Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, current leader Neon Vincent, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, wader, Doctor RJ, rfall, JML9999 and Man Oh Man. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse, ek hornbeck, ScottyUrb, Interceptor7, BentLiberal, Oke and jlms qkw.
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.
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The Guardian
Binyamin Netanyahu’s dramatic declaration to world leaders in 2012 that Iran was about a year away from making a nuclear bomb was contradicted by his own secret service, according to a top-secret Mossad document.
It is part of a cache of hundreds of dossiers, files and cables from the world’s major intelligence services – one of the biggest spy leaks in recent times.
Brandishing a cartoon of a bomb with a red line to illustrate his point, the Israeli prime minister warned the UN in New York that Iran would be able to build nuclear weapons the following year and called for action to halt the process.
But in a secret report shared with South Africa a few weeks later, Israel’s intelligence agency concluded that Iran was “not performing the activity necessary to produce weapons”. The report highlights the gulf between the public claims and rhetoric of top Israeli politicians and the assessments of Israel’s military and intelligence establishment.
Al Jazeera America
Less than a month after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's 2012 warning to the UN General Assembly that Iran was 70 per cent of the way to completing its "plans to build a nuclear weapon", Israel's intelligence service believed that Iran was "not performing the activity necessary to produce weapons".
A secret cable obtained by Al Jazeera's Investigative Unit reveals that Mossad sent a top-secret cable to South Africa on October 22, 2012 that laid out a "bottom line" assessment of Iran's nuclear work.
It appears to contradict the picture painted by Netanyahu of Tehran racing towards acquisition of a nuclear bomb.
Writing that Iran had not begun the work needed to build any kind of nuclear weapon, the Mossad cable said the Islamic Republic's scientists are "working to close gaps in areas that appear legitimate such as enrichment reactors".
Huffington Post
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel's Mossad spy agency in October 2012 had a less alarmist view of Iran's nuclear program than an assessment delivered by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the United Nations just a few weeks earlier, according to a purported secret cable published Monday by two media outlets.
In a landmark speech to the United Nations in September of that year, Netanyahu had brandished a cartoon drawing of a bomb and said Iran was moving ahead with plans that would allow it to potentially build a nuclear bomb within a year or so.
But in the document published Monday by The Guardian and Al-Jazeera, the Mossad is quoted as saying "Iran at this stage is not performing the activity necessary to produce weapons."
Miami Herald
Like so many street-smart cyber thieves, Josue Pierre took a shortcut into the easy-money underworld of tax fraud.
Pierre exploited a special tax-filing designation from the Internal Revenue Service so he could use stolen IDs to file hundreds of fabricated online tax returns.
With an “electronic filing identification number” — EFIN for short — the former North Miami resident pocketed enough money to lease a luxury condo at downtown Miami’s Icon Brickell and tool around in a Land Rover.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Berger, who has been on the front lines in South Florida fighting the dual crimes of ID theft and tax fraud, said the surge of crooks securing EFINs has dramatically pumped up the illicit refund industry.
...
“A significant amount of the fraud is tied to tax preparers,” Koskinen said during a stop at the IRS regional office in Miami. “The IRS wants to require a minimum competency test for tax preparers — and so does the industry — but it needs congressional approval.”
Al Jazeera America
The debt forgiveness movement born out of Occupy Wall Street has entered a new stage in its activism around student loans. On Monday a wing of the campaign known as Debt Collective announced a “debt strike” by 15 former students of the for-profit college chain Corinthian Colleges Inc.
The former students have said they will not repay any more of their student loans, in protest of what they describe as predatory lending practices on the part of Corinthian Colleges and the U.S. Department of Education (DOE). Organizers working with Debt Collective said the coordinated action was a test run for larger debt refusal actions.
Debt Collective organizer Ann Larson compared the action to work stoppages conducted by the labor movement.
“This is the same kind of collective organizing,” she told Al Jazeera. “Collective bargaining can happen along economic lines when debtors join together.”
For their test case, Debt Collective selected a particularly ripe target: Corinthian Colleges has been the subject of state and federal investigations regarding its lending practices. Since June 2014 the company has been under tight financial supervision from the DOE, which is shepherding it through the process of selling off some of its campuses and shutting down others.
Al Jazeera America
“Nina Simone said it’s an artist’s duty to reflect the times in which we live.”
That line came from newly minted Oscar winner John Legend during what was arguably one of the most politically charged Academy Awards shows in recent memory.
- From a red carpet campaign to #AskHerMore than “who are you wearing?” to Steve Carell’s cufflinks supporting the U.N.’s HeForShe campaign;
- from Patricia Arquette’s GiveLove.org plug on her way in to the Kodak Theater, to her impassioned plea for wage equality and equal rights for women while clutching her Best Supporting Actress award;
Al Jazeera America
ost people in the United States support President Barack Obama’s proposal to raise investment taxes on high-income families, according to the results of an Associated Press-GfK poll.
The poll results released Sunday said 68 percent of those questioned said wealthy households pay too little in federal taxes; only 11 percent said the wealthy pay too much. Also, 60 percent said middle-class households pay too much in federal taxes, while 7 percent said they paid too little.
Obama laid out a series of tax proposals as part of his 2016 budget released this month. Few are likely to win approval in the Republican-controlled Congress. But if fellow Democrats were to embrace his ideas, they could play a role in the 2016 race.
The findings echo the populist messages of two liberal senators — Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont — being courted by the progressive wing of the Democratic Party to run for president in 2016. The results also add weight to Obama’s new push to raise taxes on the rich and use some of the revenue to lower taxes on the middle class.
The Guardian
The White House has dramatically raised the stakes in its standoff with Republicans over immigration, warning that efforts to block reform threaten border security and the wages of 100,000 government employees.
Documents filed by the administration with a Texas federal court on Monday claim that its ruling last week risks creating chaos in the immigration and customs services by preventing officials applying discretion when handling deportation cases.
“This injunction is … expected to impair [our] ability to ensure that limited enforcement resources are spent in the most effective and efficient way to safeguard national security, border security and public safety,” wrote Gil Kerlikowske, commissioner of customs and border protection, in support of a government request to stay the court’s injunction.
“Preventing the deferred action policies from going into effect interferes with the federal government’s comprehensive strategy for enforcing our immigration laws,” said Sarah Saldana, director of immigration and customs enforcement.
The emergency request for a stay of the Texas court decision is the opening salvo in a legal battle that is likely to go all the way to the supreme court.
Reuters
U.S. home resales fell sharply to their lowest level in nine months in January amid a shortage of properties on the market, a setback that could temper expectations for an acceleration in housing activity this year.
The National Association of Realtors said on Monday existing home sales declined 4.9 percent to an annual rate of 4.82 million units, the lowest level since last April.
"Existing home sales are taking a bumpy road towards recovery," said Patrick Newport, an economist at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Massachusetts.
The decline in sales, which was across all four regions, came despite the 30-year mortgage rate falling to a 20-month low. It was worse than economists' expectations for a 4.97 million unit-pace.
Tight inventories are hurting sales by limiting the selection of houses available to potential buyers. The lack of supply is also keeping house prices elevated, helping to sideline first-time buyers from the market.
NPR
President Obama wants to change the way brokers and investment advisers offer financial advice, saying the current system leads to high fees that erode returns on investments.
At present, brokers work under the suitability standard. This, in essence, means that while making a recommendation, brokers must reasonably believe that a product is "suitable" for a client. The Obama administration wants to change that. It wants to impose what is known as a fiduciary duty on brokers. That means the brokers would have to put their clients' interests over their own.
This, the administration says, would prevent financial advisers from steering clients to investments with high costs, hidden fees and low returns.
"Too many financial advisers have sales incentives to steer responsible Americans into bad retirement investments with high fees and lower returns that leave their clients with less in retirement," Jeff Zients, director of the White House National Economic Council, said in a conference call.
CNN
Bill O'Reilly's account of a 1982 riot in Argentina is being sharply contradicted by seven other journalists who were his colleagues and were also there at the time.
The people all challenge O'Reilly's depiction of Buenos Aires as a "war zone" and a "combat situation." They also doubt his description of a CBS cameraman being injured in the chaos.
"Nobody remembers this happening," said Manny Alvarez, who was a cameraman for CBS News in Buenos Aires.
Jim Forrest, who was a sound engineer for CBS there, said that when he heard O'Reilly retell the Argentina riot story to interviewer Marvin Kalb several years ago, he contacted Kalb and said "I was on that crew, and I don't recall his version of events."
Reuters
The U.S. Department of Justice and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission are investigating at least 10 major banks for a possible rigging of precious-metals markets, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people close to the inquiries.
Justice Department prosecutors are scrutinizing the price-setting process for gold, silver, platinum and palladium in London, while the CFTC has opened a civil investigation, the newspaper said.
The banks under scrutiny are HSBC, Bank of Nova Scotia, Barclays PLC, Credit Suisse Group AG, Deutsche Bank AG, Goldman Sachs Group Inc, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Societe Generale, Standard Bank Group Ltd and UBS AG, the newspaper said.
Reuters could not immediately reach the banks, the DoJ and the CFTC for comment outside regular U.S. business hours.
HSBC said earlier in the day that the CFTC issued a subpoena to HSBC Bank USA in January seeking documents related to the bank's precious metals trading operations.
New York Times
WASHINGTON — After promising an era of responsible governing and an end to federal shutdowns, congressional Republicans find themselves mired in an immigration fight that could cause funding for the Department of Homeland Security to run out on Friday.
It is a risky moment for the new congressional majority. A nasty partisan impasse over funding for a vital agency would probably damage the party’s brand just months after Republicans took power, and the impact could carry over into the next election cycle.
“I don’t think shutdowns and showdowns are the way to win the presidency in 2016,” said Representative Tom Cole, an Oklahoma Republican and a respected party strategist.
NHK World
Japan's agriculture minister Koya Nishikawa has resigned. He submitted a letter of resignation on Monday to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who accepted it.
Abe appointed former agriculture minister Yoshimasa Hayashi as Nishikawa's successor. Hayashi formally assumed the post later in the day.
Nishikawa came under fire after it was found his political organization received a contribution of 3-million yen, about 25,000 dollars, from a wood processing firm. The company was granted state subsidies.
Nishikawa's group also accepted a donation of one million yen, or about 8,400 dollars, from a company run by the head of a sugar industry organization.
This body too, was granted state subsidies.
DW
Germany criticized continuing violence in eastern Ukraine on Monday, saying a complete ceasefire was a prerequisite to begin withdrawing heavy weapons.
"It is of great concern to the German government that one cannot really speak of a comprehensive ceasefire as yet," German government spokesman Steffen Seibert told journalists in Berlin on Monday.
Russia needed to honor its obligations according to the Minsk peace plan, and it needed to exercise its influence on separatists in Ukraine's east, Seibert said, referring to the peace agreement that Ukraine and pro-Russian rebels signed earlier this month in Minsk.
Seibert also condemned the attack on a memorial march in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, in which at least two people died and dozens others were wounded. Around 100 people participated in the march on Sunday to remember protestors who stormed the Maidan in Kyiv last year.
Reuters
Kiev accused pro-Russian rebels of opening fire with rockets and artillery at villages in southeastern Ukraine on Monday, all but burying a week-old European-brokered ceasefire deal.
The Ukrainian military said it could not pull weapons from the front as required under the tenuous truce, as long as its troops were still under attack.
Ukraine's currency, nearly in freefall this month, fell a further 10 percent on Monday on fears that the truce could collapse. The central bank said it would tighten currency rules to sustain the hryvnia. The value of Ukrainian debt also fell, with bonds now trading at 40 cents in the dollar.
The reported shooting came closer to killing off the truce, intended to end fighting that has killed more than 5,600 people, which rebels ignored last week to capture the strategic town of Debaltseve in a punishing defeat for Kiev.
NPR
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has introduced a raft of tough new measures aimed at countering what he called the rising threat of terrorism.
Abbott announced the national security crackdown one day after the release of a review of Australia's counterterrrorism operations and a report on a deadly attack in a Sydney cafe in December that left three people dead.
Under the proposed measures, the Australian government would be able to revoke the citizenship of anyone holding dual nationality who fights alongside extremists. Abbott said the government would review measures to stop anyone suspected of traveling overseas to fight, or prevent from them from re-entering Australia. There would also be tougher restrictions on hate speech and on inciting racial or religious hatred. Abbott said he would appoint a new anti-terrorism czar under the new strategy.
NPR
France has seized the passports of six of its citizens who it says were planning to travel to Syria to join Islamist groups fighting in that country's civil war. It's the first time the French government has used a measure that was approved in November to limit the number of French citizens joining Islamist groups in the Middle East.
The BBC quoted Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve as saying the six people wanted to join the self-described Islamic State. An unnamed source quoted by Agence France-Presse said they were planning to go to Syria imminently. Their passports and ID cards have been confiscated for six months, the news agency said. The order can be renewed after that period. They can appeal the order in court, the BBC added.
Los Angeles Times
As Greece's new leftist leaders engage in an economic battle of chicken with their European creditors, the outcome of crisis talks portends dramatic consequences for the perennially indebted Mediterranean country as well as for its European lenders and global economic stability.
Here is what is at stake in the decision on whether to extend Greece's bailout terms:
Greek credibility as a borrower
Athens was forced to seek loans from its European Union allies after its economy imploded in 2009 because it could no longer borrow on international markets. Should the country default on its obligations to European lending institutions or abandon the austerity measures imposed in exchange for those loans, the country would lose credibility as a borrower. The national coffers would run empty, reportedly within weeks, leaving the government unable to pay salaries and pensions -- unless it reverts to the drachma, the domestic currency it abandoned 14 years ago when it entered the Eurozone, and prints its own money again, setting off a new spiral of inflation.
BBC
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has said war with neighbouring Ukraine is "unlikely", in an interview for Russian television.
Mr Putin also stressed his support for the Minsk agreement as the best way to stabilise eastern Ukraine.
Ukraine has said there is clear evidence Russia is helping the rebels in the east, something Russia denies.
Earlier, Ukraine's military said rebel shelling had prevented them withdrawing heavy weapons from the front line.
In his interview, Mr Putin was asked if there was a real threat of war, given the situation in eastern Ukraine.
"I think that such an apocalyptic scenario is unlikely and I hope this will never happen," he said.
Mr Putin said that if the Minsk agreement was implemented, eastern Ukraine would "gradually stabilise".
BBC
A 94-year-old man has been charged with 3,681 counts of accessory to murder in Germany on allegations he served at Auschwitz.
Prosecutors said the defendant was a former SS sergeant, who acted as a medical officer at the Nazi concentration camp in 1944.
If found guilty he could face a jail term ranging from three to 15 years.
Defence lawyer Peter-Michael Disetel told the Bild newspaper there was no evidence of a "concrete criminal act".
Prosecutors in Schwerin in northern Germany said they could not name the man because of privacy laws.
Despite his advanced age they say he is fit to stand trial.
It is alleged that in his role as medical officer he helped the camp function and could therefore be linked to deaths that occurred during his period of service from 15 August to 14 September 1944.
About 1.1 million people, mostly European Jews, were killed at Auschwitz-Birkenau between 1940 and its liberation on 27 January 1945.
Reuters
Maria Golovnina, Reuters bureau chief for Afghanistan and Pakistan who was widely loved and admired for her courage, compassion and professionalism, died in Islamabad on Monday.
Maria, 34, was found collapsed and unconscious in the bureau and was rushed to hospital, but medical teams were unable to save her.
In a career spanning more than a decade with Reuters, Maria was always on the move, reporting from some of the world's most dangerous places with a calm authority that other, more experienced journalists could only admire.
She was driven by a hunger to understand what made human beings tick, be it during the throes of revolution in Libya or in the pre-dawn calm of southern Pakistan as Sufis cleansed a revered shrine with rose water before their ecstatic rituals began.
As friend and colleague Peter Graff put it: "Empathy wasn't just a skill she deployed for her craft. It burned in her white hot. It is what sustained her legendary stamina for work, play and learning."
THE ENVIRONMENT, SCIENCE, HEALTH AND TECHNOLOGY
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Climate Central
U.S. coastal communities better start preparing for ocean acidification now, especially if we want scallops, oysters and other shellfish to keep appearing on our dinnerplates.
That’s the message of a new study that shows that shellfisheries across the U.S. are more vulnerable to climate change’s less considered counterpart than previously thought. That vulnerability is due to more than changing ocean chemistry. Social and economic factors, local and more distant pollution and natural ocean processes could conspire to make ocean acidification a problem sooner rather than later.
...
The chemical process of ocean acidification starts with the extra carbon dioxide humans are adding to the air. About 25 percent of it is sucked up by the ocean where it dissolves and contributes to making the ocean more acidic and less friendly to carbonate, a compound that shellfish and coral need to grow.
Al Jazeera America
A toddler has died of measles in the German capital, health authorities said Monday, amid the country's worst outbreak in years and an intense debate about steps to boost vaccinations similar to that playing out in the United States.
The 18-month-old boy died on Feb. 18, a Berlin health department official told Agence France-Presse. He is the first known fatality among more than 570 recorded measles cases since October in the capital alone.
The resurgence of the preventable disease in Germany, as well as in parts of the U.S., coincides with a movement among some parents to refuse to vaccinate their children.
Health Minister Hermann Groehe over the weekend said that "the irrational fear-mongering of some vaccination foes is irresponsible."
"Those who refuse to vaccinate their children endanger not only them but others, threatening serious health problems," Groehe said.
The Guardian
To Washington insiders he is Dr Evil: the hidden orchestrator of industry campaigns against the Humane Society, Mothers against Drunk Driving, and other seemingly uncontroversial groups.
Now Richard Berman, a one-time lobbyist turned industry strategist, has zeroed in on another target: Barack Obama’s new power plant rules.
Over the last year, Berman has secretly routed funding for at least 16 studies and launched at least five front groups attacking Environmental Protection Agency rules cutting carbon dioxide from power plants, the Guardian has learned.
The rules, the centre-piece of Obama’s climate agenda, are due to be finalised in mid-summer. They have come under sustained assault from industry and Republican-controlled Congress – and Berman is right at the heart of it.
The attacks may be gaining traction. The EPA chief, Gina McCarthy, suggested in a speech this week the rules were likely to change in response to public comment.
From the offices of Berman’s PR firm in Washington, at least five new front groups have launched attack ads against the EPA, environmental groups, fishermen and sportsmen, and green building organisations. The groups all use Berman’s address.
NPR
If you have siblings, you probably think that your parents liked one kid best — and you're probably right. Scientists say the family pecking order does affect children, but not always in the way you might think.
The vast majority of parents do have favorite child, according to research — about 80 percent. But that number sounds pretty darned high. So I decided to ask some kids in my neighborhood in Bethesda, Md., what they think happens in their families.
David Lewis, who's 10, is pretty sure there's a favorite in his family. He just isn't sure who it is. "It's either my older brother, who actually does things correctly, though he might mess up here or there, or me, because I'm awesome." His older sister gets to be the favorite sometimes, too.
NPR
Could using a dishwashing machine increase the chances your child will develop allergies? That's what some provocative new research suggests — but don't tear out your machine just yet.
The study involved 1,029 Swedish children (ages 7 or 8) and found that those whose parents said they mostly wash the family's dishes by hand were significantly less likely to develop eczema, and somewhat less likely to develop allergic asthma and hay fever.
"I think it is very interesting that with a very common lifestyle factor like dishwashing, we could see effects on allergy development," says Dr. Bill Hesselmar of Sweden's University of Gothenburg, who led the study.
The findings are the latest to support the "hygiene hypothesis," a still-evolving proposition that's been gaining momentum in recent years. The hypothesis basically suggests that people in developed countries are growing up way too clean because of a variety of trends, including the use of hand sanitizers and detergents, and spending too little time around animals.
Marty Gabriel, a retired truck driver, passes his metal detector over the exposed sand at California's Lake Perris. Gabriel has been visiting the lake for 25 years. "We definitely need rain," he says.
NPR
The message from park rangers, amateur metal detectors and regular fisherman at California's Lake Perris is unanimous: The water is lower than they've ever seen it.
The state's severe ongoing drought has affected everything from agriculture to urban life. Here, the impact is made visible. As the water level has dropped, sunken treasures, trash and forgotten boats have risen above the surface.
Last fall, rangers at the Lake Perris State Recreation Area and reservoir began spotting clumps of massive tractor tires peeking above the water on one section of the lake.
One park employee refers to the dozens of tires as "the serpent," because of the curving profile the tires create against the water, kind of like a Loch Ness monster made of rubber. According to state park superintendent John Rowe, the appearance of "the serpent" — or the "tire reef," as it's more officially known — was not a surprise.
"It's been on all of our maps to begin with," Rowe says.
BBC
The Facebook CEO's Chinese New Year message in Mandarin got millions of views - but hardly any from inside China where Facebook remains blocked.
For Chinese new year Mark Zuckerberg posted a greeting in the Chinese language. The message has been viewed nearly 4 million times, and been shared more than 36,000 times since 19 February. But few are likely to have come from from his intended audience - people inside China.
That's because Facebook has been banned in the country since 2009. It is believed the entrepreneur's efforts to learn Mandarin may be part of a plan to try to reverse that ban. A type of friend request to an entire country.
In October last year he stunned a room full of Beijing university students when he conducted a 30-minute question and answer session on the future of global technology in a near fluent Chinese.
Zuckerberg says he started learning Chinese to communicate better with his wife's family, and gain a better understanding of Chinese culture. But it's unclear if his soft skills will help solve Facebook's problems in China, at a time when it is becoming increasingly difficult for global technology companies to operate in the country.
NPR
Babies at high risk for becoming allergic to peanuts are much less likely to develop the allergy if they are regularly fed foods containing the legumes starting in their first year of life.
That's according to a big new study released Monday involving hundreds of British babies. The researchers found that those who consumed the equivalent of about four heaping teaspoons of peanut butter each week, starting when they were between 4 and 11 months old, were about 80 percent less likely to develop a peanut allergy by their fifth birthday.
"This is certainly good news," says Gideon Lack of King's College London, who led the study. He presented the research at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology. It was also published in The New England Journal of Medicine.