Welcome to the Overnight News Digest (OND) for Tuesday, July 07, 2015.
OND is a regular
community feature on Daily Kos, consisting of news stories from around the world, sometimes coupled with a daily theme, original research or commentary. Editors of OND impart their own presentation styles and content choices, typically publishing near 12:00AM Eastern Time.
Creation and early water-bearing of the OND concept came from our very own Magnifico - proper respect is due.
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This diary is named for its "Hump Point" video: Tell Me What by Fine Young Cannibals
News below Aunt Flossie's hairdo . . .
Please feel free to browse and add your own links, content or thoughts in the Comments section.
Any timestamps shown are relative to each publication.
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Top News |
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U.S. Army Plans to Cut Troop Numbers to Pre–World War II Levels
By (TIME)
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The U.S. Army has announced plans to cut 40,000 troops and 17,000 civilian employees over the next two and a half years in accordance with Pentagon budget reductions.
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Some of the cuts are the anticipated deflation of the troop surge witnessed in 2012, when the armed conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan were at their peaks. The remainder reflects an ongoing shrinking of the military budget in the wake of two expensive wars.
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“One person who’s going to be very pleased with this is Vladimir Putin,” said Senator Dan Sullivan, a Republican from Alaska.
On Monday, U.S. President Barack Obama remarked that his administration has no current plans to escalate the military presence in areas of ongoing conflict. There are currently 3,500 stationed in Iraq, a point of frustration for those who view Washington’s response to militant Islamic group ISIS as lukewarm.
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Greenland Experiences Sudden Onset of Melt Season
By Brian Kahn and Climate Central
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After a cool spring kept Greenland’s massive ice sheet mostly solid, a (comparatively) warm late June and early July have turned half the ice sheet’s surface into liquid, well outside the range of normal for this time of year.
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In addition to warmer than normal temperatures, Greenland’s ice sheet has been getting steadily darker. This year currently ranks as the third-darkest on record for early July.
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The ice sheet’s fate is intimately tied to sea level rise. Its melt is responsible about 30 percent of observed sea level rise since the 1990s. Over the past two decades, Greenland has seen its contribution to sea level rise increase.
That trend is projected to continue as the planet warms and could put coastal cities at risk and cause trillions of dollars in damage.
In addition to sea level rise, the influx of freshwater could also be slowing the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, a crucial ocean current that transfers heat from the tropics poleward. If that pattern stalls out, it could reduce nutrients in the North Atlantic and alter circulation in other parts of the world’s oceans.
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UK and US demands to access encrypted data are 'unprincipled and unworkable'
By Ewen MacAskill
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The expert opinion comes on the eve of an appearance before the US Senate intelligence committee by the FBI director, James Comey, who last year savaged tech companies for embracing end-to-end encryption, claiming it would deprive the security services of potentially life-saving information.
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Among problems they identify is the ability of the US government and its law enforcement agencies to protect the security credentials that would unlock data. “If law enforcement has guaranteed access to everything, an attacker who gains access to these keys would enjoy the same privilege,” the report says.
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“China has already intimated that it may require exceptional access. If a British-based developer deploys a messaging application used by citizens of China, must it provide exceptional access to Chinese law enforcement? Which countries have sufficient respect for the rule of law to participate in an international exceptional access framework?” the report says.
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The authors include Whit Diffie, one of the pioneers of public key cryptography; Bruce Schneier, author of several books on computer security; Josh Benaloh, senior cryptographer at Microsoft Research; Susan Landau, former senior staff policy adviser at Google; Steven Bellovin, professor at Columbia University and a pioneer of firewalls; and Ross Anderson, professor of security engineering at Cambridge University.
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“There are three tests for exceptional access to be compatible with human rights. The required access must be set out in law sufficiently clearly for its effects to be foreseeable, it must be proportionate and it must be necessary in a democratic society. The government demands for access to everything fail all these tests by a mile.”
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WHO 'unfit for health emergencies'
By Michelle Roberts
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The review panel says WHO was too slow to act to get on top of the deadly virus which has now killed more than 11,000 people in West Africa.
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"There seems to have been a hope that the crisis could be managed by good diplomacy rather than by scaling up emergency action," the report says.
WHO was also criticised for failing to keep governments and the public up to speed about the extent and severity of the outbreak.
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"We have seen so many reports calling for change, with everyone focused on how to improve future response and meanwhile, with 20-25 new Ebola cases per week in the region, we still don`t have the current epidemic under control. On Ebola, we went from global indifference, to global fear, to global response and now to global fatigue. We must finish the job," she said.
Dr Jeremy Farrar, Director of the Wellcome Trust, said the support of the global community was crucial if we are to avert another catastrophe on the scale of Ebola."
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International |
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Why is Gaza reconstruction so slow?
By Yolande Knell
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In the year since the 50-day conflict with Israel, which saw thousands of Gaza's buildings reduced to rubble, not a single destroyed home has been rebuilt.
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"If we look at the outstanding damage for previous conflicts we're up to 22 years and if you look at the overall housing shortage in Gaza then it will take 76 years."
For now, homeless Gazans stay with relatives or live in overcrowded rented accommodation, donated caravans or the ruins of their properties.
There is huge frustration compounded by shortages of electricity and water and the dire economic situation, which sees 80% of the population reliant on aid.
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Without long-term political solutions to solve Gaza's underlying problems, many warn of social unrest, instability and the increased risk of further hostilities.
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US cruise company announces go-ahead to sail to Cuba
By (BBC)
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The world's largest cruise shipping company, Carnival Corp, says it has received approval from the United States government to offer trips to Cuba from Miami.
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Carnival says it is offering educational tours focussing on education, the environment and Spanish language courses.
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Mr Kirby said the reports would not change US policy concerning the restoration of diplomatic relations with Havana.
"In fact, it reinforces the need to move forward with re-establishing diplomatic relations because opening that embassy, we believe, will advance our human rights agenda by opening up channels of official engagement."
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USA Politics, Economy, Major Events |
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The Vast Majority of America's Elected Prosecutors Are White Men
By Jaeah Lee
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A study released on Tuesday reveals a glaring lack of diversity among America's elected prosecutors. . .
The study comes amid stark questions about race and the American criminal justice system, an issue thrust into the spotlight after a string of high-profile police killings of black Americans. Most of the nation's police forces are disproportionately white. And while a high-profile prosecution in Baltimore is being led by a black woman, other controversial cases in Cleveland, Ohio, and most famously in Ferguson, Missouri, have been in the hands of white men.
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White Ballot Access, Black Ballot Access
By Kevin Drum
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Welcome to the "Hump Point" of this OND.
News can be sobering and engrossing - at this point in the diary, an offering of brief escapism:
Random notes related to this video:
It’s easy to forget now just how huge Roland and the band Fine Young Cannibals were for a brief but starry time nearly 30 years ago.
The band had hit the jackpot with just their second album, The Raw and the Cooked, which not only reachd number one in the UK, it repeated the feat in the USA, something few British acts have managed before or since.
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I’d imagined in advance of talking to Roland, who was born in Birmingham in 1961, that the demise of the Fine Young Cannibals in 1992 must have involved the usual tale of drugs and squabbles and fame going to their head.
But it turns out to be just the opposite. The band dribbled out without any real effort to follow up their biggest album, releasing just one new track, The Flame, after a hiatus of more than three years..
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“They kept saying to us our next record had to be even bigger which was really stupid. That was one of the main things that killed it for me.
“It was hard to stick to how we appraised the band originally, which was to make great music.”
Back to what's happening:
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Environment and Greening |
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Obama's climate plan will survive even if Republican elected, EPA chief says
By Suzanne Goldenberg
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Gina McCarthy, who heads the Environmental Protection Agency, said the carbon pollution rules that are the main pillar of Obama’s climate plan would go ahead as planned despite a “disappointing” supreme court ruling last week against another EPA rule for mercury and other toxins, and attacks on the agency’s authority from Republican-led states.
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She said the rules putting the first carbon pollution limits on power plants, due to be finalised this summer, could not be slow-walked if a Republican wins the White House.
“You can not simply decide I am not implementing this. You are going to have to take the case that we [the EPA] are wrong, and the EPA will make this is legally solid,” McCarthy went on. “We certainly know how to defend lawsuits.”
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The US supreme court ruled last week that the EPA did not fully take costs to industry into account when it set limits on emissions of mercury, arsenic and other heavy metals from power plants in 2011.
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Marijuana plants suck up energy in Denver
By Brentin Mock
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When Colorado’s recreational weed law first passed, Boulder County proposed a number of measures to push growers toward using renewable energy — important given the state’s plans to comply with EPA’s Clean Power Plan. The county originally told commercial and medical weed growers that they had until Oct. 22, 2014 to find a way to offset at least 51 percent of their power consumption with on-site renewable energy generation, with the expectation for them to make all energy use renewable by this October.
That plan was reconsidered, though, when everyone realized there wasn’t enough renewable energy supply in the state to absorb the impact of the pot industry’s usage. So, the county created another compliance method: a fee of 2.16 cents per kilowatt hour, which is used for the Boulder County Energy Impact Offset Fund, which is set up to offset fossil fuel consumption. Problems still remain, though, both in terms of energy use and climate change implications. As Warren noted in her report:
Connecting to the existing national energy delivery system and utilizing energy efficiency programs and innovation are great opportunities to lessen some of marijuana’s carbon footprint, but it will do little to offset the millions of metric tons of carbon dioxide that the industry has emitted and will continue to emit.
Which is why Warren implores that, as more cities and states legalize pot, expanding the market in the process, that electricity use is regulated upfront with indoor growers urged to rely on renewable energy sources. As it is, weed-business owners doesn’t need any more reasons for certain policymakers to call for lights out on the industry.
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L.A. plans to build massive skyscrapers over fault line
By Carla Sinclair
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Looks like developers win again. Aw, but what do geologists know about fault lines anyway? After a two-year battle between Millennium Hollywood developers and state geologists (as well as local residents) over whether or not to build two mega skyscrapers in Hollywood, the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety decided it was safe to go forward with the project. But opposing geologists don't agree.
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"Our conclusion from the data is that there is an active fault, and it does run right along the course that's right along the map," state geologist John Parrish told the Times last November...
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Science and Health |
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Ageing rates vary widely, says study
By (BBC)
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A study of people born within a year of each other has uncovered a huge gulf in the speed at which their bodies age.
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Some of the 38-year-olds were ageing so badly that their "biological age" was on the cusp of retirement.
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Most people's biological age was within a few years of their chronological age. It is unclear how the pace of biological ageing changes through life with these measures.
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"This is the first step to detect factors that influence the rate of ageing... very early prevention [of diseases] may be one of the things we will be able to measure better."
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Affordable Care Act results in dramatic drop in out-of-pocket prices for prescription contraceptives
By (ScienceDaily)
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Average out-of-pocket spending for oral contraceptive pills and the intrauterine device (IUD), the two most common forms of contraception for women, has decreased significantly since the Affordable Care Act (ACA) took effect. Using a prescription claims database from a large national insurer, researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania found that the average out-of-pocket expense for a prescription for the pill fell from $32.74 in the first six months of 2012 to $20.37 in the first six months of 2013 (a decline of 38 percent), and out-of-pocket expenses for an IUD insertion fell from $262.38 to $84.30 (a decline of 68 percent).
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"It's possible that by decreasing out-of-pocket expenses, more women will use contraception, or switch to a longer-term method, but additional research is needed to determine both the socioeconomic and health effects for women," said co-author Daniel Polsky, PhD, executive director of the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics and professor of Medicine in the Perelman School of Medicine, both at the University of Pennsylvania. "In the long term, if we do in fact see an increase in the use of contraceptives, that could potentially lead to a lower overall fertility rate, and potentially increased economic opportunities for women and their families."
The ACA mandate applies nationally to all private health insurance plans, including those offered in the online health insurance marketplaces and by employers. The only exceptions are grandfathered plans and those offered by employers that request an exemption for religious reasons. Grandfathered plans are health plans that have not substantially changed their cost-sharing requirements since the ACA was signed into law in March 2010. These plans are gradually being phased out, but as of 2013 still covered 36 percent of insured workers, meaning that a significant subset of women are likely still enrolled in plans that are not yet subject to the zero cost-sharing mandate.
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Technology |
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AT&T Thinks Shitty Internet For Poor Families Will Help Its Merger
By Chris Mills
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AT&T is trying to acquire DirecTV, a deal worth some $67 billion that would create a soul-sucking leviathan telecoms company. The deed is all but done, and just awaiting FCC approval — something AT&T is hoping to help along by (temporarily) offering (shitty) internet to low-income families.
. . . AT&T is promising speeds of ‘up to’ 5 Mbps in areas where it has high-speed broadband, and 1.5 Mbps in areas with slower service. (There will be no cheap broadband for anyone outside of AT&T’s existing coverage.)
That ‘up to’ is crucial: the service AT&T is offering is DSL, the type of internet that is transmitted over phone lines, and is liable to be much slower if you live far away from the exchange, or you’re trying to use the internet at peak times. So, your already-slow internet will probably be even slower — not to mention, AT&T’s filing makes no mention of usage caps.
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Someone lept onto a Broadway stage to charge his phone right before the show started
By Jeff Leeson
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An audience member at the Booth Theatre tried to charge his iPhone on the set of Hand to God by jumping up on stage and plugging it into the set's outlet.
The set may look real, but the outlet was of course a fake prop. According to Playbill, the set crew had to stop the music, unplug the phone and make an announcement as to why it was a terribly foolish idea.
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Hopefully the man learned an important lesson about common sense that night — and also how to put a phone into airplane mode.
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Cultural |
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Zambian writer Namwali Serpell to share Caine prize money
By (BBC)
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US-based Zambian writer Namwali Serpell has promised to share her winnings in the Caine Prize for African Writing with the runners up.
She received the £10,000 ($15,600) prize for her short story The Sack.
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Ms Serpell told BBC Newsday that the promise to share the winnings was "an act of mutiny".
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"It is very awkward to be placed into this position of competition with other writers that you respect immensely and you feel yourself put into a sort of American idol or race-horse situation when actually, you all want to support each other."
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Russia: 'Safe selfie' campaign launched by government
By (BBC)
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The interior ministry's Safe Selfie campaign is a response to a spate of incidents in which youngsters were seriously injured, or in some cases killed, while trying to take pictures of themselves, the Izvestia newspaper reports. The campaign's motto is: "Even a million 'likes' on social media are not worth your life and well-being."
An illustrated booklet has been issued warning people about dangerous selfie scenarios, including snapping a photo while halfway up an electricity pylon, standing in front of an oncoming train, or while in the company of a wild animal. Police officers will also hold selfie-safety lessons at schools, according to the ministry.
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"Today technical advances do not stand still, but with all the advantages there are new challenges and threats," ministry official Yelena Alekseyeva told reporters during the campaign's launch on Tuesday. "Our booklet reminds you of how to take a safe selfie, so it is not the last one you will ever take."
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Meteor Blades is known to offer an enlightening Evening Open Diary - you might consider checking that out tonight if you haven't already. |