Welcome to the Overnight News Digest
The OND is published each night around midnight, Eastern Time.
The originator of OND was Magnifico.
Current Contributors are ScottyUrb, Bentliberal, wader, Oke, rfall, JML9999 and NeonVincent who also serves as chief cat herder.
Stories and Headlines
- Feds Order Insurers To Cover Birth Control Free Of Charge To Women
Starting a year from now, most new health insurance policies, and eventually almost every policy, will have to offer a comprehensive list of women's preventive health services with no copay or deductible, including all forms of prescription contraception approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
Here's a quick rundown of some of the services:
* Screening for gestational diabetes;
* Counseling about sexually-transmitted infections;
* Support for breast-feeding, including supplies and counseling; and
* Domestic violence screening and counseling.
The new rules, however, do take into account the complaints from some conservative and religious groups, by allowing religious organizations that provide health insurance to refrain from offering contraceptive coverage "if that is inconsistent with their tenets."
NPR
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- Calif. poised to OK political donations via text
California is poised to become the first state to allow residents to donate to a state or local political campaign on their cell phones, an idea that election officials say could bring millions of voters of all economic levels into the campaign donor club.
The state's Fair Political Practices Commission, which enforces political campaign laws, is backing the idea, which is on track to be approved by October and could be in force by the 2012 elections.
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The plan would make donating any amount to a state or local campaign as easy as texting a donation to a disaster relief fund or a charity, said FPPC Chair Ann Ravel.
sfgate
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- Syrian Forces Renew Strike on Restive City of Hama
In the Syrian city of Hama, where at least 70 people were killed on Sunday by the military and security forces, shelling began again on Monday morning, just after dawn prayers, my colleagues Nada Bakri and Anthony Shadid report.
The crackdown in Hama elicited appalled condemnations on Monday from the European Union and President Obama, who called the violence there “horrifying.”
A flood of gruesome videos continued to pour in on Monday. Many are too graphic to show here, though readers can discover for themselves by browsing Sham, a YouTube channel sympathetic to protesters.
The Lede - NYT
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The shelling resumed Monday in the early hours of the morning as people were returning home from mosques where they had performed dawn prayers, according to residents and protesters. At least three people were killed, according to activists.
Obada Arwany, an activist reached by telephone, said that tanks had entered two neighborhoods, Al Qousour and Al Hamidiya, and shelled residential buildings there. One man died in his sleep when his house was shelled and another was killed by a sniper’s bullet as he was getting in his car.
“The city is like a ghost town,” Mr. Arwany said. “We were not expecting this at all. Hama is getting massacred.”
One protester was also killed in Deir al-Zour in northwestern Syria, according to the Local Coordination Committees, an opposition group that helps organize and document protests.
The simultaneous raids on several cities on Sunday came a day before the holy month of Ramadan began
NYT
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UnaSpenser hosts a collaborative Witnessing Revolution series - an excellent round-up of current events in the Middle East.
- Gabrielle Giffords returns to House
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) made a surprise return to the House floor on Monday, six months after she was grievously injured in a shooting in Tucson, Ariz.
Giffords entered the House chambers through a side door while her colleagues were voting on a compromise measure to raise the national debt ceiling. Her arrival prompted applause on the Democratic side of the chamber, which gradually spread through the House. WAPO
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- Russia Replies Sharply to U.S. Senate’s Support of Georgia and Criticism of ‘Occupation’
A spokesman for Russia’s Foreign Ministry bristled on Monday at a resolution from the Senate in support of Georgia, saying that it “leaves the impression of a broken record.” The spokesman, Aleksandr K. Lukashevich, was particularly scathing about the Senate’s use of the word “occupation” to refer to Russia’s military presence in the separatist Georgian territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
“The statement of the American senators about this testifies either to illiteracy of international law, or else complete disregard for the real facts,” Mr. Lukashevich said. “All this is convincing evidence that the given resolution is no less than an exercise in P.R., taken in order to return attention to the ‘Georgian question.’ ”
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On Friday, the Senate unanimously passed a resolution that described the two enclaves as “occupied by the Russian Federation.”
NYT
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- Kansas Planned Parenthood Ruling Could Protect It In Other States
Laura Bassett, Huffington Post
A federal judge in Kansas issued another victory for Planned Parenthood on Monday, temporarily blocking the implementation of a law that would have defunded the family planning provider and forced it to close at least one of its three clinics in the state. A spokesperson for Planned Parenthood said the decision could cause other states to think twice before passing defunding laws, despite the wave of anti-Planned Parenthood bills that have been put forth during the 2011 legislative sessions.
"Proponents of these defunding attempts have said they will pursue these types of measures next year," said Rachel Sussman, senior policy analyst for Planned Parenthood, in a press conference Monday. "I don't think we have seen the end of this, and I would urge folks to take the court decisions we do have on this very seriously in hopes that we can avoid seeing more of these types of bills next year."
Planned Parenthood's legal team argued in court that the defunding law, which blocked all Title X family planning funds to entities that provide abortions, was unconstitutional because it penalized Planned Parenthood for providing a legal health service and took away patients' freedom to choose a qualified health provider. The state, represented by the same private law firm that has defended the billionaire Koch brothers in the past, argued that the bill didn't cause any irreparable harm
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- FBI, ATF join investigation into McKinney Planned Parenthood bombing
by Danny Gallagher
The hunt is still on for the person or persons responsible for throwing a Molotov cocktail at a McKinney women's clinic, and now, the federal authorities have joined the search.
McKinney police officials confirmed Friday that the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms' (ATF) Dallas field offices have joined the McKinney Police Department's investigation into Tuesday's attack on the Planned Parenthood clinic on Eldorado Parkway.
In addition to arson and other possible property damage violations, Mark White, a special agent with the Dallas FBI field office, said the suspect or suspects may be in violation of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. The 1994 law signed by President Bill Clinton that prohibits acts of threat and intimidation, physical obstruction or violence that prevents people from freely entering medical facilities or clinics, according to the Cornell University Law School.
Pegasus News
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El Mundo Blogs, Spain
La CIA entre eficaz y embarazosa / The CIA: Between Effective and Embarrassing
Fake Vaccination Campaign to Nab Bin Laden
Inocencio Arias - El Mundo
La Central Intelligence Company (CIA) lavó recientemente muchos de sus fallos o pecados con el descubrimiento del paradero de Bin Laden y la intervención en el diseño de su captura y eliminación. Trasciende ahora que la Agencia, dado que no podía confiar en la cooperación de las autoridades paquistaníes y ni siquiera en su discreción, trató de atar todos los cabos posibles para cerciorase de que el misterioso habitante de la villa rodeada de un alto muro era Bin Laden. Una de las tretas utilizadas fue iniciar, en la zona, una campaña de vacunación contra la hepatitis llevada a cabo por una organización sanitaria paquistaní a la que obviamente la CIA debió 'untar' generosamente.
La sangre que se tomó de los críos que habitaban en el recinto mostró que su ADN coincidía con el del terrorista más buscado de la historia. Fue la prueba definitiva y los comandos estadounidenses montaron su espectacular operación que levantó considerables ampollas en el gobierno paquistaní por lo que significaba de violación de su soberanía.
La irritación ha continuado con la treta sanitaria y está teniendo repercusiones en el trabajo de las ONGs que desarrollan actividades de salud en ese país y en otros.
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Translated By Josh Jorgensen
The Central Intelligence Agency recently cleansed itself of many past faults and sins with the discovery of Osama bin Laden’s hiding place in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and with the planning and execution of his capture and killing. It is now known that the agency, because it could not trust in the cooperation or discretion of Pakistani authorities, tried all possible methods to determine that the mysterious inhabitant of the high-walled compound was bin Laden. One of the tricks used was to initiate a hepatitis vaccination campaign in the area, conducted by a Pakistani health organization that the CIA obviously influenced financially.
The blood that was taken from the children living in the compound showed that their DNA coincided with that of the most wanted terrorist in history. It was the definitive test, and the U.S. commandos mounted their spectacular operation that infuriated the Pakistani government over what it considered a violation of its sovereignty.
The irritation has continued as a result of the health-initiative ruse and is now having repercussions in the work of nonprofit aid organizations that carry out health activities in Pakistan and other countries.
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I missed this story when it originally was reported a couple weeks ago - see
The Guardian and
other sources. --BentLiberal
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More News
- Adobe, Creator of Flash, Embraces HTML5
Adobe, the software company famous for its Flash software running the online animation, video and graphics on most computers, unveiled an early version of its latest software on Monday called Adobe Edge. The software will enable Web designers to create online content using the Web programming languages HTML5, JavaScript and CSS, instead of Flash.
At first blush, it might seem that Adobe is ceding some ground to those, like Apple, who contend that Flash is the past and HTML5 is the future. The iPad and iPhone, for instance, do not display Flash animations.
But the new software is not intended to replace Adobe Flash. Instead, it is meant to give developers a tool that will enable them to create animated Web content on devices that do not run Flash, specifically those Apple iOS mobile devices like the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch
BIts Blog
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- Dyslexia May Be a Hearing Problem Too
[A] study published last week in the journal Science suggests that how dyslexics hear language may be more important than previously realized. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found that people with dyslexia have more trouble recognizing voices than those without dyslexia.
John Gabrieli, a professor of cognitive neuroscience, and Tyler Perrachione, a graduate student, asked people with and without dyslexia to listen to recorded voices paired with cartoon avatars on computer screens. The subjects tried matching the voices to the correct avatars speaking English and then an unfamiliar language, Mandarin.
Nondyslexics matched voices to avatars correctly almost 70 percent of the time when the language was English and half the time when the language was Mandarin. But people with dyslexia were able to do so only half the time, whether the language was English or Mandarin. Experts not involved in the study said that was a striking disparity.
http://www.nytimes.com/...
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- Nato investigates BBC reporter's death in Afghanistan
Nato-led forces in Afghanistan have launched an investigation into how a BBC journalist was killed in the southern province of Uruzgan last week.
Pashto service reporter Ahmed Omed Khpulwak was one of at least 19 people, including 12 children, killed during a suicide bomb attack and gun battle.
It was initially reported that the journalist was killed by insurgents.
The BBC asked for the inquiry when conflicting reports later emerged as to who had fired the fatal shots. BBC
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- Mt. Etna Erupts
- Officials: Israeli PM Ready to Negotiate Borders
Israeli officials say Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has agreed to negotiate the borders of a future Palestinian state using the 1967 cease-fire line that delineates the West Bank as a starting point for talks.
Sources in the prime minister's office revealed the dramatic policy shift to Israeli media outlets late Monday. They said that in order to restart direct peace negotiations with the Palestinians, Mr. Netanyahu would be willing to discuss a proposal containing a formula on borders "that would be difficult for Israel to accept."
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Earlier this year, U.S. President Barack Obama proposed negotiations based on the pre-1967 borders plus agreed swaps of territory between Israel and a Palestinian state.
VOA
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- First Oxygen Molecules Found in Orion Nebula
Astronomers have found the first ever molecules of oxygen deep in space in a region of the Orion nebula with the Herschel Space Observatory, prompting searches to ensue in other star-forming regions.
Astronomers have at last identified the distinct signatures of oxygen molecules in space, using observations made with the Herschel Space Observatory, a European Space Agency mission with important NASA contributions. The rarity of cosmic oxygen molecules -- the same molecules making up part of the air we breathe on Earth -- is still a mystery, but the new observations provide clues about why they had gone missing.
Herschel, a mission under the European Space Agency (ESA) using infrared technology, is the first to confirm the existence of molecular oxygen, or two bonded oxygen atoms, rarely found in space though the Swedish Odin telescope spotted an unconfirmed molecule in 2007.
Int'l Business Times
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- Juno set to launch Friday, will show Jupiter’s magnetic fields in hi-def
By Elizabeth Zubritsky
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Houston Community Newspapers | 0 comments
When it comes to magnetic fields, Jupiter is the ultimate muscle car. It's endowed with the biggest, brawniest field of any planet in the solar system, powered by a monster engine under the hood.
Figuring out how this mighty engine, or dynamo, works is one goal of NASA's Juno mission, which is scheduled to begin its five-year, 400-million-mile voyage to Jupiter in August 2011. Juno will orbit the planet for about a year, investigating its origin and evolution with eight instruments to probe its internal structure and gravity field, measure water and ammonia in its atmosphere, map its powerful magnetic field and observe its intense auroras.
The magnetic field studies will be the job of Juno's twin magnetometers, designed and built at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. They will measure the field's magnitude and direction with greater accuracy than any previous instrument, revealing it for the first time in high-def.
http://www.yourhoustonnews.com/...
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