Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, current leader Neon Vincent, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, wader, Man Oh Man, rfall, and JML9999. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse, ek hornbeck, ScottyUrb, Interceptor7, BentLiberal, Oke and jlms qkw. The guest editors are Doctor RJ and annetteboardman.
Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.
The Guardian
Meryl Davis and Charlie White won a gold medal in ice dance on Monday, the first Olympic title in the event to go to the United States.
Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir of Canada, the 2010 champions, took silver. Russia’s Elena Ilinykh and Nikita Katsalapov took bronze.
Davis and White won silver in Vancouver, but in the four years since have overtaken the Canadians, their training partners in Detroit.
The Americans scored 116.63 points in the free dance to finish with 195.52, 4.53 ahead of Virtue and Moir. After a near-flawless performance to Shéhérazade, Davis rested her head on White’s back in exhausted elation.
USA Today
SOCHI, Russia – The wardrobe malfunction occurred on ice to the music of a Michael Jackson Medley. Brother and sister Alex and Maia Shibutani did their best to improvise and make it through their Olympic ice dancing moment Monday night.
During a lift, her black-sequined skirt somehow got caught on his black sequined jacket. Instead of him moving her across his body, the duo from Ann Arbor, Mich., had to struggled to overcome the snag. They were stuck together.
“When you get caught, you can’t really do too much about it. We were trying to un-rip it without setting the lift down and keeping the lift up,” said Maia, 19, who said nothing like that had ever occurred to them in competition.
They stuck with the lift. She finally worked free. Afterward, she showed that her left tight around the thigh was ripped during the effort.
McClatchy
ASHINGTON — Faith Spotted Eagle figures that building a crude oil pipeline from Canada to the U.S. Gulf Coast would bring little to Indian Country besides more crime and dirty water, but she doubts that Native Americans will ever get the U.S. government to block the $7 billion project.
“There is no way for Native people to say no – there never has been,” said Spotted Eagle, 65, a Yankton Sioux tribal elder from Lake Andes, S.D. “Our history has caused us not to be optimistic. . . . When you have capitalism, you have to have an underclass – and we’re the underclass.”
Opponents may be down after a State Department study found that the proposed Keystone XL pipeline would not contribute to global warming. But they haven’t abandoned their goal of killing what some call “the black snake.”
Al Jazeera America
When anti-smoking advocate La Tanisha Wright looked at the details of an agreement reached last month between the three largest American tobacco companies, the Justice Department and a coalition of anti-tobacco groups, she said her "heart dropped."
Part of the settlement includes a set of "corrective statements," public-service advertisements about the health effects of tobacco use and admissions that tobacco companies knowingly lied about the health consequences of tobacco. These are supposed to run in more than 600 newspapers around the country and on three TV networks.
But to Wright's amazement, African-American media, which saw extensive targeted advertising by the tobacco industry for decades, were excluded from the deal.
The Guardian
A failed attempt to extend union recognition into southern manufacturing states erupted in bitter recriminations on Monday as labour leaders across the US accused Republican opponents of “extortion”.
Employees at Volkswagen’s Chattanooga factory in Tennessee voted narrowly against joining the United Auto Workers union despite support from the German company’s largely unionised workforce in the rest of the world.
But warnings from local Republican politicians that recognition would lead to a loss of state subsidies has prompted a sharp attack from several unions, underlining a high-stakes struggle that goes far beyond one car factory.
Union leaders in Washington argue that their declining membership and influence is a major factor behind the decades-long slump in US wage rates and rising social inequality that is increasingly acknowledged as a national problem by both political parties.
The Guardian
When the US supreme court struck down the federal definition of marriage as between a man and a woman in a historic ruling last year, it left open the question of the constitutionality of similar state laws and, with it, the door to a host of legal challenges.
Over the past few weeks, the momentum that kicked off with America's highest court's recognition of same-sex marriage in June has accelerated rapidly through the lower courts. The end of last year and beginning of 2014 have seen a series of favourable civil rights decisions by federal judges over challenges brought by gay and lesbian couples living in some of the 33 states with same-sex marriage bans, ruling them unconstitutional.
States that voluntarily embraced marriage equality tended to be clustered in the north and north-east, such as New York, Washington DC and Massachusetts. But since last year's ruling, court challenges are gathering pace in traditionally conservative states with voter-approved bans on same-sex marriage. Last week, Virginia became the first southern state ever to have its voter-approved prohibition on same-sex marriage overturned. The recent election of a Democratic governor and attorney general accelerated the moves there.
BBC
Researchers claim a new study provides some of the most compelling evidence yet for tighter gun controls in the US.
The team followed the consequences of the State of Missouri repealing its permit-to-purchase handgun law in 2007.
The law had required purchasers to be vetted by the local sheriff and to receive a licence before buying a gun.
Reporting soon in the Journal of Urban Health, the researchers will say that the repeal resulted in an immediate spike in gun violence and murders.
The study links the abandonment of the background check to an additional 60 or so murders occurring per year in Missouri between 2008 and 2012.
"Coincident exactly with the policy change, there was an immediate upward trajectory to the homicide rates in Missouri," said Prof Daniel Webster, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research.
Reuters
Venezuela ordered out three U.S. diplomats on Monday, accusing them of recruiting students to lead protests that were the OPEC nation's most serious violence since President Nicolas Maduro's April election and in which three people were killed.
Foreign Minister Elias Jaua said the three consular staff used visa visits to universities as cover for promoting protests by students, adding they had 48 hours to leave the country.
The demonstrations, which have energized the opposition but show few signs they can oust Maduro, continued on Monday with rowdy protests around Caracas and various provincial cities.
"They have been visiting universities with the pretext of granting visas," said Jaua, who often faced off against police during his own days as a student demonstrator.
"But that is a cover for making contacts with (student) leaders to offer them training and financing to create youth groups that generate violence," he told reporters.
BBC
A Florida artist is facing criminal charges after deliberately dropping a vase by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei in an apparent protest.
Maximo Caminero, 51, was charged with criminal mischief after breaking the $1m (£600,000) vase on Sunday in Miami.
Police say Mr Caminero told them he broke the art work in protest at the Perez Art Museum Miami's failure to exhibit work by local artists.
Ai Weiwei was detained in 2011 by China during a crackdown on dissent.
The museum is holding an exhibition of the Chinese artist's work until mid-March.
A security guard told police officers that Mr Caminero picked up a coloured vase that was part of a floor installation, and when told to put it down, smashed it on the floor, according to a police affidavit.
The Guardian
When the US supreme court struck down the federal definition of marriage as between a man and a woman in a historic ruling last year, it left open the question of the constitutionality of similar state laws and, with it, the door to a host of legal challenges.
Over the past few weeks, the momentum that kicked off with America's highest court's recognition of same-sex marriage in June has accelerated rapidly through the lower courts. The end of last year and beginning of 2014 have seen a series of favourable civil rights decisions by federal judges over challenges brought by gay and lesbian couples living in some of the 33 states with same-sex marriage bans, ruling them unconstitutional.
States that voluntarily embraced marriage equality tended to be clustered in the north and north-east, such as New York, Washington DC and Massachusetts. But since last year's ruling, court challenges are gathering pace in traditionally conservative states with voter-approved bans on same-sex marriage. Last week, Virginia became the first southern state ever to have its voter-approved prohibition on same-sex marriage overturned. The recent election of a Democratic governor and attorney general accelerated the moves there.
ESPN
If Missouri defensive end Michael Sam is drafted in May and becomes the NFL's first openly gay player, he'll walk into a league that seems to be moving closer to acceptance but is still dealing with growing pains as it does so.
ESPN.com's NFL Nation and ESPN The Magazine combined on an anonymous survey last week off the news of Sam coming out as the first openly gay NFL prospect. Fifty-one players, almost an entire team roster, responded to four true-false questions. Although the survey showed that most players aren't concerned with another's sexual orientation, it also made clear the concerns that players would have with learning how to relate to an openly gay teammate.
Forty-four players said a teammate's sexual orientation didn't matter to them, and 39 said they would be comfortable showering around a gay teammate. But 32 players said they had teammates or coaches who used homophobic slurs last season, and when asked whether an openly gay player would be comfortable in a NFL locker room, just 25 players said yes; 21 said no, while five declined to answer.
Reuters
North Korean security chiefs and possibly even Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un himself should face international justice for ordering systematic torture, starvation and killings comparable to Nazi-era atrocities, U.N. investigators said on Monday.
The investigators told Kim in a letter they were advising the United Nations to refer North Korea to the International Criminal Court (ICC), to make sure any culprits "including possibly yourself" were held accountable.
North Korea "categorically and totally" rejected the accusations set out in a 372-page report, saying they were based on material faked by hostile forces backed by the United States, the European Union and Japan.
Reuters
A delegation from Afghanistan's High Peace Council has traveled to Dubai to meet former and current Taliban figures, in the hope of laying the groundwork for peace talks to end Afghanistan's long conflict, sources familiar with the move told Reuters.
Officials led by Mohammad Masoom Stanekzai, a senior aide to President Hamid Karzai, traveled on Sunday to the United Arab Emirates, officials from the High Peace Council and the Afghan government confirmed.
The delegation planned to meet a group of Taliban figures led by Agha Jan Mutassim, who was a finance minister during the Taliban's 1996-2001 government, the officials said on condition of anonymity.
The trip comes on the heels of a gathering Mutassim recently convened in Dubai, which Afghan officials said included 16 high-ranking former and current Taliban figures, the officials said, including six former Taliban ministers and half a dozen men said to be current commanders in the militant group.
Reuters
If Scots vote now on independence, their 307-year-old union with England will continue - nine polls since December show the No vote winning their referendum by anywhere from 8 to 28 percentage points.
The trouble for investors in Britain, and anyone taking a view on whether the United Kingdom survives, is they don't vote for another seven months and many Scots say they may change their mind by September 18. That has drawn significant betting on a Yes vote and may well upset so far sanguine financial markets.
"I think anyone would be pretty foolish to predict with any certainty at this stage," said Edinburgh pollster Mark Diffley, even though his firm, Ipsos, has always found a solid majority saying they would vote No. Most recently, in December, fully 63 percent of those giving Ipsos an opinion opposed independence.
An average of nine polls since early December shows the Yes vote losing the referendum by 20 points, a score of 60-40. The numbers have shown little change over the past two years.
McClatchy
SOCHI, RUSSIA — A transgender former member of Italy's parliament has been arrested in Sochi, according to Italian media reports.
Vladimir Luxuria, who was Italy's first openly transgender elected official, was allegedly arrested after she held a rainbow-colored banner that said "Gay is OK" in Russian.
Luxuria also tweeted a picture of herself outside the Olympics' Medal Park holding a rainbow-colored hand fan. The message under the picture said 'I'm in Sochi! Regards with the colors of the rainbow, in the face of Putin!'
Al Jazeera America
SOCHI, Russia — Sixteen years after Canadian snowboarder Ross Rebagliati won, lost and ultimately regained an Olympic gold medal (on appeal) after a lab found traces of marijuana metabolites in his urine sample, athletes are still forbidden to “smoke a fatty for Rebagliati” in Sochi because marijuana use remains prohibited during competition.
But 2014 marks the first Olympics since then in which athletes don’t have to fret as much about testing positive for small concentrations of THC that overstay their welcome after out-of-competition use, which is not prohibited, or from standing in someone else’s cannabis cloud.
In May 2013, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) raised the in-competition threshold for marijuana tenfold, to 150 nanograms per milliliter. The move is in line with evolving views toward marijuana across the United States and the rest of the world. Colorado and Washington having legalized the drug altogether, and some 20 states, plus Washington, D.C., allow medical marijuana use. Uruguay became the first country in the world to legalize it, and Mexico City is mulling a pair of bills to decriminalize pot. And while weed remains illegal in the U.S., Barack Obama’s administration issued rules this month allowing banks to do business with state-licensed marijuana companies — something they had been wary of for fear of breaking federal law.
Spiegel Online
The Swiss aren't the only ones in Europe deeply concerned about immigration. Many across the Continent would also like to see limits placed on newcomers from elsewhere in the EU. Europe must remain firm, but right-wing populists stand to benefit.
The man who sent all of Europe into a flurry of agitation is battling a persistent cough. But Christoph Blocher is in the best of moods nonetheless. He is enjoying his victory in the five-star Hotel Ermitage near Gstaad at an altitude of 1,231 meters (4,038 feet) with the snow-covered Alpine peaks of the Berner Oberland as a backdrop.
Blocher is wearing brown pants and a plaid shirt stretched over his ample belly. The sun is shining, the sky is blue, the receptionists are wearing traditional folk costumes and paintings of happy-looking cows decorate the walls. It is how he likes his country of Switzerland.
NPR
Details are starting to come out about what it was like Monday when one of the pilots of an Ethiopian Airlines flight reportedly locked himself in the cockpit and flew the jet and its 193 passengers to Geneva, Switzerland, instead of Rome, its intended destination.
According to The Wall Street Journal:
"The high-altitude drama started when the chief pilot of the Boeing 767-300 left the airliner's cockpit to use the toilet, said Robert Deillon, chief executive of the Geneva airport. The hijacker then locked the cockpit door and took control of the aircraft, he said.
"The Italian military scrambled two Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jets to intercept the plane, though it said the Ethiopian Airlines plane never displayed 'hostile intent' as it flew through the country's airspace.
"French fighters picked up the aircraft when it entered French airspace, accompanying it to Geneva, where according to Fredrik Lindahl, chief executive of Flightradar24, a flight-tracking website, it circled 'extensively around Lake Geneva' before landing."
DW
The German chancellor met with Ukrainian opposition leaders Vitali Klitschko and Arseni Yatsenyuk late Monday afternoon in Berlin. The visit was aimed at garnering more support from Chancellor Merkel's government for the opposition's efforts to curb powers of the Ukrainian president in order to end several months of mass protests and political unrest in Kyiv.
The chancellor's spokesperson, Steffen Seibert, said Merkel had expressed "sympathy for the legitimate concerns of the Ukrainian people." He also said that she had reassured Klitschko and Yatsenyuk that Germany, in cooperation with the EU, would do everything it could to contribute to a positive outcome to the crisis.
While Chancellor Merkel said she supported the opposition's goals of pushing for constitutional reform and forming a new government, she said that she did not agree with Klitschko's calls for sanctions against the Ukrainian government.
THE ENVIRONMENT, SCIENCE, HEALTH AND TECHNOLOGY
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Spiegel Online
A decade ago, the tech scene in China was grim. But these days young start-ups are turning heads and attracting investors from overseas. As their products find success abroad, Chinese entrepreneurs are acting locally, but thinking globally.
It's a private party in The Basement, a club in Beijing's Sanlitun nightlife quarter: "We Will Rock You" blares from the speakers as about 100 young Chinese gyrate on the dance floor. The women are wearing glowing red, green and blue headbands. The men are filming them with their iPhones.
The Internet firm 36Kr is throwing the party for customers and employees to bid farewell to the year of the snake. The company's third year, and its most successful, is just coming to an end.
The Guardian
A "potentially hazardous" asteroid the size of three football fields will come uncomfortably close to Earth early on Tuesday.
The space rock, known as 2000 EM26, poses no threat and will pass the Earth at just under nine times the distance to the moon.
But it is defined as a potentially hazardous near-Earth object (NEO) large enough to cause significant damage in the event of an impact. Scientists estimate the asteroid, travelling at 27,000mph, is 270 metres (885ft) wide.
At its closest approach at 2am UK time, the rock will be 2.1m miles from Earth, or 8.8 lunar distances.
Images of the asteroid making its flyby will be captured by the Slooh robotic telescope service, which provides internet access to automated observatories.
2000 EM26 makes its appearance almost exactly a year after two major NEO events on 15 February 2013.
NPR
A handful of nonprofit and for-profit groups are working to address what they see as a national education crisis: Too few of America's K-12 public schools actually teach computer science basics and fewer still offer it for credit.
It's projected that in the next decade there will be about 1 million more U.S. jobs in the tech sector than computer science graduates to fill them. And it's estimated that only about 10 percent of K-12 schools teach computer science.
So some in the education technology sector, an industry worth some $8 billion a year and growing, are stepping in.
At a Silicon Valley hotel recently, venture capitalists and interested parties heard funding pitches and watched demonstrations from 13 ed-tech start-ups backed by an incubator called Imagine K-12. One of them is Kodable, which aims to teach kids five years and younger the fundamentals of programming through a game where you guide a Pac-Man-esque fuzz ball.
"As soon as you can start learning [coding] you should, because the earlier you start learning something, the better you'll be at it later in life," says Grechen Huebner, the co-founder of Kodable. She's working two computer screens to demonstrate how the game works in the hotel lobby.
BBC
Google has acquired SlickLogin - an Israeli start-up behind the technology that allows websites to verify a user's identity by using sound waves.
It works by playing a uniquely generated, nearly-silent sound through computer speakers, which is picked up by an app on the user's smartphone.
The app analyses the sound and sends a signal back to confirm the identity.
The technology can be used either as a replacement for a password or as an additional security layer.
SlickLogin confirmed the acquisition on its website but did not provide any financial details of the deal.
CNET
Apple may have been kicking the tires on Tesla, according to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, which reported that the company's chief of mergers and acquisitions met with Tesla CEO Elon Musk last year.
Adrian Perica met with Musk and "probably" Apple CEO Tim Cook at Apple's Cupertino headquarters last spring, according to the report, which cited a source whose identity was concealed to protect business relationships.
"While a megadeal has yet to emerge (for all of its cash, Apple still plays hardball on valuation), such a high-level meeting between the two Silicon Valley giants involving their top deal makers suggests Apple was very much interested in buying the electric car pioneer," the report said.
CNET
Here's what makes our mobile devices ever more spectacular: larger screens, higher resolutions, faster modems, and speedier processors. And here's the oft substantial cost of all that: big-time battery consumption.
Handset makers constantly strive to squeeze more milliamps into a phone battery. The challenge of so while keeping a slim profile is clear to anyone who has used a charging case. But even here there is a tradeoff beyond potential girth. As batteries get larger and chargers send a fixed amount of juice using the microUSB specification, wireless charging times can increase dramatically.
Science Blog
A commonly-used HIV drug has been shown to kill-off the human papilloma virus (HPV) that leads to cervical cancer in a world-first clinical trial led by The University of Manchester with Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) in Nairobi.
Drs Ian and Lynne Hampson, from the University’s Institute of Cancer Sciences and Dr Innocent Orora Maranga, Consultant in Obstetrics and Gynaecology at KNH in Nairobi examined Kenyan women diagnosed with HPV positive early stage cervical cancer who were treated with the antiviral HIV drug lopinavir in Kenya.