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.
Evidence of Armstrong doping 'overwhelming,' agency says
By Michael Pearson, CNN
(CNN) -- Cyclist Lance Armstrong was part of "the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen," the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency said Wednesday in releasing more than 1,000 pages of evidence in the case.
The evidence involving the U.S. Postal Service-sponsored cycling team encompasses "direct documentary evidence including financial payments, e-mails, scientific data and laboratory test results that further prove the use, possession and distribution of performance-enhancing drugs by Lance Armstrong," the agency said.
Armstrong lawyer Tim Herman dismissed what he called a "one-sided hatchet job" and a "government-funded witch hunt" against the seven-time Tour de France winner, who has consistently denied doping accusations.
But the USADA said 11 riders came forward to acknowledge their use of banned performance-enhancing drugs while on the team. Among them is George Hincapie, Armstrong's close teammate during his winning Tour de France runs.
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'Webster' star Alex Karras dead at 77, family says
By David Ariosto, CNN
(CNN) -- Alex Karras, the burly defensive lineman turned actor in the ABC sitcom "Webster," died Wednesday surrounded by his family in their Los Angeles home following a hard-fought battle with kidney disease, heart disease, dementia and stomach cancer, according to a family spokesman.
He was 77.
"Alex was known to family and friends as a gentle, loving, generous man who loved gardening and preparing Greek and Italian feasts," his family said in a written statement.
The Gary, Indiana, native was an All-American at the University of Iowa who was thrust into professional football in 1958 with a first-round draft pick by the Detroit Lions, where he played until 1971.
It was in Detroit where he helped the team's defensive line become one of several through the years to bear the nickname "Fearsome Foursome," earning a reputation for his formidable presence on and off the line.
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Pa. Moves to Revoke Sandusky's Pension
By MICHAEL RUBINKAM Associated Press
Pennsylvania's public employee pension system said Wednesday it will revoke Jerry Sandusky's $59,000 annual pension in the wake of his conviction and sentence in the child sexual abuse scandal.
The State Employees' Retirement System notified Sandusky by letter that his crimes triggered forfeiture of his pension. The former Penn State assistant football coach was sentenced Tuesday to at least 30 years in prison for molesting 10 boys.
The retirement system told Sandusky he will no longer receive his $4,908 monthly annuity and informed his wife, Dottie, she is no longer entitled to a survivor's benefit.
Sandusky's lawyer, Karl Rominger, contended the agency has no legal grounds for revoking the pension and said Sandusky will fight any attempt to do so.
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Confidential Records Breached at Fla. College
By GARY FINEOUT Associated Press
Computer hackers broke into a Florida college's computer system and stole the confidential information of nearly 300,000 students statewide and the school's president, officials said Wednesday.
The problem that at first involved just employees at Northwest Florida State College now is much larger than suspected.
The Department of Education said hackers stole 200,000 records including names, Social Security numbers, birthdates, ethnicity and gender for any student statewide who was eligible for Florida's popular Bright Futures scholarships for the 2005-06 and 2006-07 school years.
"We speculate this was a professional, coordinated attack by one or more hackers," said college President Ty Handy in a memo that went out to employees on Monday. Handy said the hackers did not get all the information from one file, but instead were able to piece together enough data to steal identities of at least 50 employees including his own.
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Female Fighter Pilot Breaks Gender Barriers
By Martha Raddatz
Col. Jeannie Flynn Leavitt is not only a decorated fighter pilot; she has broken through gender barriers few thought possible. She was recently named the Air Force’s first female wing commander, commanding 5,000 airmen at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina.
Twenty years ago, when she had completed part of her training, she was told that if she wanted to be fighter pilot, she would be the first and would draw attention. “I said, ‘Well, I don’t want the attention, but I want to fly fighters more than anything,’” she responded.
She knew she was entering a world dominated by male swagger. Think “Top Gun” — “The plaque for the alternates is down in the ladies room.”
And that attitude was not just in the movies. Even the Pentagon brass once argued that male bonding was critical.
“If you want to make a combat unit ineffective, add some women to it,” retired Gen. Robert Barrow, the former commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, had said at a 1991 hearing before Congress.
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Attack on teen blogger consumes Pakistan
By Nasir Habib, Shaan Khan and Joe Sterling, CNN
Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) -- The brazen shooting of a defiant teen blogger has stirred the conscience of Pakistan, a nation plagued for decades by violent extremism.
An angry chorus of voices in social media, on the street, in newspapers and over the airwaves has decried the attack against 14-year-old Malala Yousufzai as cowardly and an example of a government unable to cope with militants.
"I blame the Taliban, first and foremost," columnist Sami Shah wrote in The Express Tribune, a local English daily. "I blame the government. All of it."
Malala was slowly recuperating Wednesday after surgeons worked for three hours to remove a bullet lodged in her neck.
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Police stunned by elderly couple's huge cannabis plant
CNN.com
London (CNN) -- British police have decided not to press any charges against the elderly couple who had been unknowingly cultivating a huge cannabis plant in their garden.
The plant was seized Monday in Bedfordshire, central England. The police later posted a picture on Twitter with comments: "Elderly couple bought shrub at car boot sale," adding that it was the "biggest cannabis plant we had seen!!"
The police picture posted on Twitter shows a fully grown shrub with thick foliage in the front garden.
A police spokeswoman told CNN: "The plant was mistakenly bought by the elderly couple. We will not be pressing any charges. We have seized it and will dispose it." She also said that unlike what has been reported in some newspapers there was no "raid."' "The property was not raided," she said.
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Pussy Riot member freed on appeal by Russian court
By Maria Tsvetkova and Nastassia Astrasheuskaya
(Reuters) - A member of punk band Pussy Riot was freed on appeal on Wednesday but a Moscow court upheld prison sentences for two others imposed over a raucous cathedral protest against Vladimir Putin, who said they had got the jail terms they deserved.
Yekaterina Samutsevich walked free from Moscow City Court after six months behind bars but the appeal judge who suspended her two-year sentence said fellow band members Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina should serve out their terms.
"I have mixed feelings," Samutsevich said outside the court, where she was greeted by applause and whistles from a crowd of about 150 people in the rain. "I'm happy, of course, but I am upset about the girls."
Samutsevich, 30, Tolokonnikova, 22, and Alyokhina, 24, were convicted in August of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred for a "punk prayer" imploring the Virgin Mary to rid Russia of Putin, and sentenced to two years in jail.
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S&P cuts Spain rating to lowest investment grade
Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — Standard & Poor's downgraded its rating on Spain's debt Wednesday by two notches, leaving it on the cusp of junk status.
A grinding recession, high unemployment and social unrest are limiting the government's options for stemming the country's financial crisis, S&P said.
The credit-rating agency now rates debt issued by Spain BBB-, its lowest investment-grade status. It had been BBB+.
S&P also assigned a negative outlook to the rating, saying it could be further downgraded if Spain's economic conditions erode further.
"Overall, against the backdrop of a deepening economic recession, we believe that the government's resolve will be repeatedly tested by domestic constituencies that are being adversely affected by its policies," S&P said.
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Thirsty coal poses risk to India's farmers
Greenpeace
Farmers in India's Vidarbha region are struggling with drought and limited access to irrigation while plans by India's government to build 71 new coal-fired power plants will place an extra strain on water resources.
These are some of the findings of a new Greenpeace India report, Endangered Waters, which identifies the potential for social unrest if the planned expansion in the number of coal-fired power plants goes ahead.
Lack of access to irrigation water has already been linked to the suicides of thousands of farmers in the area and investing in thirsty coal-fired power plants will only exacerbate water problems in a region that has a long history of under development.
Greenpeace India is calling for an immediate moratorium on allocating water to coal power plants in Vidarbha, while existing allocations must be also re-examined to ensure that the irrigation needs of farmers are not jeopardised.
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