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.
Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.
From the Washington Post: A woman will appear on redesigned $10 bill in 2020
Will it be Susan B. Anthony or Harriet Tubman? Eleanor Roosevelt or Rosa Parks? Or another important woman from American history?
These will be among the names the nation ponders after the Obama administration’s announcement late Wednesday that a woman will be featured on the $10 bill, the first time in well over a century that a female portrait will grace the United States’ paper money.
The redesigned bill will be unveiled in 2020 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the right of women to vote. The Treasury Department is launching a massive public campaign to solicit suggestions through social media and town halls for what the bill should look like and who should be on it. The only requirements for candidacy are that the woman be deceased and embody the theme of the bill’s new look: “Democracy.”
From the
Charleston Post and Courier:
Reports: Eight people shot downtown
Unconfirmed reports say eight people were shot in downtown Charleston tonight.
Police and emergency vehicles are swarming Henrietta and Calhoun streets off Marion Square, responding to the reported shooting. Several streets are closed to traffic
They are responding to a shooting at 9 p.m. at 110 Calhoun St., site of Emanuel AME Church. Police have been seen exiting the 150-year-old church. Clementa Pinckney, who also is a state senator, is the pastor.
Police are still looking for the gunman and helcopters are hovering above. Police spokesman Charles Francis described the suspect as a 21-year-old white male in a gray sweatshirt/hoodie and jeans with Timberland boots. He has a slender build.
There are victims involved, but police have not said how many. No deaths have yet been reported. A chaplain is on the scene.
From
The Hollywood Reporter:
Donald Trump Campaign Offered Actors $50 to Cheer for Him at Presidential Announcement
Donald Trump's big presidential announcement Tuesday was made a little bigger with help from paid actors — at $50 a pop.
New York-based Extra Mile Casting sent an email last Friday to its client list of background actors, seeking extras to beef up attendance at Trump's event.
"We are looking to cast people for the event to wear t-shirts and carry signs and help cheer him in support of his announcement," reads the June 12 email, obtained by The Hollywood Reporter. "We understand this is not a traditional 'background job,' but we believe acting comes in all forms and this is inclusive of that school of thought."
From the
New York Times:
Brian Williams to Stay at NBC, but Not as News Anchor
NBC is planning to announce on Thursday that Brian Williams will not return to his position as the anchor of its “Nightly News” show, four months after the network suspended him for exaggerating his role in a helicopter incident in Iraq, according to two people briefed on the discussions.
Mr. Williams is expected to move to a new role primarily at the cable news network MSNBC, probably in a breaking-news capacity in the beginning, according to one of the people.
Lester Holt, who has been filling in for Mr. Williams as anchor, will take on the position permanently, one person said.
From
CNN:
America recovers from its great baby recession
The number of births in the United States went up last year for the first time since 2007, according to an annual report by the CDC National Center for Health Statistics. The report found that there were 62.9 births for every 1,000 women between the ages of 15 and 44, which represents an increase of 1% over the birth rate in 2013.
The spike was driven by women in their 30s and early 40s, who had 3% and 2% more births, respectively, than in the previous year. For women in their 30s, the birth rates were 100.8 per 1,000 women age 30 to 34 and 50.9 per 1,000 women age 35 to 39. In contrast, the birth rate among teens 15 to 19, which has been waning since 1991, plummeted 9% since 2013. It was 24.2 per 1,000 teens in 2014. The rate among women in their early 20s also dropped by 2%.
"The births to older women was enough to offset the decline in teen birth rate and you see this overall increase," said Brady E. Hamilton, a statistician and demographer at the National Center for Health Statistics and lead author of the study.
"In regards to the older women, this is kind of a continuation of a trend, but the decline in teens 15 to 19 really shocked me; 9% is really phenomenal," Hamilton said.
From the
Los Angeles Times:
Interest rate hike is coming, but economy can't handle it yet, Fed says
Federal Reserve policymakers sharply downgraded their view of the economy — forecasting the weakest annual growth since 2011 — but indicated they were on track to raise a key interest rate in the coming months.
"It's not an ironclad guarantee, but we anticipate that that's something that will be appropriate later this year," Fed Chairwoman Janet L. Yellen told reporters Wednesday.
Fed policymakers had said they could raise the short-term federal funds rate, a benchmark that affects mortgage and other lending and savings rates, as early as this month if economic data warranted it.
Such a move, the first hike since 2006, would signal the economy was strong enough for the Fed to start ratcheting up the unprecedented low rate put in place to help combat the Great Recession and spur the recovery.
From
BBC News:
Greece says deal on debt crisis unlikely at Thursday talks
Greece has a "political and moral duty" to reach an agreement with creditors over its debt crisis, Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis has said. But he said Thursday's meeting of eurozone finance ministers was unlikely to bring an immediate solution.
In return for more funding, creditors want further reforms from Greece.
But the ruling Syriza party is resisting those demands and, with talks deadlocked, fears are growing that Greece may default on its debts.
The European Commission, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) could extend fresh finance, but are insisting on reform and further austerity measures.
Mr Varoufakis, when asked if there could be an agreement at the meeting of eurozone finance ministers in Luxembourg on Thursday, said: "I do not believe so."
From
The Guardian:
Congress warned that drones present 'a nightmare scenario for civil liberties'
Amazon.com, the Federal Aviation Administration and privacy activists sparred in front of Congress on Wednesday over drones and the future of American airspace as one privacy expert warned few laws would stand in the way of “a nightmare scenario for civil liberties”.
The subject before the Full House committee on oversight and government Reform was a proposed rule by the FAA, which would permit commercial drone use in a variety of ways (at the discretion of the agency, which would issue licenses).
The hearing was silent on the topic of drone use by law enforcement. The agency was, though, very concerned about unauthorized filming of football games, pointing to its No Drone Zone PSA campaign as a marked success.
From
NPR:
The Pope Is About To Weigh In On Climate Change. Not Everyone Is Happy
Pope Francis is poised to issue a statement on church doctrine aimed at transforming climate change into a moral imperative for the world's 1.2 billion Catholics — a move that has already put him at odds with political conservatives in the United States.
In the first encyclical of his 2-year-old papacy, expected to be released Thursday, Francis is expected to call on all people to be "stewards of creation." Speaking Sunday to thousands of people at St. Peter's Square, the pope said his message is "addressed to everyone" and that he hopes it would spark "renewed attention to situations of environmental degradation and to recovery" and lead to "greater responsibility for the common home that God has entrusted to us."
The papal letter follows a conference the pope called in April to discuss the moral dimensions of climate change, which he believes is mostly human-caused. It is worth noting that Francis' message isn't untrodden theological ground for the church — his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, didn't go as far, but he did call for a "responsible, credible and united response" to the problem of climate change.
From
Al Jazeera:
Labor ruling puts dent in Uber’s ‘independent’ taxi model
The app-based ride company Uber has been in the courts nearly as long as its cars have been on the streets. In the process of expanding to cities across the United States and around the world, the $50 billion, Bay Area–based corporation has faced dozens of lawsuits over drivers’ compensation, discrimination against passengers with disabilities, unemployment pay and commercial insurance. On Tuesday it appealed a significant loss: a ruling from California’s labor commissioner declaring that one so-called driver partner is not an independent contractor or small business owner but an employee.
On June 3 the California commission awarded $4,152.20 to Barbara Berwick, an Uber driver alleging uncompensated expenses and unpaid wages. (The decision became public Tuesday when counsel for Uber in San Francisco, the law firm Littler Mendelson, appealed the ruling in Superior Court.)
While the facts of the case are rather convoluted — Berwick established a corporation in order to drive for the company and failed to produce records of her hours and compensation — the administrative decision does a careful analysis of the factors governing employer-employee status. It cites the mega-app’s control over driver working conditions (background checks, a rating process), its provision of tools (the ubiquitous dashboard iPhone) and a payment system, among other factors, to hold Uber responsible for equipment fees, hourly wages and overtime under California law. This follows a May decision from Florida ruling that an Uber driver was an employee entitled to unemployment compensation.
From the
New York Post:
496 Uber cars seized amid crackdown on illegal pickups
Hundreds of Uber cars were taken off the streets this spring as part of a larger city crackdown on illegal activity by black and livery cars, new data reveals.
The Taxi and Limousine Commission seized 496 cars currently affiliated with Uber’s bases between April 29 and June 15 for picking up illegal street hails, records show.
Black and livery car drivers are only allowed to do pre-arranged trips, whether it is through a smartphone app or a base dispatch.
Many of the Uber drivers who had their cars seized were doing illegal pickups at JFK Airport.
“Street hails are not permitted on the Uber platform — period,” said the company’s spokesman Matt Wing. “This is a small group of bad actors and the violations add up to less than one hundredth of 1 percent of our rides over the same time period.”
From
The Daily Beast:
Ireland Is ‘Frozen In Shock’ By Balcony Deaths
They were supposed to be embarking on the adventure of a lifetime.
But the thrill of a four-month trip to America on a working student visa has ended in unutterable tragedy for at least a dozen Irish students, after a fourth-floor balcony they were standing on collapsed in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
Five young Irish people from the same tight-knit community in South County Dublin and one of their Irish-American cousins were killed outright, two more are said to have ‘life-threatening’ injuries and another five young men and women are in hospital with lesser injuries.
A former colleague of one of the victims told The Daily Beast that the tragedy had cut to the heart of the community. “We have lost one of our own,” said Paul Bailey.
The Irish envoy to America described a nation “frozen in shock and disbelief,” and in Dublin and across Ireland today there was stunned heartbreak as the details of the appalling tragedy unfolded.
From
Reuters:
Putin says Russia beefing up nuclear arsenal, NATO denounces 'sabre-rattling'
President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that Russia was concerned about an anti-missile defence system near its borders, after announcing that Russia would add more than 40 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) to its nuclear arsenal this year.
"We will be forced to aim our armed forces ... at those territories from where the threat comes," Putin said.
Putin made his comments a day after Russian officials denounced a U.S. plan to station tanks and heavy weapons in NATO member states on Russia's border. Putin said it was the most aggressive act by Washington since the Cold War a generation ago.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry expressed concern over Putin's missile announcement and said no one wanted to see backsliding "to a kind of a Cold War status."
Kerry told reporters at a news briefing that Putin's stance could be posturing but he added, "Nobody should hear that kind of announcement from a leader of a powerful country and not be concerned about what the implications are."
From
Salon:
How did I get home last night? My bizarre, panicked life as a blackout drinker
I met my friend Allison at a Mexican restaurant. We hadn’t seen each other in years. It had been so long that, as I scanned the menu and failed to listen to the waiter recite the evening’s specials, I couldn’t stop my mind from tunneling back through time in an effort to pinpoint when we last hung out. This is a form of bragging for me. I pride myself on remembering more than anyone else.
“I know,” I said. “Your 36th birthday party,” and I smacked the table like it was a buzzer.
“You’re right!” she said.
That party was such a blast. Three years later, I can still remember so much about it: How her cozy Park Slope apartment was strung up with Christmas lights. How I planned to stop by for a quick drink, maybe three, before heading to another party across town. How I charmed her chic 20-something colleagues from the online fashion magazine with my big ideas about female comedians and sex.
But of all the details I can summon, one I cannot is how I got home that night. Trying to remember the end of that evening now is like watching a movie with a reel of film missing. I’m talking to this girl on the back porch, I’m laughing with this girl on the back porch, and then … the screen goes blank. CUT TO: Me, in my Williamsburg loft at 6 a.m., the white curtains billowing in the breeze.
From
NBC News:
Rachel Dolezal Accused of Misconduct on Spokane Police Oversight Board
The Washington state woman who resigned from her NAACP leadership post after questions were raised over her racial identity has been accused of misconduct while on a Spokane commission that oversees police conduct.
Rachel Dolezal, 37, is accused in an independent report commissioned by the city of creating an intimidating workplace environment and with improperly revealing the names of people involved in police misconduct investigations during public meetings.
"If people are going to bring complaints forward, it needs to be kept confidential, and to break confidentiality is just flat out wrong," Spokane City Council President Ben Stuckart told reporters Wednesday.
From
The Atlantic:
The Hacking of America's Pastime
A pitcher uses pine tar to get a better grip on a baseball. A batter takes performance-enhancing drugs to knock a pitch out of the stadium. A baserunner steals a catcher’s sign to tip off a teammate about an upcoming pitch. Players bet on and even throw games.
The scandalizing of America’s pastime is nearly as old as the pastime itself. But Tuesday’s New York Times story about an investigation into whether employees of the St. Louis Cardinals hacked into the Houston Astros player database is like nothing professional baseball has ever seen.
In fact, the news is a first for any professional sport. “The attack would represent the first known case of corporate espionage in which a professional sports team hacked the network of another team,” wrote the Times reporter Michael Schmidt. According to Schmidt’s report, FBI and Justice Department investigators have evidence that in 2013, members of the Cardinals front office infiltrated the Astros’ specialized system and became privy to “internal discussions about trades, proprietary statistics and scouting reports.”
From
USA Today:
Moon dust is filling in the astronaut footprints
Scientists have discovered a lopsided cloud of moon dust hovering over that shining orb in the night sky.
Each speck of dust hangs above the moon for only a few minutes before showering back onto the lunar surface. But the nimbus of dust constantly replenishes, forming a permanent feature around the moon.
The pattern of dust falling back to its home "in due time … will fill in craters," says the University of Colorado, Boulder's Mihaly Horanyi, who led the team that found the dust cloud. "Eventually this will erase the footprints of the astronauts."
The moon wears this hazy veil thanks to the comet dust that speckles the solar system. When a bit of dust from a comet's tail slams into the moon, the collision kicks up thousands of particles of moon dust, which are carried high above their resting place on the lunar surface, Horanyi says. The moon-dust cloud was especially thick during the Geminid meteor shower, when the Earth and its sidekick swing through a particularly thick belt of debris.
From
Variety:
À La Carte: These Are the TV Channels People Would Actually Pay For
The great unbundling of TV has begun, with HBO and Showtime offering their content via stand-alone subscriptions, and Sony announcing that it will soon offer consumers the ability to select individual channels for its PlayStation Vue TV subscription service. But which channels would consumers actually pay for if they could pick and chose?
The answer to that question may surprise you, and is bad news for at least some cable networks.
Take ESPN, for example. The Disney-owned sports network is often quoted as the prime reason for people not cutting the cord, and is by far the most expensive cable network. But a new survey from Digitalsmiths found that only 35.7% of consumers would add ESPN to their personal a la carte lineup of TV channels if they had the choice.
That’s far less popular than ABC, which would be picked by 66.7% of consumers, but also puts the network behind Discovery Channel (62%), History (57.7%), Comedy Central (43%) and even the Weather Channel (39.9%). Altogether, ESPN ranks 20th on the list of channels consumers chose as candidates for their a la carte lineup.
Which could explain why ESPN isn’t looking to go over-the-top any time soon. The sportscaster has been looking into niche online services, and started to sell subscriptions for the Cricket World Cup earlier this year. But it’s unlikely that ESPN would join Sony’s a la carte lineup — in part because the network would have to ask for hefty premiums: Right now, pay TV service providers are paying around $6 per subscriber for ESPN’s channels.
From
Wired:
FCC Reminds AT&T It Was Insane to Offer Unlimited Data
Way back in 2007, if you wanted one of those brand new iPhones (“from the company formerly known as Apple Computer,” as one news article put it), you had to head over to AT&T, the exclusive carrier.
And, when you decided to buy one, the AT&T salesperson might have nudged you towards a plan starting at the cheap, cheap price of $59.99 with unlimited data. “Unlimited data?” you might have said. “I just care about unlimited calls and text.”
Oh, how the world has changed. And AT&T is paying the price.
In the past week, I’ve used cellular data to check my email, search the web, peruse Airbnb, check in for a flight, peek at my bank statements, plan out my gym schedule, write notes in Evernote, look at Facebook, Facetime my boyfriend, Hipchat my coworkers (yes, we use Hipchat), post on Instagram, call a Lyft, get directions, watch a show on Netflix, read The New York Times, download podcasts, snap my sister, tweet, and check the weather—all from the comfort of my very lovely phone.
I use a lot of data—and you probably do, too. American smartphone users, on average, consume 1.2GB of cellular data each month, according to a Mobidia Technology analysis last year. (Even more data is consumed over Wi-Fi.)
So it should come as no surprise then that AT&T and Verizon no longer offer the unlimited cellular data plans they once sold to new customers. Even so, AT&T promised those early customers who came to be thrilled at the luck of their unlimited data that they could keep their plans under certain conditions. But today, the Federal Communications Commission said AT&T didn’t keep its promise. Now the agency wants to fine AT&T $100 million for allegedly misleading consumers about what it actually means to have an unlimited wireless data.
From
Slate:
The second season of 'True Detective' feels like a direct retort to Nic Pizzolatto’s critics
True Detective’s first season was a detective story slathered in a unique Bayou funk. A sweaty, metaphysical, eerie take on buddy cops who jawed about philosophy instead of doughnuts, it turned its audience into sleuths for the Yellow King. The series was also a collaboration: between Matthew McConaughey as the soulful nihilist Rust Cohle and Woody Harrelson as hammy good ol’ boy Marty Hart, and between series creator Nic Pizzolatto and director Cary Fukunaga, whose copious talents cannot overshadow his statuesque man bun (it’s that good a man bun).
The second season of True Detective, which begins Sunday night on HBO, is also a collaboration, but it is no longer among equals. McConaughey and Harrelson are gone, replaced by a quartet of famous actors, who, unlike McConaughey on his role, could stand for some of True Detective’s shine to rub off on them, not the other way around. Fukunaga, who did not even thank Pizzolatto when he won an Emmy for directing True Detective, is gone as well, replaced by a number of other directors, as is typical for a season of television. The only man left is Pizzolatto.
Since True Detective began, quickly becoming a much obsessed-over cultural phenomenon, Pizzolatto has done all he can to establish himself as a member in good standing of the cadre of “difficult men” who make the challenging, serious, prestige dramas that are the most celebrated hallmarks of the so-called “golden age” of television—men like the Davids Chase, Milch, and Simon. Membership in this club seems to require (except in the case of the menschy Vince Gilligan) a certain kind of hubristic swagger. Pizzolatto, by all reports, does not lack for such swag.
From
US Weekly:
Sean Penn, Charlize Theron Split, Break Off Engagement
Sad news. Sean Penn and his fiancee Charlize Theron have a called it quits after nearly a year and a half together, multiple sources exclusively confirm to Us Weekly.
One insider tells Us that the high-profile pair, who got together in December 2013, decided that their romance was over following their most recent jaunt to the Cannes Film Festival in the south of France. The source tells Us that Theron, 39, was the one to break things off with the fellow Oscar winner.
Theron and Penn, 54, had known each other for decades before their friendship blossomed into romance.
A year into their relationship, Us exclusively reported in December 2014 that they had gotten secretly engaged during a trip to Paris. There was, however, no elaborate proposal. "There's no ring, but they are committed," an insider told Us at the time.
From
Rolling Stone:
50 Greatest Prog Rock Albums of All Time
For close to a half century, prog has been the breeding ground for rock's most out-there, outsized and outlandish ideas: Thick-as-a-brick concept albums, an early embrace of synthesizers, overly complicated time signatures, Tolkienesque fantasies, travails from future days and scenes from a memory. In celebration of Rush's first Rolling Stone cover story, here's the best of the deliciously decadent genre that the punks failed to kill.
From
Ain't It Cool News:
Will 'X-FILES' 2016 Deal With Extraterrestrials, Or Just More Vampires, Ghosts & Werewolves??
If I recall correctly, the second “X-Files” movie, unlike the first one, didn’t deal much with extraterrestrials.
Will next year’s six-episode “X-Files” miniseries give similar short shrift to alien invaders?
A hint may or may not be found in this photo snapped by one Garrett M. Smart. It seems to depict an “X-Files” construction crew assembling what appears to be a crashed flying saucer outside of Canada’s Ashcroft, British Columbia.
Now if you’ve seen the first “X-Files” movie you know the invaders have used much more impressive spacecraft than what’s depicted here, which looks more like something from a 1950s sci-fi adventure.
From
Billboard:
Wiz Khalifa's 'See You Again' No. 1 on Hot 100, OMI's 'Cheerleader' Hits Top 10
Wiz Khalifa's Furious 7 soundtrack smash "See You Again," featuring Charlie Puth, tops the Billboard Hot 100 for a ninth week. It keeps the No. 1 spot over Taylor Swift's "Bad Blood" (featuring Kendrick Lamar), which interrupted the reign of "Again" when it led the chart three weeks ago ... Fetty Wap's "Trap Queen" remains at No. 3 on the Hot 100 after reaching No. 2. It logs a second week atop Streaming Songs (20.4 million, down 5 percent) and a fourth week at No. 1 on the subscription services-based On-Demand Songs chart (6.1 million, down 4 percent).
Walk the Moon's "Shut Up and Dance" holds at its No. 4 Hot 100 peak. It leads Hot Rock Songs for a 12th week and the Adult Pop Songs radio airplay chart for a sixth week. On Radio Songs, it pushes 3-2 (149 million, up 3 percent).
Rounding out the Hot 100's top five, Jason Derulo's "Want to Want Me" keeps at its No. 5 high, despite its 2-3 fall on Radio Songs (143 million, down 1 percent). As previously reported, "Want" becomes Derulo's fourth No. 1 on the Pop Songs airplay chart, following his debut hit "Whatcha Say" (2009), "In My Head," (2010) and "Talk Dirty" featuring 2 Chainz (last year).