Overnight News Digest, aka OND, is a community feature here at Daily Kos. Each editor selects news stories on a wide range of topics.
The OND community was founded by Magnifico.
3 NATO troops die in another "insider attack"
CBS News
The U.S.-led military coalition in Afghanistan says three of its troops have been killed by a man in an Afghan army uniform.
A Pentagon official told CBS News that no American troops were hurt in the assault. A fourth soldier is wounded and is not expected to make it.
The attack is the latest in a rising number of disturbing shootings this year by Afghans soldiers - or insurgents dressed as government troops - on the international forces training them to fight the Taliban as the international coalition withdraws. |
U.S. cases of West Nile virus set record, deaths rise: CDC
By Sharon Begley
A total of 1,590 cases of West Nile virus, including 66 deaths, were reported through late August this year in the United States, the highest human toll by that point in the calendar since the mosquito-borne disease was first detected in the country in 1999, health officials said on Wednesday.
The toll is increasing quickly. "We think the numbers will continue to rise," said Dr. Lyle Petersen, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Division of Vector-Borne Infectious Diseases.
Through last week, 1,118 cases and 41 deaths had been reported. The updated figures represent a 40 percent increase in the number of cases and a 61 percent spike in the number of deaths, but are short of the all-time record for a full year: 9,862 cases and 264 deaths in 2003. |
As Clinton preps for Asia-Pacific tour, is North Korea capable of reform?
By Eric Baculinao
Change in North Korea, and its potential impact on American interests in the Asia-Pacific, is likely to be on the agenda when US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meets Chinese leaders next month on her region-wide tour.
Is the hermit kingdom, with its nuclear weapons program and a âÂÂmilitary-first policyâ that prioritizes its 1.2 million-strong army, capable of social reform?
Or is the latest staged-managed imagery from PyongyangâÂÂof a Swiss-educated young leader displaying a stylish wife, giving thumbs up to pop music and promising that the belt-tightening days are overâÂÂa sign of a new beginning for the impoverished and isolated nation? |
George Zimmerman granted new judge by Appeals court
Dayton Daily News
Circuit Judge Kenneth Lester will be removed from the case against George Zimmerman, the man accused of killing Trayvon Martin.
Zimmerman, a former neighborhood watch leader, said in an appeal that he fears Lester is biased against him and he wanted a new judge to preside over his case.
On Wednesday, Fifth District Court of Appeal ruled in his favor.
|
Cyber spying expands in Iran after operation is blown: researchers
By Jim Finkle
The scope of a cyber espionage campaign targeting Iran and other parts of the Middle East has widened, even after security experts blew the operation's cover last month, according to the research firm that discovered the Mahdi Trojan.
Israeli security company Seculert said that it has identified about 150 new Mahdi victims over the past six weeks as the developers of the virus have changed the code to evade detection from anti-virus programs. That has brought the total number of infections found so far to nearly 1,000, the bulk of them in Iran.
"These guys continue to work," Seculert Chief Technology Officer Aviv Raff said via telephone from the company's headquarters in Israel. |
In Iowa Ad War, It's Heartstrings Vs. Heartstrings
by Sarah McCammon
The TV ad war in a newly redrawn and hotly contested Iowa congressional district has begun, and it pits a story of overcoming personal adversity against ... another story of overcoming personal adversity.
Republican Rep. Steve King's first television ad, "Land," touts his background as a business owner who, the narrator says, "started with a barely breathing dozer, welding it back together himself. Rains came, flooded him out, but Steve King started from the dirt again."
It tells Iowans that King takes the same "dogged determination" to Congress that he used to build an earth-moving company.
|
Newly discovered dust-obscured galaxies may be missing link
By Irene Klotz
Scientists on Wednesday unveiled a new species in the cosmic zoo, a super-heated, dust-shrouded object called a "hot DOG," which may represent a missing link in galaxy evolution.
A full-sky survey by NASA's wide-field infrared WISE telescope turned up about 1,000 hot, dust-obscured galaxies, or hot DOGs, each of which pump out as much light as 100 trillion sun-like stars.
The objects are rare, accounting for about one in 100,000 light sources, and difficult to find since most of their energy is masked by dust. |
11 Urban Outfitters controversies
theweek.com
From T-shirts that seem to promote underage drinking to stickers that proudly display marijuana leaves, the purveyor of hipster clothing is consistently riling up critics
Over the years, Urban Outfitters, a store aimed at young hipsters and owned by big-time conservative donor Richard Hayne, has managed to offend blacks, Jews, Native Americans, liberals, conservatives, and eating-disorder awareness groups, among others. Here, a look at 11 of Urban Outfitters biggest controversies...
|
Missing woman unwittingly joins search party for herself
Toronto Sun
A group of tourists spent hours Saturday night looking for a missing woman near Iceland's Eldgja canyon, only to find her among the search party.
The group was travelling through Iceland on a tour bus and stopped near the volcanic canyon in the southern highlands Saturday afternoon, reports the Icelandic news organization mbl.is.
One of the women on the bus left to change her clothes and freshen up. When she came back, her busmates didn't recognize her. |
'Blue moon' on same day as Neil Armstrong service
By Seth Borenstein
Thereâs a rare âblue moonâ on Friday, a fitting wink to Neil Armstrong by the cosmic calendar.
Thatâs the day of a private service for Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, who died last Saturday in Ohio at age 82.
A blue moon occurs when thereâs a second full moon in one calendar month. It wonât happen again until July 2015. The full moon cycle is 29.5 days so a blue moon is uncommon and has come to mean something rare. The moon actually wonât be colored blue. |