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.
BBC
Nigeria abducted girls 'sighted', says state governor
The governor of Nigeria's Borno state says he has information on the whereabouts of about 200 schoolgirls kidnapped by Islamist group Boko Haram.
Governor Kashim Shettima said he had passed reports of the sightings of the girls to the military for verification.
Mr Shettima added that he did not think the girls had been taken across the border to Chad or Cameroon.
Earlier, France's president offered to host a summit on Boko Haram.
"I suggested, with Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, a meeting of Nigeria's neighbouring countries" Francois Hollande said.
"If the countries agree, it should take place next Saturday" he added.
Countries neighbouring Nigeria, such as Cameroon, Niger and Chad, would be invited to the security summit.
Aides said the US, UK and EU would also be likely to attend.
The US, UK and France have already pledged technical assistance to the Nigerian government.
BBC
Nigeria abductions: Michelle Obama 'outraged'
US First Lady Michelle Obama has said the mass kidnap of Nigerian schoolgirls is part of a wider pattern of threats and intimidation facing girls around the world who pursue an education.
She said she and her husband Barack Obama were "outraged and heartbroken" over the abduction on 14 April of more than 200 girls from their school.
She was speaking instead of her husband in the weekly presidential address.
The Islamist militant group Boko Haram has claimed the abductions.
In the latest incident attributed to Boko Haram, residents said the group destroyed an important bridge near the area in north-eastern Nigeria where the girls were seized.
It is the second reported bridge attack in two days, and may indicate an attempt to limit access for anyone trying to rescue the captives, correspondents say.
BBC
Vietnam protesters attack China over sea dispute
Hundreds of people across Vietnam have protested against China's role in a sea dispute - the largest rallies of their kind recently in the communist country.
In the capital, Hanoi, demonstrators sang patriotic songs and held up placards opposite the Chinese embassy.
Tensions have been running high after Vietnamese ships clashed with Chinese vessels guarding an oil rig in a contested area of the South China Sea.
The protests appear to have the Vietnamese government's approval.
The country's communist authorities have broken up previous anti-China demonstrations because of fears that they may be hijacked by pro-democracy activists, says the BBC's Asia Pacific editor, Charles Scanlon.
Nevertheless, he says, Hanoi has also used the demonstrations to communicate its anger over what it sees as Beijing's aggressive infringement of Vietnamese sovereignty.
Al Jazeera America
Iran has developed the capacity to destroy a U.S. warship on less than a minute’s notice, says Commander
Iran has developed the capacity to destroy a U.S. warship on less than a minute’s notice, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) said Tuesday in comments that were met with skepticism by military experts in the West.
In the latest threat that Iran’s hardline military forces have levied at U.S. presence in the region, Navy Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi told semi-official Fars news agency that his forces have been building replicas of U.S. frigates and aircraft carriers for years in order to practice blowing them up. His forces, which patrol the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz — a major oil supply route — but are separate from the Iranian navy, have the capacity to sink U.S. vessels in that area in 50 seconds, he said.
“We practice the same drills on replica aircraft carriers because sinking and destroying U.S. warships has, is and will be on our agenda,” Fadavi said. “Aircraft carriers are the symbol of America’s military might…so it’s natural that we want to sink the carriers.”
The revelations from the admiral appeared to solve the mystery of satellite imagery published by CNN in March depicting a model of the U.S. Navy’s Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, complete with planes, docked in Iran’s Gachin shipyard. Iranian media had reported the ship was “part of the décor” for a movie from esteemed director Nader Talabzadeh about the 1988 downing of an Iranian Air plane by the USS Vincennes
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Raw Story Too late.
Former George Zimmerman defender now says he was guilty, racially profiled black men
A former friend and neighbor of George Zimmerman, who had previously defended the man accused of stalking and killing 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, has had a change of heart, stating that he believes that Zimmerman got away with murder.
Frank Taafe, who served on the neighborhood watch with Zimmerman, told News13 he believes Martin was racially profiled by Zimmerman and would not have been followed if he “had been a white kid on a cell phone.”
“What I know of George and his tendencies and also my opinion is that he racially profiled Trayvon Martin that night because if that had been a white kid on a cell phone, walking through our neighborhood, he wouldn’t have stayed on him the way he did and that’s a fact and I believe that in my heart,” said Taaffe.
Taafe, a frequent guest on television up to and during the Zimmerman trial defending both his former friend and the Stand You Ground law that figured into the case, had previously stated that Zimmerman did not profile people.
Raw Story
Widespread antibiotic resistance found across 71 environments, including oceans, soil and human feces
Resistance to commonly used antibiotics are in the genes of bacteria everywhere, researchers at the University of Lyon in France have discovered.
A worldwide study of the gene sequences of bacteria, published in the journal Cell Biology today, has found resistance across 71 environments, including oceans, soil and human feces.
The researchers analysed gene samples from public repository websites.
Lead author of the study, Joseph Nesme, said while the finding that antibiotic resistance exists in the environment is not new, the results showed they were present in considerable abundance.
They found that 30 % of total known antibiotic drugs resistance genes could be found in a single soil sample.
“Such results reinforce models that consider the environment as a major reservoir of antibiotic resistance that can be transferred to pathogens,” he said.
Raw Story
China signs massive $3.8 billion rail deal that will link Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan
China on Sunday signed a deal to build a $3.8 billion rail link between Kenya's Indian Ocean port of Mombasa and Nairobi, the first stage of a line that will eventually link Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan.
Under the terms of the agreement, Exim Bank of China will provide 90 percent of the cost to replace the crumbling British colonial-era line with a 609.3 kilometre (379 mile) standard-gauge link and Kenya the remaining 10 percent.
Construction is due to start in October and take three-and-a-half years to complete, with China Communications Construction Co. as the main contractor.
Once the Mombasa-Nairobi line is completed, construction would begin to link east Africa's largest economy with Kampala, Kigali, Bujumbura and Juba.
Raw Story
Report: Passage of anti-LGBT laws in Uganda led to ten-fold increase in attacks
Uganda has suffered an alarming rise in attacks on gay and lesbian people since it passed an anti-homosexuality law late last year, research has found.
The report, compiled by Sexual Minorities Uganda, detailed an attempted lynching, mob violence, homes burned down, blackmail, lost jobs, arrests, evictions and suicides. The number of recorded incidents had increased tenfold, the group said. At least 25 people were reported to have fled Uganda, seeking asylum in neighbouring Kenya and Rwanda.
In many cases tabloid newspapers published stories identifying men or women who were subsequently disowned by their family or assaulted in the street. Several are facing prosecution.
“The passing of AHA has given permission to a culture of extreme and violent homophobia whereby both state and non-state actors are free to persecute Uganda’s LGBTI people with impunity,” the report stated.
CNet
Being ignored on Facebook is psychological hell
Oh, please rec my diary.
If you can be honest with me just one time, today is the day.
You don't really go onto Facebook to see how everyone else is, do you? You go there to get something crucial to your well-being.
You post something not because you want to inform, but because you hope someone will offer love. Preferably at least 10 people. It's even better when they don't just click the "like" button, but they also comment with an expression of praise or envy.
But what happens when you get ignored? Are you hurt? Do you fume? Do you begin to feel that your position in life is slipping faster than a luge on ice?
If you do, you are merely the new normal. For research by the University of Queensland's School of Psychology in Australia shows that being ignored on Facebook is perhaps the worse thing that can happen to a human being. Well, almost.
As Science Daily reports, the researchers tried two studies to gauge human suffering on social networks.
In one, they simply had half the group posting on Facebook and the other half lurking, observing, itching to post. After just two days, the latter group struggled to like themselves at all, believing they were but grains of sand in golf course bunkers.
Naturally, I paraphrase slightly, but not so much as to ignore the essential truth.
N Y Times
A Health Care Showdown in Virginia
In Virginia, there are 400,000 low-income people who can’t afford health coverage but don’t qualify for federal insurance subsidies. If they lived across the state line in Maryland, West Virginia or Kentucky, which have expanded their Medicaid programs, they could get the coverage they need. Terry McAuliffe, the Virginia governor, campaigned on bringing an expanded Medicaid program to Virginia, too.
But it hasn’t happened, and the reason is a group of recalcitrant Republicans in the House of Delegates who have blocked Medicaid expansion at every opportunity. They are so determined to keep poor people from getting health care that they are preventing passage of a two-year budget for the state for the fiscal year beginning July 1. If an agreement isn’t reached by then, they seem fully prepared to let the state government shut down, furloughing employees and shuttering services just as their counterparts in Washington did last fall.
Virginia is at least debating the issue. Nineteen Republican-dominated states, mostly in the South and Midwest, have flatly said no. To accept expanded Medicaid in their view is to accept the Affordable Care Act and let the public witness its benefits. They cannot allow that to happen. One Virginia Republican said his colleagues were openly hoping to limit the number of people covered by the law.
BBC
At least two die in Virginia hot air balloon crash
Now confirmed three deaths.
At least two people have died after a hot air balloon hit a power line and burst into flames in front of a horrified US crowd.
The bodies were found after Friday's accident in Richmond, Virginia.
Two passengers jumped or fell from the gondola as the pilot attempted to control the balloon, police say.
It had been one of 13 that took off from Meadow Event Park and was approaching a nearby landing site when it drifted into the live cable.
One witness said she saw the balloon in flames and heard people screaming.
"They were just screaming for anybody to help them," Carrie Hager-Bradley told WWBT TV, adding that one person had screamed: "Help me, help me, sweet Jesus, help. I'm going to die. Oh my God, I'm going to die.
"
CNN
Texas police officer defends shooting a 93-year-old woman
(This is a tough read, might want to skip it)
(CNN) -- A police officer who fatally shot a 93-year-old woman at her home in Texas is defending his use of deadly force and lashing out at the City Council that fired him.
Stephen Stem was dismissed from the Hearne Police Department on Saturday. He argues his termination was unjust.
"The knee-jerk reaction to terminate Mr. Stem was not about whether Ms. Golden chose to create and perpetuate a life-threatening situation. That is a clear and indisputable fact.
"Rather, the city's decision was about appeasing certain members of the community who want to make this case about Ms. Golden's age, the fact she is African-American, or the fact she is a woman.
"None of those factors played a role in Stem's decision to use deadly force," Robert McCabe, Stem's attorney, said in a statement Sunday.
His comments come as Texas Rangers continue an investigation into why Pearlie Golden, a longtime resident in this small town of about 4,600 people between Dallas and Houston, was shot multiple times at her home Tuesday.
S F Gate
Bay Area will be scorching hot this week
Stock up on fans, ice cream and possibly fire hoses: A record-setting heat wave is expected to smother an already-parched Bay Area this week with temperatures topping 100 degrees.
"We're looking at temperatures dramatically above normal," said Diana Henderson, meteorologist with the National Weather Service. "And it's only May."
The hottest days will be Tuesday and Wednesday, as the mercury is expected to soar into triple digits in Livermore, Gilroy, Antioch and other inland areas. Even the coast will be warm, with temperatures at Point Reyes and Half Moon Bay slated to hit 80. San Francisco is predicted to see 89 degrees, topping the previous record of 87 degrees set in 1922.
It will be the warmest weather so far this year and marks an unusually early start to the seasonal heat waves, Henderson said. A high-pressure ridge and easterly desert winds are to blame, she said.