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.
Current Contributors are ScottyUrb, Bentliberal, wader, Oke, rfall, JML9999 and NeonVincent who also serves as chief cat herder.
Israel to bar UN fact-finding team from entering - Israel has cut working relations with the U.N. Human Rights Council, meaning it will bar a U.N. team from entering Israel or the West Bank for a planned investigation of Jewish settlements.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor says Israel's top diplomat, Avigdor Lieberman, announced the decision Monday.
Last week, the U.N. council voted to send a fact-finding team to investigate Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, in a resolution that condemned such activity.
- CBS News
Frankfurt's First Jewish Mayor Since Holocaust- The German city of Frankfurt on Sunday elected its first Jewish mayor since the Holocaust. Peter Feldmann became the first Jewish mayor of any major city in the country, in fact, receiving 57 percent of the vote.
Feldmann, 53, a member of the Social Democratic Party, won the election against the incumbent mayor. He will take office on July 1 ...
Frankfurt's previous and only other Jewish mayor, Ludwig Landmann, was a member of the German Democratic Party and served as head of the city from 1924 to 1933.
- Chana Ya'ar, Israel National News
Photo: Reuters
Companies Pick Up Used Packaging, and Recycling’s Cost- A growing number of large food and beverage companies in the United States are assuming the costs of recycling their packaging after consumers are finished with it, a responsibility long imposed on packaged goods companies in Europe and more recently in parts of Asia, Latin America and Canada.
Several factors are converging to make what is known as “extended producer responsibility” more attractive and, perhaps, more commonplace in the United States.
“Local governments are literally going broke and so are looking for ways to shift the costs of recycling off onto someone, and companies that make the packaging are logical candidates,” said Jim Hanna, director of environmental impact at the Starbucks Corporation. “More environmentally conscious consumers are demanding that companies share their values, too.”
- STEPHANIE STROM, nytimes
US unemployment aid applications hit 4-year low - The number of people seeking U.S. unemployment aid fell to a four-year low last week, bolstering the view that the job market is strengthening.
The Labor Department said Thursday that weekly applications dropped 5,000 to a seasonally adjusted 348,000. That's the lowest level since March 2008, just months into the Great Recession. The four-week average of applications, a less volatile measure, dipped to 355,000, matching a four-year low.
Applications have steadily declined since last fall. The drop has coincided with the best three months of hiring in two years. From December through February, employers added an average of 245,000 jobs per month. That's pushed down the unemployment rate to 8.3 percent, the lowest in three years.
The report suggests that employers added a similar level of jobs this month. This week's figures cover the same week that the Labor Department surveys companies about hiring in March. Applications are slightly lower this week than in February's survey week, which points to more job growth.
- CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER AP Economics Writer
Gandul, Romania
The Kandahar Massacre: What Is America Still Doing in Afghanistan?
Should the Americans withdraw from Afghanistan? This subject is back under debate in both the United States and the rest of the world, especially in the countries involved in the so-called war against terrorism. The massacre in Kandahar, where an American soldier killed 16 civilians, including nine children, created horror around the world and made everyone ask the same question all over again: What are the Americans still doing in this war, 10 months after Osama bin Laden, the most iconic figure of terrorism, was killed?
A week ago, when six English soldiers were killed by a bomb planted by the Taliban, the public opinion in Great Britain demanded early withdrawal from this front. The story repeated itself when those civilians were murdered by a 38-year-old soldier, who was on his first mission in Afghanistan after three previous missions in Iraq. Moreover, this massacre follows a series of errors that the American forces have made — soldiers urinating on Taliban bodies or the burning of several copies of the Quran — all of which were publicized worldwide and were used by the insurgents as proof of the mentally-ill American savages, as they were described by the Taliban.
However, the discussion concerning a potential early withdrawal of the Americans from Afghanistan will be nothing more than a discussion, since it is impossible for this to happen before 2014 for numerous reasons ...
According to a survey carried out at the request of the Washington Post/ABC News on the eve of the armed attack, 60 percent of Americans said that this war should not go on.
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Este cazul să se retragă americanii din Afganistan? Tema a revenit puternic în dezbatere, atât în Statele Unite, cât şi în restul lumii , în special în ţările implicate în aşa numitul război împotriva terorismului. Masacrarea a 16 civili (printre care 9 copii) de către un soldat american în Kandahar a produs oroare în întreaga lume şi a adus din nou în actualitate o întrebare recurentă - ce mai caută SUA în acest teatru de luptă la zece luni de la distrugerea imaginii iconice a terorismului: Osama bin Laden?
În urmă cu o săptămână, când şase soldaţi britanici erau ucişi în Afganistan de o bombă "plantată" de talibani, opinia publică din Marea Britanie cerea retragerea anticipată de pe acest front. Povestea se repetă odată cu moartea civililor din Kandahar, ucişi duminică de soldatul de 38 de ani, care se afla pentru prima oară în misiune în Afganistan, după trei operaţiuni în Irak.
În plus, masacrul de zilele trecute vine după o serie de erori ale forţelor americane - soldaţi urinând pe cadavrele talibanilor sau arderea unor exemplare din Coran - mediatizate în lumea întreagă şi folosite de insurgenţi drept material ilustrativ pentru "sălbaticii americani bolnavi mintal", cum sunt descrişi militarii SUA într-o declaraţie postată luni de talibani pe internet.
Cu toate acestea, discuţia care se poartă acum despre o eventuală retragere anticipată a americanilor din Afganistan nu va deveni altceva decât o simplă discuţie, pentru că este imposibil, din mai multe motive, ca o astfel de manevră să aibă loc mai devrevme de 2014 ...
Un sondaj realizat la cererea Washington Post/ABC News chiar în ajunul atacului armat de duminică a arătat că 60% dintre americani nu sunt de acord cu continuarea acestui război.
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- By Alina Matis, Gandul ("The Thought"), Romania
- Translated By Andreea Muntean
- Edited by Anita Dixon
Support in U.S. for Afghan War Drops Sharply, Poll Finds - After a series of violent episodes and setbacks, support for the war in Afghanistan has dropped sharply among both Republicans and Democrats, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.
The survey found that more than two-thirds of those polled — 69 percent — thought that the United States should not be at war in Afghanistan. Just four months ago, 53 percent said that Americans should no longer be fighting in the conflict, more than a decade old.
The increased disillusionment was even more pronounced when respondents were asked their impressions of how the war was going. The poll found that 68 percent thought the fighting was going “somewhat badly” or “very badly,” compared with 42 percent who had those impressions in November.
- ELISABETH BUMILLER and ALLISON KOPICKI, nytimes
Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America
IAVA'S 2012 MEMBER SURVEY
2012 findings include:
* Our members’ unemployment rate was almost 17% - significantly higher than the 12.1% average unemployment rate for Iraq- and Afghanistan-era veterans in 2011
* Almost half (49%) of unemployed members did not feel that employers were open to hiring veterans
* 37% of IAVA members personally know someone they served with or another Iraq or Afghanistan veteran who has committed suicide
* 2/3 of our membership do not think troops and veterans are getting the care they need for mental health injuries, including combat-related stress or military sexual trauma
*60% of our membership does not think the military/ Department of Defense is doing a good job of reaching out to troops and veterans regarding their mental health injuries and care, and less than half (49%) think the VA is doing a good job of reaching out to troops and veterans regarding their mental health injuries and care
"IAVA is the country's first and largest nonprofit, nonpartisan organization for veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan."
- iava.org
U.S. Agency Seeks Tougher Consumer Privacy Rules - The government’s chief consumer protection agency said on Monday that it intended to take direct aim at the vast industry that has grown up around the buying and selling of information about American consumers.
The agency, the Federal Trade Commission, called on Congress to enact legislation regulating so-called data brokers, which compile and trade a wide range of personal and financial data about millions of consumers from online and offline sources. The legislation would give consumers access to information collected about them and allow them to correct and update such data.
The agency also sent a cautionary signal to technology and advertising companies regarding a “Do Not Track” mechanism that allows consumers to opt out of having their online behavior monitored and shared. It warned that if companies did not voluntarily provide a satisfactory Do Not Track option, it would support additional laws that mandate it.
The recommendations, part of a sweeping set of guidelines in an F.T.C. report on Monday, represent the government’s latest move to address the issue of consumer privacy.
By TANZINA VEGA and EDWARD WYATT, nytimes
New Ideas on Pensions Use States - As growing numbers of baby boomers face retirement with inadequate savings, some state officials are considering a novel proposal to rebuild America’s ailing retirement system — having state pension funds run retirement plans for companies.
Because more companies are ditching their own pension plans or not offering retirement benefits at all, the idea would be to give companies an easy way to offer a firm pension without having to run the plan themselves.
On Monday, the labor economist Teresa Ghilarducci, who developed the proposal, held a public forum at the New School for Social Research with New York City’s comptroller, John Liu. The forum explored whether companies might want to start offering pensions through a pooled system run by the Bureau of Asset Management, a unit of the comptroller’s office.
- By MARY WILLIAMS WALSH, nytimes
Two Articles on the justice system for juveniles:
Seeking a Softer Justice System, Closer to Home, for New York’s Juvenile Offenders
... State lawmakers were hashing out the details on Monday of a proposal that they hoped would make more juvenile facilities resemble the one in Brooklyn and help put a softer face on juvenile justice in New York.
Under the proposal, which was a highlight of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s budget, New York City would take custody of hundreds of low-level juvenile offenders in so-called youth prisons, which have been the subject of much scrutiny in recent years for their poor conditions.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and youth advocates have lobbied for the change, saying that by housing young people closer to their homes and focusing on rehabilitation, the new model would reduce the chances of juveniles reoffending, make neighborhoods safer and save the state millions of dollars. It would also represent a drastic change to the juvenile justice system in New York, a state with a reputation for harsh treatment of juveniles.
“I really think it’s going to be a sea change for kids and families in New York,” said Jennifer March-Joly, executive director of the Citizens’ Committee for Children, an advocacy organization in the city. “It really sets us up to produce far better outcomes for kids and families. You don’t want one bad choice to derail a young person’s life.”
- John Eligon, nytimes
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Colorado Revisits Law That Gives Prosecutors Wide Power to Try Youths as Adults
... Colorado is revisiting a law that gives prosecutors the power to charge youths as adults in serious crimes without first getting approval from a judge.
Opponents of the law, which allows district attorneys to use “direct file” in cases of murder, rape and a range of other felonies, say it gives Colorado prosecutors virtually unchecked power over juveniles and has been used too broadly over the years.
In the process, they contend, teenagers accused of midlevel crimes like robbery and burglary are too often tried as adults and saddled with felony convictions that will stay with them forever, as well as time in adult prisons.
“We have been overcriminalizing youth for many years now. It’s time we stop,” said Representative B. J. Nikkel, a Republican from Loveland and a co-sponsor of legislation that would limit a prosecutor’s authority in such cases.
- DAN FROSCH, nytimes
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‘Mad Men’ season five premiere draws 3.5 million viewers - After 18 months of waiting, an average of 3.5 million people tuned in Sunday to watch “Mad Men’s” fifth-season debut.
That’s a series best for the show — and about 600,000 more people than watched the fourth-season debut in July 2010. “Mad Men” had been off the air since October 2010, following the fourth-season finale, as the studio, the network and the creator wrangled over this and that — product placement within the show, adding another ad break, creator’s salary, blah, blah, blah.
AMC - Jon Hamm as Don Draper, Jessica Pare as Megan Draper, Charlie Hofheimer as Abe Drexler and Elisabeth Moss as Peggy Olson in the first episode of the show’s fifth season.
The 3.5 million who tuned in to welcome back the boys of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce is 5.5 million fewer than the crowd that collected at AMC on March 18 for the season finale of the network’s monster hit/zombie drama “The Walking Dead.”
(After the 9 p.m. season opener, AMC immediately replayed it at 11; the two telecasts totaled 4.4 million viewers, AMC said.)
- Lisa de Moraes, Washington Post