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.
OND is a regular 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.
Special thanks to JekyllnHyde for the OND banner.
Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.
NPR
In a new challenge to police practices in Ferguson, Mo., a group of civil rights lawyers is suing the city over the way people are jailed when they fail to pay fines for traffic tickets and other minor offenses.
The lawsuit, filed Sunday night on the eve of the six-month anniversary of the police shooting of Michael Brown, alleges that the city violates the Constitution by jailing people without adequately considering whether they were indigent and, as a result, unable to pay.
The suit is filed on behalf of 11 plaintiffs who say they were too poor to pay but were then jailed — sometimes for two weeks or more.
NPR got an advance look at the lawsuit, filed by lawyers from Equal Justice Under Law, ArchCity Defenders and the Saint Louis University School of Law. It charges that Ferguson officials "have built a municipal scheme designed to brutalize, to punish, and to profit."
The Guardian
Six months after the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, erupted in response to the police shooting of Michael Brown, a group of civil rights lawyers is suing the city on behalf of residents who say they were jailed in deplorable conditions, for being too poor to pay court fines.
The lawsuit, which was filed on Sunday night on behalf of 11 residents of Ferguson, alleges that the city has for many years operated a “municipal scheme designed to brutalize, to punish, and to profit” off the poorest members in the community. The suit claims city officials violated the US constitution by jailing people without making a meaningful inquiry into their ability to pay court-ordered fines or offering them a lawyer.
Wall Street Journal
Nearly a dozen residents of Ferguson, Mo., filed a lawsuit in federal court Sunday alleging the city racked by recent racial unrest violates constitutional protections by jailing people in unsanitary conditions for an inability to pay outstanding fines on misdemeanors.
The suit, and a similar one filed against nearby Jennings, Mo., alleges the St. Louis suburbs jail people solely for the inability to pay fines and fees on offenses like traffic tickets and other minor offenses. The suits also allege that once jailed, people face crowded and “inhumane” conditions with guards who demean the prisoners in conditions lacking sanitary provisions.
St. Louis Post Dispatch
ST. LOUIS • Federal class-action lawsuits filed Sunday against the cities of Jennings and Ferguson allege that jails there operate as modern-day debtors’ prisons.
The suits were filed in U.S. District Court in St. Louis on behalf of 15 plaintiffs — referred to as “impoverished people” — who were jailed because they could not pay fines for traffic violations and other minor offenses.
“They were threatened, abused and left to languish in confinement at the mercy of local officials until their frightened family members could produce enough cash to buy their freedom or until city jail officials decided, days or weeks later, to let them out for free,” the complaint states.
BBC
President Barack Obama says the US is studying the option of supplying lethal defensive arms to Ukraine if diplomacy fails to end the crisis in the east.
Russia had violated "every commitment" made in the failing Minsk agreement, he added, after talks with the German chancellor on a new peace deal.
Mr Obama has come under pressure from senior US officials to supply arms, despite objections from Angela Merkel.
Russia denies accusations of sending troops and supplying the rebels.
The latest diplomatic efforts come amid renewed fighting between the pro-Russia rebels and Ukrainian government troops, with fighting centred around the strategic railway hub of Debaltseve.
McClatchy DC
President Barack Obama, in a video at the Grammys on Sunday, asked artists to use their influence to change attitudes about sexual violence.
“Artists have a unique power to change minds and attitudes, and get us thinking and talking about what matters,” Obama said. He asked them to go to the “It’s on Us” website and take its pledge against sexual violence, and to ask their fans to do it too.
The campaign has held events on campuses around the country to highlight the importance of bystander intervention to prevent attacks, and plans to expand with more events this spring.
The Guardian
Forget crowbars – all a hacker needs to break into your car is an iPad, according to a report released on Monday by Senator Edward Markey. What’s more, car companies are doing little to protect you.
Most cars now contain more than 50 separate electronic control units collecting vehicle data and improving performance; nearly all have wireless entry points that could act as a gateway for hackers. Almost all the cars on the market today are therefore vulnerable to “hacking or privacy intrusions”, Markey said.
The Massachusetts senator’s investigation of 50 top car manufacturers including BMW, Chrysler, General Motors and Ford found their treatment and protection of such potentially sensitive technology and information to be “alarmingly inconsistent and incomplete”.
The Guardian
The Guantánamo Bay war court is now costing US taxpayers over $7,600 per minute, according to new Pentagon figures.
Carting the necessary personnel and support to the remote Cuban base has escalated costs for the military commissions, a memo from the top Pentagon commissions official indicated. The controversial tribunals at Guantánamo have attracted criticisms over their inefficiency from their inception, in addition to international concerns about their capacity to distribute justice.
The Pentagon estimates come as the chief prosecutor in the commissions proposed relaxing major secrecy restrictions preventing defense lawyers from addressing torture inflicted on defendants by the CIA and its international allies – the first suggested classification changes for the war court after the Senate released portions of its landmark inquiry into CIA torture.
The Guardian
Barack Obama said on Monday there was no reason to extend nuclear talks with Iran once again, stressing the question now is whether Tehran truly wants an agreement.
“I don’t see a further extension being useful if they have not agreed to the basic formulation and the bottom line that the world requires to have confidence that they’re not pursuing a nuclear weapon,” the US president said at a joint press conference with visiting German chancellor Angela Merkel.
Obama said the issues standing in the way of a comprehensive agreement were no longer technical.
Reuters
Same-sex couples began marrying in Alabama on Monday despite an attempt by the conservative chief justice of the state's Supreme Court to block judges from issuing marriages licenses to gay men and women in open defiance of a January federal court ruling.
Action by the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday helped clear the way for Alabama to become the 37th state to allow same-sex couples to marry. But gay rights advocates said numerous counties took steps to avoid granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
The high court refused a request by Alabama's Republican attorney general to keep such marriages on hold until the justices decide whether laws banning them are constitutional.
In Birmingham, dozens of same-sex couples married at the courthouse and an adjacent park, where they were greeted by supporters supplying cupcakes along with a handful of protesters bearing crosses and Bibles.
NPR
Tens of millions of people may have had information stolen, including their names, Social Security numbers and birth dates, when health insurer Anthem's database was hacked.
Having your identity stolen is a frustrating, panic-inducing prospect. Just ask Brandy Freeman, an adult care provider in Jacksonville, Fla. She found out one day when she got a phone call from her boss. "He was kind of shocked and he was like, 'Have you filed for unemployment?' and I was like, 'No, what are you talking about?' "
Freeman says her employer told her she had "a big problem" because the Florida unemployment office contacted him wondering why, since she was employed, she was filing for unemployment benefits.
It turns out someone obtained her Social Security number and address — she still doesn't know how — and tried to use them to file a fraudulent claim.
NPR
Continued job growth has boosted prospects for the U.S. economy, but it continues to face some tricky crosswinds. The big drop in oil prices and a stronger dollar both help the economy and hurt it. Add to that the recent slowdown in global growth.
Lots of economists have suggested the big drop in oil prices is a gift to consumers that will propel the economy. David Kotok of Cumberland Advisors is one of them. He argues that cheaper oil will ultimately be a positive.
"The U.S. comes out a big winner on a falling energy price, but it takes time to filter through and into the full economy," Kotok says.
And it starts out as a negative shock to the oil sector. Kotok says cuts in production and energy company payrolls will cost the U.S. economy up to $150 billion. That's made investors nervous. As oil prices fell sharply in January, they sent stock markets gyrating.
But as lower energy prices filter through the economy, Kotok says, the positive effects, worth $400 billion, will overwhelm the negative.
Reuters
The trustee liquidating Bernard Madoff's firm on Monday said he is distributing another $355.8 million to the swindler's victims, bringing the total payout to more than $7.2 billion.
Irving Picard, the trustee, said the payout began on Feb. 6, and covers claims by fraud victims with 1,077 accounts at the former Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC. Claimants will receive between $431 to $67.1 million.
Most of the payout comes from November settlements with the Herald, Primeo and Senator "feeder funds," which Picard accused of sending customer money to Madoff to further his Ponzi scheme.
The trustee said claimants on 1,160, or 52 percent, of the 2,216 accounts where he found valid claims have been fully paid.
NHK
Jordan's military says its massive airstrikes have destroyed 56 Islamic State positions, including weapons depots and training centers.
The air force has been conducting air raids since Thursday in retaliation for the killing of one of its pilots by Islamic State militants.
Jordanian air force chief Major General Mansour al-Jobour called a news conference on Sunday.
Al-Jobour said the air campaign by a US-led coalition has killed about 7,000 Islamic State fighters since last summer.
NHK
A US envoy says a major ground counter-offensive will begin shortly in Iraq against the Islamic State group.
John Allen is a retired general serving as a US special presidential envoy for the coalition against the jihadist group. He spoke with the Petra news agency in Jordan on Sunday ahead of his meeting with King Abdullah.
Allen said the counter-offensive will begin shortly and that Iraqi forces will launch a major ground operation with support from the US-led coalition.
DW
On her latest leg of a crisis diplomacy tour, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrived in Washington on Monday to hold talks with US President Barack Obama, where the two leaders discussed a number of security issues. The conflict in Ukraine dominated their talks and a press conference that took place shortly after Chancellor Merkel's arrival.
Merkel and her cabinet, along with other EU leaders have repeatedly emphasized that they do not want a war on European soil and, therefore, will pursue peaceful negotiations for as long as possible.
She defended this view in Washington on Monday by pointing to the effectiveness of sanctions in hurting the Russian economy .
"In my view, it's right that we've continued to raise the costs [of Russia's actions]," Merkel said. "I stand by this path 100 percent."
DW
As the deadline for a deal to avoid a eurozone exit approached, Greece remained deadlocked with EU partners after Alexis Tsipras (left in photo) pledged to restore wages, reinstate pensions and end mass layoffs - reversing austerity imposed in 2010 by the EU, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank. On Sunday, Tsipras told parliament he would dismantle the "cruel" austerity, said he would not extend Greece's 240 billion-euro bailout, which expires at the end February, and vowed to seek reparations for World War II. His Syriza party took control of Greece's parliament after winning the January 25 legislative elections.
Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel rebuffed the call for reparations over the Nazi occupation of Greece, saying the countries had dealt with such matters in the negotiations that led to German unification in 1990. "The probability is zero," Gabriel said on Monday.
Al Jazeera America
HSBC's Swiss private bank reportedly helped hide millions of dollars for drug traffickers, arms dealers, celebrities and a king as it helped wealthy clients around the world dodge taxes, according to a report based on leaked documents that lifts the veil on banking secrecy laws.
The report from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and several news organizations comes as governments seek to crack down on tax evasion to bolster treasuries depleted by the financial crisis and staunch criticism that the rich aren't paying their fair share.
Academics estimate that $7.6 trillion is held in overseas tax havens, depriving governments of $200 billion a year in tax revenue, according to the ICIJ report.
The leaked documents cover the period up to 2007 and relate to accounts worth $100 billion held by more than 100,000 people and legal entities from 200 countries.
Some details of such operations were disclosed previously, when HSBC was fined in 2012 by the United States for allowing criminals to use its branches for money laundering. The names of 2,000 Greeks with HSBC accounts was made public in 2010 and dubbed the "Lagarde List" after former French finance minister Christine Lagarde. France passed the names to Greece to help it crack down on tax evasion.
Reuters
Greece and its euro zone partners engaged in brinkmanship on Monday, with leftist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras insisting his country would not extend its reform-linked bailout and Germany saying it would get no more money without such a program.
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker warned Greeks not to expect the euro zone to bow to Tsipras' demands in a growing confrontation which spooked financial markets and prompted U.S. and Canadian pleas for calm and compromise.
Escalating the rhetoric, Greece's finance minister said the euro zone could collapse "like a house of cards" if Athens were forced out.
Reuters
Israeli officials are considering amending the format of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's planned address to the U.S. Congress next month to try to calm some of the partisan furore the Iran-focused speech has provoked.
Netanyahu is due to address a joint session of Congress about Iran's nuclear programme on March 3, just two weeks before Israeli elections, following an invitation from John Boehner, the Republican speaker of the house.
Boehner's invitation has caused consternation in both Israel and the United States, largely because it is seen as Netanyahu, a hawk on Iran, working with the Republicans to thumb their noses at President Barack Obama's policy on Iran.
BBC
At least 27 migrants have died of hypothermia after being picked up near the island of Lampedusa, the Italian coast guard has said.
They were part of a group of 105 people found on board an inflatable boat about 160km (100 miles) from the Italian territory.
The migrants had summoned help via satellite telephone after getting into trouble.
Waves were up to eight metres high and temperatures were just above freezing.
Pietro Bartolo, chief health care official on the island, said the migrants had to spend around 18 hours on the open decks of two patrol boats as they made their way to dry land.
THE ENVIRONMENT, SCIENCE, HEALTH AND TECHNOLOGY
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Al Jazeera America
WASHINGTON — In the summer of 2011, James Hansen, then the director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, raised the alarm about an obscure oil pipeline project that appeared to be on track for approval, just as hundreds of others like it had in the years prior.
The 1,179-mile proposed pipeline would transport crude oil extracted from Canada’s tar sands — a particularly intensive process that produces 17 percent more emissions than conventional extraction — to refineries on the Gulf Coast.
“The U.S. Department of State seems likely to approve a huge pipeline to carry tar sands oil (about 830,000 barrels per day) to Texas refineries unless sufficient objections are raised,” Hansen, one of the world’s foremost climate scientists, wrote in an essay titled “Silence Is Deadly.” “An overwhelming objection is that exploitation of tar sands would make it implausible to stabilize climate and avoid disastrous global climate impacts.” Hansen argued constructing the pipeline and the subsequent development of the oil sands in Canada it would enable would essentially be game over for the world’s climate.
Al Jazeera America
MASISI, Democratic Republic of Congo — Mariam Rizik crossed a grassy clearing, walking toward the clinic for her five-month prenatal appointment. Once there, her best green wax print outfit blended into the rainbow of dresses worn by the women who gathered, bellies bulging, for their checkups.
Rizik lives in Lukweti, a village in the Congo rain forest, the second-largest tropical forest in the world. Lukweti is also one of the centers of the diffuse, protracted war in eastern Congo. Four of the mountains that ring the clinic were claimed at different points by one of the armed groups, making Rizik’s previous five pregnancies terrifying.
Al Jazeera America
Samsung’s Internet-connected SmartTV may be listening to more than just your voice commands.
Buried in the privacy policy for the Samsung device, which lets viewers verbally change channels without picking up a remote, is a paragraph warning users that the TV’s voice recognition software might also pick up private conversations and send them to an unspecified “third party,” as first reported by The Daily Beast.
“Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party through your use of Voice Recognition,” the policy says.
The privacy policy does not name the third party with whom the voice data is shared, and Samsung did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Parker Higgins, an activist from the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, took to Twitter to compare the policy side-by-side with a passage from George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984.”
The Guardian
Netflix has become one of the first companies to enter Cuba’s nascent digital entertainment industry, although few consumers are likely to immediately enjoy the benefits. There are only 5300 broadband internet accounts on the Caribbean island, where low wages mean Netflix’s streaming of television and film content will cost almost half of an average Cuban’s monthly wage.
“We are delighted to finally be able to offer Netflix to the people of Cuba, connecting them with stories they will love from all over the world,” said Netflix chief executive Reed Hastings in a statement on Monday. “Cuba has great film-makers and a robust arts culture and one day we hope to be able to bring their work to our global audience of over 57 million members.”
Netflix, which is based in Los Gatos, California, launched a $7.99 per month streaming service for Cuba on Monday. According to the most recent data released by the National Statistics and Information Bureau, the average Cuban’s monthly wage is $17.
The Guardian
The Obama administration and conservation groups launched a plan on Monday to halt the death spiral of the monarch butterfly.
The most familiar of American butterflies, known for their extraordinary migration from Mexico through the mid-west to Canada, monarch populations have plummetted 90% over the past 20 years.
Fewer than 50m butterflies made it to Mexico last winter – a fraction of the population once estimated at 1bn.
Those numbers mirror the sharp declines of honey bees in recent years.
NPR
When Barbara Marder was diagnosed with lung cancer three years ago, she had part of her right lung removed, went through a round of chemotherapy and tried to move on with her life.
"I had hoped that everything was fine — that I would not create difficulty for my children, that I would get to see my grandchildren grow up," says Marder, 73, of Arnold, Md.
But a routine scan a year later found bad news: The cancer was back — this time in her other lung.
"I was very disappointed," says Marder. She knew her prognosis was grim. "I decided at that point that ... I should think about the fact that perhaps this was going to advance rapidly at this point. And check and make sure: Is my will in order? What should I do so that my children aren't left with a mess to clean up in my house?"
NPR
With the recent outbreak of measles originating from Disneyland, there's been no shortage of speculation, accusation and recrimination concerning why some people won't vaccinate their children. There's also been some — but only some — more historically and psychologically informed discussion.
Some people's motivation for skipping vaccines likely comes from persistent misinformation and, in particular, the unfounded belief that there's a link between vaccines and autism. And, as Adam Frank pointed out in a post last week, vaccinations also play into a larger cultural conversation about science and its place in society.
What's received less attention is how vaccination plays into subtle psychological biases that can contribute to parents' unwillingness to "intervene" on their kids. The particular bias I have in mind is sometimes called "omission bias," and it has to do with the difference between bringing about some outcome by acting versus by failing to act. For example, lying about whether one is married (an action) seems worse than failing to correct an invalid assumption (an omission), even if the outcome — in terms of what the other person believes about one's marital status — is the same in each case.
NPR
"And now," the public health officer murmured apologetically, "here is the bad news."
I did not need any bad news.
For the past six weeks, I'd faced daily deaths in the Ebola treatment unit in Sierra Leone where I'd been working as a nurse, a seemingly losing battle with the disease and colleagues falling sick with Ebola.
I should have been thrilled to be back home in Seattle. Instead, I felt lost, struggling to find a sense of purpose. In West Africa, the pace was focused and unrelenting, going a hundred miles an hour seven days a week — caring for the sick and dying, attempting to save lives, doing all we could to improve the appalling outcomes of those afflicted with Ebola. In the blink of an eye — a flight to another continent — that frenetic pace abruptly came to a halt.
Vox
For every news story or advertisement you see, there is at least one writer who has agonized over every word. But a designer has also agonized over how those words look. Here at Vox, for example, a designer told me that the fonts you're reading now were chosen because they convey "openness, boldness, willingness to experiment, thoughtfulness and trustworthiness." This is a list that shows just how much thought goes into the look of letters.
*And before we begin, let's acknowledge that the title of this article is inexact: we tend to think of Times New Roman and Helvetica as fonts, but what you're about to read is a list of typefaces, categories of fonts, and letterings, among other things. These are all different words that refer to subtly different things. A more apt title might be "27 ways that letters themselves, and not what they say, explain your world." Pedants may cringe, but the point here is to show that it isn't just words that explain, change, and define our world. Often, it's how those words are presented.
C/NET
Welcome to the latest, and most significant, episode in the adventures of Net neutrality. Sure, those two words make for arguably one of the dullest phrases ever created, but I have two more words for you: Wake up!
First, here's what just happened: After a year of discussion and table-setting, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler this week submitted his proposed set of rules for ensuring an open Internet. As is so often the case with rule-making, that Net neutrality proposal is rubbing some powerful interests the wrong way.o it is that the future of the Internet is at stake. To help you understand what you need to know about what the FCC wants to do, I'm breaking down the topic into digestible pieces.
Let's start with some basics.