Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, current leader Neon Vincent, regular editors jlms qkw, maggiejean, wader, Oke, rfall, and JML9999. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse, ek hornbeck, ScottyUrb, Interceptor7 and BentLiberal. The guest editor is annetteboardman.
Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.
The Guardian
"The one thing a violent rapist deserves is to face is a good woman with a gun!" That was Wayne LaPierre, executive director of the National Rifle Association, the standard bearers for America's gun lobby, making the case that personal firearms prevent rape.
The assertion that guns offer protection is a mantra the NRA has repeated often. In the wake of the Sandy Hook school shooting, LaPierre opined: "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun", insisting that schools should have armed guards.
Academics such as John Lott and Gary Kleck have long claimed that more firearms reduce crime. But is this really the case? Stripped of machismo bluster, this is at heart a testable claim that merely requires sturdy epidemiological analysis. And this was precisely what Prof Charles Branas and his colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania examined in their 2009 paper investigating the link between gun possession and gun assault. They compared 677 cases in which people were injured in a shooting incident with 684 people living in the same area that had not suffered a gun injury. The researchers matched these "controls" for age, race and gender. They found that those with firearms were about 4.5 times more likely to be shot than those who did not carry, utterly belying this oft repeated mantra.
The Guardian
President Obama has indicated a move towards strengthening federal gun control measures, but the reality is that the majority of gun legislation in the US is enacted at the state level. That has brought broad variations across the country, with states taking different approaches to issues ranging from sales, permits, licensing, self-defence and carry laws
US NEWS
Reuters
Secretary of State John Kerry paid an unannounced visit to Afghanistan on Monday for talks with President Hamid Karzai, an official said, with both sides hoping to stabilize the country before most foreign troops leave by the end of 2014.
Kerry and Karzai will discuss a host of issues including Afghan reconciliation, the transfer of security responsibility to Afghan forces and Afghanistan's elections, the official told reporters.
Karzai's government is trying to open formal negotiations with the Taliban, who have remained resilient in the face of superior NATO firepower in the war now in its 12th year.
The Guardian
I came to Yale as a freshman in the fall of 2010 with two big uncertainties hanging over my head: whether my dad would get elected to the senate in November, and whether I'd ever work up the courage to come out of the closet.
I made some good friends that first semester, took a couple of interesting classes and got involved in a few rewarding activities. My dad won his election. On the surface, things looked like they were going well. But the truth was, I wasn't happy.
I'd make stuff up when my suitemates and I would talk about our personal lives. I remember going to a dance in the Trumbull dining hall with a girl in my class and feeling guilty about pretending to be somebody I wasn't. One night, I snuck up to the stacks in Sterling Library and did some research on coming out. The thought of telling people I was gay was pretty terrifying, but I was beginning to realize that coming out, however difficult it seemed, was a lot better than the alternative: staying in, all alone.
NPR
When the Pentagon said earlier this year that it would open ground combat jobs to women, it was cast in terms of giving women equal opportunities in the workplace — the military workplace.
But the move has practical considerations, too. The military needs qualified people to fill its ranks, and it's increasingly harder to find them among men.
"It's fairly common knowledge that our population of military-age young men, who qualify for the military, is declining," Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey said in an interview with NPR just after the Pentagon announced that women no longer be excluded from ground combat jobs.
NPR
Anthony Lewis, whose "thorough knowledge" of the Supreme Court's work "allowed him to write authoritatively and accessibly about difficult points," has died, The New York Times writes.
Lewis, twice a Pulitzer Prize winner, was 85.
The Times, where Lewis worked as a reporter, columnist and bureau chief at various times, and The Boston Globe report that the journalist's wife, retired Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice Margaret Marshall, said the cause of death was complications of renal and heart failure. He died at his home in Cambridge, Mass., according to the Times.
NPR
President Obama on Monday designated five new national monuments, including one in Maryland dedicated to anti-slavery activist Harriet Tubman and another setting aside Washington state's San Juan Islands.
San Juan Islands
"These sites honor the pioneering heroes, spectacular landscapes and rich history that have shaped our extraordinary country," President Obama said in a statement. "By designating these national monuments today, we will ensure they will continue to inspire and be enjoyed by generations of Americans to come."
Here's a list of the new dedications:
— First State National Monument in Delaware and Pennsylvania:
Includes 1,100 acres of land in the Brandywine Valley along the Delaware-Pennsylvania border that National Parks Traveler says was originally acquired by William Penn from the Duke of York in 1682:
"Woodlawn property lies on the banks of the Brandywine River, primarily in Delaware and extending north into Pennsylvania. Nearby, in 1777, General George Washington's troops defended against British forces in the largest battle of the American Revolution. Since then, the Brandywine Valley's natural beauty has inspired generations of artists, including acclaimed painter Andrew Wyeth. Today, however, rapid development is squeezing the pristine open spaces that remain."
Bloombserg
Republicans challenging Arizona’s redrawn voter districts over claims they favor Democrats said a Democratic party operative had his “hands all over” the maps and that the commission responsible for them was biased.
The Republican voters accused the Independent Redistricting Commission of “a pattern of discriminatory intent” as a three- day non-jury trial began today in Phoenix federal court over their fight to have the legislative districts redrawn.
“The chairperson, who is supposed to be independent,” demonstrated “sympathy for the Democratic Party,” Republican lawyer David Cantelme said today in opening arguments. “The election director for the Democratic Party had his hands all over the map-drawing process.”
Cantelme alleged that a tainted process resulted in Arizona districts eight, 24 and 26 becoming Democratic Party-held. He seeks a ruling from the three-judge panel, made up of two Republican and one Democratic-appointee, that the districts are unconstitutional.
Reuters
On a frosty December night last year, about two dozen guests slipped into the Alta Club, a century-old private retreat a block away from the temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that dominates Salt Lake City.
Two men, who didn't know each other, were the reason for the dinner: church lobbyist Bill Evans and gay rights leader Rick Jacobs. Evans was a point man for the church's successful effort to pass California's gay marriage ban, known as Prop 8, in 2008. Jacobs, leader of Courage Campaign, produced a 2008 commercial against the ban showing Mormon missionaries ransacking the home of a lesbian couple.
Politics was not on the agenda - just getting to know each other. "The two hit it off," said host Greg Prince, a medical researcher and church member who had come to know both men. He noted that less than a month before the dinner, the church had launched a website with a major change in its view of gays: the site said homosexuality was not a choice.
"There has been a shift of some tectonic plate somewhere," Prince said
WORLD NEWS
Reuters
Cyprus reached a last-ditch deal with international lenders on a 10 billion euro ($13 billion) rescue plan to avoid economic meltdown, agreeing to close down its second-largest bank and inflict heavy losses on big depositors.
The agreement came hours before a deadline to avert a collapse of the banking system in fraught negotiations between President Nicos Anastasiades and heads of the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
Without a deal, Cyprus's banking system would have collapsed and the country could have become the first to crash out of the European single currency.
The Guardian
Libyan officials are trying to locate Muammar Gaddafi's wife and three of his children who are missing from their refuge in neighbouring Algeria.
Algeria confirmed the late dictator's second wife, Safia, daughter Aisha, and sons Hannibal and Muhammad had fled the upmarket coastal region of Staoueli, close to Algiers, where they had lived since fleeing Libya in 2011.
Oman and Venezuela had both reportedly previously offered members of Gaddafi's family asylum, and officials say it is also possible they have joined former Gaddafi fighters in Mali.
Gaddafi's most prominent son, Saif al-Islam, remains in custody in the Libyan town of Zintan, and his brother Saadi is under house arrest in Niger.
Libya has already put Aisha and Hannibal on Interpol's red notice list, obliging member states to arrest them.
Spiegel Online
The drama over Cyprus has made clear that the euro-zone crisis is developing into a struggle over German hegemony in Europe. On the surface, Merkel and Schäuble seem to be working to stabilize the economy. In actuality, they're binding other nations with the shackles of debt.
Throughout Cyprus's financial crisis, German power has been on display. But Germany is pursuing the wrong ojectives, showing how it's incapable of wielding its power correctly. Cypriot leaders came up with the idea to make their own small-scale savers liable for the bankruptcy of the banks -- with the approval of Germany -- because they wanted to hold true to their principles of crime and punishment.
All of Europe, indeed the entire world, took notice. Despite deposit insurance and Chancellor Angela Merkel's own promises, in the end it's the common people who suffer? The plan was withdrawn, and now the burden is falling mostly on wealthy Russians.
Spiegel Online
The three members of the NSU neo-Nazi terrorist cell may have had well over 100 supporters. Authorities have added more than two dozen names to a list of people believed to have had contact with the trio that murdered 10 people of Turkish and Greek origin.
The National Socialist Underground (NSU), the right-wing terrorist cell uncovered by chance in 2011, may have had more supporters than previously thought.
Members of a parliamentary committee investigating the failure of the security services to track down the neo-Nazi killers for over a decade received a list on Friday containing the names of 129 people believed to have been part of the network surrounding the terrorist trio, Bild am Sonntag newspaper reported on Sunday.
AlJazeera English
The EU has eased sanctions on Zimbabwean firms and officials after a referendum approved a new constitution that will curb presidential powers.
The bloc said on Monday that it would immediately suspend travel bans and asset freezes on dozens of officials and companies, however, President Robert Mugabe will remain on the sanctions list.
“The EU ... has today agreed to immediately suspend the application of measures against 81 individuals and eight entities," Catherine Ashton, EU foreign policy chief, said in a statement.
Ten people, including Mugabe, remain on the list, an EU source said.
Two companies, including state-run diamond miner, the Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation, will also remain on the sanctions list.
The EU has been gradually easing its sanctions against Zimbabwe as part of a strategy to encourage political reform after 33 years of Mugabe's rule.
In a March 16 referendum, nearly 95 percent of voters approved the new constitution, bringing the southern African state closer to an election.
AlJazeera English
The bodies of seven men, all shot in the head as if executed, were found dumped in plastic chairs placed along the side of a street in the Mexican state of Michoacan, authorities have said.
Michoacan's attorney general's office said in a statement on Saturday that the victims had all been shot in the head and placed individually in the sitting position in chairs near a traffic circle in the city of Uruapan.
A placard nailed to one of the bodies with an ice pick reads: "Warning! This will happen to thieves, kidnappers, sex offenders and extortionists".
The office did not provide a motive for the killings.
It comes after seven people were killed in neighbouring Guerrero state when armed men opened fire in a bar in Ciudad Altamirano on Friday evening.
Four civilians and three off-duty federal agents were among those killed.
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Reuters
Regulators approved Nasdaq OMX Group's $62 million compensation plan for firms that lost money in Facebook Inc's glitch-ridden market debut in May, signaling a victory for exchanges Potentially facing liability for technical foul-ups.
Nasdaq said in a note to traders on Monday morning that the Securities and Exchange Commission approved the plan, and that firms harmed in Facebook's initial public offering had one week to submit requests for compensation.
Retail market makers, including units of UBS AG, Citigroup Inc, Knight Capital Group and Citadel LLC, said they collectively lost upward of $500 million due to the problematic May 18 IPO.
BBC
Apple has bought indoor-mapping specialist Wifislam as it looks to expand its maps product to compete with Google.
The acquisition, confirmed to the BBC by Apple, could allow the company to offer maps within buildings with an accuracy of 8ft (2.5m).
Rival Google has stepped up its efforts to add indoor locations to its already huge Street View product.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Apple paid $20m (£13m) for Wifislam.
In a statement, the iPad-maker batted away speculation about its plans, saying: "Apple invests in smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not comment on our purpose or plans."
C/NET
A T-Mobile iPhone would make the perfect "one more thing" to the carrier's "Uncarrier" event tomorrow.
T-Mobile plans to detail how it will shake up the industry. The invitation reads: "We're still a wireless company. We're just not going to act like one anymore," suggesting an event that is heavily focused on its recent move to kill off the contract and subsidy, and focus primarily on the no-contract option. Tomorrow will also likely mark the official launch of its 4G LTE network, finally bringing it into the LTE game with three other larger national carriers.
But with the iPhone already confirmed to be heading to T-Mobile, the event sounds like the perfect time to provide an update on Apple's flagship phone. The carrier is badly in need of some buzz, and setting a launch date and providing pricing information would energize and excite its subscribers. Despite enhancing its portfolio with other high-end smartphones, the iPhone remains a crucial missing piece to its lineup.
C/NET
As obviously useful as wireless charging is, it suffers from a Tower of Babel problem with incompatible standards and competing interests keeping it from truly going mainstream.
But the industry may yet be inching toward some level of sanity. AT&T is seeking from its handset vendors a commitment to one standard of wireless charging, CNET has learned.
The standard, known as PMA, or the Power Matters Alliance, is spearheaded by Powermat Technologies and Procter & Gamble, two unlikely leaders considering their highest-profile products are the bulky iPhone charging covers that only true power-hungry users submit themselves to using. But over the last few months, the PMA has seen a tenfold increase in membership, and its technology is used in Boston-area Starbucks, and will be used in select European McDonald's.
C/NET
Spotify, the largest on-demand music service with 24 million active listeners, is in the early stages of exploring a possible video service, according a person close to the company. But CEO Daniel Ek says building a Netlix competitor is not something the company is gearing up to do anytime soon.
"I won't rule it out because we're a company that looks at what we're doing incredibly long term," Ek said in a recent interview with CNET. "But right now, we're all focused on music."
The idea of a Spotify video service came up in a report today on Business Insider. The story even suggested that Spotify would invest in creating original content, the way Netflix did with its "House of Cards" original series.