OND Editors OND is a community feature on Daily Kos, consisting of news stories from around the world, sometimes coupled with a daily theme, original research or commentary. Editors of OND impart their own presentation styles and content choices, typically publishing each day near 12:00AM Eastern Time.
OND Editors 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.
Please note, this is the Happy Birthday Neon Vincent edition.
We took a few pieces already.
BBC
Climate change summit: Global rallies demand action
Street protests demanding urgent action on climate change have attracted hundreds of thousands of marchers in more than 2,000 locations worldwide.
The People's Climate March is campaigning for curbs on carbon emissions, ahead of the UN climate summit in New York next week.
In Manhattan, organisers said some 310,000 people joined a march that was also attended by UN chief Ban Ki-moon.
Earlier, huge demonstrations took place in Australia and Europe.
"This is the planet where our subsequent generations will live," Mr Ban told reporters. "There is no 'Plan B' because we do not have 'Planet B'."
The UN Secretary General was accompanied by primatologist Jane Goodall and the French Ecology Minister, Segolene Royal.
New York hosted the largest of Sunday's protests, drawing more than half of the 600,000 marchers estimated by organisers to have taken part in rallies around the world.
Al Jazeera
Canary in a coal mine: Extreme weather, rising seas plague atoll nation
As global leaders gear up to meet at next week’s United Nations Climate Summit in New York, the president of a small Pacific island nation vulnerable to rising seas caused by global warming said the future of his people depends on creating a carbon-free world by 2050.
“Out here in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, climate change has arrived,” Marshall Islands President Christopher Loeak said in a video address to his fellow heads of state. “Our atoll nation stands at the front line in the battle against climate change.”
In the video, Loeak stands in front of a sea wall he built to protect his home and family from rising seas which have already engulfed several of the nation’s atolls — making them disappear forever.
In order to avoid the worst effects of climate change, Loeak said, the world must embrace a carbon-free vision by the middle of the century.
“Without it, no sea wall will be high enough to save my country,” Loeak said.
At the U.N. summit on Tuesday, leaders will announce their plans to tackle climate change. It will be the last chance to confirm carbon cuts before a global climate treaty is signed in Paris at the end of 2015.
N Y Times
Rockefellers, Heirs to an Oil Fortune, Will Divest Charity From Fossil Fuels
John D. Rockefeller built a vast fortune on oil. Now his heirs are abandoning fossil fuels.
The family whose legendary wealth flowed from Standard Oil is planning to announce on Monday that its $860 million philanthropic organization, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, is joining the divestment movement that began a couple years ago on college campuses.
The announcement, timed to precede Tuesday’s opening of the United Nations climate change summit meeting in New York City, is part of a broader and accelerating initiative.
In recent years, 180 institutions — including philanthropies, religious organizations, pension funds and local governments — as well as hundreds of wealthy individual investors have pledged to sell assets tied to fossil fuel companies from their portfolios and to invest in cleaner alternatives.
Raw Story
9 college freshmen dead in alcohol-related incidents in first weeks of new school year
According to a report by Inside Higher Ed, nine college freshmen have already died alcohol-related deaths at campuses across the United States in the first few weeks of the new school year.
Tucker Brantly Arnold, an incoming freshman at Texas Tech, died after fatally crashing his pickup truck on August 19. His blood alcohol concentration was .267, three times over the legal limit. Five other Texas Tech students died in that crash.
Another Texas Tech freshman, Dalton Debrick, died while rushing the Alpha Sigma Phi fraternity. The official cause of death, according to the Lubbock County Medical Examiner’s Office, was acute alcohol intoxication.
Amy Murphy, the dean of students at Texas Tech University, blamed these deaths on “the college effect,” which she defined as “the idea that once students are on campus, they’re exposed to these higher-risk behaviors and are then more likely to participate in them.”
“It’s this unhealthy minority that is somehow so influential on the healthy majority,” she continued. “Colleges have to work on better messaging to convey to new students that the majority of campus does actually have the same healthy attitudes as they do.”
Raw Story
Retrial to begin for Florida man accused of shooting teen over loud music
JACKSONVILLE Fla. (Reuters) – Jury selection is due to begin on Monday in the north Florida retrial of a white, middle-aged man charged with killing an unarmed black teenager during a dispute about loud rap music.
A Jacksonville jury previously deadlocked on a charge of first-degree murder for Michael Dunn, 47, who claimed to be acting in self-defense in the shooting death.
Dunn, a software engineer, fired 10 rounds at an SUV carrying four black teens listening to music in a Jacksonville gas station parking lot in November 2012, killing 17-year-old Jordan Davis.
The jury convicted Dunn in February on three lesser counts of attempted murder for firing at the three teens who survived in the vehicle, which was parked next to Dunn’s. His sentencing was postponed until after his retrial on the outstanding charge.
The first trial received international attention over its racial overtones and Dunn’s claims of self-defense, drawing comparisons to the case of George Zimmerman, who was acquitted of murder in Florida last year in the shooting of Trayvon Martin, another unarmed, black 17-year-old.
Raw Story
California wildfire consumes multiple structures, more than 80,000 acres
(Reuters) – Ten houses and 22 outbuildings have been destroyed in a wildfire that swept through parts of the Sierra Nevada mountains in California over the past week and continues to burn, a fire official said on Sunday.
No residents of the homes were hurt, said Tom Piranio, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Firefighters were only recently able to enter the burned areas to tally the structural damage caused by the King Fire, he added.
About 12,000 homes have been evacuated since the blaze began on Sept. 13, Piranio said.
The fire has scorched more that 80,000 acres (32,400 hectares) and remains only about 10 percent contained, he said. The destroyed homes were spread across the burned area and not concentrated in one place, Piranio said.
Scattered rain storms, cooler temperatures and increased humidity helped firefighters on Sunday, Piranio said.
CNN
MAVEN spacecraft close to entering Mars orbit -- and it won't be alone
(CNN) -- NASA says its latest Mars-exploring spacecraft is on track to fire up its thrusters and enter orbit this Sunday night, completing a 10-month journey of 442 million miles.
NASA's MAVEN craft will live up to its formal name -- the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution craft -- by helping scientists figure out how ancient Mars changed so dramatically into the planet we know today.
It will be the first mission devoted to studying the upper Martian atmosphere as a key to understanding the history of Mars' climate, water and habitability.
Mars rover reaches key destination; 'new science ahead!'
"The evidence shows that the Mars atmosphere today is a cold, dry environment, one where liquid water really can't exist in a stable state," said Bruce Jakosky, MAVEN principal investigator, during a mission preview briefing Wednesday at NASA headquarters in Washington. "But it also tells us when we look at older surfaces, that the ancient surfaces had liquid water flowing over it."
Reuters
Ghani named Afghan president-elect after deal to end election dispute
(Reuters) - Former finance minister Ashraf Ghani was named Afghanistan's president-elect on Sunday after he signed a deal to share power with his opponent, ending months of turmoil over a disputed election that destabilised the country as most foreign troops prepare to leave.
The announcement withheld the final election numbers, apparently as part of the political deal between Ghani and rival Abdullah Abdullah, a former foreign minister who claimed the process was rigged against him.
"The Independent Election Commission of Afghanistan declares Dr. Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai as the president of Afghanistan," commission chief Ahmad Yousuf Nuristani said.
Under the terms of the unity deal, Ghani will share power with a chief executive proposed by Abdullah. The two will share control over who leads key institutions such as the Afghan army and other executive decisions.
N Y Times
White House May Check Tourists Blocks Away
Close that barn door now that the horse escaped.
WASHINGTON — The Secret Service is considering screening tourists and other visitors at checkpoints before they enter the public areas in front of the White House in response to the episode Friday in which a man with a knife managed to get through the front door of the president’s home after jumping over the fence on Pennsylvania Avenue, according to law enforcement officials.
As part of the screening, the Secret Service would establish several checkpoints a few blocks from the White House, the officials said. The screening would likely be limited to bag checks and not include measures taken at airports by the Transportation Security Administration, which include metal detectors and body scans.
Along with giving Secret Service agents and uniformed Secret Service officers a chance to check for explosives and weapons in bags, the screening would allow them to interact with the visitors and try to identify those who may pose a problem, the officials said.
USA Today
Leonard Cohen turns 80, will start smoking again
(NEWSER) – Leonard Cohen turns 80 today, and he's marking his eighth decade by returning to a vice he gave up in his fifth: The "Hallelujah" scribe unabashedly says he's going to start smoking again, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.
"Quite seriously, does anyone know where you can buy a Turkish or Greek cigarette?" he asked earlier this week. "I'm looking forward to that first smoke. I've been thinking about that for 30 years. It's one of the few consistent strings of thoughts I've been able to locate."
Far from hanging up his famous fedora, Cohen is also marking his milestone with a new album, Popular Problems, that's out on Tuesday.
Of reaching 80, he tells Rolling Stone,"There's a lot of things that you can do that you couldn't do when you were younger."
Of course, the converse is true, take it from me.