Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, current leader Neon Vincent, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, wader, Man Oh Man, rfall, and JML9999. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse, ek hornbeck, ScottyUrb, Interceptor7, BentLiberal, Oke and jlms qkw. The guest editor is annetteboardman.
Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.
New York Times
The little white shack at the water’s edge in Lower Manhattan is unobtrusive — so much so that the tourists strolling the promenade at Battery Park the other day did not give it a second glance.
Up close, though, the roof of the shed behind a Coast Guard building bristled with antennas and other gear. Though not much bigger than a closet, this facility is helping scientists confront one of the great environmental mysteries of the age.
The equipment inside is linked to probes in the water that keep track of the ebb and flow of the tides in New York Harbor, its readings beamed up to a satellite every six minutes.
While the gear today is of the latest type, some kind of tide gauge has been operating at the Battery since the 1850s, by a government office originally founded by Thomas Jefferson. That long data record has become invaluable to scientists grappling with this question: How much has the ocean already risen, and how much more will it go up?
New York Times
WASHINGTON — House and Senate negotiators reached accord on a trillion-dollar spending plan that will finance the government through September, reversing some cuts to military veterans’ pensions that were included in a broader budget agreement last month and defeating efforts to rein in President Obama’s health care law.
The hefty bill, filed in the House on Monday night, neutralized almost all of the 134 policy provisions that House Republicans had hoped to include, with negotiators opting for cooperation over confrontation after the 16-day government shutdown in October.
Measures to eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate greenhouse gases and reverse clean water regulations did not survive the final negotiations.
Republicans also relented on their efforts to strip financing to carry out the Affordable Care Act.
“There’s nothing in the bill to block Obamacare,” said Senator Barbara A. Mikulski, Democrat of Maryland, the chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. “Obamacare lives another day.”
Reuters
Democratic members of the Financial Services Committee of the House of Representatives have called on the panel to investigate the hacking of credit and debit card data belonging to millions of customers of retailer Target Corp.
The request piggybacks on a similar move by Senate Democrats on Friday as lawmakers respond to the massive breach at Target, the No. 3 U.S. retailer, during the holiday shopping season, which resulted in the theft of about 40 million credit and debit card records and 70 million other records containing customer information.
In a letter to Jeb Hensarling, the committee's Republican chairman, 17 committee Democrats, led by ranking member Maxine Waters, asked for a "full Financial Services Committee hearing."
It was unclear whether the committee's Republican majority would respond to the request.
The letter said a hearing should review current consumer protection laws and determine what could be done to ensure the future security of consumers' card information.
"It is incumbent upon our Committee to explore whether industry data protection standards are appropriate, and examine whether heightened regulatory standards are needed to more effectively protect consumers," the Democrats wrote.
Al Jazeera America
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The disastrous impact of mining on West Virginia’s water resources goes back generations and could soon render much of the state’s water undrinkable, activists and experts say.
Officials on Monday started lifting the ban on tap water prompted by last week's chemical spill in the Elk River. About 300,000 people in nine counties have been unable to use their water other than to flush toilets for the past five days.
Experts, however, say the problem goes much deeper, and that coal mining made many wells and streams useless years ago.
“For more than a century, the coal industry has had pretty much free rein to do whatever it wants,” said Vivian Stockman, spokeswoman for the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition.
Stockman points to a common coal-industry practice: pumping chemical-laden wastewater directly into the ground, where it can leech into the water table and turn what had been drinkable well water into a poisonous cocktail of chemicals.
Reuters
The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear Arizona's appeal of a lower-court ruling that declared unconstitutional a state law banning abortions beginning at 20 weeks of fetal gestation, meaning the restrictive measure is struck down.
The Arizona law, signed by Republican Governor Jan Brewer in 2012, had been considered one of the toughest in the United States in imposing limits on abortion.
A May 2013 ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco invalidated the law, saying it violated "unalterably clear" legal precedents. The high court justices' decision not to review the state's appeal means the lower-court ruling remains intact.
Brewer's spokesman, Andrew Wilder, said the Supreme Court was wrong not to hear the state's appeal, saying the action was "a clear infringement on the authority of states to implement critical life-affirming laws."
Reuters
A majority of U.S. Supreme Court justices signaled willingness on Monday to rule against the administration of President Barack Obama over his attempt to appoint members of the National Labor Relations Board without Senate approval, raising the possibility of a decision that could limit presidential appointment power.
It was not clear how broadly the court will rule, but questions from the nine justices in a 90-minute oral argument indicated that the bottling company that is contesting an adverse ruling from the labor board was likely to win in its attempt to challenge appointees to the NLRB made in January 2012.
Obama used his "recess appointment" power to name three members to the five-member NLRB in January 2012. Presidents of both parties have made many such "recess appointments" to install officials who otherwise would have had difficulty winning Senate confirmation.
The Guardian
The American drinks group behind Jim Beam bourbon as well as Scotch whiskies Teacher's and Laphroaig has been sold to Japanese whisky distiller Suntory as part of a $16bn deal.
Illinois-based Beam Inc is best known as the maker of Kentucky bourbons such as Knob Creek and Maker's Mark, as well as the eponymous Jim Beam, but the group's drinks cabinet draws together brands from around the world, including Sauza tequila, Courvoisier cognac and Harvey's Bristol Cream to generate annual sales of $2.51bn.
The agreed sale of Beam follows shortly after Suntory completed its acquisition of drug group GlaxoSmithKline's legacy soft drinks business, including the Ribena and Lucozade labels, for £1.35bn. The Japanese whisky and beer group is already well-known for acquiring the Orangina brand a little over four year ago. The company also holds the rights to bottle Pepsi and Schweppes in some countries.
The Guardian
The US government wants to seize funds paid to the Jordan Belfort, the crooked stockbroker who inspired the Oscar-tipped Martin Scorsese black comedy The Wolf of Wall Street, in the hope of compensating thousands of Belfort's victims.
Justice department officials believe at least 50% of rights payments, totalling more than $1m (£610,000), received by Belfort could be seized. The Wolf of Wall Street, which last night won Leonardo DiCaprio the 2014 Golden Globe for best actor in a comedy or musical, is based largely on Belfort's book of the same name. It documents Belfort's activities at the discredited Stratton Oakmont brokerage house in the 1990s, which eventually saw the stockbroker convicted of money-laundering and securities fraud. He served 22 months of a four-year sentence.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Belfort was bound over to repay $110.4m to victims as part of his sentencing in 2003. Thus far, he has paid only $11.6m, according to federal prosecutors. Belfort is said to be fighting attempts to pay further compensation because he believes his supervised release has terminated.
The Guardian
On Thursday, the state of Ohio is scheduled to inject Dennis McGuire, 53, with two drugs: first, the sedative midazolam; then, the painkiller hydromorphone. When it is over, McGuire, who was convicted of the 1989 rape and murder of Jay Stewart, will be dead – which is Ohio’s goal. But the procedure is untried and untested; the drugs that the state will employ have never been used in a death chamber. And experts have warned in legal proceedings that if the process goes wrong, McGuire will not just peacefully drift away, but will be awake, struggling and failing to pull enough air into his lungs, until the drug overdose that will kill him takes hold.
"McGuire will experience the agony and terror of air hunger as he struggles to breathe for five minutes after defendants intravenously inject him with the execution drugs," his lawyers have said in court documents.
But on Monday a federal judge in Columbus, Ohio, ruled that McGuire's execution could go ahead....
The Guardian
Over 5,000 journalists arrived at the Cobo Center in downtown Detroit for the 25th North American International Auto Show and close to 800,000 visitors are expected when the show opens to the public later this week. Organisers estimate the show will contribute $365m to the struggling local economy in wages and other spending.
The opening ceremonies for the show took place in the striking new Cobo Conference Center atrium, lit by a four-storey high glass window overlooking the Detroit River – the jewel of the $279m upgrade of the center.
"The auto industry's back," US transportation secretary Anthony Foxx told reporters, "And of course, we're going to do everything we can to help Detroit come back as well."
All three major US car firms are using this year’s show to unveil major new vehicles they hope will power their future success after strong growth in 2012. Car sales have remained up even as the data on other consumer purchases have wobbled.
NPR
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is going to examine how the state of New Jersey spent $25 million of the federal aid it received after 2012's Hurricane Sandy, Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., has announced.
At issue in particular: whether it was appropriate to spend nearly $5 million on "Stronger Than The Storm" tourism ads featuring Republican Gov. Chris Christie and his family.
As the Asbury Park Press reported last August, the TV ads were produced by "East Rutherford-based MWW and a subcontractor. ... MWW proposed putting Christie in the ads. The other bidder, a team headed by the Sigma Group, did not. MWW won the contract."
MWW also demanded a higher fee — about $2 million more, the Press reported — than Sigma Group would have charged.
The ads hit the airwaves in 2013, an election year in New Jersey. Christie easily won a second term. He's now widely seen as a potential contender for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.
Los Angeles Times
An Orange County jury Monday found two former Fullerton police officers accused of killing a schizophrenic homeless man, Kelly Thomas, not guilty.
Manuel Ramos and Jay Cicinelli were charged with striking Kelly Thomas with a baton and a stun gun in a beating that left him comatose. He died five days later.
Ron Thomas, Kelly Thomas' father, said he was stunned by the verdict, saying he'd never seen such a miscarriage of justice.
Thomas also suggested that federal authorities should look into the case.
Ramos' attorney, John Barnett, told reporters: "These peace officers were doing their jobs...they did what they were trained to do."
Al Jazeera America
Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has signed a law this month that bans same-sex marriage and criminalizes homosexual associations, societies and meetings, with penalties of up to 14 years in jail.
The Associated Press obtained a copy of the Same Sex Marriage Prohibition Act on Monday that was signed by the president and dated Jan. 7.
It was unclear why the law's passage has been shrouded in secrecy. The copy obtained from the House of Representatives in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, showed it was signed by lawmakers and senators on Dec. 17, though no announcement was made.
Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday the United States was "deeply concerned" by a law that "dangerously restricts freedom of assembly, association, and expression for all Nigerians."
It is now a crime for two gay people to meet, to operate or go to a gay club, or other gay organization.
The new law says, "A person who registers, operates or participates in gay clubs, societies or organizations, or directly or indirectly makes public show of same-sex amorous relationship in Nigeria commits an offense and is liable on conviction to a term of 10 years."
The Guardian
Colin Firth, Michael Palin and Grayson Perry condemn lack of British action over what David Milliband calls 'the defining humanitarian crisis of our time'
The crisis posed by millions of refugees from Syria's civil war flooding into neighbouring countries is becoming a humanitarian and political catastrophe that can only be eased if Europe opens its doors, the UN and European Commission has warned.
More than 2.1 million refugees have been registered by the UN high commissioner for refugees (UNHCR) in Syria's four neighbouring states; hundreds of thousands more are known to be living outside Syria's borders without access to aid.
The scale of the crisis is perhaps the most acute since the end of the second world war. David Milliband, president of the International Rescue Committee (IRC), described the ever-deteriorating situation in Syria as "the defining humanitarian crisis of our time".
Reuters
The U.N. nuclear watchdog's increased access in Iran to monitor a landmark agreement with world powers still falls short of what it says it needs to investigate suspicions that Tehran may have worked on designing an atomic bomb.
It is also a far cry from the wide-ranging inspection powers the International Atomic Energy Agency had in Iraq in the 1990s to help unearth and dismantle Saddam Hussein's clandestine nuclear program after the first Gulf war.
Nevertheless, the IAEA will see its role in Iran expand significantly under the November 24 interim accord between the country and the six major powers, the implementation of which will start next Monday.
Since the deal is only preliminary, the IAEA and its investigation may gain more prominence in later talks on a final settlement of the decade-old dispute over Iran's nuclear program, but it remains to be seen how far it will go.
"This is just an appetizer, I guess ... a starter," former chief U.N. nuclear inspector Herman Nackaerts said.
DW
Parts of the Thai capital are full of people. At least seven important street intersections have been blocked by anti-government protesters, who have set up mobile stages. The blockade, they say, will last until the interim government led by Prime Minster Yingluck Shinawatra is no longer in power.
They are not willing to compromise or negotiate, as repeatedly stated by Suthep Thaugsuban, the spokesman of the protesters and former member of parliament for the "Democratic Party." "There is only victory or defeat - nothing in between," he says
Drawn-out conflict
The protesters don't only want to get Yingluck out of office. They want to see the "Thaksin regime" - as they call it - ousted. Anti-government demonstrators and the opposition see Yingluck as a puppet of her brother Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a military coup in the year 2006.
DW
Following a memorial service, Ariel Sharon's body was taken in a funeral procession to his family farm outside of the town of Sderot near the Gaza Strip where he was laid to rest.
Monday's memorial service began with a eulogy from Israeli President Shimon Peres (pictured above, center), who praised the former premier for his many decades of public service, both in the military and in politics.
"You never rested in service of your people, when defending your land and making it flourish," Peres said.
"The land from which you came will embrace you in the warm arms of the history of our nation to which you added an unforgettable chapter," he added.
Current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was second to speak, hailing Sharon as one of Israel's founding fathers and highlighting his role in defending the Jewish state.
"Arik understood that in matters of our existence and security, we must stand firm. We are sticking to these principles," Netanyahu said, referring to Sharon by his nickname.
Spiegel Online
A gay couple that was seeking to open a restaurant near the Bavarian town of Freying received an anonymous letter early last year. "Stay away. We don't need people like you here," it read. Additional threats followed, including a faked obituary and an open, though anonymous, letter claiming that one of the two was HIV-positive and that there was a danger that diners could be infected. The restaurant was never opened.
Can a story like be really be true? In Germany of all places, a country that was last week enraptured by the coming out of former professional footballer Thomas Hitzlsperger and where it seemed like the entire country supported him?
Al Jazeera America
Pope Francis criticized abortion on Monday as evidence of a "throwaway culture" that wastes people like food and urged Italy to do more to help migrants.
In an annual speech on world crises, Francis cited abortion and said: "Unfortunately what is thrown away is not only food and dispensable objects but often human beings themselves, who are discarded as unnecessary."
The Pope issued a mission statement for his papacy in November, outlining how the Catholic Church and the papacy must be reformed to create a more merciful church that seeks out the poor and oppressed.
But Francis restated the church's opposition to abortion. The doctrine, he said, is nonnegotiable and is at the core of the church's insistence on the dignity of every human being. In a September interview, Pope Francis said the church had become 'obsessed' with abortion.
"We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods. This is not possible," he said.
BBC
Britain and the US have warned they will rethink support for Syria's main opposition group if it fails to join peace talks, a Syrian source has said.
The official from the Syrian National Coalition told reporters that the UK and the US were adamant the group must go to Geneva for next week's talks.
The coalition will hold a vote on Friday on whether or not to attend.
Syria's opposition remains deeply divided nearly three years after the uprising began.
It is hoped that the talks in Switzerland - known as Geneva II - will provide a breakthrough in ending the bitter civil war.
BBC diplomatic correspondent Bridget Kendall says that, in public, the British government maintains it will not abandon the Syrian National Council.
However, it is clear that persuading the opposition to agree to come face to face with President Bashar al-Assad's government is proving incredibly difficult, she says.
THE ENVIRONMENT, SCIENCE, HEALTH AND TECHNOLOGY
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The Guardian
David Cameron is to declarethat his government is "going all out for shale" as he announces that councils will be entitled to keep 100% of business rates raised from fracking sites in a deal expected to generate millions of pounds for local authorities.
In a renewed attempt to win support for the controversial expansion of fracking, the prime minister will also say that revenues generated by shale gas companies could be paid directly in cash to homeowners living nearby.
The prime minister's announcement, likened to a bribe by environmentalists, comes on the day that the French energy group Total becomes the first global oil company to invest in a shale gas exploration project in Britain. The FT reported on Saturday that Total is to join a shale gas exploration licence in the Midlands operated by the US company Ecorp.
NPR
More than 1 in 4 adult Americans say they've recently suffered a bout of low-back pain. It's one of the most common reasons people go to the doctor. And more and more people are being treated for it.
America spends more than $80 billion a year on back pain treatments. But many specialists say less treatment is usually more effective.
In fact, there's evidence that many standard treatments for back pain — surgery, spinal injections and painkillers — are often ineffective and can even worsen and prolong the problem.
Dr. Jerome Groopman agrees with that premise. He suffered back pain for almost 20 years. He was a young marathon runner 32 years ago when back pain struck out of the blue.
"I couldn't run. It was difficult to sleep," he says. "I wasn't confined to bed, but I was hobbling around."
NPR
For many users and advocates of marijuana, the boom in the West Coast growing industry may be all good and groovy. But in California, critics say the recent explosion of the marijuana industry along the state's North Coast — a region called the "emerald triangle" — could put a permanent buzz kill on struggling salmon populations.
The problem? According to critics, marijuana plantations guzzle enormous amounts of water while also spilling pesticides, fertilizers and stream-clogging sediments into waterways, including the Eel and the Klamath rivers, that have historically produced large numbers of Chinook salmon and related species.
"The whole North Coast is being affected by these pot growers," says Dave Bitts, a Humboldt County commercial fisherman and the president of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations.
"I have nothing against people growing dope," he says, "but if you do, we want you to grow your crop in a way that doesn't screw up fish habitat. There is no salmon-bearing watershed at this point that we can afford to sacrifice."
Growers of marijuana often withdraw water directly from small streams and use up to 6 gallons per day per plant during the summer growing season, says Scott Bauer, a fisheries biologist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
"When you have 20,000 or 30,000 plants in a watershed, that is a lot of water," Bauer says.
NPR
The Dallas Safari Club's controversial auction of a permit to hunt one black rhino in Namibia raised $350,000 over the weekend, the club confirms on its Facebook page.
That's at the lower end of the range that club executive Ben Carter had expected. In December, he told NPR that he hoped the auction would raise $225,000 to $1 million.
As Weekend Edition Sunday reported, the club says that 100 percent of the money it has raised will go toward protecting the endangered animals. There are only an estimated 4,000 to 5,000 black rhinos living in the wild. Namibian authorities issue five kill permits per year. "The one auctioned Saturday was the first to be made available for purchase outside of Namibia," says The Dallas Morning News.
Killing one older male rhino who's no longer able to breed, the club says, will benefit the rest of the herd. That's because older males often remain territorial and sometimes kill younger male rhinos.
Others disagree....
C/NET
Could Google's next project be to revolutionize the way people buy their airline tickets?
That's what Michael O'Leary, chief executive of discount airline Ryanair, said in an interview with the Independent.
O'Leary said he is working with Google on a plan to change how consumers buy their airline tickets. He also said the Internet giant is working on a price-comparison tool that will blow other comparison sites "out of the water."
Ryanair will share its pricing through Google, and the airline is working to be part of the launch, he said.
He added the project could go live as soon as March.
Google, by the way, already has a booking system called Flight Search, which launched in the UK in March. The company didn't have much to say about anything new in the works.
C/NET
At the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show we learned that we could expect to see the Samsung Galaxy S5 in a few months, around the same time the company introduced its predecessor, the Galaxy S4, last year. Now, a lone "insider" has passed on some specs for Samsung's next Android flagship phone to Samsung-obsessed site SamMobile along with some of what can be expected in a new S5 Mini and S5 Zoom.
SamMobile has proven to be a pretty reliable source for Samsung leaks, so this report bears repeating with the usual grain of salt that these things can change at any time and not all leaks are good ones. The site says there will be a premium metal body version of the S5, as was reported earlier, alongside a standard plastic version. The phone gets an impressive 2560x1440 AMOLED display, a 16-megapixel camera, and either an Exynos 6 processor or a Snapdragon 805 running Android 4.4 KitKat.
Reuters
Google Inc took its biggest step to go deeper into consumers' homes, announcing a $3.2 billion deal to buy smart thermostat and smoke alarm-maker Nest Labs Inc, scooping up a promising line of products and a prized design team led by the "godfather" of the iPod.
Nest will continue to operate as its own distinct brand after the all-cash deal closes, Google said on Monday.
The deal is the second largest in Google's history after the $12.5 billion acquisition of mobile phone maker Motorola in 2012.
"Nest Labs appears to be focused on thermostats and smoke alarms, but it's not far-fetched to see Google expanding this technology into other devices over time," said Shyam Patil, an analyst at Wedbush.