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 with guest editors annetteboardman and Chitown Kev. 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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New York Times
ROME — In a leaked draft of his much-awaited environmental encyclical, Pope Francis offers a broad vision of an endangered planet, partly blaming human activity for global warming and calling for all people to take swift action.
The Vatican press office said that the 192-page document, posted in Italian on Monday by the Italian magazine L’Espresso, was not the final draft of the pontiff’s encyclical, which will remain under embargo before being released on Thursday.
In the document, Francis wrote that he hoped his encyclical would inspire action not just by Roman Catholics but by people of all creeds and religions around the world.
“In this encyclical, I intend especially to engage in a dialogue with everyone about our common house,” he wrote.
It is unclear how similar, or not, this draft will be to the final document.
The Guardian
Pope Francis will this week call for changes in lifestyles and energy consumption to avert the “unprecedented destruction of the ecosystem” before the end of this century, according to a leaked draft of a papal encyclical.
In a document released by an Italian magazine on Monday, the pontiff will warn that failure to act would have “grave consequences for all of us”.
Francis also called for a new global political authority tasked with “tackling … the reduction of pollution and the development of poor countries and regions”. His appeal echoed that of his predecessor, pope Benedict XVI, who in a 2009 encyclical proposed a kind of super-UN to deal with the world’s economic problems and injustices.
According to the lengthy draft, which was obtained and published by L’Espresso magazine, the Argentinean pope will align himself with the environmental movement and its objectives. While accepting that there may be some natural causes of global warming, the pope will also state that climate change is mostly a man-made problem.
CNN
It's the latest summer blockbuster: A spiritual superhero armed with a pen and a prayer gears for battle against the forces of evil -- energy executives. The future of the planet hangs in the balance.
At least, that's the premise behind a tongue-in-cheek trailer released ahead of Pope Francis' widely anticipated statement on the environment this week.
Made by a Brazilian environmental group, the trailer is playfully hyperbolic. (With Terminator-like intensity, the white-robed hero growls, "It's time to take out the trash.") But it nicely captures the hot air swirling around Francis' encyclical, due to be published Thursday.
Green groups eagerly await it, climate change skeptics can't wait to rebut it, and GOP politicians approach it at their peril.
USA Today
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis says most climate change is due to human activity and calls it one of the most important moral issues facing society, according to a draft leaked Monday of his long-awaited encyclical on global warming.
The 191-page draft says the problem needs urgent action and is a key issue related to development and poverty.
The leaked draft in Italian was posted online Monday by L'Espresso magazine, prompting consternation from the Vatican. The final document is scheduled to be released Thursday. The Vatican asked journalists to "respect professional standards" and await the final text.
The Vatican spokesman, Federico Lombardi, called the leak a "heinous decision" and cautioned that the document was a draft and not necessarily an accurate reflection of what the final encyclical will say.
McClatchy
WASHINGTON — Two government watchdog agencies are investigating whether the Pentagon inspector general destroyed evidence improperly during the high-profile leak investigation of former National Security Agency senior official Thomas Drake.
The Justice Department acknowledged the probes in a letter last week to a federal magistrate judge who recently received the allegations from Drake’s lawyers. The judge is determining whether she should take further action in a case that ended in 2011 when Drake pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge.
The Guardian
Rachel Dolezal, the civil-rights leader in the middle of a firestorm over accusations that she has been misrepresenting herself as black, has resigned unapologetically from her post at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
The story of Dolezal “passing” for a different race quickly went viral on Friday after her parents told a local news station that their daughter, who had publicly cited her African lineage, is actually of Czech and German heritage – with “traces of Native American ancestry”.
After internal deliberations with local and national representatives from the NAACP, Dolezal announced that she was stepping down as president of the group’s chapter in Spokane, Washington – in a 544-word Facebook post that offered neither contrition nor remorse as the controversy over identity politics continued.
The Guardian
Officials in a North Carolina town said they will keep local beaches open, won’t put lifeguards on beaches and will “eliminate” a shark if it is believed to be a threat, after two teenage swimmers lost limbs in separate shark attacks off the coast of the same town.
A 12-year-old girl and a 16-year-old boy both lost arms after being attacked at on Sunday afternoon off the coast of Oak Island.
Helicopters and boats will patrol waters off the coast of Oak Island on Monday, but a well-respected shark expert said actions announced by the town on Monday aren’t the most effective ways to protect swimmers.
George Burgess, a shark expert at the University of Florida’s ichthyology department, said officials should “consider closing the beach, getting extra lifeguards in the area, and constituting their search patterns or whatever so you can radio down to safety personnel down below”, if a shark is sighted.
Reuters
A plan by Washington to station tanks and heavy weapons in NATO states on Russia's border would be the most aggressive U.S. act since the Cold War, and Moscow would retaliate by beefing up its own forces, a Russian defense official said on Monday.
The United States is offering to store military equipment on allies' territory in eastern Europe, a proposal aimed at reassuring governments worried that after the conflict in Ukraine, they could be the Kremlin's next target.
Poland and the Baltic states, where officials say privately they have been frustrated the NATO alliance has not taken more decisive steps to deter Russia, welcomed the decision by Washington to take the lead.
The Guardian
Before last year, Darren Sharper was seen as a sterling example of all the good an NFL player could be. A gifted leader in the defensive backfields of three franchises he was beloved in New Orleans as a community leader and key member of the Saints team that won Super Bowl XLIV. He was bright, engaging and at the start of what seemed a promising broadcast career.
In secret, he was a serial rapist.
On Monday, Sharper pleaded guilty in New Orleans Parish Criminal District Court to raping three women in the city in 2013. Monday’s admission concludes a complicated, five-venue, plea deal in which Sharper avoided numerous trials by not challenging charges that he raped nine women in four states during 2013 and 2014.
The Guardian
The Central Intelligence Agency had explicit guidelines for “human experimentation” – before, during and after its post-9/11 torture of terrorism detainees – that raise new questions about the limits on the agency’s in-house and contracted medical research.
Sections of a previously classified CIA document, made public by the Guardian on Monday, empower the agency’s director to “approve, modify, or disapprove all proposals pertaining to human subject research”. The leeway provides the director, who has never in the agency’s history been a medical doctor, with significant influence over limitations the US government sets to preserve safe, humane and ethical procedures on people.
CIA director George Tenet approved abusive interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, designed by CIA contractor psychologists. He further instructed the agency’s health personnel to oversee the brutal interrogations – the beginning of years of controversy, still ongoing, about US torture as a violation of medical ethics.
Vox
Look up any article about President Obama that focuses on his role as the first black president.
Go ahead, do it now.
Scroll down to the comments.
I promise you, you'll find earnest inquiries asking why the president is considered black or biracial when his mother is white. You'll find people who are sincerely saddened by the idea that he would "reject" her contribution to his heritage. You'll find people who are legitimately confused about why half black plus half white sometimes equals black and sometimes equals biracial, but rarely if ever seems to equal white.
BBC
Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush will promise to "fix" the US as he officially launches his bid to become the Republican nominee for president.
He will strike an optimistic note at a rally in Miami, where he will tell supporters: "We will lift our sights again, make opportunity common again."
In a video ahead of the speech he pledged to protect the most vulnerable and remove barriers to social mobility.
But doubts persist among conservatives in his party.
And early polling suggests that he has yet to dominate a wide field of Republican candidates.
NPR
Richard Nixon's presidency has always been one surrounded by questions and controversy: Why did he wiretap his own aides and diplomats? Why did he escalate the war in Vietnam? Why did he lie about his war plans to his secretary of defense and secretary of state? What were the Watergate burglars searching for, and why did Nixon tape conversations that included incriminating evidence?
Tens of thousands of files from the Nixon White House, National Security Council, CIA, FBI, State Department and Pentagon were declassified between 2007 and 2014. Hundreds of hours of Nixon's tapes were made public in 2013 and 2014. After having pored through these documents, Tim Weiner provides answers to these and other questions in his book One Man Against the World: The Tragedy of Richard Nixon.
Reuters
Rachel Dolezal, a civil rights advocate who became embroiled in national controversy over her racial identity, announced her resignation on Monday as leader of a local branch of the NAACP in Washington state.
Dolezal, 37, who served as president of the Spokane chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the country's oldest and largest civil rights organization, said the controversy over her race had shifted dialogue away from key social and political issues.
"It is with complete allegiance to the cause of racial and social justice and the NAACP that I step aside from the presidency and pass the baton to my vice president, Naima Quarles-Burnley," Dolezal said in a statement on the NAACP Spokane chapter's Facebook page.
Dolezal came under intense scrutiny last week after questions emerged about her racial background and a white couple who identified themselves as her biological parents came forward to say she had misrepresented her ethnic background.
NHK World
South Korean health officials say dozens of foreigners are being quarantined in their homes for suspected contact with people infected with the MERS coronavirus.
Health and Welfare Ministry officials made the announcement at a news conference with foreign media in Seoul on Monday.
They said 20 to 30 non-South Korean residents, including Japanese nationals, are being confined in their homes. They say the residents are probably not infected with Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, or MERS.
Spiegel Online
A new consensus is emerging that bans on cannabis are counterproductive. Across the world, countries are legalizing its use for pleasure and medical treatment -- but Germany still lags behind.
Ms. Zeng speaks quietly, almost in a whisper, with a strong Chinese accent. How long have you been having trouble sleeping, she asks her customer.
Maybe a few weeks, he replies. Ms. Zeng asks if he feels that cannabis helps him fall asleep. "Definitely," he replies. The non-medical practitioner then gives him what she gives all her patients, regardless of their symptoms: a prescription for medical marijuana.
DW
President Omar al-Bashir's plane has landed in Sudan. The leader left South Africa to dodge a possible arrest over war crime accusations from the International Criminal Court.
The Sudanese president left South Africa on Monday to dodge arrest after a judge ordered he remain in Johannesberg due to an International Criminal Court (ICC) order.
Bashir is wanted by the international war crimes court for his alleged responsibility in crimes committed during the Darfur conflict, in which more than 300,000 people were killed and over two million displaced.
Reuters
Jozef Wesolowski, a former archbishop and papal ambassador to the Dominican Republic, will stand trial on criminal charges of paying for sex with minors and possessing child pornography, the Vatican said on Monday.
The trial, due to start on July 11, will be the first on such charges inside the tiny city-state that is the headquarters of the 1.2 billion-member Roman Catholic Church.
Vatican sources said the decision by the president of the Vatican's tribunal to indict Wesolowski could not have been taken without a green light from Pope Francis. They said it was another sign of the pontiff's intention to get tough on sex abuse by clergy.
NPR
A steady surge of migrants crossing the Mediterranean is heightening tensions between Italy and its European Union partners.
Italy is the major destination of migrants smuggled from Libya, and it's calling for a radical change in European asylum rules as its neighbor states are closing their borders to refugees.
The vast majority of refugees reaching Italy want to join relatives or find jobs in northern Europe.
But as the migrant tide grows, neighboring Austria and France have suspended free cross-border movement for migrants.
Over the past week, hundreds of migrants, mostly Eritreans recently rescued at sea, were stuck at train stations in Milan and Rome.
Reuters
Greece and its creditors hardened their stances on Monday after the collapse of talks aimed at preventing a default and possible euro exit, prompting Germany's EU commissioner to say the time had come to prepare for a "state of emergency".
Leftist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras ignored pleas from European leaders to act fast. Instead he blamed creditors for Sunday's breakdown of the cash-for-reform talks, the biggest setback in long-running negotiations to unlock aid for Greece.
Athens now has just two weeks to find a way out of the impasse before it faces a 1.6 billion euro repayment due to the International Monetary Fund, potentially leaving it out of cash, unable to borrow and dangling on the edge of the currency area.
BBC
The SNP has sent a letter to the UK's Scottish Secretary David Mundell calling for more powers to be included in the Scotland Bill.
It wants Holyrood to have control of corporation tax, capital gains tax, the minimum wage and National Insurance.
The demand comes as the Scotland Bill, which will give greater tax raising powers to MSPs, is scrutinised by MPs.
The UK government has already confirmed it would reject an SNP amendment to introduce full fiscal autonomy.
Despite the fresh legislation promising that the Scottish Parliament will have control over 40% of tax and 60% of borrowing, the current SNP administration says that does not go far enough.
Reuters
Pope Francis on Monday accepted the resignation of two U.S. bishops on Monday, 10 days after a Minnesota prosecutor filed criminal charges against their diocese for failing to protect children from a sexually abusive priest.
Archbishop John Nienstedt of Saint Paul and Minneapolis and one of his deputies, auxiliary Bishop Lee Piche, resigned over their links to Curtis Wehmeyer.
Wehmeyer, who has been dismissed from the priesthood, is serving a five-year prison sentence after pleading guilty in 2012 to criminal sexual conduct with two minors and possessing child pornography.
The pontiff accepted the resignations the week after approving an unprecedented Vatican tribunal intended to judge bishops for covering up or failing to report sexual abuse, which has caused worldwide scandal for more than a decade.
Minnesota prosecutor John Choi brought the charges against the archdiocese on June 5. Hundreds of civil cases have already been filed against it for allegedly failing to supervise priests or ignoring sexual abuse by the clergy.
Reuters
Dozens of police stood guard around Hong Kong government headquarters on Tuesday, a day after authorities arrested 10 people and seized suspected explosives ahead of a crucial vote on a China-backed electoral reform package this week.
The Chinese-ruled city is bracing for a fresh democracy showdown after protests crippled parts of the former British colony last year, and resulted in sometimes violent clashes with police, over plans for how its next leader will be elected.
Hong Kong's legislature is due to begin debate on the electoral reform package in the Legislative Council on Wednesday, with a vote due by the end of the week. Pro-democracy protesters are staging evening rallies throughout the week.
THE ENVIRONMENT, SCIENCE, HEALTH AND TECHNOLOGY
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Climate Central
A record amount of solar power was added to the world’s grids in 2014, pushing total cumulative capacity to 100 times the level it was in 2000.
Around 40GW of solar power was installed last year, meaning there is now a total of 178GW to meet world electricity demand, prompting renewable energy associations to claim that a tipping point has been reached that will allow rapid acceleration of the technology.
Al Jazeera America
Royal Dutch Shell's Arctic drilling rig left Seattle's port on Monday, despite a last-minute kayak blockade set up to stop its departure, the latest in a series of protests over the past month against the company's plans to explore for oil in the Arctic.
The rig, called the Polar Pioneer, will head to Alaskan waters to drill exploratory wells approved last month by the U.S. government.
About a dozen “kayaktivists” hit the water around 4 a.m. after groups heard that Shell’s rig was moving out, Greenpeace spokeswoman Cassady Sharp said. Soon after, up to 50 additional kayak protesters lined up in a blockade meant to stop the Polar Pioneer from leaving.
Hundreds of activists had been on a text message loop that alerted them as the rig moved out, organizers told Al Jazeera. “Shell is attempting to depart Seattle tomorrow morning. Make sure your go bag is ready before bed and keep your phone charged,” ShellNo Action Council, which organized the protest, said on its Facebook page late Sunday night.
Reuters
Saudi Arabia's Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, one of Twitter's (TWTR.N) earlier investors, told Reuters he believed Jack Dorsey would bring continuity to the social messaging firm and he would back him if he wished to become chief executive permanently.
Dorsey, a co-founder of Twitter, was named interim head last Thursday after Chief Executive Dick Costolo abruptly announced he was stepping down effective July 1.
In a written statement to Reuters, Alwaleed said he "knew Dorsey well and that as one of the founders who knows the company very well he would bring the needed continuity" while the company searched for a new chief executive.
This map shows the amount of rain expected in the U.S. over the next three days.
NPR
Parts of Texas have barely had time to recover from the last round of flooding rains, but the National Weather Service is warning that there's more to come this week.
The National Weather Service says a tropical system that is gathering steam in the Gulf of Mexico will bring anywhere from 5 to 10 inches of rain to southeast Texas. Houston, which suffered major flooding late last month, is smack in the middle of that forecast.
CNN reports:
"Local officials sounded even more alarmed, calling the event 'possibly catastrophic.''
While high winds and even tornadoes are possible, already wet grounds mean that even a moderate amount of rain will likely cause street flooding,' warned Harris County Emergency Management. 'Bayous and rivers could go out of banks quickly creating a serious threat to life and property.''
This could be the second major flooding event for Texas in less than a month,' said CNN meteorologist Jennifer Gray. 'This disturbance will move over portions of Texas that are already so saturated ... more flash flooding will be a concern.' "
NPR
When James Harrison was 14, he got really sick. One of his lungs had to be removed, and he needed a lot of blood.
"I was in the hospital for three months and I had 100 stitches," he recalls.
After receiving 13 units — almost 2 gallons — of donated blood, Harrison knew right away that he wanted to give back.
"I was always looking forward to donating, right from the operation, because I don't know how many people it took to save my life," he says. "I never met them, didn't know them."
So when he turned 18, Harrison started giving blood and plasma regularly — every three weeks or so for 11 years.
Vox (updated June 15, 2015)
This December in Paris, negotiators from around the world are planning to hammer out a new international treaty on climate change. And in the lead-up to those talks, every single country has vowed to take at least some steps to tackle their greenhouse gas emissions. That includes Europe, the United States, even China.
A big new report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) adds up all the different pledges put forward so far. The good news? These pledges would represent a huge advance for clean energy. If countries actually follow through on what they've promised — a big "if" — then renewables like solar, wind, biomass, and hydro could overtake coal in 15 years.
The bad news? All these promises aren't yet enough to avoid drastic global warming. Even if every nation followed through on its pledges, the world would still be on course for at least 2.6°C of warming (4.7°F) by the end of the century and 3.5°C of warming (6.3°F) by the end of next century.
NPR
Travel up and down California farm country, the Central Valley, and you hardly hear people lamenting the lack of rain or how dry this past winter was. What you hear, from the agriculture industry and many local and national politicians, are sentiments like those expressed by Rep. Devin Nunes:
"Well, what I always like to say is that this is a man-made drought created by government," the Central Valley Republican says.
When he says "man-made" drought, he's talking about court-ordered restrictions that have kept hundreds of millions of gallons of water in West Coast rivers and estuaries to protect endangered fish like the delta smelt.
Nunes says water didn't go to farmers in his district, nor has it helped the fish populations rebound.