Overnight News Digest
Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, current leader Neon Vincent, regular editors jlms qkw, maggiejean, wader, rfall, and JML9999, side pocket,Man Oh Man. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse, ek hornbeck, ScottyUrb, Interceptor7, BentLiberal, and Oke. The guest editor is annetteboardman.
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New York recovers 254 guns in 'largest-ever guns bust'
New York City police have arrested 19 people in what authorities are calling the city's largest-ever guns bust.
Police recovered 254 firearms, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.
The guns were brought to the city from the US states of North and South Carolina by traffickers travelling on buses, authorities said.
Mr Bloomberg is one of the most prominent proponents of strict gun control in the US, criticising the easy availability of firearms.
"Year after year guns flow into our city from states that don't have common sense gun laws," Mr Bloomberg said on Monday, adding that North and South Carolina were among the top three sources of guns used in crime in the city.
Gunfaq
How Many Guns In The United States? | March 7, 2013
Based on consolidated information from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, there are about 300 millions guns in the United States.
“There’s no perfect estimate of firearms in the U.S. because creating a national registry of firearms is prohibited by federal law,” noted Alex Katz, a spokesman for Mayors Against Illegal Guns. “But academics and interest groups across the political spectrum broadly agree on the 300 million figure.”
BBC
Scores dead as floods and rainfall hit China
At least 105 people have died and 115 are missing after floods and a typhoon hit parts of China, state media report.
Heavy rain since Wednesday has caused floods in the north-eastern provinces of Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang.
Southern China has been hit by Typhoon Utor, which made landfall in Guangdong province, where 22 people have been killed, reports say.
Neighbouring Hunan province and Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region have also been affected by the typhoon.
The storm passed through Guangdong last week, but the heavy rains which followed it have brought more chaos to the region
L A Times
Manning's attorney argues for short sentence so he can 'have a life'
FT. Meade, Md. — Army Pfc. Bradly Manning’s legal defense team, led by attorney David Coombs, said Monday that the government was “only interested in punishment” rather than “the needs of the individual soldier,” and he urged the judge to hand down a prison term for leaking classified documents that is short enough to someday permit Manning to make parole and return to society.
“The defense requests a sentence that allows him to have a life,” Coombs said.
Earlier Monday, military prosecutors in the court-martial asked the judge to sentence Manning to at least 60 years in prison.
L A Times
Chris Christie signs N.J. bill banning gay conversion therapy
New Jersey on Monday became the second state after California to ban so-called conversion therapy aimed at changing the sexual orientation of gay minors after Gov. Chris Christie signed into law a bill to prohibit the controversial practice.
Christie, a Republican, had been expected to sign the legislation, which passed both houses of the state legislature in June.
In a signing letter released after Christie took action, he said that he took into account concerns about the government "limiting parental choice" in the treatment of their children.
Reuters
Both sides assemble in U.S. 'Baby Veronica' adoption case
(Reuters) - Supporters of both sides in a dispute over the adoption of a Native American girl known as "Baby Veronica" held separate rallies in Oklahoma just days after adoptive and birth parents agreed to mediation to resolve the custody battle.
Much more info
here in Aji's New Day diary.
USA Today
Cyber attack? What cyber attack?
Those cyber attacks against the United States, the Pentagon, in particular?
Not us, says China's Minister of National Defense Gen. Chang Wanquan.
"The Chinese military has never supported any sort of hacker activities," Chang said Monday at a joint news conference at the Pentagon with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.
That's not the way the Pentagon sees it.
euronews
Terrorist threat on Europe’s rail network, according to German tabloid
Al-Qaeda is planning attacks on Europe’s high-speed rail network, according to German tabloid Bild.
Citing intelligence sources, the report says the terrorist group could plant bombs on trains or in tunnels and destroy tracks and electrical cabling.
Bild claims the information came from the National Security Agency in the United States, which had listened to a phone call earlier this month between the al-Qaeda leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri and operatives from the group’s network.
euronews
Sex drive: Zurich launches drive-in prostitution plan
A series of wooden sheds have been constructed in Zurich, Switzerland as part of an initiative to regulate prostitution.
They look like garages or shelters but are being called by the locals ‘drive-in sex boxes’.
The idea is that men wanting to pay for sex can drive into one of the sheds having picked up a prostitute from an approved area.
Project director Michael Herzig said the boxes should improve security for sex workers
.
McClatchy
Recovery is slow in rural China’s ‘cancer villages
NANMEN, China — In this small village about 25 miles from Shanghai, the smell of paint and gasoline hangs heavy in the stagnant afternoon air. Small dogs run in streets wide enough for only a small car. Children with worn Disney backpacks walk home from school, avoiding the trash tossed into the street gutters.
It seems to be a village much like any other in rural China. But there is something different about Nanmen that weighs on villagers’ minds.
Nanmen is one of more than 400 so-called “cancer villages,” areas so polluted by waste and factory runoff that its citizens are in danger of contracting the deadly disease.
McClatchy
Seeing threats, feds target instructors of polygraph-beating methods
WASHINGTON — Federal agents have launched a criminal investigation of instructors who claim they can teach job applicants how to pass lie detector tests as part of the Obama administration’s unprecedented crackdown on security violators and leakers.
The criminal inquiry, which hasn’t been acknowledged publicly, is aimed at discouraging criminals and spies from infiltrating the U.S. government by using the polygraph-beating techniques, which are said to include controlled breathing, muscle tensing, tongue biting and mental arithmetic