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.
BBC
Belgian police in appeal to public over gunman identity
Belgian police are appealing to the public to help identify a suspect in the fatal shooting of three people at the Jewish Museum in Brussels.
They have released CCTV footage of the suspect walking into the museum, shooting through a door with an automatic rifle, before walking away.
An Israeli couple in their 50s and a French female employee of the museum were killed in the attack on Saturday.
Unconfirmed reports suggest a fourth person has died from his injuries.
Police have launched a nationwide manhunt for the suspect, who is believed to have parked a car outside the museum before entering, firing and quickly leaving the scene.
Security has been stepped up at Jewish sites across Belgium in the wake of the attack.
BBC
Oldest American celebrates 115th birthday
The oldest living American, one of the few living people born in the 19th Century, has marked her 115th birthday.
Jeralean Talley was born on 23 May 1899 and is the world's second-oldest person, according to a list maintained by the Gerontology Research Group.
The oldest is Misao Okawa in Japan, who is 116, according to the group.
Asked how she has lived so long, Ms Talley told the Detroit Free Press: "It's all in the good Lord's hands. There's nothing I can do about it."
She plans to celebrate with family and friends at a local church in Michigan on Sunday.
Born in Montrose, Georgia, she moved to Michigan in 1935 and had one child with her husband, Alfred, who died in 1988.
Her daughter Thelma Holloway, 76, lives with her mother in Inkster in Wayne County, and three more generations of her family live nearby.
Ms Holloway helps with her mother's care, although a fishing trip last year is evidence of Ms Talley's continued good health, and she can still walk with the aid of a walking frame.
BBC
Eurosceptic 'earthquake' rocks EU elections
Marine Le Pen's National Front has come first in France's elections to the European Parliament according to exit polls, in what PM Manuel Valls has declared a "political earthquake".
Eurosceptic parties appeared also to have made big gains in other countries, coming first in Denmark and Greece.
The centre-right EPP looked set to be the biggest bloc in parliament.
Turnout in the election was 43.1%, according to provisional European Parliament figures - up on last time.
That would be the first time turnout had not fallen since the previous election - but would only be an improvement of 0.1%.
More info re: Rightward swing via DKos diary
here.
CNN
Residents urged to evacuate as fire spreads in Alaska wildlife refuge
(CNN) -- Authorities asked people to evacuate 1,000 structures near a wildfire in Alaska's Kenai National Wildlife Refuge on Sunday as the blaze spread.
The Funny River Fire has been raging for almost a week in Soldotna, south of Anchorage, growing to engulf 140,000 acres by Sunday afternoon. Now, fire officials are worried recreational cabins and second homes where residents and retirees are spending the holiday weekend may be at risk, said Michelle Weston with the Alaska Interagency Incident Management Team.
The voluntary evacuation notice was issued for structures near the blaze on Sunday, Weston said.
So far, no structures have burned in the fire.
Earlier Sunday, emergency officials said windy weather was pushing the fire further into the refuge and away from homes.
CNN World
Pope Francis invites Israeli, Palestinian leaders to Vatican peace talks
Bethlehem, West Bank (CNN) -- Pope Francis extended an invitation Sunday to the leaders of Israel and the Palestinian Authority to travel to the Vatican for a "peace initiative," after earlier calling for a two-state solution to the intractable conflict.
The pontiff's remarks came at the end of an outdoor Mass in Bethlehem's Manger Square on the second day of his three-day trip to the Middle East.
"In this, the birthplace of the Prince of Peace, I wish to invite you, President Mahmoud Abbas, together with Israeli President Shimon Peres, to join me in heartfelt prayer to God for the gift of peace," Francis said.
"I offer my home in the Vatican as a place for this encounter of prayer."
He added, "Building peace is difficult, but living without peace is a constant torment. The men and women of these lands, and of the entire world, all of them, ask us to bring before God their fervent hopes for peace."
L A Times (No date on story; I assume it's from today)
Bunny Yeager, photographer of Bettie Page pinups, dies at 85
c had success as a model in Miami in the 1950s, but she wanted to be a photographer. She saw her chance when she met the little-known Bettie Page, who had modeled for under-the-counter photo sets that specialized in sadomasochism.
Yeager took a somewhat more wholesome, holiday-themed photo of Page — nude except for a Santa hat — and in 1955 sent it off to fledgling magazine Playboy. "I figured because they were new they might pay attention to an amateur, and that's what happened," she told the London Telegraph in 2012.
The photo launched her career as one of the most successful pinup photographers, often with Page — who became an international sex symbol — as her model.
Yeager, 85, died Sunday in a nursing facility in North Miami. The cause was heart failure, said her agent, Ed Christin.
Al Jazeera America
Iran has neutralized most of its stockpile of higher-grade enriched uranium
Iran has neutralized most of its stockpile of higher-grade enriched uranium that could be turned quickly into the core of a nuclear weapon, the U.N. nuclear agency said Friday, leaving the country with only about a fifth of what it would need for such a purpose.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a in a quarterly report that Iran now has less than 90 pounds of the material.
The report also said Tehran was meeting all other obligations under an agreement reached four months ago in Geneva that serves as a prelude to a comprehensive deal now being negotiated.
The findings are likely to be welcomed by the six powers trying to negotiate an end to the decade-old dispute over Iran's nuclear program. Iran has consistently denied any interest in obtaining atomic weapons, saying it is only interested in civilian nuclear power, something allowed under the terms of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Diplomats and analysts caution, however, that the positions of Iran and the United States, France, Britain, Germany, Russia and China remain far apart and that a successful outcome of their diplomatic efforts is far from certain.
Al Jazeera America
Hemp: Long demonized, plant poised for comeback.
Kentucky won a lawsuit on Friday against the federal government for the right to plant a shipment of hemp seeds that had been impounded. The case underscores what appears to be a comeback for the controversial plant that, despite having much lower THC levels than marijuana, has been classified by the Drug Enforcement Agency as a Schedule 1 drug on par with heroin.
Federal legislation outlawed hemp as part of a war on marijuana in 1937. But the farm bill, passed on Feb. 4, contained a provision that allowed colleges and state agencies to grow and conduct research on the plant in states that would allow it.
Growing hemp under these circumstances is now legal in Kentucky, along with 15 other states that have removed barriers to hemp production.
Though industrial hemp and marijuana come from the same plant — Cannabis Sativa — hemp seeds are bred to produce plants with 0.3-1.5 percent THC, whereas marijuana has between 5-15 percent. THC, the intoxicating ingredient in marijuana that gets people high, is far too low in hemp to have the same effect.
Raw Story
It’s all in your head: Scientist now believes his pioneering work on gluten allergy was wrong
The researcher whose work led scientific credence to claims that those without celiac disease — which causes an immune response in the small intestines in the presence of gluten — still benefit from a gluten-free diet has performed another, more rigorous study that leads him to believe that there is no such thing as non-celiac gluten sensitivity (NCGS).
In 2011, Peter Gibson, a professor of gastroenterology at Monash University in Australia, published a study that found that gluten proteins cause gastrointestinal distress even in people who don’t suffer from celiac disease. This study helped provided scientific backing to the “gluten-free” diet fad, but Gibson believed that the evidence on which the fad was based wasn’t thorough enough, so in 2013 he performed another study.
In the 2013 study, he provided his subjects with three diets: two “treatment” diets, one of which was low-gluten, one of which was high-gluten; and a baseline diet. He found that subjects reported similarly increased gastrointestinal distress on both the low- and high-gluten “treatment” diets compared to the baseline.
Raw Story
Deep underground carbon deposits could pose a global warming threat if exposed
Stocks of organic carbon buried deep underground could pose a global warming threat if disturbed by erosion, farming, deforestation, mining or road-building, a study warned Sunday.
Scientists from the United States and Germany discovered one such reserve in Nebraska, up to 6.5 metres (21 feet) under the surface, composed mainly of vast quantities of burnt plant material.
“We found almost comparable amounts of carbon stored in this deep soil layer than we would in the top one metre of soil under a grassland vegetation,” study co-author Erika Marin-Spiotta of the University of Wisconsin-Madison told AFP.
The find suggested “that we are potentially grossly underestimating how much carbon is stored belowground in our global inventories.”
Such ancient fossil soils are found all over the world under river, volcano and other sediments, said Marin-Spiotta.
S F Gate
Opinion
Steve Jobs Vs. Elon Musk — Which Tech Legend Actually Accomplished More
Steve Jobs introduced us to iPods, iPads, iPhones, iTunes and more. Two and a half years ago, Jobs passed away. Since then, people have asked, "Who will be the next Steve Jobs?"
Elon Musk is a common answer; some even think he's surpassed Steve Jobs. Musk helped create PayPal, a widely-used consumer product that changed the way people pay for things online. He also founded electric car company Tesla and rocket company SpaceX.
Dolly Singh has worked with Musk for more than five years. She joined him as Head of Talent Acquisition at SpaceX and calls Musk "brilliant, dynamic, charismatic" and "an exceptional freak of nature" on Quora.
She also says this:
"In my humble opinion, Mr. Jobs in all his greatness has nothing on Elon. Elon is Wernher von Braun, Howard Hughes, Henry Ford, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and every other badass all rolled into one."