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.
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Reuters
U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday pressured the federal communications regulator to toughen its planned Internet traffic rules, saying higher-fee "fast lanes" should be banned and Internet providers should be overseen more like public utilities are.
Obama's detailed position on the issue of "net neutrality," a platform in his presidential campaign in 2008, represented a rare step by the White House into the policy-setting of an independent agency.
It came after nearly 4 million comments flooded the Federal Communications Commission after Chairman Tom Wheeler formally proposed new Internet traffic rules in May.
Shares of major cable companies, which connect many Americans to the Internet, slid on the news. Time Warner Cable Inc (TWC.N) was down 3.4 percent; its planned purchaser, Comcast Corp (CMCSA.O), fell 3.o percent; and Cablevision Systems Corp (CVC.N) was 1.8 percent lower. Verizon Communications Inc (VZ.N) was down less than 0.1 percent.
NPR
On the same morning net neutrality demonstrators showed up at FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler's house to protest a plan that could let broadband providers charge for "fast lanes" to the Internet, the demonstrators found unexpected support from the White House.
President Obama released a statement and video Monday in which he makes the same demand as the demonstrators: Reclassify the Internet — and mobile broadband — as a public utility under Title II of the Telecommunications Act.
"I believe the FCC should create a new set of rules protecting net neutrality and ensuring that neither the cable company nor the phone company will be able to act as a gatekeeper, restricting what you can do or see online," Obama said in the statement.
The Guardian
America’s major telecoms and cable companies and business groups came out fighting on Monday after Barack Obama called for tough new regulations for broadband that would protect net neutrality, saying they were “stunned” by the president’s proposals.
The president called for new regulations to protect “net neutrality” – the principle that all traffic on the internet should be treated equally. His move came as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) finalises a new set of proposals for regulation after the old rules were overturned by a series of court defeats at the hands of cable and telecom companies.
In response, Republican senator Ted Cruz went so far as to call Obama’s proposal for regulating the web “Obamacare for the internet”, saying on Twitter “the internet should not operate at the speed of government.”
The powerful National Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCTA), which represents cable companies including Comcast and Time Warner said it was “stunned” by the president’s proposals.
C/Net
President Obama urged the US government to adopt tighter regulations on broadband service in an effort to preserve "a free and open Internet."
In a statement released Monday, Obama called on the Federal Communications Commission to enforce the principle of treating all Internet traffic the same way, known in shorthand as Net neutrality. That means treating broadband services like utilities, the president said, so that Internet service providers would be unable "to restrict the best access or to pick winners and losers in the online marketplace for services and ideas."
Obama wades into a contentious debate that has raged over how to treat Internet traffic, which has only heated up as the FCC works to prepare an official guideline. Those rules were expected to be made available later this year, though reports now claim they may be delayed until early 2015. The debate has centered on whether broadband should be placed under Title II regulation under the Telecommunications Act, which already tightly controls phone services.
Al Jazeera America
The FCC has received nearly 4 million comments after Chairman Tom Wheeler proposed new rules that prohibited Internet service providers (ISPs) from blocking any content, but allowed deals where content providers would pay the telecommunication companies to, as they put it, ensure smooth delivery of traffic.
Obama's proposal contradicts that plan, echoing calls from open Internet advocates and some of the tech companies that rely on equal access to bandwidth to do business. The statement also made clear that the president doesn't have the power to make the FCC's rules, but that his office strongly recommended the regulation.
Vox
President Barack Obama announced on Monday that he supports taking strong measures to protect network neutrality. The announcement was not terribly surprising — Obama has long been an avowed supporter of network neutrality. But this is the first time Obama has proposed a specific legal strategy for protecting network neutrality. And his comments will raise the profile of what was already the most contentious policy debate in the technology world.
If you're just tuning in now, it can seem a little overwhelming. What is network neutrality? What's "reclassification?" And why have people been arguing so angrily for so long? Here's an explanation that starts from the very beginning.
McClatchy News
WASHINGTON — In his 30 years as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci has seen his share of public health scares.
When AIDS exploded in the 1980s among gay men, Fauci recalls that some people didn’t want gay waiters to serve them in restaurants. And during the anthrax scare that followed the 9/11 terrorist attacks, many were afraid to open their mail.
But when it comes to Ebola, “This one’s got a special flavor of fear,” Fauci said at the recent Washington Ideas Forum, sponsored by The Atlantic magazine and the Aspen Institute, a nonpartisan policy group.
...
Even in Dallas, where Liberian Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan triggered the nation’s first potential outbreak, only two nurses contracted the virus after direct contact with Duncan while he was desperately ill. That’s out of 70-plus health care workers and 48 family and community members who interacted with him.
Despite the flawed federal and local response, the Dallas episode proved what Fauci and other experts have said all along: Ebola is tough to catch and even tougher to spread when contact tracing, patient isolation and quarantines are in place.
BBC
A recorded conversation between an apologetic Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher over the invasion of Grenada has been published for the first time.
"We regret very much the embarrassment that's been caused to you," the US leader said during the call.
Baroness Thatcher was angered that she was not consulted before the Americans invaded a Commonwealth state.
United States troops were sent to Grenada in 1983 to topple the Caribbean island's Marxist regime.
While US forces were still in action, the president phoned Lady Thatcher to explain the action he had taken.
"If I were there, Margaret," he said, "I'd throw my hat in the door before I came in."
The saying refers to an Civil War-era practice in which a visitor might throw his hat in to a room before entering - if he was unwelcome, it might be thrown out again or even shot at.
Reuters
U.S. President Barack Obama said on Monday a successful China was in the interests of the United States and the world but Beijing had to be a partner in underwriting international order, and not undermine it.
Referring to growing concerns among U.S. and other companies about the Chinese business environment after arriving in Beijing, Obama also urged China to reject the use of cyber theft for commercial gain and create a more level playing field where policy is not used for the benefit of some firms over others.
Obama's trip to China for an Asia-Pacific summit comes at a time of growing China-U.S. friction, with Washington trying to expand American interests in Asia while Chinese President Xi Jinping demonstrates more willingness than his predecessors to demonstrate Beijing's clout on regional issues.
Al Jazeera America
In his 2012 State of the Union address, President Barack Obama said that the U.S. had a supply of natural gas “that can last America nearly 100 years.”
But that unbridled optimism, shared by the natural gas industry as well as politicians who want to see the U.S. become more energy independent, is worrying a growing group of activists and analysts who say U.S. oil and gas production may start declining in a matter of years as drillers run out of sweet spots in U.S. shale reserves and are forced to explore less productive — and less lucrative — regions.
“Most of the wells right now are going into sweet spots,” said David Hughes, who authored a report released this week on the future of oil and gas production from the Post Carbon Institute, a green energy think tank. “You’re going to have to go into other parts of the reservoir eventually.”
The Guardian
A British businessman who has been in a Florida prison cell for the past 28 years – 15 of them on death row – will have a last chance to prove his innocence at an evidentiary hearing into his double murder conviction that opens in a Miami court on Monday.
Krishna, known as Kris, Maharaj will appear on Monday morning before Florida’s 11th circuit court, in a last-ditch attempt to prove that he has been the victim of a gross miscarriage of justice. His lawyers expect to call up to eight witnesses and present the court with 50 documents that will in their submission conclusively show that he was framed for the murders and that his prosecution was at best deeply flawed and at worst blatantly corrupt.
Among the first witnesses expected to give evidence will be a former Miami police officer who is expected to testify that he witnessed his senior officers planning a frame-up. In a recent affidavit the former officer, who is himself in prison on unrelated charges, said: “I visited the scene of the crime when it happened. I know that Mr Maharaj was framed because one of the officers in charge of investigating the double murder told me flat out that they were going to do this.”
Reuters
The U.S. administration on Monday dramatically cut expectations for 2015 Obamacare enrollment, saying between 9 million and 9.9 million people will enroll in private health plans, compared with a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) forecast of 13 million.
An Obama administration report, released just before the start of 2015 open enrollment on Saturday, also reduced the official count of 2014 enrollment to 7.1 million people as of Oct. 15, from 7.3 million in August. The change resulted in part from 112,000 people losing coverage because of unresolved application issues involving their citizenship or immigration status.
CBO, which has been a leading enrollment forecaster for Obamacare up to now, predicted that the private insurance marketplaces set up by the Affordable Care Act, better known as "Obamacare," would reach a mature 25 million paying customers by 2017.
Reuters
The U.S. Postal Service was the victim of a cyber attack that may have compromised the personal information of more than 800,000 employees as well as data on customers who contacted its call center from January through mid-August.
The employee information possibly accessed includes names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, addresses, beginning and end dates of employment and emergency contact information, the Postal Service said in a statement on Monday.
"The intrusion is limited in scope and all operations of the Postal Service are functioning normally," USPS spokesman David Partenheimer said.
He said the service began telling employees about the breach Monday morning and said it would pay for employees to get credit monitoring services for one year.
Spokeswoman Sue Brennan said more than 800,000 of the service's employees could have been affected.
NPR
As many as 18,000 nurses in Northern California are preparing for a two-day strike that will start Tuesday. Nurses plan to leave their posts at 7 a.m. and picket outside 21 Kaiser Permanente medical centers and clinics.
The placards nurses carry and the chants they repeat will say little about salaries or pensions. No economic proposals have even been put on the bargaining table yet.
"This seems awfully quick to go to a strike," says Joanne Spetz, an economics professor at the University of California, San Francisco School of Nursing. "I can't recall a situation where a strike has come up where there has not been some kind of disagreement about wages and benefits as part of the package."
BBC
The US and China will grant visas valid for up to a decade to visitors between the two countries under a deal announced by US President Barack Obama.
Mr Obama said the move would "benefit everyone," speaking during a high-level summit of Asian business leaders in Beijing, known as Apec.
Visas between the two countries were previously valid for only one year.
China-US relations have been rocky amid increased US presence in the Pacific and concerns over cyber espionage.
But on Monday, Mr Obama told the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) chief executive summit that the US welcomed the rise of a "prosperous, peaceful and stable China".
"We want China to do well," Mr Obama said.
"We compete for business, but we also seek to co-operate on a broad range of shared challenges and shared opportunities."
DW
Syria's president has said he's ready to study a UN plan designed to "freeze" the fighting in the northern city of Aleppo. The UN's special envoy to Syria floated the proposal on a three-day visit to the warzone.
A statement from Bashar al-Assad's office on Monday said that the Syrian president was willing to consider UN envoy Staffan de Mistura's suggestion of negotiating a localized truce in the flashpoint city of Aleppo.
"President Assad has been informed by de Mistura of the main points of his initiative," the statement, released on state news agency SANA after the two held talks in Damascus, said. "[Assad] said it was worthy of study and that work on it is needed … in order to re-establish security in Aleppo."
De Mistura has twice visited Syria since his appointment to the UN role in July. He proposed his latest "action plan" for Syria on October 30, suggesting a "freeze" of fighting in local areas to allow for aid deliveries and to lay the groundwork for peace talks.
DW
The first visit to Belgrade by an Albanian premier in seven decades has resulted in a public row over Kosovo. The two sides had been hoping to use the meeting to open a more harmonious chapter in their troubled ties.
Albanian Prime Minster Edi Rama and his Serbian counterpart, Aleksandar Vucic, clashed over Kosovo during a joint press conference following their meeting in Belgrade on Monday.
"We have two entirely different positions on Kosovo, but there is one reality and this is irreversible," Rama said. "Independent Kosovo is an undeniable regional and European reality, and it must be respected."
A visibly angered Vusic described Rama's statement as an act of "provocation."
"According to the constitution Kosovo is Serbia and I am obliged to say that no one can humiliate Serbia," Vucic said.
"I'm sorry, but that is the reality that many recognize," Rama replied. "The sooner you recognize [this], the sooner we can move ahead."
Al Jazeera
At least 47 people, most of them students, have been killed after an explosion ripped through a secondary school in northeast Nigeria, as students gathered for morning assembly before classes began.
Police said a suicide bomber disguised in a school uniform carried out the attack at the Government Comprehensive Senior Science Secondary School in Potiskum, Yobe state.
"There was an explosion detonated by a suicide bomber. We have 47 dead and 79 injured," national police spokesman Emmanuel Ojukwu said, adding that the armed group Boko Haram was believed to be responsible.
Al Jazeera
The Iraqi army has reached the centre of the northern city of Beiji, as they continue their effort to break the siege of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) on the country's biggest oil refinery nearby.
Exclusive images obtained by Al Jazeera on Monday showed government forces pushing ahead into the rebel-controlled city, with ISIL flag covered in an Iraqi security forces slogan.
Al Jazeera's Imran Khan, reporting from Baghdad, said clashes continue and the armed rebels are fighting back.
He said the oil refinery, located about 50km from the city centre, is the next big target. ISIL fighters remain in control of parts of the facility.
The military advance is seen as a significant victory for the government, as Beiji and its nearby oil refinery were one of the first territories swept by ISIL in June.
On Sunday, Iraqi troops entered Beiji, a city of about 200,000 people, from the south and west and took over the al-Tamim neighbourhood and city centre.
Al Jazeera America
India's Supreme Court on Monday ordered the lifting of a ban on women working as makeup artists in the movie industry, ending a decades-long discriminatory practice.
The Cine Costume Makeup Artists and Hair Dressers Association (CCMAA) had an unofficial ban on women as makeup artists, though they could work as hairdressers to the stars. The association said it was only trying to ensure that male makeup artists were not deprived of work in the film industry.
In telling the association to remove the gender clause, Judge Dipak Misra said: "We are in 2014, not in 1935. Such things cannot continue even for a day."
The court order came on a petition by makeup artist Charu Khurana, whose case was supported by the National Commission for Women, a state organization that protects women's rights.
Khurana trained at the Cinema Makeup School in Los Angeles but said she found it impossible to get work as a makeup artist in Bollywood. When film producers wanted to hire her, the CCMAA objected, saying she could not flout the nearly 6-decade-old tradition.
Spiegel Online
He only recently took office as European Commission president, but now, Jean-Claude Juncker is under pressure due to potentially illegal tax deals forged in Luxembourg during his stint as the country's prime minister. Some believe he may have to resign.
Jean-Claude Juncker's first public appearance as the new European Commission president was a symbolic one. Early this month, he traveled to Frankfurt to present former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl's new book in the luxury hotel Villa Kennedy. Called "Aus Sorge um Europa" -- "Out of Concern for Europe" -- the book warns that the pursuit of national interests represents a danger to the European ideal. And Juncker is quick to endorse Kohl, a man he calls "a friend and role model."
BBC
An Israeli soldier has died of his wounds following a knife attack in Tel Aviv, as an Israeli woman was stabbed to death in the occupied West Bank.
A Palestinian from the West Bank city of Nablus was arrested over the first attack in Tel Aviv.
The second attack was near the Alon Shvut Jewish settlement. The assailant was shot by a security guard.
The stabbings come at a time of heightened tension between Israel and the Palestinians.
At the weekend, Israeli Arabs threw stones at police in mainly Arab towns in Israel after police shot dead a young Arab man, who had attacked them with a knife.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to crack down on the violence.
THE ENVIRONMENT, SCIENCE, HEALTH AND TECHNOLOGY
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The Guardian
Polar bears are among 31 species approved for greater protections by more than 100 countries, in a move hailed by conservationists as an important step to saving the endangered mammal.
The Convention on Migratory Species conference in Ecuador closed on Sunday, with new listings for a whale capable of the world’s deepest ocean dives, and 21 shark, ray and sawfish. A proposal to list the African lion, however, was rejected due to a lack of data.
The Norwegian proposal to protect the estimated 20,000-25,000 remaining polar bears, which are threatened by melting ice, Arctic oil exploration and hunting, saw the species gain an Appendix II listing. That means countries must work together to put in place conservation plans, as opposed to the stronger Appendix I listing which requires strict protections such as bans on killing an animal.
The Guardian
They banned the burning of funeral offerings, closed restaurants and factories, halted deliveries and took millions of cars off the roads. But Chinese leaders were unable to achieve blue skies for this week’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) meeting in Beijing, with data from the US embassy showing air pollution at six times the World Health Organisation’s safe daily limit.
The one course of action left to officials? Denying access to the US data.
As global leaders tucked into their welcoming dinner, the US reading – still available on the embassy’s own website – was “very unhealthy”, with an air quality index reading of 203. It showed the concentration of PM2.5, the smallest particulate matter, at 153 micrograms per cubic metre. The WHO says the safe daily level is 25 micrograms.
But as the Washington Post reported, Smartphone apps and Chinese websites that normally included the US figures alongside official statistics, had the former removed, while the official Chinese feed crept up to 147 or “lightly polluted”.
fireeye.com via Reuters
In July 2014, FireEye mobile security researchers have discovered that an iOS app installed using enterprise/ad-hoc provisioning could replace another genuine app installed through the App Store, as long as both apps used the same bundle identifier. This in-house app may display an arbitrary title (like “New Flappy Bird”) that lures the user to install it, but the app can replace another genuine app after installation. All apps can be replaced except iOS preinstalled apps, such as Mobile Safari. This vulnerability exists because iOS doesn't enforce matching certificates for apps with the same bundle identifier. We verified this vulnerability on iOS 7.1.1, 7.1.2, 8.0, 8.1 and 8.1.1 beta, for both jailbroken and non-jailbroken devices. An attacker can leverage this vulnerability both through wireless networks and USB. We named this attack “Masque Attack," and have created a demo video here:
NPR
Ebola is threatening to reverse years of educational progress in West Africa. The virus has kept school closed for months in a part of the world where literacy rates are low and school systems are only now recovering from years of civil war.
In Liberia, many children have been put to work while schools are closed, and Ebola is hurting the economy, says Laurent Duvillier, a communication specialist at UNICEF. The fear now, he says, is that many of these children will never return to school.
NPR
There's an apple renaissance underway, an ever-expanding array of colors and tastes in the apple section of supermarkets and farmers markets.
Less visible is the economic machinery that's helping to drive this revolution. An increasing number of these new apples are "club apples" — varieties that are not just patented, but also trademarked and controlled in such a way that only a select "club" of farmers can sell them.
To understand the new trend, start with the hottest apple variety of recent years: Honeycrisp.
"It's incredible," says Sydney Kuhn, who owns Kuhn Orchards in Cashtown, Pa. "That apple has such a following at this point." It's the most popular variety that Kuhn sells, by far.
Honeycrisp came from the University of Minnesota. Apple breeders there cross-pollinated different apple trees, created new genetic combinations and picked this one.
"I still remember the first day that I tasted it," says David Bedford, one of the university's apple breeders. This new, as-yet-unnamed apple was crisp. Bedford calls it "explosively crisp."
NPR
In a darkened lab in the north of England, a research associate is intensely focused on the microscope in front of her. She carefully maneuvers a long glass tube that she uses to manipulate early human embryos.
"It's like microsurgery," says Laura Irving of Newcastle University.
Irving is part of a team of scientists trying to replace defective DNA with healthy DNA. They hope this procedure could one day help women who are carrying genetic disorders have healthy children.
"We are talking about conditions for which there is currently no cure," says Dr. Doug Turnbull, a professor of neurology at Newcastle University who is leading the research. These mitochondrial diseases are caused by hereditary defects in human cells.
"Mitochondria are like little power stations present in all our cells," Turnbull says. These power stations provide the energy that cells need. If the mitochondrial DNA is defective, the cells don't work right. The cells in effect run out of energy.
NPR
For this series, we've been thinking a lot about some of the iconic objects that some of us remember using — if only for a short period of time — in our early schooling. Slide rules, the recorder, protractors and Bunsen burners.
But when the abacus came up, we were a bit stumped.
"Does anyone still use this thing?" we wondered. "And how the heck does it work?"
These days, you're most likely to find the simple abacus in the hands of preschoolers — with rows of rainbow-colored beads that kids can push around and shake and rattle.
But the abacus is much more than a fun toy for 3-year-olds. It's a fairly sophisticated calculating device that dates back to antiquity.
Ancient Romans used them to collect taxes. In the Middle Ages, European merchants used them to keep track of their finances. The Russians invented their own version, as did the Chinese and the Japanese.
A map by the National Weather Service predicts winter weather spreading through the north-central U.S. Monday, and spreading east.
NPR
Some forecasters call it an arctic front. Others say it's the good old polar vortex, or simply an "intrusion." By any other name, it'll be just as cold: Weather that hit Alaska last week is rushing down into the U.S., rapidly bringing a drop in temperature that won't end for days.
"Significant snowfall is likely for parts of the northern Rockies, northern Plains and Great Lakes region as the cold front moves southward," the National Weather Service says in its latest advisory, adding that winter weather advisories are in effect.
The cold front hit Wyoming just after midnight last night. It struck Denver this morning, bringing wind gusts and snow — and dropping the temperature by 15 degrees in just 15 minutes at the Denver International Airport, according to local weather news site Weather 5280.
NPR
The federal government is about to put $100 million behind a simple idea: doubling the value of SNAP benefits — what used to be called food stamps — when people use them to buy local fruits and vegetables.
This idea did not start on Capitol Hill. It began as a local innovation at a few farmers' markets. But it proved remarkably popular and spread across the country.
"It's so simple, but it has such profound effects both for SNAP recipients and for local farmers," says Mike Appell, a vegetable farmer who sells his produce at a market in Tulsa, Okla.
The idea first surfaced in 2005 among workers at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. They were starting a campaign to get people to eat more fresh produce.
"I think we were trying to confront the idea that healthy foods, [like] fresh fruits and vegetables, are not affordable," says Candace Young, who was director of the department's nutrition programming at the time. (Young now works for The Food Trust in Philadelphia.)
Young recalls that one of their workers pointed out that some SNAP recipients live near farmers markets "and we thought, how about we incentivize them to use their SNAP benefits at these farmers markets?"
NPR
The second open enrollment season for health insurance offered through marketplaces created by the Affordable Care Act is just around the corner. Are you ready?
Here's a quick checklist for people who don't get their health insurance at work and plan to shop for coverage on the health law's online exchanges. Enrollment starts Nov. 15, but you can start kicking the tires now.
Compare plans and prices at HealthCare.gov or, if your state has its own exchange, shop there to find out which coverage is best for you. And you may be eligible for subsidies to help pay your premium.
Keep these five things in mind as the three-month open enrollment period begins.
Reuters
Apple Inc (AAPL.O) is embarking on its most aggressive expansion yet onto corporate turf, hiring a dedicated sales force to talk with potential clients like Citigroup Inc (C.N) and working in concert with a dozen or so developers, two sources familiar with its plans say.
Experts say the company hopes to offset a gradual deceleration in growth - highlighted by iPad sales that have declined three straight quarters - by expanding its footprint in the workplace.
Three months after unveiling a partnership with IBM (IBM.N) to develop apps for corporate clients and sell them on devices, the iPhone maker’s plans to challenge sector leaders Hewlett-Packard (HPQ.N), Dell Inc[DI.UL] , Oracle (ORCL.N) and SAP (SAPG.DE) are starting to take shape.