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.
Facebook buys Instagram for $1 billion - Facebook took steps Monday to bolster its mobile strategy, acquiring popular photo-sharing application Instagram for about $1 billion in cash and stock.
The purchase, the social network's largest and the most expensive by far for a smart phone app, gives Facebook a company that's adept at producing mobile apps as well as a passionate community of more than 30 million users. It also neutralizes a potential competitive threat from the San Francisco startup, whose 28-year-old co-founder has talked about building a large global business.
The move comes on the eve of an expected initial public offering from Facebook that could value the Menlo Park company at $100 billion.
--Casey Newton, sfgate.com
Caterpillar's big bet on the U.S. economy - It hasn't been long since Caterpillar Inc (CAT.N) looked like the typical resident of the Rust Belt. Having misjudged how deep the U.S. economy would decline, the world's largest maker of construction machinery reduced its workforce by 33,000 people worldwide in 2009, closed plants and posted lower profits.
But the Peoria, Illinois-based company has mounted a quick recovery and is emerging as the poster child for America's manufacturing renaissance.
In 24 months, 15 Caterpillar facilities have been built or updated in the United States, tens of thousands of workers have been added to the payroll and $2 billion is committed for capital investments on its home soil this year.
"We haven't seen Caterpillar doing this much building in the United States since probably the 1960s," said Peter Holt, owner of the Holt Caterpillar dealership in San Antonio. Caterpillar is building a $200 million plant two hours southeast of his store, in Victoria, Texas, that is slated to start churning out badly needed excavators later this summer.
Underpinning Caterpillar's U.S. momentum is a flood of demand by heavy equipment users in America - ranging from construction companies to oil drillers to cement producers - who are looking to replace aging machines now that the economy is improving and credit is easier to obtain.
--John D. Stoll, Reuters
Microsoft’s AOL Deal Intensifies Patent Wars - The global gold rush in technology patents gained speed on Monday when Microsoft agreed to pay more than $1 billion for 800 patents held by AOL.
The lofty price — $1.3 million a patent — reflects the crucial role that patents are increasingly playing in the business and legal strategies of the world’s major technology companies, including Microsoft, Apple, Google, Samsung and HTC.
Patents that can be applied to both smartphones and tablet computers, which use much the same technology, are valued assets and feared weapons, as the market for those devices booms. Companies are battling in the marketplace and in courtrooms around the world, where patent claims and counterclaims are filed almost daily.
--Steve Lohr, nytimes.com
Mali's president steps down - Malian President Amadou Toumani Toure handed in his letter of resignation on Sunday, an official said, helping pave the way for the nation's return to civilian rule.
The resignation was given to West African mediators in the capital city of Bamako, said a spokesman for Dioncounda Traore, the speaker of the parliament ...
The March 22 coup staged by renegade soldiers sparked a crisis in Mali, a west African nation that had been a cornerstone of stability.
The international community -- including West African states, the African Union and the United States -- called for the immediate restoration of constitutional rule.
Adding to the chaos are separatist Tuareg rebels who capitalized on the post-coup disorder and captured large areas of Mali's vast Sahara region in the north. They declared independence for a region they recognize as Azawad, the cradle of their nomadic civilization.
--CNN
Old and new Egypt compete in presidential race - CAIRO — Egypt's curious gallery of presidential candidates reveals how much the nation has changed yet how deeply it still echoes with voices connected to the repressive rule of deposed President Hosni Mubarak.
The country's revolution brought new faces, including Khairat Shater, onetime political prisoner now running as a candidate for the Muslim Brotherhood. But the revolt failed to sweep away prominent, if shadowy, challengers from the past, most notably Omar Suleiman, the former leader's spymaster and confidant.
The presidential race lays bare today's volatile Egypt: a battleground between ascending Islamists and the remnants of a regime seeking to conjure a sense of stability in a land troubled by crime and economic turmoil. The contest between the two forces sharpened after the revolution's young activists failed to inspire Egyptians with a political alternative.
"If we have three members of Mubarak's regime running for office after the revolution, then it is obvious the revolution remains unfinished," said Bashir Abdel Fattah, editor of Democracy magazine. He added that the race reflected Egypt's "uncertain and inexperienced political climate."
--Jeffrey Fleishman, Los Angeles Time
Radioactive particles from Japan detected in California kelp - Radioactive particles released in the nuclear reactor meltdown in Fukushima, Japan, following the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami were detected in giant kelp along the California coast, according to a recently published study.
Radioactive iodine was found in samples collected from beds of kelp in locations along the coast from Laguna Beach to as far north as Santa Cruz about a month after the explosion, according to the study by two marine biologists at Cal State Long Beach.
The levels, while most likely not harmful to humans, were significantly higher than measurements prior to the explosion and comparable to those found in British Columbia, Canada, and northern Washington state following the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, according to the study published in March in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.
--Victoria Kim, LA Times
March was warmest in US on record - The United States has experienced the warmest March on record dating back to 1895 due to unusually high temperatures in the eastern two-thirds of the nation, federal scientists said on Monday.
The country's average temperature last month of 51.1 degrees Fahrenheit (10.6 Celsius) was "8.6 degrees above the 20th century average for March and 0.5 degrees F warmer than the previous warmest March in 1910," the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.
Every single state saw at least one record warm day last month, while hundreds of spots across the country broke their previous all-time warm records for the month of March.
--AFP
Turkey Says Syria Killed Refugees on Its Side of Border - The deadly confrontation between Syria and opposition groups spilled into Turkey for the first time on Monday as Syrian forces fired across the border near a refugee camp, casting a further pall over prospects for a United Nations peace plan due to be put into effect this week.
The shooting killed two Syrian refugees and wounded at least 23 people, including a Turkish police officer, near the southern Turkish town of Kilis.
...
A senior Turkish Foreign Ministry official said Syria’s ranking diplomat had been summoned and given a harsh message about Turkey’s “irritation” with the episode. There was no immediate comment from Syria.
--NEIL MacFaruquhar and Sebnem Arsu, nytimes.com
National Database Planned to Combat Cellphone Theft - The soaring popularity of smartphones has produced an unwelcome, if predictable, side effect: an epidemic of smartphone thefts.
Now, police departments, the Federal Communications Commission and the wireless phone industry have devised a plan to fight back: the creation of a central database to track stolen phones and prevent them from being used again.
On Tuesday, Julius Genachowski, the chairman of the F.C.C., is scheduled to join police chiefs from New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland and representatives of a wireless industry trade group to announce the new plan, which will allow wireless providers to disable and block further use of a device once it is reported stolen
--Edward Wyatt, nytimes, com
UC Davis pepper spray report may go public Wednesday minus some names - The University of California and its campus police union reached a tentative legal settlement Monday that could allow the public release Wednesday of most of UC’s much-anticipated investigative report into the pepper spraying of campus protesters at UC Davis, officials said. However, the tentative agreement calls for the names of most of the UC Davis police officers involved in the November incident or interviewed about it to be removed from the document.
Under the settlement, only the widely known names of Lt. John Pike, the officer shown spraying students in a highly viewed online video, and that of UC Davis Police Chief Annette Spicuzza would be included.
In exchange, the police union has agreed not to appeal a Superior Court decision last month that rejected most of the union’s arguments seeking to block release of portions of the report; the judge had granted the union a preliminary injunction keeping most of the names confidential temporarily and gave the union several more weeks to file an appeal to block larger chunks of the report.
--Larry Gordon , LA Now blog, LA Times
A Sacred Peak With Rich Ore Deposits - The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes in Montana are seeking to have a mountain peak listed on the National Register of Historic Places in the hope of calling attention to a copper and silver mining company’s plans to burrow beneath it. The tribe has traditionally used the site, Chicago Peak, for praying, fasting and seeking visions.
A listing on the register would not legally prevent the mine from going forward. Still, the tribes hope to turn public opinion against the “hollowing out” of a spiritual site and to avert negative environmental impacts from the project, Rock Creek Mine.
The Rock Creek mine would tunnel under Chicago Peak, a site that holds cultural significance for Indian tribes.Revett MineralsThe Rock Creek mine would tunnel under Chicago Peak, a site that holds cultural significance for Indian tribes.
“The peak is related to origin stories that took place during the time of creation of the Kootenai world,” said Maria Nieves Zedeño, an anthropologist at the University of Arizona who has researched the peak for the nomination of an associated site, Kootenai Falls. “It’s one of the most significant sites to the Kootenai because of its association with knowledge and power.”
--Jim Robbins, Green Blog, nytimes