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.
Al Jazeera America
The U.S. paused to remember the life of civil rights great Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday, with a series of events taking place across the nation to mark the annual celebration of his life.
Hundreds of people filled Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta — where King preached — to reflect on his legacy through prayer and song. It was one of many commemorations honoring the assassinated black rights leader and peace activist. At the National Mall in Washington, D.C., a wreath laying ceremony took place at the base of the MLK statue.
In Georgia, governor Nathan Deal said there were not many states that can boast a native son that merits a national holiday, but added, "We Georgians can."
Deal said this year he would work with state legislators to find an appropriate way to honor King at the Georgia Capitol, which drew a standing ovation from the audience. He did not give any specifics.
The Guardian
Few are aware that Martin Luther King, Jr. once applied for a permit to carry a concealed handgun.
In his 2011 book Gunfight, UCLA law professor Adam Winkler notes that, after King's house was bombed in 1956, the clergyman applied in Alabama for a concealed carry permit. Local police, loathe to grant such permits to African-Americans, deemed him "unsuitable" and denied his application.
The lesson from this incident is not, as some NRA members have tried to suggest in recent years, that King should be remembered as a gun-toting Republican. (Among many other problems, this portrayal neglects to acknowledge how Republicans used conservative anger about Civil Rights advances to win over the Dixiecrat South to their side of the aisle). Rather, the fact that King would request license to wear a gun in 1956, just as he was being catapulted onto the national stage, illustrates the profundity of the transformation that he underwent over the course of his public career.
While this transformation involved a conversion to moral nonviolence and personal pacifism, that is not the whole story. King's evolution also involved a hesitant but ultimately forceful embrace of direct action — broad-scale, confrontational and unarmed. That stance had lasting consequences in the struggle for freedom in America.
NPR
Last fall, curators and interns at the New York State Museum were digging through their audio archives in an effort to digitize their collection. It was tedious work; the museum houses over 15 million objects. But on this particular day in November, they unearthed a treasure.
As they sifted through box after box, museum director Mark Schaming remembers: "They pull up a little reel-to-reel tape and a piece of masking tape on it is labeled 'Martin Luther King, Jr., Emancipation Proclamation Speech 1962.' "
It's audio no one knew existed.
That year — 1962 — fell in the midst of the Civil War centennial. At one commemorative event, New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller proposed a focus on the Emancipation Proclamation and invited King to speak. No one had heard his speech since. When Schaming listened to the audio, he found it still relevant. "It's 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation is released, and this promise is still unfulfilled, very much as it is still today in many ways," the museum director says.
Reuters
Visions of what Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would do to promote civil rights in 2014, had he not been slain decades ago, marked speeches and commemorations held across the country to honor his memory on Monday.
Recalling King's famous "I Have a Dream," speech, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed said the late civil rights leader would want school children to hear it as a call to stay in school and become educated to better the world.
"We need to swap the lesson plan for a dream plan," Reed told a crowd at Ebenezer Baptist Church gathered for the Martin Luther King Jr. Day federal holiday.
He said King would want children to hear: "You are not going to school just to study math, you're going to school to be somebody."
In New York City, newly elected Mayor Bill de Blasio, who swept into office promising broader opportunities for poorer residents, said at a tribute: "Dr. King would tell us we can't wait" to bring income equality to New Yorkers.
De Blasio vowed his administration would immediately "start the work of changing this city."
McClatchy
WASHINGTON — State laws that were passed out of frustration after the last failed effort to overhaul the nation’s immigration laws are now being enforced _ some more than others.
Big companies with national operations have started to confront the hassle of trying to comply – or weighing the risks of eluding _ dozens of different state immigration laws.
A federal proposal that passed the U.S. Senate last summer sought to create a uniform standard. It would have pre-empted most state acts. But reluctance in the House of Representatives has left the federal debate on perilous footing, allowing states such as South Carolina to step in.
State legislators are returning to work this month to begin their legislative sessions. Some probably will be looking for guidance to fill the void left by Washington gridlock.
Al Jazeera America
Seven weeks after collapsing from a suspected pulmonary embolism, 33-year old Marlise Muñoz remains artificially alive in a Fort Worth hospital’s intensive care unit. By fiat of Texas law, she can’t be permitted to die because she’s pregnant. Her fetus is alive but still weeks away from viability outside the womb.
The tragedy has thrust her family into a maelstrom of medical, legal, philosophical and political questions, turning their private agony into a very public issue in the Lone Star State.
The family says it wants to switch off the machines and let Muñoz die with dignity. All she is now is “a host for a fetus,” her father, Ernest Machado, told The New York Times. But John Peter Smith Hospital has invoked a state law prohibiting the withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment from a pregnant patient. The hospital argues it cannot legally allow the woman — and therefore her fetus — to die.
Very little about the case lends itself to easy answers.
The health of the fetus remains unknown. If it is delivered on the edge of viability, as it’s expected to be, the child will face a host of serious potential medical problems. Brain hemorrhage, respiratory complications, heart failure and vision loss are just some of the risks, according to medical experts. Also, babies born prematurely can face long-term intellectual, physical and developmental delays.
The Guardian
The anaesthesiologist who told a court that a new two-drug protocol used in an execution in Ohio would cause the inmate “agony and horror”, has expressed anger the state pressed ahead with the experiment despite his warnings.
David Waisel, associate professor of anaesthesia at Harvard medical school, who acted as expert witness for Dennis McGuire's defence attorneys, said he was angry when he learned Ohio had gone ahead with the execution last Thursday using a previously untested combination of midazolam and hydromorphone.
Eyewitness accounts from inside the death chamber suggest his predictions turned out to be accurate.
“Initially I was angry, because I told them this would happen. Now I'm very sad about this. I'm also horrified and aghast. This was all totally unnecessary,” he said.
The Guardian
A band of Arctic air has begun creeping into the northern US, bringing a wave of frigid temperatures that could linger for most of the week across the upper mid-west and New England.
Temperatures plunged below zero in North Dakota and northern Minnesota on Monday morning. The cold front was expected to sweep south into Iowa and as far east as Maine by Tuesday night, and remain entrenched through Thursday.
The bitter blast will lead to a swath of sub-zero temperatures, with highs in the single digits and wind chills of -20F or colder, said Paul Collar, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
"It's not to the extent of the last outbreak but it's still bitterly cold," he said, referring to the recent polar vortex that sent temperatures plunging well below zero across much of the country and was blamed for at least a dozen deaths.
NPR
New Jersey's Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno is firing back at Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer, who says Superstorm Sandy recovery funds to her city were held up when she refused to sign off on a politically connected real estate deal.
Zimmer said over the weekend that during a mall opening event in May, Guadagno pulled her aside to say she needed to "move forward" on the real estate deal or "we are not going to be able to help you."
Zimmer says she asked the state for $100 million in aid. She received around $142,000.
Guadagno on Monday called the accusation "false" and "illogical."
Speaking at a Martin Luther King Jr. Day commemoration in Union City, Guadagno said that the mayor's take on the conversation "is not only false but is illogical and does not withstand scrutiny when all of the facts are examined.
Lots of consumers are smitten with local food, but they're not the only ones. The growing market is also providing an opportunity for less experienced farmers to expand their business and polish their craft.
But they need help, and increasingly it's coming from food hubs, which can also serve as food processing and distribution centers. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that there are about 240 of them in more than 40 states plus the District of Columbia.
Donna O'Shaughnessy and her husband, Keith Parrish, are first-generation farmers in rural Chatsworth, Ill., about two hours south of Chicago. They sell dairy products and meat, and raise a host of animals, including a few colorful peacocks.
For many years, they ended each year in the red. But business took off about five years ago, with restaurant owners as far away as Chicago putting in orders.
USA Today
WASHINGTON -- Most Americans now disapprove of the NSA's sweeping collection of phone metadata, a new USA TODAY/Pew Research Center Poll finds, and they're inclined to think there aren't adequate limits in place to what the government can collect.
President Obama's announcement Friday of changes in the surveillance programs has done little to allay those concerns: By 73%-21%, those who paid attention to the speech say his proposals won't make much difference in protecting people's privacy.
The poll of 1,504 adults, taken Wednesday through Sunday, shows a public that is more receptive than before to the arguments made by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
Reuters
A U.S. missionary imprisoned in North Korea for more than a year appeared in front of journalists on Monday, in prison clothes and under guard, asking Washington to help him get home, foreign media there reported.
Kenneth Bae, a 45-year-old ethnic Korean, was arrested as he led a tour group in North Korea in 2012 and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor on charges of state subversion.
Bae met "a limited number of media outlets" in the North Korean capital Pyongyang and expressed hope of the United States securing his release, Japan's Kyodo news agency reported.
Bae's son Jonathan urged Washington to respond to the statement.
His father's words "obviously mean that Washington has not done enough. We need to send someone over and bring him home. That's what it's going to take. He needs to come home," Bae told Reuters by phone.
Reuters
The U.S. military said on Monday that air and naval assets, including two ships in the Black Sea, would be made available if needed during the Sochi Winter Olympics in support of Russia, which faces militant threats to disrupt the Games.
The Pentagon said U.S. military commanders were "conducting prudent planning and preparations" should American support be required during the Winter Olympics.
"The United States has offered its full support to the Russian government as it conducts security preparations for the Winter Olympics," Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby said in a statement.
"Air and naval assets, to include two Navy ships in the Black Sea, will be available if requested for all manner of contingencies in support of - and in consultation with - the Russian government."
BBC
A fire chief in Omaha, Nebraska, says an explosion and partial building collapse at an animal feed processing plant has claimed lives.
Chief Bernie Kanger would not say how many had been killed, but told reporters emergency crews had ended rescue efforts in the unstable remains.
Ten workers inside the International Nutrition plant were taken to hospital, with four in critical condition.
The cause of the blast has not yet been determined.
Reuters
Iran has halted its most sensitive nuclear activity under a preliminary deal with world powers, winning some relief from economic sanctions on Monday in a ground-breaking exchange that could ease the threat of new war in the Middle East.
The United States and European Union both announced they were suspending some trade restrictions against the OPEC oil producer after the United Nations' nuclear watchdog confirmed that Iran had met its end of the November 24 agreement.
Tehran is expecting to be able to retrieve $4.2 billion in oil revenues frozen overseas and to resume trade in petrochemicals, gold and other precious metals.
The mutual concessions are scheduled to last six months, during which time six powers - the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany - aim to negotiate a final accord defining the scope of Iran's nuclear activity.
Reuters
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday withdrew an offer for Iran to attend Syria peace negotiations after Tehran declared it does not support the June 2012 political transition deal that is the basis for the talks.
"He (Ban) continues to urge Iran to join the global consensus behind the Geneva communiqué," Ban's spokesman Martin Nesirky said. "Given that it has chosen to remain outside that basic understanding, (Ban) has decided that the one-day Montreux gathering will proceed without Iran's participation."
Reuters
Central African Republic lawmakers chose their capital's mayor, Catherine Samba-Panza, to become interim president on Monday and lead the country out of months of sectarian killings towards elections.
Samba-Panza called on mainly Muslim former rebels and the Christian militia battling them to lay down their weapons as people sang and danced on the streets of the riverside city, Bangui, in celebration.
The 59-year old succeeds Michel Djotodia, leader of a mostly Muslim rebel coalition, Seleka, that seized power in March. He stepped down this month under international pressure after failing to halt bloodshed that erupted after the revolt.
Waves of killing and looting by Seleka fighters triggered revenge attacks by Christian militia known as 'anti-balaka', fuelling unprecedented cycles of violence between communities that had previously lived side-by-side.
"I am the president of all Central Africans, without exception," said Samba-Panza, who had to show she had no link to either camp in the fighting to qualify for the post.
DW
The EU has approved sending soldiers to the Central African Republic. The country, which has been gripped by sectarian violence and political instability since last year, has meanwhile chosen a new interim leader.
EU foreign ministers approved a military mission to the Central African Republic (CAR) during a meeting in Brussels on Monday. The number of soldiers could not be confirmed by initial reports, which estimated that the EU would deploy between 500 and 1,000 troops to the region. It was not immediately clear which nations from the 28-member bloc would send troops.
Germany reiterated its support for the plan, but maintained it would not send soldiers to CAR. On Monday, Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesperson, Steffen Seibert, told reporters in Berlin that it remained unclear what form of assistance Germany would provide to the EU-backed mission.
Last month, France contributed 1,600 soldiers to a 4,000-strong African Union mission on the ground tasked with maintaining order in CAR. France had been urging its allies to provide aid since December when sectarian clashes linked to political instability in the country escalated and unleashed a humanitarian crisis.
The proposed EU mission now awaits ratification by the UN Security Council.
McClatchy
BERLIN — The world’s richest 85 people control the same amount of wealth as the total held by half the world’s population, according to a report issued today by the British-based anti-poverty charity Oxfam.
The means the world’s poorest 3,550,000,000 (3.55 billion) people must live on what the richest 85 possess. Another way to look at it: Each of the wealthiest 85 Earthlings has access to the resources available to about 42 million of the world’s poor, a population equal to the total number of people living in Canada, with those all those from Kentucky and Kansas tossed in.
Announcing the study, Oxfam’s website noted that it isn’t a simple notion of Social Darwinism. The game is rigged for the rich, and against the poor.
“Wealthy elites have co-opted political power to rig the rules of the economic game, undermining democracy and creating a world where the 85 richest people own the wealth of half of the world’s population.”
And the report makes clear that the trend is seeing a rapidly increasing division of global wealth.
The report says 210 people joined the very small ranks of billionaires last year (the report said the total number of about 1,400 worldwide).
Al Jazeera America
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Last summer, Badr al Nizi had seen enough of the killing in Syria as the world stood by and did nothing.
The soft-spoken 28-year-old Saudi held radical political views at the time and admits he was against “the Saudi government, non-Muslims and (was) also thinking about going for jihad.”
Agents from Saudi Arabia’s internal police force, run by the Ministry of the Interior, had taken notice of Nizi and the radical group of men he had been hanging around.
So when he applied for a passport at a Riyadh immigration office in July, he raised red flags in a country closely watching any signals that its citizens may be planning to go fight for the rebels in Syria.
King Abdullah and his government in Saudi Arabia have warned their subjects against traveling to Syria to wage jihad and have forbidden citizens to send money to Syrian groups, apart from the three state-sanctioned charities tasked with providing humanitarian aid to Syrian refugees. A Saudi security official told Al Jazeera that since 2011, the government has seized about $10 million from some 30 Saudi bank accounts being used to send money to bundlers in other Gulf countries such as Kuwait and Qatar, where it is forwarded to more radical groups in Syria.
“Ten million dollars could do a lot of damage in Syria,” the security official said.
Spiegel Online
Germany and the US appear to be edging closer to political confrontation. The Federal Prosecutor says there is sufficient evidence to open a politically explosive investigation into NSA spying on Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile phone.
Last Tuesday, on the sidelines of an Social Democrat party caucus in Berlin, German Justice Minister Heiko Maas ran into Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier. Maas pulled his fellow SPD member aside and warned him about what could become a difficult matter. "Something may be coming our way," Maas whispered, and noted that the foreign minister could be affected as well. Germany's federal prosecutor, Maas intimated, is currently considering opening an investigation into the scandal surrounding the surveillance of Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile phone by US intelligence. It's a step that would undoubtedly be considered an affront by the Americans.
BBC
West Brom sponsor Zoopla have decided to end their sponsorship of the club at the end of the season over Nicolas Anelka's "quenelle" gesture.
Anelka, 34, made the sign, described as an inverted Nazi salute and declared by some to be anti-Semitic, after scoring against West Ham on 28 December 2013.
Zoopla, co-owned by Jewish businessman Alex Chesterman, will focus on other marketing activities.
West Brom asked the striker not to repeat the celebration and have since selected him on three occasions.
The former Arsenal player defended his actions in the days following the incident, but as the FA's verdict draws nearer, the club's sponsor made its stance clear.The incident is being investigated by the Football Association.
THE ENVIRONMENT, SCIENCE, HEALTH AND TECHNOLOGY
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Bloomberg
BlackBerry Ltd. (BB) surged the most in more than three years after the U.S. Department of Defense said the company’s smartphones will account for 98 percent of devices in one of its new networks.
About 80,000 BlackBerrys and 1,800 phones and tablets based on Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s iOS software and Google Inc. (GOOG)’s Android operating system will start being hooked up to the Department of Defense’s management system at the end of this month, the Defense Information Systems Agency said in a statement last week.
BlackBerry rose 10 percent to C$10.99 at 12:26 p.m. in Toronto. Earlier it jumped as much as 18 percent, the most intraday since April 2009. After tumbling 33 percent last year, the stock has gained 40 percent this year.
ScienceBlog
Gaia provides new insight into Galactic evolution.
A breakthrough using data from the Gaia-ESO project has provided evidence backing up theoretically predicted divisions in the chemical composition of the stars that make up the Milky Way’s disc – the vast collection of giant gas clouds and billions of stars that give our Galaxy its ‘flying saucer’ shape.
By tracking the fast-produced elements, specifically magnesium in this study, astronomers can determine how rapidly different parts of the Milky Way were formed. As reported in a news release from Cambridge University, the research suggests that stars in the inner regions of the Galactic disc were the first to form, supporting ideas that our Galaxy grew from the inside-out.
ScienceBlog
Exposing skin to sunlight may help to reduce blood pressure and thus cut the risk of heart attack and stroke, a study published in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology suggests.
As reported in a news release issued by the University of Southampton, research carried out at the Universities of Southampton and Edinburgh shows that sunlight alters levels of the small messenger molecule, nitric oxide (NO) in the skin and blood, reducing blood pressure.
Martin Feelisch, Professor of Experimental Medicine and Integrative Biology at the University of Southampton, comments: “NO along with its breakdown products, known to be abundant in skin, is involved in the regulation of blood pressure. When exposed to sunlight, small amounts of NO are transferred from the skin to the circulation, lowering blood vessel tone; as blood pressure drops, so does the risk of heart attack and stroke.”
ScienceBlog
Renewable tidal energy sufficient to power about half of Scotland could be harnessed from a single stretch of water off the north coast of the country, engineers say.
As explained in a news release issued by the University of Edinburgh, researchers have completed the most detailed study yet of how much tidal power could be generated by turbines placed in the Pentland Firth, between mainland Scotland and Orkney, and estimate 1.9 gigawatts (GW) could be available.
The in-depth assessment by engineers at the Universities of Oxford and Edinburgh offers valuable insights into how to develop and regulate this clean energy resource effectively.
New York Times
WELCH, W. Va. — Sharon Mills, a disabled nurse, long depended on other people’s kindness to manage her diabetes. She scrounged free samples from doctors’ offices, signed up for drug company discounts and asked for money from her parents and friends. Her church often helped, but last month used its charitable funds to help repair other members’ furnaces.
Ms. Mills, 54, who suffered renal failure last year after having irregular access to medication, said her dependence on others left her feeling helpless and depressed. “I got to the point when I decided I just didn’t want to be here anymore,” she said.
So when a blue slip of paper arrived in the mail this month with a new Medicaid number on it — part of the expanded coverage offered under the Affordable Care Act — Ms. Mills said she felt as if she could breathe again for the first time in years. “The heavy thing that was pressing on me is gone,” she said.