markets that will imbue it with sharp growth but also its ambition to become a global TV must-have as technology morphs the definition of what is and isn't a television channel globally.
CNET
AT&T is giving Google a run for its money when it comes to building ultra high-speed gigabit broadband networks.
On Monday, AT&T announced that it has begun talking to municipalities in at least 21 major metropolitan areas to bring its AT&T U-Verse GigaPower fiber network to these communities. Like Google Fiber, the U-Verse GigaPower network offers broadband customers 1 gigabit per second downloads at what's expected to be an affordable price.
AT&T hasn't announced pricing for the U-Verse with GigaPower service in the new territories, but in Austin, where it's already launched U-Verse with GigaPower, it has priced the service to match Google's $70 a month service. If all goes well in negotiating with each city, AT&T said it plans to begin building these networks by the end of the year.
AT&T has already begun selling 300 megabits per second broadband service on a fiber-to-the-home network in Austin, Texas. It has plans to upgrade the service to 1Gbps download speeds later this year. The company has already announced plans to bring the gigabit broadband service to Dallas, and it's in advanced talks to deploy the service in the Triangle region of North Carolina.
Now AT&T is expanding beyond those initial deployments and taking gigabit broadband to as many as 100 municipalities within the 21 metro markets. The move will pit AT&T against Google Fiber in a total of 14 markets, including Austin and San Antonio, Texas; eight cities in the Triangle region of North Carolina; Kansas City; San Jose, Calif.; and Atlanta, Ga.
CNET
SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Samsung on Monday kicked off its patent infringement suit against Apple, presenting evidence and testimony to argue the iPhone maker copied two of its patents.
The Korean electronics maker rested its defense against Apple shortly before 2 p.m. PT Monday before starting arguments for its own claims.
Samsung's first witness in its offense, Michael Freeman, testified about the creation of the '239 patent for video transmission. Freeman said he and his family invented the technology in the early 1990s and received a patent in 1994. They sold the patent and another to Samsung in October 2011 for $2.3 million.
Dan Schonfeld, a professor of computer science at the University of Illinois at Chicago, then testified that Apple infringed the '239 patent in its iPhone through the use of FaceTime and a feature for attaching video to messages and mail.