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.
Arkansas House overrides veto of late-term abortion ban
The Republican-controlled Arkansas House of Representatives on Wednesday overrode a veto by Democratic Governor Mike Beebe of a bill to ban most late-term abortions in the state at 20 weeks into pregnancy.
The House voted 53-28 to override the veto, and the Republican-dominated state Senate was expected to vote on Thursday to override the veto as well. If that happens, Arkansas would join seven other U.S. states that restrict or ban abortions after the 20-week mark.
Arkansas lawmakers are also considering banning most abortions at about 12 weeks of pregnancy, once a fetal heartbeat can be detected by a standard ultrasound. Opponents of that bill say it would be the most stringent restriction on abortion in the country if it becomes law.
JFK's Once Futuristic Pan Am Terminal Is In Danger of Getting Torn Down
By Katie Flynn
The original architects of the Pan Am Worldport might have hoped that the building would fit in perfectly with the landscape of the new millennium.
The terminal at New York’s JFK Airport was built in 1960 by Ives, Turano & Gardner Associated Architects in the shape of a futuristic flying saucer. It made its mark on American cultural history by sending off the Beatles after their first U.S. tour and appearing in at least one vintage James Bond adventure. Pan Am shuttered its ticket windows in 1991, but the Worldport still serves as a reminder that air travel was once seen as an exotic luxury, rather than a nuisance-riddled necessity.
Although the Worldport is iconic, its current tenant, Delta Airlines, is planning to dismantle the structure, now known as Terminal 3, in 2015 to make way for a $1.2 billion expansion of neighboring Terminal 4. The original Worldport space will eventually be used as a parking lot for aircraft.
Wikileaks case: Bradley Manning seeks first public statement on motive
By Michael Isikoff
Army Pfc. Bradley Manning released classified documents to WikiLeaks in an effort to "spark a domestic debate on the role of our military and foreign policy in general," according to a statement he will seek to read in a court hearing Thursday.
The lengthy statement, which Manning has already submitted to the judge presiding over his case at Fort Meade, Md., will be his first public account of his motivations for leaking hundreds of thousands of battlefield reports relating to U.S. operation in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as State Department diplomatic cables.
The statement appears intended to bolster the defense his lawyer plans to use at his court martial now slated for June -- that Manning was acting as a whistleblower intending to expose government misconduct.
How Code.org is promoting an agenda of diversity & equality in the tech world
Jolie O'Dell
Code.org has taken the web by storm with its message of computer science for all — and according to its founder, Hadi Partovi, racial and gender balance in the tech world is a major underlying principle of that message.
“Ninety percent of schools don’t even offer computer science, and those aren’t the schools with lots of white kids in great neighborhoods,” Partovi said in a phone call with VentureBeat today.
“Coding is the American Dream. If you want to be the next Mark Zuckerberg or even want a high paying job, those jobs are for programmers. … And yet the opportunity to be exposed to that is going to the top 10 percent, and that is just morally wrong.”
Are Smartphones 'Emasculating'? Google's Brin Thinks So
By Damon Poeter
Smartphones are "emasculating," said the guy wearing the dorky cyborg glasses with the miniature computer screen over one eye.
Yep, that was Google co-founder Sergey Brin's take on a device millions treasure and which helps his company rake in big bucks every year. Brin was speaking Wednesday at the TED Conference in Long Beach, Calif. when he started warning of the supposed threat to one's manhood posed by smartphones, as noted by CNET.
"You're standing around and just rubbing this featureless piece of glass," he elaborated, according to the tech site.
How exactly that's "emasculating" wasn't entirely clear from Brin's comments, but the whole riff appeared to be an attempt to argue that the Google Glass spectacles he's thrown his weight behind over the past few years are supercharged engines of machismo compared with the swift kick to the nads you'll get from a smartphone.
Analysis: Emerging deadly virus demands swift sleuth work
By Kate Kelland
The emergence of a deadly virus previously unseen in humans that has already killed half those known to be infected requires speedy scientific detective work to figure out its potential.
Experts in virology and infectious diseases say that while they already have unprecedented detail about the genetics and capabilities of the novel coronavirus, or NCoV, what worries them more is what they don't know.
The virus, which belongs to the same family as viruses that cause the common cold and the one that caused Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), emerged in the Middle East last year and has so far killed seven of the 13 people it is known to have infected worldwide.
US drugs prosecutors switch sides to defend accused Colombian traffickers
By Rory Carroll
US prosecutors and other senior officials who spearheaded the war against drug cartels have quit their jobs to defend Colombian cocaine traffickers, saying their clients are not bad people and that United States drug policy is wrong.
Senior former assistant US attorneys and Drug Enforcement Administration agents are turning years of experience in investigating, indicting and extraditing narcos to the advantage of the alleged traffickers they now represent.
"I'm not embarrassed about the fact that I changed sides," said Robert Feitel, a Washington-based attorney who used to pursue traffickers and money launderers at the Department of Justice. "And I'm not shy about saying that no one knows better how a prosecutor thinks. That's what people get when they come to me. There are lots of hidden things to know about these cases."
Remembering Van Cliburn, A Giant Among Pianists And A Cold War Idol
By Bill Zeeble
Legendary pianist Van Cliburn, the only solo musician of any genre to receive a ticker-tape parade in New York City and the first classical musician to sell a million albums, died Wednesday morning in his Fort Worth, Texas, home. The 78-year-old Texan soared to world fame in 1958 when he won the first International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, at the height of the Cold War.
Tall, slim Harvey Lavan "Van" Cliburn Jr. was 23 years old, just a few years out of New York's famed Juilliard School when the first Tchaikovsky piano competition beckoned from Moscow. Here was a chance to further his career and visit a far-off place the Texan had dreamed of since he was 5.
"I saw this photograph of the Church of St. Basil. It was just breathtaking. I said, 'Mommy, Daddy, take me there,' " Van Cliburn recalled in an interview recorded in his Fort Worth home in 2008. "And of course I had heard famous stories about the Moscow Conservatory, that just legendary place, and the St. Petersburg Conservatory. And to play on that stage where so many great, famous people had performed was just breathtaking."
US, allies planning direct aid to Syrian rebels
By Andrea Mitchell and Catherine Chomiak
In a policy shift, the United States on Thursday will announce plans to channel aid directly to selected groups of the Syrian opposition rather than through non-governmental agencies, senior White House officials told NBC News.
The aid plan, being forged with European allies, will still not include weapons, despite the calls of a growing number of American senators — but the definition of "non-lethal" aid will be more broadly defined, the officials said, noting that details of the plan were still being finalized.
Secretary of State John Kerry, who is in Paris on his first foreign trip in his new position, said earlier that Washington is looking for new ways to help rebels fighting the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad and speed up political transition in the country.
US private sector hopes to send older couple to Mars
By Pallab Ghosh
A team led by millionaire and former space tourist Dennis Tito plans to send a "tested couple" to Mars and back in a privately funded mission.
The Inspiration Mars Foundation plans to start its one-and-a-half-year mission in January 2018.
The foundation has carried out a study which it says shows that it is feasible to achieve such a mission using existing technology.
The group still has to raise funding for their mission.