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.
Welcome to all, join us in the comment section to share a news articles and jump into the community chat.
Army to Review Its Handling of Psychiatric Evaluations
By JAMES DAO
The Army said Wednesday that it had ordered a service-wide review of how its doctors diagnose psychiatric disorders, indicating that complaints about unfair diagnoses at a sprawling base in Washington State have been echoed on installations around the country.
The review, announced jointly by the Army secretary, John M. McHugh, and chief of staff, Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, will focus on whether consistent and accurate diagnoses are being issued by the disability evaluation system, which determines whether injured soldiers are fit to remain on duty.
Concerns about the system emerged last fall after soldiers at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Tacoma told Senator Patty Murray, a Democrat of Washington, that their diagnoses of post-traumatic stress disorder had been changed by doctors at Madigan Army Medical Center to lesser conditions. The soldiers asserted that the changes were done to save the Army money.
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Dennis Kucinich opts out of Washington state race, will retire
By Rachel Rose Hartman
Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich announced Wednesday he has decided against running for Congress in Washington state, where activists had urged him to launch a campaign. In a statement, Kucinich signaled the end of his 16-year congressional career:
Because of my love of public service, I have given a great deal of time and much thought to the advice and encouragement I have received from so many people of good will in Washington State. I certainly want to continue to be of service to our country and to the working men and women who have built it.
After careful consideration and discussions with Elizabeth and my closest friends, I have decided that, at this time, I can best serve from outside the Congress. My commitments to peace, to workers' rights and to social and economic justice are constant and are not dependent upon holding an office.
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Insight: In Ohio, "fracking" boom a delicate issue for Obama
By John Whitesides
Out past the vacant storefronts and abandoned buildings, beyond the shuttered steel mills and decaying industrial plants, residents of eastern Ohio suddenly are seeing dollar signs.
In a region more accustomed to hard times than optimism, residents hope that a boom in shale gas drilling using the controversial technique of hydraulic fracturing - or "fracking" - will lead to wealth, jobs and a reservoir of domestic energy that could dramatically boost the area's fortunes.
But the growth of fracking here and across the nation has raised concerns about contaminated groundwater, how to dispose of toxic waste and even whether fracking causes earthquakes.
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Green roofs in Nairobi save energy, water
By Gitonga Njeru
Kenyan architects are designing buildings with green roofs covered in vegetation to cool their interiors, conserve energy and water, and help curb greenhouse-gas emissions.
The capital, Nairobi, is experiencing growth in green-roofed construction, according to architects who specialize in the climate-friendly technology.
Some of these gardens in the sky – which require a flat roof and replace the vegetation destroyed when ground is cleared for construction – boast trees, as well as grass and other plants.
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Greenpeace projects giant images onto Apple HQ in protest for cleaner iCloud
By Neil Hughes
Greenpeace took its push for a "clean" iCloud to Apple's Cupertino, Calif., campus this week, projecting images onto the main building of its corporate headquarters.
In addition to projecting messages of support from Twitter and Facebook users onto the side of the building, Greenpeace activists also barricaded themselves inside an eight-foot-tall, ten-foot-wide "survival device" that has previously been used to prevent Arctic drilling.
The demonstration also featured four Greenpeace members dressed as iPhones, with fully functional screens across their torsos that displayed messages from supporters via Facebook and Twitter.
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Pioneer graves found at site of new Arizona sheriff's office
By Tim Gaynor
Workers digging the foundations for a new office of an Arizona sheriff accused of discriminating against Latinos have unearthed the graves of early city founders, some of whom could have been immigrants from Mexico, officials said.
Construction workers for Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's new office came across lines or depressions in the dirt last week that officials believed were a "minicemetery."
"When we found the lines of depressions in the ground ... we stopped work on that area and we called in archaeological and anthropological experts to help us excavate the areas," Maricopa County spokeswoman Cari Gerchick said.
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US Navy assault ship collides with tanker in Pacific; no injuries or fuel spills reported
By Lucia Mutikani
An 844-foot-long U.S. Navy assault ship collided with a refueling tanker Wednesday in the Pacific Ocean, causing damage to both ships, but there were no injuries or fuel spills, military officials said.
The midmorning accident between the amphibious assault vessel USS Essex and the oiler USNS Yukon occurred about 120 miles off the coast of Southern California as the Essex was approaching the Yukon to be refueled, said Cmdr. Charlie Brown, a spokesman for the 3rd Fleet.
Brown said the steering apparently stopped working on the Essex, which was carrying 982 crew members on its way to San Diego for scheduled maintenance. It had spent the past 12 years based in Sasebo, Japan, as command ship for the Navy’s Expeditionary Strike Group 7.
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Toning sneakers don't give users Kardashian's bottom
By Jayne O'Donnell
Consumers who bought Skechers toning shoes and the claims they'd lose weight and add muscle will be eligible for refunds under a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission announced Wednesday.
For millions of these Skechers customers, "the only thing that got a workout was their wallet," says David Vladeck, director of the FTC's consumer protection bureau.
Skechers agreed to pay $40 million to settle charges it misled consumers with the claims, which ad expert Sut Jhlally says were "shocking" in their specificity. One said Skechers' Resistance Runners would raise "muscle activation" up to 85% for some posture-related muscles, and 71% for one buttocks muscle.
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U.S. housing, industrial data point to steady growth
Reuters
Groundbreaking for U.S. homes rebounded in April and factory activity gained momentum, suggesting a moderate pickup in economic growth early in the second quarter.
The reports on Wednesday were the latest in a series to dampen fears that the recovery in the world's largest economy was stagnating after tepid job growth last month.
The Commerce Department said housing starts increased 2.6 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 717,000 units.
In a separate report, the Federal Reserve said production at the nation's mines, factories and utilities rose 1.1 percent - the largest gain since December 2010.
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Florida teacher, fired for premarital sex, has right to a trial, court rules
By Warren Richey
A federal appeals court on Wednesday reinstated a lawsuit filed by a fourth-grade teacher allegedly fired from her job at a Christian elementary school in Florida for engaging in premarital sex.
A three-judge panel of the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta ruled that Jarretta Hamilton’s lawsuit against Southland Christian School in St. Cloud, Fla., should proceed to a trial. At issue in the suit is whether the school engaged in pregnancy discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
School officials maintained that Ms. Hamilton was fired for violating the moral values of the Christian school. More specifically, school officials accused her of engaging in “fornication.”
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Can Coffee Help You Live Longer? We Really Want To Know
By Rob Stein
It seems like every day there's some new research about whether our favorite drinks are good for us. One day, science says a glass of red wine a day will help us live longer. The next day, maybe not. It seems journalists are pretty interested in wine research, as Deborah Blum over at the Knight Science Foundation recently pointed out, and the same might be said for coffee.
In fact, the latest installment in the long saga of coffee just came out, and of course, we're on it. It's a big new study that found that people who drink java appear to be less likely to die prematurely than those who don't.
Now, there's been a lot of research into whether coffee's good for our health. "The results have really been mixed," acknowledges Neal Freedman of the National Cancer Institute, who led the study published in The New England Journal of Medicine today. "There's been some evidence that coffee might increase the risk of certain diseases and there's also been maybe more recent evidence that coffee may protect against other diseases as well."
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The joke that Jimmy Kimmel didn’t tell at the WHCA dinner
jimromensko.com
“Newt Gingrich’s campaign is so dead Mitt Romney wants to baptize it and Rick Santorum wants to put it in a jar and show it to his kids.”
Jimmy Kimmel discussed this joke he decided not to tell at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner during an appearance this week on Howard Stern’s Sirius XM show.
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