The Overnight News Digest is a nightly series dedicated to chronicling the day’s news. All are encouraged to add their own news items of import or interest in the comments.
ThinkProgress - Cities Across The West Coast Are Uniting Against Monsanto
🇺🇸 Monsanto may have stopped developing Polychlorinated Biphenyls — typically known as PCBs — nearly four decades ago, but on the West Coast, lawsuits associated with this toxic group of chemicals keep mounting against the agrochemical giant.
On Wednesday, the Portland City Council voted to sue the Monsanto Company in federal court. Once Portland files the suit, it will become the seventh city to go after Monsanto over the toxic chemicals it produced, Portland City Attorney Tracy Reeve told ThinkProgress.
“Portland’s elected officials are committed to holding Monsanto accountable for its apparent decision to favor profits over ecological and human health,” Reeve said in a statement. “Monsanto profited from selling PCBs for decades and needs to take responsibility for cleaning up after the mess it created.”
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Source - Michigan Governor Tells Congress He Was Misled on Flint Water
🇺🇸 Time and again, Gov. Rick Snyder of Michigan acknowledged in a tense congressional hearing Thursday that he had been aware of complaints about the drinking water in Flint, including from news reports his aides had emailed him. Yet he had accepted assurances, he said, that the problems were not severe.
Democrats listening to his testimony were dubious. “Governor Snyder, plausible deniability only works when it’s plausible,” said Representative Matt Cartwright, Democrat of Pennsylvania. “You were not in a medically induced coma for a year.”
The rebuke was one of the more caustic in an extraordinary turn on Capitol Hill: A sitting Republican governor appearing before a Republican-led congressional panel, answering wave after wave of questions about his administration’s role in the Flint water crisis — “the most glaring failure of government since Hurricane Katrina,” as Representative Brendan Boyle, another Pennsylvania Democrat, described it.
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WaPo - Democrats plan push to force hearings on Supreme Court nomination
🇺🇸 Democrats began laying out an aggressive strategy Thursday to get Judge Merrick Garland considered by the Senate and seated on the Supreme Court, over what appears to be implacable Republican opposition.
The approach, which is being implemented in part by a well-organized group led by former aides to President Obama, involves targeting vulnerable GOP Senate incumbents for defeat by portraying them as unwilling to fulfill the basic duties of their office. The idea is to so threaten the Republicans’ Senate majority that party leaders will reconsider blocking hearings on Garland’s nomination.
“You’re going to be surprised at how hard we’re going to work to make sure this is on the front pages of all the papers,” Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) told reporters after meeting with Garland on Thursday.
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LAT - Dramatic images show El Niño beginning to rescue California from its drought
🇺🇸 No, California's drought isn't over. But this week, the state came to terms with the fact that the series of El Niño influenced storms has made a dent.
State officials say it's far too early to declare the drought over — especially given that the rains seem to have focused on Northern California, while Southern California has seen comparatively little rain. But reservoir levels are rising, along with the snowpack. Both are key sources of water for the state.
Here is a look at how Northern California's water situation has changed:
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Guardian - Cyprus dispute threatens to derail EU-Turkey pact over refugees
🇨🇾 🇪🇺 🇹🇷 A deal between the EU and Turkey to stem the flow of refugees and migrants to Europe is hanging in the balance, over a decades-long dispute about the divided island of Cyprus.
The 28 leaders of the EU are racing to patch up a deal with Ankara before a meeting with Turkey’s prime minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu, on Friday. At a summit in Brussels on Thursday night the EU agreed what it was ready to offer Turkey. But the offer fell far short of Ankara’s demands, as Cyprus vowed to block any deal that would speed up Turkey’s EU accession. […]
The president of Cyprus, Nicos Anastasiades, warned he could not agree to restart Turkey’s EU membership talks until Ankara agreed to open its ports and airports to Cypriot goods, under the terms of an existing agreement. “If Turkey [were to fulfil] its obligations according to the Ankara protocol and the negotiating framework, there [would be] no problem. But without it we [can] do nothing.”
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Spiegel - The Next Disaster: Islamic State Expands as Libya Descends into Chaos
🇱🇾 With two separate governments waging war against each other, Libya is crumbling. Islamic State is taking advantage of the turmoil to put down roots in the country. The US is weighing intervention.
The brass band starts playing. The musicians march along the Corniche, their blue uniforms starched and instruments polished and shining. The foreign minister has arranged for the celebration of several grand openings. Shops and cafés have opened their doors and red-black-green flags have been strung up all over, marking the fifth anniversary of the revolution.
Nothing in the capital city of Tripoli hints that Libya is in the throes of a civil war.
Still, an advance car equipped with a signal jammer that is supposed to block the detonation of any remote controlled explosives drives ahead of the foreign minister's motorcade.
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Telegraph - Iron Age man found buried with spears sticking out of him 'like a hedgehog'
🇬🇧 The body of young man buried with spears sticking out of his body ‘like a hedgehog’ is one of the more bizarre findings of a recently discovered Iron Age burial site in Yorkshire.
The Pocklington site, which is now recognised as being on international importance, is being hailed as one of the largest and most significant Iron Age findings. And historians say the discovery may shape our understanding of this period in time.
The ‘speared burial’ figure was found amongst 75 Square Barrows which contained skeletons dating back as far as 800 BC to 00 AD. At this plot archaeologists found a young man in his late teens or early 20s who has been laid to rest with his sword at his side.
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Times of India - India has space for minorities, non-believers: PM
🇮🇳 PM Modi used the forum of a world Sufi meet on Thursday to declare terrorism as "anti-religion" and state that India can accommodate minorities, including "micro minorities" like Parsis, and has the space for "believers and non-believers".
Holding up the example of Sufi saints like Amir Khushro, Moinuddin Chisti etc, he said Sufism is the voice of peace and enshrines universal brotherhood. Islam means peace, he said, quoting the Quranic verse that says "there is no compulsion in religion". Modi's decision to address the Sufi forum comes on the back of controversies like beef bans and the debate over intolerance.
The meeting saw president of All India Ulama and Mashaikh Board (AIUMB) Muhammad Ashraf raise concerns about safety of minorities when he said Muslims in India were living with a feeling of fear and sought the PM's intervention to build asense of security.
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NYT - U.S. Service Members Punished for Strike on Hospital in Afghanistan
🇦🇫 🇺🇸 The Defense Department has disciplined at least a dozen military personnel for their roles in an airstrike in October on a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Afghanistan that killed 42 people, senior military officials said, but they are not expected to face criminal charges.
The personnel, including officers and enlisted members, were given administrative punishments, the officials said. The Associated Press first reported the disciplinary actions Wednesday.
Among those disciplined are soldiers who were on the ground, personnel at the operations center that oversaw the strike, and airmen. Others involved may also be disciplined, the officials said.
Administrative punishments typically include letters of reprimand, which can significantly hurt the ability of a member of the military to get promoted.
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Reuters - Iraq halts exports through pipeline to pressure Kurds
🇮🇶 Iraq's central government has stopped oil exports through the Kurdish region to pressure the local authorities to resume talks about an oil revenue sharing agreement, the Iraq Oil Report said, citing Iraqi Oil Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi.
Iraq's state-run North Oil Company has stopped pumping crude produced at fields it operates in the Kirkuk area through a pipeline to Turkey, three sources told Reuters on March 14.
North Oil normally exports 150,000 barrels a day through the pipeline that comes out at the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan.
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NPR - How Did St. Patrick Get To Be The Patron Saint Of Nigeria?
🇳🇬 🇮🇪 Irish bishops in Nigeria named St. Patrick, who is said to have died on March 17 in the year 461, as the country's patron in 1961, the same year Ireland opened its embassy in Lagos. The Irish actually have a long history in the country: Irish nationalist Roger Casement — executed in Dublin in 1916 for his role in the Irish rebels' Easter Rising — served as a British consular officer in Calabar, in southeastern Nigeria, during the 1890s. Casement's interest in and sympathy for Africans under colonial rule was unusual for a European in the Victorian era, and likely helped shape his views on social justice.
In the early 1920s, Irish priests of the Order of the Holy Ghost established their mission in southern Nigeria. Later St. Patrick's Society for Foreign Missions, dedicated on March 17, 1932, became one of many Catholic groups in Nigeria providing education both religious and secular.
These days Catholics in the country number some 20 million, and Nigerian seminaries send their ordinates all over the world to serve as priests. In fact, since numbers of clergy in Ireland have long been in decline, Nigerian priests have recently been assigned to churches there.
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AP - South African President Defends Himself
🇿🇦 President Jacob Zuma on Thursday rejected allegations that he is influenced by a wealthy business family, declaring under sharp criticism from opposition lawmakers that he is in charge of the appointment of Cabinet ministers in South Africa.
A day before, the country's deputy finance minister issued a public statement saying the politically connected Gupta family directly offered him the finance minister job in December, around the time that the incumbent, Nhlanhla Nene, was sacked in a move that rattled markets.
In a combative exchange in parliament, Mmusi Maimane, leader of the opposition Democratic Alliance party, said to Zuma: "Is the president willing to take accountability for the decision and resign in front of the people of South Africa?"
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Bloomberg - Islamic State Spreads in North Africa in Attacks Ignored by West
🇹🇳 The Islamic State fighters appeared at dawn in the Tunisian town of Ben Guerdane, attacking police and army barracks. Last week’s clashes killed at least 58 people, including 46 militants and a 12-year-old girl. Tunisia is no stranger to jihadist violence -- three large-scale assaults last year decimated its tourism sector -- but it’s the first time militants have attempted to seize territory.
The people of this desert crossroads helped turn the tide, hurling stones at militants as security forces engaged them. After 1 1/2 hours, the gunmen, some of whom had trained in neighboring Libya and smuggled weapons across the border, were on the run.
“We lived through an actual occupation by Islamic State,” said Mohsen Lechihib, local head of the Tunisian General Labor Union. “We thought Ben Guerdane would fall into their hands.”
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MercoPress - Lula cabinet chief for twenty minutes; street protests in Brazilian cities
🇧🇷 Former leader Lula da Silva was sworn in as President Dilma Rousseff's chief of staff on Thursday amid a deepening crisis in Brazil as protests against his appointment continued for a second day and a judge sought to block the move.
Police used tear gas to disperse hundreds of opposition protesters who clashed with Lula's supporters outside the futuristic presidential palace in the capital Brasilia before his swearing-in.
Demonstrations also took place in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro amid anger that Lula's appointment will shield the former president from prosecutors who have charged him with money laundering and fraud as part of a sweeping graft probe centered on state oil company Petrobras.
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Globe and Mail - Federal budget to restore Old Age Security eligibility to 65
🇨🇦 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says next week’s federal budget will return eligibility for Canada’s Old Age Security pension to 65 years old.
Speaking to a business crowd at Bloomberg headquarters in New York on Thursday, Mr. Trudeau announced that he will make good on his election promise to overturn an increase in the age to 67, brought in by the former Conservative government.
“How we care for our most vulnerable in society is really important,” he told moderator John Micklethwait, the editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News. He said his predecessor, Stephen Harper, was wrong to move the OAS eligibility age to 67. “We think that was a mistake,” Mr. Trudeau said.
Mr. Harper raised the age in the 2012 budget, making it effective for 2023 – a measure that federal officials at the time estimated would save $10.8-billion a year once the plan was fully implemented in 2030.
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Haaretz - Meir Dagan: The outsider who blocked Netanyahu and Barak’s adventurousness
🇮🇱 Rejected by the elite Sayeret Matkal unit, Dagan went on to become an outstanding officer. During his eight years at the helm of the Mossad he brought the spy agency into the 21st century.
A former general, who later became head of the Mossad too, tells the story of when they entered the hut of the top-secret unit at the Israel Defense Forces’ enlistment center – the one whose name was only whispered to the well-connected: Sayeret Matkal, the General Staff’s reconnaissance unit. The soldiers were amazed by the thin, dark youth who threw the commando knife at the tree and never missed. But later it turned out he actually did not pass the selection process.
Such descriptions can be deceptive. This former major general and Mossad chief who watched the youth with the knife was not Meir Dagan, who passed away Thursday morning after a long battle with cancer, but Danny Yatom. Dagan, then named Meir Huberman, was the one with the knife. The arbitrary decision by the Sayeret Matkal officers not to accept him was something that burned deep inside him and helped sculpt a wily and cunning officer, a fighting commander who amazed with his complex operations – but never was a member of the small, insider clique of the veterans of the unnamed unit on their climb to the highest ranks of the IDF, sometimes even with the blade of the knife facing at his comrades.
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AP - Mexico City extends air pollution alert into a 4th day
🇲🇽 An air pollution alert in greater Mexico City was extended Thursday, its fourth day, with authorities saying that despite slight improvements smog levels remained at almost 1½ times acceptable limits in some areas.
The city’s first air pollution alert in 11 years resulted in a driving ban that kept hundreds of thousands of cars from the roads Wednesday. A metropolitan commission said that had helped, but hot, dry, windless conditions were expected to last through mid-day Thursday.
In a rotating scheme, a different but equivalent set of cars will be told to stay off the streets Thursday. The city offered free subway and bus rides to coax people from their vehicles.
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BBC - China approves new five-year plan as Li reassures on economy
🇨🇳 China's Premier Li Keqiang has said China's economic growth will stay on track, as the annual meeting of parliament draws to a close. The National People's Congress ended with the adoption of a new five-year plan for the economy, aiming for 6.5-7% growth a year by 2020.
Measures include cutting high debt, streamlining state-owned enterprises, and reforming financial markets. China has been facing a period of slower growth and market volatility.
The plan, laid out by Communist Party leaders, received unanimous approval from delegates at the largely rubber-stamp NPC.
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Malay Mail - Najib launches latest ‘iconic’ KL skyscraper, says won’t affect Stadium Merdeka
🇲🇾 A planned tower that will be the tallest building in Malaysia and the second tallest in Asia will not affect two historical stadiums in the same area, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak said today.
When launching the project for the construction of the 118-storey tower that he named as Merdeka PNB118, Najib said the skyscraper slated for completion by 2020 will be second only to the Shanghai Tower in terms of height.
He said the tower in the heart of Kuala Lumpur will become an “iconic” landmark that will define the capital city, besides enhancing its attractiveness to tourists and investors.
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CBC - King Tut's burial tomb scan shows hidden rooms, Egypt says
🇪🇬 Scans of King Tut's burial chamber have revealed two hidden rooms, Egypt's antiquities minister said Thursday — a discovery that could intensify speculation that the chambers contain the remains of the famed Queen Nefertiti.
Mamdouh el-Damaty told reporters that the secret chambers may contain metal or organic material, but he declined to comment on whether royal treasure or mummies could be inside. Analysis of the scans made by a Japanese team showed chambers that would be scanned again at the end of the month to get a better idea of what may lay inside, he said.
"It means a rediscovery of Tutankhamun ... for Egypt it is a very big discovery, it could be the discovery of the century," el-Damaty said. "It is very important for Egyptian history and for all of the world."
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