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.
Three injured as two natural gas barges explode in Mobile River near Austal (live updates)
By Sally Pearsall Ericson
Three people were hurt in a fuel barge explosion on the east side of Mobile River on Wednesday night, Mobile Fire-Rescue reported.
The natural gas fuel barge was at the Austal shipyard, and was partially emptied, according to Steve Huffman, spokesperson for Mobile Fire-Rescue.
The injured were taken to USA Medical Center with burns, said Lt. Timothy Williams with the U.S. Coast Guard, who confirmed that there were multiple explosions on one barge.
The barge contained multiple compartments to transport natural gas, Williams said. Rescue personnel believed there were two other compartments on the barge, each containing 2,000 gallons of natural gas.
U.S. House to vote on bill honoring 16th Street bombing victims
By Robyn Sirmans
The U.S. House of Representatives has announced plans to vote Wednesday on H.R. 360.
It's a resolution that will request Congress to bestow its highest civilian honor--the Congressional Gold Medal--to Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Denise McNair.
The four girls were killed in the 1963 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing in Birmingham.
"I look forward to this historic opportunity to vote on this bill that will honor the lives of Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley posthumously with a Congressional Gold Medal. This medal will serve as a powerful reminder of the importance of the many sacrifices made and the great achievements obtained so that this nation can live up to its ideals of equality and justice for all. I am delighted to have Diane Braddock and Lisa McNair, the sisters of Carole Robertson and Denise McNair, join me on Wednesday and I look forward to the passage of the bill," said Rep. Terri Sewell.
"The presentation of a Congressional Gold Medal would be a fitting commemoration of the legacy of these four young girls and of a landmark event in the civil rights movement that led to permanent change for the better in our society. From the vantage point of 50 years later, we can see how the belief of the civil rights movement in nonviolent change helped our nation to avoid the animosities and calamities that have destroyed the fabric of other societies and countries," said Rep. Spencer Bachus.
Starbucks, under fire in UK, seeks U.S. tax breaks
By Kim Dixon
Coffee chain Starbucks Corp (SBUX.O), which has faced criticism for its low tax rate in Britain, has sought new tax breaks in the United States in comments to a congressional committee.
As U.S. lawmakers move closer to possibly overhauling the tax code for the first time since 1986, scores of companies and interest groups have submitted comments to the tax law-writing Ways and Means Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp, a Republican, has vowed to introduce tax code overhaul legislation this year.
EPA: Tar Sands Pipelines Should Be Held To Different Standards
by Elizabeth Shogren
Up until now, pipelines that carry tar sands oil have been treated just like pipelines that carry any other oil. But the Environmental Protection Agency now says that should change. That's because when tar sands oil spills, it can be next to impossible to clean up.
The agency made this argument in its evaluation of the State Department's environmental review of the Keystone XL pipeline project, which, if approved, would carry heavy crude from Alberta, Canada, to refineries in the United States.
The urges the State Department to set special standards to prevent Keystone from spilling, and make sure any spills that happen are rapidly contained.
The EPA says it has learned about the additional risks of tar sands spills from a cleanup of a into Michigan's Kalamazoo River that has dragged out nearly three years and cost more than $1 billion. A lot of the heavy crude sank to the bottom and hasn't biodegraded.
How Therapy Can Help in the Golden Years
By Abby Ellin
Marvin Tolkin was 83 when he decided that the unexamined life wasn’t worth living. Until then, it had never occurred to him that there might be emotional “issues” he wanted to explore with a counselor.
“I don’t think I ever needed therapy,” said Mr. Tolkin, a retired manufacturer of women’s undergarments who lives in Manhattan and Hewlett Harbor, N.Y.
Though he wasn’t clinically depressed, Mr. Tolkin did suffer from migraines and “struggled through a lot of things in my life” — the demise of a long-term business partnership, the sudden death of his first wife 18 years ago. He worried about his children and grandchildren, and his relationship with his current wife, Carole.
Sky-watchers' Guide: Lunar Eclipse Thursday
By Andrew Fazekas
The full moon will get a tiny bite taken out of it tomorrow as it undergoes one of the shallowest and shortest partial eclipses of this century. (See lunar eclipse pictures.)
Here's what you need to know about the rare lunar event.
What is a lunar eclipse?
A lunar eclipse occurs when the sun, Earth, and moon align. During total lunar eclipses, the entire moon is engulfed in Earth's darkest shadow. But during partial eclipses, the moon never completely goes dark or turns red—only a portion of its disk appears to go dim. (Read about a total lunar eclipse in 2011.)
"In this case, the moon only just clips the edge of the deepest part of the shadow, called the umbra," said Mark Hammergren, an astronomer at Adler Planetarium in Chicago, Illinois.
"The entire northern half of the moon will be slightly darkened by the penumbra, a broader, less intense area of the Earth's shadow."
Where Do Hawaii's Great White Sharks Come From?
by Douglas Main
Although it's a relatively rare occurrence, great white sharks have occasionally been sighted near the Hawaiian Islands throughout history (and even prehistory -- teeth from white sharks have been found in artifacts from ancient islanders).
The small number of sightings and lack of young sharks seen, however, suggests that there isn't one group of sharks that lives in the region, and that the animals that have been spotted are drifters who have wandered far from their native waters. But whence do they come?
With security eyes focused on airlines, terrorists look to rail, experts say
By Ian Simpson
Dhaka: many dead as garment factory building that supplied west collapses
Saad Hammadi in Dhaka, Jason Burke and Rebecca Smithers
Hundreds of garment workers employed in factories that supplied high-street shops in the west, including Primark, the discount clothing store, are feared dead after an eight-storey building collapsed on the outskirts of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, on Wednesday.
The death toll was as high as 147 by Thursday morning, according to officials cited by the Reuters and Associated Press news agencies, and looked likely to rise further.
One rescue worker said about 2,000 people were working on the upper floors of the factory, the Rana Plaza in the suburb of Savar, when the collapse occurred at about 9am on Wednesday, just after work had started for the day. He added that about 1,000 had been pulled from the rubble. Other estimates for the number of workers in the building as a whole were as high as 5,000.