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 editors are Doctor RJ and annetteboardman.
Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.
BBC
Iraq crisis: Obama to set out 'US offensive against IS'
US President Barack Obama is to set out his "game plan" against Islamic State militants in a speech on Wednesday.
Mr Obama, who has been criticised for failing to outline a strategy, told NBC TV the US would degrade IS, shrink their territory and "defeat them".
US jets bombed IS targets in western Iraq for the first time on Sunday.
Meanwhile, the Arab League has vowed to take "all necessary measures" against IS, which has seized a huge amount of territory from Iraq and Syria.
The league gave its backing to a Security Council resolution passed last month calling on member states to stem the flow of weapons and money to extremists in Iraq and Syria.
BBC World Service Middle East editor Sebastian Usher says the Arab League's message will hearten Mr Obama, but the question now is whether its members will fully act on it, and act together rather than against each other.
'No ground troops'
Speaking on NBC's Meet the Press, Mr Obama said: "I'm preparing the country to make sure that we deal with a threat from Isil."
N Y Times
Destroying ISIS May Take Years, U.S. Officials Say
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is preparing to carry out a campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria that may take three years to complete, requiring a sustained effort that could last until after President Obama has left office, according to senior administration officials.
The first phase, an air campaign with nearly 145 airstrikes in the past month, is already underway to protect ethnic and religious minorities and American diplomatic, intelligence and military personnel, and their facilities, as well as to begin rolling back ISIS gains in northern and western Iraq.
The next phase, which would begin sometime after Iraq forms a more inclusive government, scheduled this week, is expected to involve an intensified effort to train, advise or equip the Iraqi military, Kurdish fighters and possibly members of Sunni tribes.
The final, toughest and most politically controversial phase of the operation — destroying the terrorist army in its sanctuary inside Syria — might not be completed until the next administration. Indeed, some Pentagon planners envision a military campaign lasting at least 36 months.
BBC
The children with AK-47s who defied IS
After nearly three months under siege, the northern Iraqi town of Amerli has been celebrating the partial withdrawal of Islamic State militants - and there have been emotional reunions among families separated by the fighting.
"The road is 100% safe," said Ali, as he unfurled a large map. "Here are we," he pointed. "This is Amerli, and Islamic State are still here, here and here," he jabbed with his finger. It all looked uncomfortably close.
Ali is a former officer in Saddam Hussein's army. Now he is a commander in the Badr Brigade, a Shia militia group which is trained and funded by Iran.
Ali is an ethnic Turkoman from Amerli, a besieged Shia town surrounded by Sunni villages.
We set off, following Ali's pickup truck which was packed with fighters wielding guns and rocket-propelled grenades.
The day before, with the help of American air strikes, the militia had punched a hole through the ring of Islamic State (IS) fighters that had encircled the town for nearly three months.
BBC
Ukraine truce shaken by new shelling
There has been fresh shelling near Donetsk airport in eastern Ukraine, raising fears that a recently agreed ceasefire may collapse.
The truce held for much of Saturday but shelling in Mariupol, which killed one woman, was followed by the Donetsk airport blasts early on Sunday.
The two cities then turned quiet, with no reports of clashes overnight.
Fighting in the east has killed some 2,600 people since April. The truce and roadmap to peace were agreed on Friday.
On Sunday, Ukrainian security official Volodymyr Poliovyi said 864 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed since the conflict began.
Russia has repeatedly denied accusations by Ukraine and the West that it has been sending troops into Ukraine's eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions to help the rebels, who want to establish an independent state.
Al Jazeera America
The MIC will find a way.
Immigration seen as bonanza for slumping global defense industry
A desolate patch of terrain in southern Arizona — crossed mostly by coyotes, jackrabbits and Border Patrol agents — is one of the planned sites for a 120-foot-tall lattice-steel tower. Located two miles from the U.S.-Mexico border, the tower will be outfitted with sensors to allow Customs and Border Patrol to detect and record the movement of migrants and smugglers up to 7.5 miles away.
The simple structure will contain advanced technology that has been already used halfway across the globe in Israel, where its makers, Israeli defense company Elbit Systems Ltd., have deployed their border security products for more than a decade.
The towers being erected in Arizona shed light on the fierce and ongoing debate over U.S. border strategy where they symbolize efforts to adopt a more militaristic policy. At the same time the presence of a foreign company at the heart of such a project also highlights a booming niche in the global defense industry: one where hefty profits can be made by fortifying international frontiers.
While environmental assessments have been done to prepare the sites, project hasn’t yet broken ground due to a protest filed by a competing bidder, a Customs and Border Protection spokesperson confirmed.
But that’s not the only controversy. In the wake of Israel’s increased military campaign in Gaza this summer, Elbit Systems has drawn fire from protesters in England and Australia who criticize the company for profiting from the Israeli occupation and separation wall, which the International Court of Justice has declared illegal under international law.
Raw Story
At least we won't know what hit us.
Stephen Hawking: Research on the ‘God particle’ could cause space-time to collapse
In the preface to a new book, Starmus, acclaimed theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking writes that the so-called “God particle” could become unstable and cause a “catastrophic vacuum decay” that would lead to the collapse of time and space, The Sunday Times reports.
“The Higgs potential has the worrisome feature that it might become metastable at energies above 100bn gigaelectronvolts,” Hawking writes. “This could mean that the universe could undergo catastrophic vacuum decay, with a bubble of the true vacuum expanding at the speed of light.”
“This could happen at any time and we wouldn’t see it coming.”
The successful discovery of the Higgs particle has led to calls from within the scientific community to create larger, more powerful supercolliders than the Large Hadron Collider at Cern, where scientists discovered the Higgs boson.
Many in the scientific community are upset with Hawking — not because he is incorrect, but because such statements from a scientist of his eminence could dissuade the public from funding experiments like those at Cern in the future.
Raw Story
Meteorite strikes near Nicaragua’s capital leaving 39-foot crater
A mysterious explosion that rocked Nicaragua’s crowded capital Managua, creating a large crater, appears to have been caused by a meteorite, officials said Sunday.
Amazingly, in a sprawling city of 1.2 million people, the impact near the international airport did not cause any known injuries, but it did leave a crater measuring 12 meters (39 feet) across.
“We are convinced that this was a meteorite. We have seen the crater from the impact,” said Wilfredo Strauss of the Seismic Institute.
The meteorite appeared to have hurtled into a wooded area near the airport around midnight Saturday, its thunderous impact felt across the capital.
The hit was so large that it registered on the instruments Strauss’s organization uses to size up earthquakes.
“You can see two waves: first, a small seismic wave when the meteorite hit earth, and then another stronger one, which is the impact of the sound,” he said.
BBC
Nasa: Asteroid 2014 RC flies past Earth
A small asteroid about the size of a house is passing Earth, US space agency Nasa says.
At its closest point, the asteroid 2014 RC passed over New Zealand at 18:18 GMT on Sunday. It is about 18m (60ft) wide.
Nasa says it is about 40,000km (25,000 miles) away, and posed no danger to Earth.
However, a meteorite that landed near the Nicaraguan capital Managua on Sunday could have come from the asteroid, experts there said.
The object caused an explosion and earth tremor, leaving a crater 12m (39ft) across and 5m deep near the city's airport.
Nicaraguan volcanologist Humberto Garcia said: "It could have come off that asteroid because it is normal for that to occur. We have to study it more because it could be ice or rock."
The asteroid that flew past Earth was first discovered on 31 August and, at its closest approach, was about one-tenth of the distance from the centre of Earth to the Moon, Nasa said in a statement.
N Y Times
Football’s in the Air, and in Denver, So Is the Sweet Smell of Herb
DENVER — Wait. Does that glittering stadium really look like a just-landed spaceship under a blueberry sky? Or is that just because, well, y’know. ...
I’m standing in a parking lot overlooking the stadium known prosaically as Sports Authority and poetically as Mile High. That handle is metaphorically apt, too, as I’m engaged in the all-American sport of tailgating, with Corey and the Wookie and four friends.
They’ve got the requisite awning next to their pickup truck, a grill and sweet microbrews. And they have stuffed righteous-smelling marijuana — the sativa variety — in a pipe that is detailed with a neat little Denver Broncos insignia.
The tall, red-bearded professional chef with excellent shades who insists his friends know him as the Wookie fires up the pipe and, amid clouds, talks legalized weed and the world that has followed on its heels. “Why do you think Peyton Manning invested in pizza places after legalization? Boom! Stoners love pizza.”
L A Times
GM will introduce hands-free, foot-free driving in 2017 Cadillac
General Motors plans to start selling cars that can drive partially in an auto-pilot mode and that can exchange speed and safety data with similarly equipped vehicles.
The first features are expected to show up in high-end Cadillac vehicles for the 2017 model year -- in about two years -- but over time will move down market into GM’s other brands.
“Everyone recognizes that when cars can talk to each other and share information about speed, direction, operating performance and more, we'll save lives, save time and save money as well,” said Mary Barra, GM’s chief executive, in a speech to the Intelligent Transport Systems World Congress in Detroit on Sunday.
The system will allow drivers to switch the vehicle into a semi-automated mode in which it will automatically keep the car in its lane, making necessary steering adjustments, and autonomously trigger braking and speed control to maintain a safe distance from other vehicles.
“With Super Cruise, when there's a congestion alert on roads like California's Santa Monica Freeway, you can let the car take over and drive hands-free and feet-free through the worst stop-and-go traffic around,” Barra said. “And if the mood strikes you on the high-speed road from Barstow, California to Las Vegas, you can take a break from the wheel and pedals and let the car do the work.”
I included this because it was local earthquake news and so interesting, even though it's a few days old.
Santa Rosa Press Democrat
Napa quake jumpstarts stream flows, though probably only temporarily
Three creeks in Sonoma Valley and two more in Napa and Solano counties have dramatically increased water flows since the Aug. 24 earthquake in Napa County, a phenomenon familiar to scientists for more than a century and well established in Santa Rosa history.
Carriger Creek, a steelhead spawning stream on the city of Sonoma’s west flank, was bone dry — save for shallow, isolated pools of water — before the magnitude-6.0 temblor went off 12 days ago from an epicenter about 9 miles to the east.
Richard Grahman enjoyed the music of crystal-clear water splashing over smooth gray rocks this week in the creek behind his home on Grove Street.
“This is amazing,” said Grahman, a retiree who has lived next to the creek for 14 years. “The sound is delightful.”
Heavy winter rains transform the narrow waterway into a 6-foot-deep torrent that sometimes overruns its banks, with a roar that can be heard a mile away, he said. The melodic flow that now matches a typical April on Carriger Creek is likely caused by seismic shock waves that opened fractures in bedrock, allowing groundwater to flow rapidly into surface streams.
As far back as 1865, a local newspaper described rising streams in the Santa Cruz Mountains following a magnitude-6.5 quake on the San Andreas fault, and a federal government study found the magnitude-6.9 Loma Prieta quake in 1989 squeezed about 23 billion gallons of groundwater from the same mountains.