Overnight News Digest, aka OND, is a community feature here at Daily Kos. Each editor selects news stories on a wide range of topics.
The OND community was founded by, Magnifico,who had no idea when he started the positive impact he'd have on so many.
Welcome to all, join us in the comment section to share a news articles and jump into the community chat. News is not required to pull up a chair and chat, just be kind to ceiling cat.
Private, Visa-funded inquiry finds no WikiLeaks crimes in Iceland
By RAPHAEL G. SATTER A company asked by Visa to investigate WikiLeaks' finances found no proof the group's fundraising arm is breaking the law in its home base of Iceland, according to a document obtained by The Associated Press.
But Visa Europe Ltd. said Wednesday it would continue blocking donations to the secret-spilling site until it completes its own investigation. Company spokeswoman Amanda Kamin said she couldn't say when Visa's inquiry, now stretching into its eighth week, would be finished.
Visa was one of several American companies that cut its ties with WikiLeaks after it began publishing a massive trove of secret U.S. diplomatic memos late last year. U.S. officials have accused the site of putting its national security at risk -- a claim WikiLeaks says is an attempt to distract from the memos' embarrassing content. |
Psychologist concerned about ‘golden-voiced’ man
By Dale Atkins Psychologist Dale Atkins met Ted Williams, the formerly homeless man who became an overnight sensation with his "golden voice," when they both appeared on TODAY earlier this month. After the two spoke backstage, Williams said of Atkins, "I think I’m going to use her as somewhat of a sponsor and a therapist, because I feel I’m going to need it." Atkins wrote the following piece in reaction to the news that Williams abruptly left rehab Monday against medical advice:
There have been many people whose sudden fame catapults them to instant celebrity status. Sometimes this happens as a result of a newly discovered talent. Sometimes as a result of an act of bravery.
Whenever it happens, people delight — but there is significant cause for concern.
Ted Williams, for example, is a man who, until he was "discovered," lived on the streets, without a home. He has a magnificent voice and his story caused the world to take notice after an Ohio videographer posted a video of Williams online. Within a couple of days, this homeless man with a difficult history of drug, alcohol and relationship issues became a sought-after "star." |
UW scientist captures sound of iceberg breaking apart
seattlepi.com Here's something you don't hear every day: the creaking and cracking that happens when a massive iceberg breaks apart in the Arctic.
The iceberg, named B-15A, was located near Antarctica's Cape Adare. Measuring 76 miles long and 17 miles wide -- roughly the size of Puget Sound -- the iceberg was one of the world's largest. |
Egypt protests continue into second day despite ban and police presence
Peter Beaumont Running battles between police and anti-government protesters continued in Egypt for a second day today, despite an official ban by the government on protests and gatherings, and a huge deployment of police in Cairo.
Riot police and plainclothes officers armed with staves and bars broke up a demonstration outside one of the capital's biggest tourist hotels, the Ramses Hilton, on the banks of the river Nile.
Tonight demonstrators and police are still playing a violent game of cat and mouse through the city centre with protesters quickly regrouping after being broken up. |
U.S. lags in life expectancy gains
By Nathan Seppa Despite getting high marks for treating cancer and heart disease, the United States is failing the ultimate test of its health care system, a new study finds, trailing other developed countries in life expectancy gains.
Although life expectancy has edged upward for U.S. men and women in recent decades, several other developed countries have surged ahead in both overall life expectancy and in the expected years of life for people who have reached age 50, according to the 194-page report prepared by a panel of the National Research Council of the National Academies.
When comparing health data from the United States against other high-income nations, the researchers did find some positive signs. The United States ranks very high in cancer screening and survival and in heart attack survival. But this care is expensive: U.S. health care expenditures are roughly double the same costs in the other developed countries. |
CU writes AT&T, Verizon, FCC about changes in wireless plans, presses companies to step up effort to notify consumers
Consumerreports.org Consumers Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports, today wrote the chief executives of AT&T and Verizon and the head of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regarding the companies’ recent changes to their wireless plans and the need to alert consumers.
AT&T has made extensive changes to its text messaging plans and upgrade discount program, while Verizon has ended its upgrade discount program.
In separate letters to AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, Verizon CEO Daniel Mead, and FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, Consumers Union policy counsel Parul P. Desai said the companies need to step up their efforts to inform consumers about the changes and the implications for their pocketbooks, including any overage charges that may occur.
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Herbicide Resistance Challenges No-Till
By Charles Johnson Weeds that stand up to glyphosate and other herbicides are causing some no-till farmers to do the unspeakable. They are going back to deep plowing and cultivating fields long in conservation tillage in order to control herbicide-resistant weeds.
That negates years of effort to build soil structure and organic matter as well as minimize erosion. The situation forces farmers to weigh one benefit against the other.
Strip-till and Lamar Black are synonymous in southeast Georgia. His farm near Millen, Ga., has been the showplace for the conservation-tillage practice almost since he started doing it in 1993. He was one of the first to grow rye as a cover crop and roll it down as heavy residue before planting corn, cotton and peanuts. |
Palestinian negotiator rejects claims of back door deals with Israel
Ian Black The PLO's chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, has described the leak of confidential memos documenting a decade of Middle East peace talks as a "slander campaign" and insisted that no single concession will be agreed without a comprehensive agreement with Israel, whose colonisation of Palestinian land is the "only constant".
Writing in today's Guardian, Erekat rebuffs accusations that he has been involved in "backdoor dealings" with Israel, but fails to repeat his previous claim that the documents – obtained by Al-Jazeera TV and shared with the Guardian – are "a pack of lies".
He says the lesson that should be drawn from the documents is that the Palestinians are serious about peace. |
25 Years Later, Challenger's McAuliffe Remembered
By Liana Heitin At the time, some people compared the frozen-in-time feeling they experienced that day to the moment they heard President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Today, many also conjure the shock of watching the World Trade Center towers fall in 2001. But nearly everyone who was of school age or older in 1986 vividly remembers the day when the space shuttle Challenger burst into flames just 73 seconds after takeoff, claiming the lives of all seven astronauts aboard—including Christa McAuliffe, who was to be the first teacher in space.
Friday, Jan. 28, marks the 25th anniversary of the Challenger disaster. Around the country, teachers—some of them classroom veterans, others too young to recall those terrible moments—will describe the day’s historical significance to their students. And schools, universities, and space-focused education organizations will commemorate Ms. McAuliffe and her fellow crew members with both large-scale events and small tributes. |
Sleep makes the memory
By Tina Hesman Saey "You must remember this," Sam the piano player crooned to Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca. The couple might have recalled even more about their days in Paris if they’d been napping when Sam played the tune again.
Replaying memories while people are awake leaves their memories subject to tinkering. But reactivating memories during sleep protects them from interference, researchers in Germany and Switzerland report online January 23 in Nature Neuroscience.
The finding shows that the brain handles memories differently during sleep than while awake, says Sara Mednick, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of California, San Diego who was not involved in the research. Armed with this new knowledge, she says, therapists may be able to destabilize traumatic memories and overwrite the bad memories with good ones, then solidify the new memory with a nap. |
Livable Cities: A Sustainable Trend in Urban Planning
By Laura Clapper Livable cities. It’s a concept on the minds of urban planners, developers and green builders around the world. Livable cities enhance the lives and well-being of its citizens, encouraging community and public participation through urban design that brings people together. Additionally, livable cities embody sustainability—ecologically, economically and socially.
The current trends in planning include infill and mixed use development. They’re quite old concepts, really. Traditionally, a proper functioning urban area would have retail and commercial space on the first floor (e.g., the baker, the butcher, the tailor, etc.) and residential space above. Everything one needed was within a sensible radius. Is that the case today? In many cities across America, particularly those that were built around the automobile and the required wide expanses of road and highway, it’s difficult to even get across the street by foot. However, many developers and planners have rediscovered mixed use and infill development. Urban areas are rife with abandoned industrial and commercial spaces that, with some elbow grease and ingenuity, would be perfect for a mixed light industry/commercial development. Reviving our urban areas can also foster economic development, encouraging local entrepreneurs to try their hands in a business that meets the needs of the growing community.
Who lives in livable cities? Happy people. Studies have shown that livable cities—ones that are easily navigable by foot and bicycle—foster happy, healthy, fit communities of people. Want to improve the safety of your street? Get outside! In livable communities, children, adults and the elderly are able to walk to school, run errands or just enjoy the outdoors without having to worry about safety. |
Bombing in Russia highlights discrimination faced by those from Caucasus
By Sergei L. Loiko At 15, Israil Mirzakhanov was at a crossroads: He could stay home in the Caucasus region, where several of his friends already had been taken from their homes and had turned up dead in the street. Or he could take his chances with the rampant discrimination in Moscow.
Four years later, now a tall and fit-looking college student, he becomes something of a pariah when he steps out on the snowy streets of the capital. He tries not to look people in the eyes because he knows what he'll see. Fear. Anger. At best, indifference.
When he takes a seat on a metro train, someone sitting next to him might move to the other end of the car. |
Hubble spies faint glow of oldest, most distant galaxy
By William Harwood Using a powerful new camera on the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have discovered what appears to be the most distant object ever observed, a small proto galaxy some 13.2 billion light-years away that dates back to just 480 million years or so after the Big Bang birth of the universe.
The object was found in "deep field" images taken by Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 that combined scores of optical and infrared exposures to capture a cosmic core sample showing nearby and increasingly distant galaxies. Showing up only in infrared light, the proto galaxy appears as a small, blurry smudge at the limits of Hubble's vision. |
Colombia coal mine blast kills 20, regulator says
By Jack Kimball An explosion at a small underground coal mine in northeast Colombia killed 20 workers on Wednesday, officials said, in the latest accident to hit Latin America's mining industry.
Colombia is the world's No. 5 coal exporter, with an industry dominated by major players with open-pit mines. But some smaller mines in the Andean nation are dug underground where methane gas buildups can cause accidents.
The mining regulator Ingeominas said the latest blast, in Norte de Santander province, was probably caused by methane gas and preliminary figures showed 20 fatalities.
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How Tunisia's Revolution Began
Yasmine Ryan The people of Sidi Bouzid overcame heavy censorship and police repression to ensure that their uprising did not go unnoticed in silence.
Protesters took to the streets with "a rock in one hand, a cell phone in the other," according to Rochdi Horchani - a relative of Mohamed Bouazizi - who helped break through the media blackout.
Since the same day of the self-immolation of the 26-year-old street vendor that triggered riots causing the Tunisian leadership to flee the country, family members and friends used social media to share the news of what was happening in Sidi Bouzid with international media. |
Vietnam's own 'great wall' uncovered
By Adam Bray Nestled in the mountain foothills of a remote province in central Vietnam, one of the country's most important archaeological discoveries in a century has recently come to light.
After five years of exploration and excavation, a team of archaeologists has uncovered a 127-kilometer (79-mile) wall -- which locals have called "Vietnam's Great Wall."
Professor Phan Huy Lê, president of the Vietnam Association of Historians, said: "This is the longest monument in Southeast Asia."
The wall is built of alternating sections of stone and earth, with some sections reaching a height of up to four meters. |
Homeland Security to replace color-coded terror alerts
By Alan Levin, Long a joke on late-night talk shows, the color codes are being replaced by a system designed to give law enforcement and potential targets critical information without unnecessarily alarming or confusing the public, according to lawmakers and a Department of Homeland Security briefing paper on the change.
The five-step color codes, which range from green to red, will be phased out in the next 90 days.
Among the changes: Passengers will no longer hear the public-service recordings at airports announcing the alert level. The aviation threat has been on orange, or "high" alert, since 2006. |
Dennis Kucinich sues over sandwich
By Michael A. Memoli U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) is suing the operators of a House cafeteria for alleged negligence stemming from a almost 3-year-old incident involving a sandwich he says left him with significant dental injuries.
Kucinich is seeking $150,000 in damages from companies that run the cafeteria in the Longworth House Office Building and the providers that service it. According to the District of Columbia Superior Court, the case was filed on Jan. 3, and a hearing has been scheduled for April 8. |
Google hopes to fix weak growth of Android Market app purchases
By Ryan Paul Google's Android mobile platform is experiencing considerable growth, but the company is reportedly concerned by the slow pace of application sales from the Android Market. In an effort to boost sales and keep developers happy, the search giant is taking steps to revitalize the Android Market.
Google is going to add support for in-app purchases and has been working to establish carrier billing relationships with network operators. The company also recently launched a major redesign of the Android Market application, with the aim of making software more discoverable and smoothing out the process of finding and buying applications.
Despite these efforts, the challenges have proved difficult to overcome. Developer dissatisfaction with the Android Market has been steadily growing, and high-profile developers are becoming more vocal about their concerns. One of the most iconic examples is Rovio, the company behind the popular Angry Birds game.
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Breast Implants Are Linked to Rare but Treatable Cancer, F.D.A. Finds
By Denise Grady Breast implants may cause a small but significant increase in the risk of an extremely rare but treatable type of cancer, the Food and Drug Administration said on Wednesday.
The risk applies to both saline- and silicone-filled implants, and to all women who have them, whether for reconstruction after cancer surgery or for cosmetic enlargement of the breasts.
The cancer, anaplastic large-cell lymphoma, involves the immune system. It is not breast cancer. It is usually a systemic disease, but in the cases linked to implants, the lymphoma grew in the breast, usually in the capsule of scar tissue that formed around the implant. The cases were discovered because women developed symptoms long after they had healed from the implant surgery — lumps, pain, asymmetry of the breasts, fluid buildup and swellin |