Welcome to
Overnight News Digest, where the usual crew, consisting of founder Magnifico, regular editors maggiejean, wader, Man Oh Man, side pocket, rfall, and JML9999, alumni editors palantir, Bentliberal, Oke, Interceptor7, jlms qkw, and ScottyUrb, guest editors annetteboardman and Doctor RJ, and current editor-in-chief Neon Vincent, along with anyone else who reads and comments, informs and entertains you with tonight's news.
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 each day near 12:00AM Eastern Time.
Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.
From National Journal: Obama: 'No Religion Is Responsible for Terrorism'
President Obama, much to the chagrin of Republicans and others, has avoided rhetorically tying the actions of the Islamic State to radical Islam, or Islamic extremists. In a speech Wednesday at a White House Summit on combating violent extremism, he laid out why.
Islamic State fighters "are not religious leaders, they are terrorists," Obama said. "And we are not at war with Islam. We are at war with people who have perverted Islam."
"No religion is responsible for terrorism," he said. "People are responsible for violence and terrorism."
Obama also emphasized the importance of targeting propaganda efforts by the Islamic State.
"Terrorist groups like al Qaeda and ISIL deliberately target their propaganda in the hopes of reaching and brainwashing young Muslims, especially those who may be disillusioned or wrestling with their identity. That's the truth," Obama said.
From the
New York Times:
From a Private School in Cairo to ISIS Killing Fields in Syria
He winced at the mere mention of his son’s name, visibly overcome by an unceasing thought that he struggled to articulate. He looked down to hide the tears in his eyes. “You have to understand, I am in pain,” said Yaken Aly, choking on the words: “My son is gone.”
Mr. Aly raised his son, Islam Yaken, in Heliopolis, a middle-class Cairo neighborhood with tended gardens and trendy coffee shops, and sent him to a private school, where he studied in French. As a young man, Mr. Yaken wanted to be a fitness instructor. He trained relentlessly, hoping that his effort would bring him success, girlfriends and wealth. But his goals never materialized. He left that life and found religion, extremism and, ultimately, his way into a photograph where he knelt beside a decapitated corpse on the killing fields of Syria, smiling.
“Surely, the holiday won’t be complete without a picture with one of the dogs’ corpses,” Mr. Yaken, now 22 and fighting for the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, wrote in a Twitter post in July, during Ramadan.
The West is struggling to confront the rise of Islamic extremism and the brutality committed in the name of religion. But it is not alone in trying to understand how this has happened — why young men raised in homes that would never condone violence, let alone coldblooded murder, are joining the Islamic State and Al Qaeda. It is a phenomenon that is as much a threat to Muslim nations as to the West, if not more so, as thousands of young men volunteer as foot soldiers, ready to kill and willing to die.
“I am living,” Mr. Aly said, “just to give his mother the strength to go on.”
But it is here, in the very fabric of this community, the living rooms, the streets, the mosques and the halls of power, that the fertile ground of extremism has been prepared.
From the
Wall Street Journal:
Molecule Shows Ability to Block AIDS Virus
Scientists have engineered a molecule they say can block infection with the virus that causes AIDS, a discovery that potentially could lead to a new therapy for patients as well as an alternative to a vaccine.
Researchers have been trying for three decades to develop an effective vaccine against the human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS. They are also searching for a way to cure infected people. But the ever-evolving virus has eluded them.
Now, a team from the Scripps Research Institute and other institutions said it has identified a way to prevent HIV from infecting cells, using an approach that resembles gene therapy or transfer rather than eliciting an immune response.
HIV normally invades cells through two receptors. The new protein blocks the points where the virus binds to both cellular receptors, leaving no point of entry. Because it attaches to both receptors rather than just one, the protein, called eCD4-IG, blocks more HIV strains than any of several powerful antibodies that have been shown to disable the virus, the researchers said. The study was published online Wednesday by the journal Nature.
“It is absolutely 100% effective,” said Michael Farzan, a professor of infectious diseases at the Scripps Research Institute in Jupiter, Fla., and lead author of the study. “There is no question that it is by far the broadest entry inhibitor out there.”
From
Bloomberg:
Student Debt May Be Sabotaging Your Shot at Buying a Home
The debt represented by one of these lines can't be erased through bankruptcy
Student debt continued its decade-long explosion last year, quietly undermining many young people's chances of buying a home, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. A blog post published on Wednesday by the New York Fed presented data that elaborates on a report published earlier this week showing that student debt grew to nearly $1.2 trillion in 2014, the biggest-ever figure, as more people took out larger loans.
The average balance for each borrower has grown by 74 percent in the last decade, mushrooming from $15,000 per person in 2004 to $27,000 in 2014, said the report, which was based on a nationally representative sample taken from anonymous Equifax credit data. Most borrowers have less than $27,000 in debt. The average is elevated by the 1.8 million people—a small proportion of all borrowers—who carry an extreme level of debt, pushing $100,000.
Still, the economists said things are not looking up for a growing slice of borrowers who can't keep up monthly payments toward their debt. The share of loans that were officially delinquent—payments were at least 90 days overdue—rose to 11.3 percent in the last three months of 2014, up from 11.1 percent the previous quarter.
From the
Los Angeles Times:
Superbug linked to 2 deaths at UCLA hospital; 100 potentially exposed
More than 100 patients at UCLA’s Ronald Reagan Medical Center may have been exposed to a potentially deadly bacteria from contaminated medical scopes after similar outbreaks at other hospitals across the country.
The Times has learned that seven UCLA patients have been infected by the drug-resistant superbug known as CRE, and the bacteria may have contributed to two of those patients’ deaths. Those numbers may grow as more patients get tested.
University officials said the exposed patients were treated between October and January.
In response to questions from The Times, UCLA said it became aware of the outbreak late last month and has begun to notify patients and offer them medical tests. By some estimates, if the infection spreads to a person's bloodstream, CRE can kill 40% to 50% of its patients.
From
CNN:
Justice Dept. could sue Ferguson for racial discrimination
The Justice Department is preparing to bring a lawsuit against the Ferguson, Missouri, police department over a pattern of racially discriminatory tactics used by officers, if the police department does not agree to make changes on its own, sources tell CNN.
Attorney General Eric Holder said this week he expects to announce the results of the department's investigation of the shooting death of Michael Brown and a broader probe of the Ferguson Police Department before he leaves office in the coming weeks ... Among the issues expected to be part of the Justice Department's lawsuit are allegations made in a recent lawsuit filed by a group of low-income people who claimed officers in Ferguson and nearby Jennings targeted minorities with minor traffic infractions and then jailed them when they couldn't pay fines.
The Justice Department action would ask for court supervision of changes at the Ferguson Police Department to improve how police deal with the minority communities they are supposed to protect.
From
The Daily Beast:
Jeb Bush Bungles Facts, Pronunciation in His Big National Security Speech
Trying to sound presidential, Bush instead came off like a confused former governor.
Likely presidential candidate Jeb Bush delivered a nervous, uncertain speech on national security Wednesday, full of errors and confusion.
Seeking to differentiate himself from his father and brother, both former presidents, the former governor of Florida asserted, “I am my own man.”
But the man who emerged on stage at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs did not sound well-versed in foreign policy.
Bush’s clunky, rushed delivery paled in comparison to the hazy facts in the speech and vague answers he gave during a Q&A session following his remarks.
Speaking of the extremist group based in Nigeria that has killed thousands of civilians, Bush referred to Boko Haram as “Beau-coup Haram.” Bush also referred to Iraq when he meant to refer to Iran.
Further, Bush misrepresented the strength of ISIS, saying it has some 200,000 men, which is far greater than the U.S. intelligence community’s estimates. Last week National Counterterrorism Center Director Nicholas Rasmussen pegged the fighting strength of ISIS at between 20,000 and 31,500.
“Governor Bush misspoke,” Bush aide Kristy Campbell told The Daily Beast after the speech. “He meant 20,000.”
From
Al Jazeera:
Alberto Nisman’s death blows lid off Argentina’s tainted justice system
Thousands of people took to the streets of Buenos Aires on Wednesday to participate in a silent march in solidarity with Alberto Nisman, the Argentine prosecutor who accused the government of a massive cover-up last month and turned up dead just before he was supposed to testify before Congress a few days later.
The circumstances of his death were mysterious and remain so. Earlier this month, forensic experts found the DNA of another, as-yet unidentified person in Nisman’s apartment, where he apparently committed suicide on Jan. 18. Last week another federal prosecutor said there were legitimate grounds to investigate Nisman’s allegations that the president and her foreign minister conspired with Iran to protect suspects in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires.
Since so little is known about the nature of Nisman’s death — and, for that matter, the validity of his accusations against the government — Wednesday’s march has given rise to all manner of insinuation about what, exactly, is motivating demonstrators. The government has accused them of plotting to destabilize the state. And others are calling the march an electoral campaign in a swipe at opposition politicians and government figures who are looking to brand (or rebrand) themselves in the run-up to the presidential election later this year.
From
Rolling Stone:
The White Devil Kingpin
How did a homeless kid from Boston transform himself into a major overlord in Chinatown's criminal underworld?
Early one morning in Dorchester, Massachusetts, John Willis Junior gently lifted his girlfriend's daughter, Mai Linn, from her sleep. Willis, a burly 39-year-old with close cropped gray hair and bright blue eyes, had been away in Florida and come back to celebrate her ninth birthday that weekend. His beautiful Vietnamese-American girlfriend, Anh Nguyen, suggested they bring Mai Linn to bed with them so she could wake up and see his face first thing.
As Willis lay there beside them, he appreciated how far he'd come. This was what he'd always wanted more than anything: a family and a sense of belonging, even if he had to find them in the most unconventional of ways. Willis was the most notorious gangster in Asian organized crime – and, even more remarkably, the first white man to rise so high in this insular underworld. He was once just another hockey-playing Catholic kid in this working-class Boston neighborhood. But now they knew him here as Bac Guai John. White Devil.
Starting in his teens, he muscled his way up through the ranks to become what U.S. Attorney Timothy E. Moran later called "the kingpin, organizer and leader of a vast conspiracy." His business was oxycodone, the opioid known as pharmaceutical heroin. In less than two years, he trafficked over 260,000 pills up from Florida to the Northeast for profits of more than $4 million – though Willis puts the numbers at "10 times that." And like so many drug lords before him, he blew his cash on oceanfront homes in South Florida, sports cars, strip clubs and speedboats, and was, according to Moran, "a very dangerous, violent man."
From the
Seattle Times:
Judge: Washington florist who refused gay wedding broke law
A florist who refused to provide flowers to a gay couple for their wedding violated state consumer-protection and anti-discrimination law, a judge ruled Wednesday.
Benton County Superior Court Judge Alex Ekstrom rejected arguments from the owner of Arlene’s Flowers in Richland that her actions were protected by her freedoms of speech and religion. While religious beliefs are protected by the First Amendment, actions based on those beliefs aren’t necessarily protected, he said. “For over 135 years, the Supreme Court has held that laws may prohibit religiously motivated action, as opposed to belief,” Ekstrom wrote. “The Courts have confirmed the power of the Legislative Branch to prohibit conduct it deems discriminatory, even where the motivation for that conduct is grounded in religious belief.”
Barronelle Stutzman, the owner of Arlene’s Flowers, sold flowers for years to customer Robert Ingersoll. She knew he was gay and that the flowers were for his partner, Curt Freed. After Washington state adopted gay marriage in 2012, Ingersoll went to the shop the following spring to ask Stutzman to do the flowers for his wedding. At the time, floral arrangements for weddings made up about 3 percent of her business. She placed her hands on his and told him she couldn’t, “because of my relationship with Jesus Christ,” she said in a deposition. As a Southern Baptist, she believed only in opposite-sex marriages.
From
U.S. News & World Report:
Carnegie Mellon mistakenly accepts 800 applicants, then rejects them
Ben Leibowitz called up relatives to tell them he got into Carnegie Mellon University's prestigious graduate computer science program. He even went out to dinner with his parents to celebrate.
Then he got a second email saying he hadn't been accepted after all.
About 800 other Carnegie Mellon applicants experienced similar swings of ecstasy and agony Monday - first rejoicing that the Pittsburgh institution had selected them for its master of science in computer science, then being told the acceptances were sent in error and that they had been rejected.
"It was brutal. I didn't get much sleep last night," Leibowitz, of Stamford, Connecticut, said Tuesday. "Now I have to clean up the mess. I'm calling all my relatives, I'm going, 'I'm sorry it's not happening.'"
Carnegie Mellon spokesman Kenneth Walters said the "Welcome to Carnegie Mellon!" messages were the result of "serious mistakes" in the university's process for generating acceptance letters and that it would conduct a review to prevent another error.
From the
Financial Times:
Fed appears unlikely to raise interest rates soon
Many Federal Reserve members were inclined in January to keep interest rates low for longer, according to minutes of their latest meeting, which underscore the US central bank’s cautious stance towards normalising monetary policy.
The Federal Open Market Committee held a lengthy discussion on January 27-28 of its strategy for raising rates as it primes the markets for eventual lift-off from the current 0-0.25 per cent level.
The minutes, released on Wednesday, reiterated that rate-setters generally expected inflation to return to the Fed’s 2 per cent objective as America’s labour market strengthens and transitory effects of low energy prices dissipate.
However the record showed a committee that remained divided as to exactly when to begin raising interest rates. Many officials said they feared a “premature” rise in rates could damp the apparently solid economic growth and labour market recovery.
From
Variety:
New ‘Alien’ Movie Confirmed with Director Neill Blomkamp
20th Century Fox has closed a deal with director Neill Blomkamp to develop a new “Alien” movie, sources confirm.
The untitled sci-fi project is separate from “Prometheus 2,” which Fox is still making with Ridley Scott.
Blomkamp, who directed “District 9″ and the upcoming Sony feature “Chappie,” had been teasing the project in recent months but said the extra-terrestrial reboot was likely abandoned. It was supposed to star “Alien” veteran Sigourney Weaver ... It’s unclear whether Weaver is still attached to the movie.
According to insiders, the new “Alien” takes place years after the “Prometheus” sequel. Scott is producing both films through his production company Scott Free.
“Prometheus,” also distributed by Fox, was “loosely based” on the “Alien” franchise and earned over $400 million worldwide. But the 3D movie opened to mixed reviews, and Fox hopes Blomkamp, who last directed “Elysium,” can take the franchise to the next level.
From the
Washington Post:
Ukrainian president calls for international peacekeeping mission
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called Wednesday for an international peacekeeping mission in his nation’s war-torn east, a stark admission that his nation can no longer fend off pro-Russian rebels after a major battlefield defeat.
Any international force on the ground would harden the battle lines after 10 months of fighting, forcing Ukraine to give up for now its attempts to reunify the nation. But it would also halt Russian-backed rebels from pushing onward toward Kiev.
The suggestion came hours after thousands of Ukrainian troops fled the encircled railway hub of Debaltseve, where fighting only intensified after a cease-fire ostensibly took effect Sunday. Nearly a year after Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula, the fresh loss threatened tough political consequences for Ukraine’s pro-Western president amid questions of how the troops became surrounded in recent weeks.
Soldiers described a chaotic nighttime retreat over eastern Ukraine’s frozen steppe, with shells raining down on them from two sides.
The prospects for a peacekeeping mission in Ukraine were not immediately clear. Any U.N. Security Council mandate would be subject to a possible Russian veto. Poroshenko said he hoped for a European Union police mission, although what such a plan would entail on the ground remained unclear. Any E.U.-only plan appeared likely to be rejected by Russia, which has said that it views NATO’s encroachment on its borders as a security threat.
From
Reuters:
Libya, Egypt ask U.N. to lift arms embargo to fight Islamic State
Libya and Egypt asked the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday to lift an arms embargo on Libya, impose a naval blockade on areas not under government control and help build the country's army to tackle Islamic State and other militants.
Libya has descended into factional fighting, leaving the country almost lawless nearly four years after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi. Two competing governments backed by militia brigades are scrambling for control of the oil-producing country and the chaos has created havens for Islamist militants.
The Security Council met to discuss Libya after Islamic State released a video showing the beheading of 21 Egyptian Christians. Egypt responded to the killings with air strikes on Monday on militant camps, training sites and arms storage areas in Libya.
From
The Atlantic:
The future of birth control, from remote-controlled implants to—at long last—a pill for men
Every couple of months, starting in 2008, clinicians injected dozens of men across eight countries with a serum containing the hormones progestin and testosterone. The men then had unprotected sex with their female partners, as part of a male-birth-control trial orchestrated by Conrad, a Virginia-based nonprofit devoted to reproductive-health research. Three years into the trial, things appeared to be going well: just four women had gotten pregnant.
There was one big catch, however. While Conrad had anticipated that the hormones might have a few minor side effects—weight gain and acne among them—some of the men developed more-severe reactions, including depression and ramped-up libido. This spooked the panels that were overseeing the experiments, and in April 2011, Conrad shut down the study.
Though they’re used by almost everyone, contraceptives seem to have advanced less in 50 years than cellphones have in five. The problems with the current birth-control arsenal are well known: The pill is the most common female contraceptive method in the United States, but nearly a third of American users are so dissatisfied that they abandon it within the first year. That’s because the pill, like all hormonal forms of birth control, can have a number of negative side effects, including nausea and mood changes. Intrauterine devices and implants are by far the most-effective forms of reversible birth control, but the only nonhormonal version on the U.S. market—the copper IUD—can cause severe cramping and heavy bleeding. Barrier methods, meanwhile, have high failure rates.
The obstacles to introducing new methods are enormous. Even if a research lab were to develop a promising product, that lab would need a pharmaceutical company to bring the drug to market—and the pharmaceutical industry’s support for new contraceptives has been tepid. Drug companies are wary of cannibalizing the existing oral-contraceptive market, and of being sued. Women routinely assume certain health risks from birth control, perhaps because the alternative (pregnancy) has its own hazards. Pharmaceutical companies seem less confident that men (who are in no danger of getting pregnant) will embrace a male contraceptive despite its side effects or hassle factor. In 2007, for example, Bayer shelved a male contraceptive that involved an annual implant and a quarterly injection, having concluded that men would consider the regimen—in the words of a spokesperson—“not as convenient as a woman taking a pill once a day.”
From
ESPN:
The Education of Alex Rodriguez
PEOPLE HATE HIM. Boy, wow, do they hate him. At first they loved him, and then they were confused by him, and then they were irritated by him, and now they straight-up loathe.
More often than not, the mention of Alex Rodriguez in polite company triggers one of a spectrum of deeply conditioned responses. Pained ugh. Guttural groan. Exaggerated eye roll. Hundreds of baseball players have been caught using steroids, including some of the game's best-known and most beloved names, but somehow Alex Rodriguez has become the steroid era's Lord Voldemort. Ryan Braun? Won an MVP, got busted for steroids, twice, called the tester an anti-Semite, lied his testes off, made chumps of his best friends, including Aaron Rodgers, and still doesn't inspire a scintilla of the ill will that follows Rodriguez around like a nuclear cloud.
Schadenfreude is part of the reason. Rodriguez was born with an embarrassment of physical riches -- power, vision, energy, size, speed -- and seemed designed specifically for immortality, as if assembled in some celestial workshop by baseball angels and the artists at Marvel Comics. He then had the annoyingly immense good fortune to come of age at the exact moment baseball contracts were primed to explode. Months after he was old enough to rent a car he signed a contract worth $252 million. Seven years later: another deal worth $275 million. Add to that windfall another $500 million worth of handsome, and people were just waiting. Fans will root for a megarich athlete who's also ridiculously handsome (body by Rodin, skin like melted butterscotch, eyes of weaponized hazelness), but the minute he stumbles, just ask Tom Brady, they'll stand in line to kick him in his spongy balls.
Rodriguez's defenders (and employees) are quick to say: Sheesh, the guy didn't murder anybody. But he did. A-Rod murdered Alex Rodriguez.
From
The Hollywood Reporter:
Oscar Voter Reveals Brutally Honest Ballot: "There's No Art to 'Selma,'" 'Boyhood' "Uneven"
This is a lightly edited transcript of a conversation with an Academy member — who is not associated with any of this year's nominees — about her ballot. A conversation with a different member will post each day leading up to the Oscars ceremony on Feb. 22. Needless to say, their views are not necessarily endorsed by Scott Feinberg or THR.
First, let me say that I'm tired of all of this talk about "snubs" — I thought for every one of [the snubs] there was a justifiable reason. What no one wants to say out loud is that Selma is a well-crafted movie, but there's no art to it. If the movie had been directed by a 60-year-old white male, I don't think that people would have been carrying on about it to the level that they were. And as far as the accusations about the Academy being racist? Yes, most members are white males, but they are not the cast of Deliverance — they had to get into the Academy to begin with, so they're not cretinous, snaggletoothed hillbillies. When a movie about black people is good, members vote for it. But if the movie isn't that good, am I supposed to vote for it just because it has black people in it? I've got to tell you, having the cast show up in T-shirts saying "I can't breathe" [at their New York premiere] — I thought that stuff was offensive. Did they want to be known for making the best movie of the year or for stirring up shit?
American Sniper is the winner of the year, whether or not it gets a single statuette, because for all of us in the movie industry — I don't care what your politics are — it is literally the answer to a prayer for a midrange budget movie directed by an 84-year-old guy [Clint Eastwood] to do this kind of business. It shows that a movie can galvanize America and shows that people will go if you put something out that they want to see. With regard to what it did or didn't leave out, it's a movie, not a documentary. I enjoyed it, I thought it was well done, and I can separate out the politics from the filmmaking.
The Grand Budapest Hotel, like American Sniper, is a big hero this year because it shows that people can and will remember how much they loved a movie, even if it comes out in March. I am not a Wes Anderson fan, but as his movies go, I liked it.
From
Hitfix:
Best Actor: It's Michael Keaton, Eddie Redmayne or Bradley Cooper down to the wire
We weren't kidding back in December when we wrote about how this year's Best Actor pool may have been the greatest ever. Two months later, and we seemingly have the tightest race in this category in at least 12 years. And let's put an emphasis on "seemingly."
From a pundit, industry and Oscar fan perspective, it appears as though three of the five nominees have a legitimate shot to celebrate on Oscar Sunday. First up is "The Theory of Everything's" Eddie Redmayne. The 33-year-old Brit has already won a Golden Globe, a Screen Actors Guild Award and, as expected, the BAFTA Award in this category for his incredible portrayal of Stephen Hawking in the popular biopic.
Redmayne's main competition for most of awards season has been "Birdman's" Michael Keaton. The veteran actor was the apple of critics groups' eyes, earning honors from the National Board of Review and, by our count, 20 other organizations. He took home the Globe for Best Actor - Musical or Comedy and managed two Best Actor honors from the Critics' Choice Awards. While he lost at the SAG Awards, "Birdman" did win Best Ensemble. That means you could easily make a case that there is support for the movie and his performance within the actors branch. Because of his long and legendary career, Keaton arguably knows more Academy members than his competitors and is seen as an icon for the lasting impact of his earlier work. Is there a faction of the membership that wants to give him an Oscar so he can finally join the club? You bet there is.
From
USA Today:
Dr. Seuss returns with newly discovered book
Dr. Seuss long ago passed from the scene but old manuscripts by the beloved children's author keep turning up.
Random House Children's Books said Wednesday it will publish a recently discovered manuscript with Dr. Seuss sketches, called What Pet Should I Get?, on July 28.
The publisher plans at least two more books based on materials found in 2013 by his widow, Audrey Geisel, and his secretary in the author's home in the ritzy seaside neighborhood of La Jolla in San Diego.
The author, whose real name was Theodor "Ted" Seuss Geisel, died in 1991 at the age of 87.
According to Random House, when Audrey Geisel was remodeling her home after his death, she found a box filled with pages of text and sketches and set it aside with some of her husband's other materials. It was rediscovered 22 years later, in the fall of 2013, by Audrey Geisel and Claudia Prescott — Ted Geisel's longtime secretary and friend — when they were cleaning out his office space.
They found the full text and illustrations for What Pet Should I Get?, among other work.
From
Business Insider:
Samsung will buy Apple Pay competitor LoopPay
Samsung will buy LoopPay, a mobile payments company.
LoopPay's technology allows mobile payments through traditional magnetic credit card readers. That means it can theoretically work in a lot more places than Apple Pay, which requires special payment pads to work.
Samsung did not say how much it's paying to buy LoopPay.
According to a report last year in Re/code, Samsung plans to incorporate LoopPay's technology in an upcoming flagship phone, likely the Galaxy S6 ... Because LoopPay works with most standard magnetic credit card readers, it's compatible with far more point-of-sale systems than Apple Pay and Google Wallet, which require special near field communication (NFC) readers. LoopPay claims it works at about 90% of places that accept credit cards.
From
Ars Technica:
Revenge porn site operator Hunter Moore pleads guilty to hacking, ID theft
On Wednesday, Hunter Moore, 28, the notorious founder and operator of revenge porn site IsAnyoneUp.com pleaded guilty to unauthorized access to a computer, aiding and abetting unauthorized access of a computer, and identity theft. The charges each carry a maximum penalty of two to five years in jail, but Moore will be sentenced at a later date.
Moore’s IsAnybodyUp.com became hugely popular for posting nude and sexually explicit photos of people without their permission, and it spawned copycat revenge porn sites like Craig Brittain's IsAnybodyDown.com and Kevin Bollaert’s ugotposted.com. (Brittain was banned from posting any more nude photos of people without their explicit permission in a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission in January, and Bollaert was found guilty earlier this month of identity theft and extortion.) Moore’s site at one point allegedly received over 30 million page views per month and was bringing in about $10,000 in ad revenue.
Some of the photos on Moore’s site came from disgruntled lovers handing over their ex’s nude pics (hence the name “revenge porn”) but Moore also pleaded guilty to paying conspirator Charles “Gary” Evens to steal nude photos from victims, often paying Evens up to $200 per week. "To help populate the site with nude photos, defendant aided, abetted, and procured, and willfully caused co-defendant Charles Evens (“Evens”) to intentionally access, without authorization, a computer used in interstate commerce belonging to Google by accessing the victims’ e-mail accounts,” Moore’s plea agreement states.
From the
Associated Press:
Lester Holt maintains ratings lead of 'NBC Nightly News'
The understated understudy has worked without a break since Williams took himself off the newscast on Feb. 7 and was suspended for six months by NBC News on Feb. 10. The network continues to investigate Williams for misrepresenting his experiences as a journalist.
"Nightly News" with Holt averaged 9.43 million viewers last week, the Nielsen company said. ABC's "World News Tonight" had 9.03 million viewers and the "CBS evening News" had 7.63 million. The 400,000-viewer advantage over ABC last week is smaller than the average 587,000-viewer edge by NBC for the season that began last September.
Holt, 55, has been with NBC News since 2000 and before that worked as a news anchor in Chicago for 14 years. Besides being Williams' chief sub for the past two years, he co-anchors "Dateline NBC," ''Weekend Today" and "Nightly News" on the weekends.
He's been placed in a uniquely awkward position, asked to right the ship for a company desperate to get out of the headlines, not knowing whether it's a temporary position or one that could become permanent. And if Williams does not return, what can — or should — Holt do to prove he's the right person for the job?
"It's tough," said veteran news executive Rick Kaplan, once Holt's boss when he was MSNBC president. "He has to be very careful, because until Brian's future is outlined very clearly, Lester is just doing the network a favor in a way."
From
CNN Money:
Brian Williams' daughter: "I can't wait until he's back on TV"
In the first public comments from any member of Brian Williams' family since the NBC anchorman's suspension, his daughter Allison Williams shared her own story from the outset of the Iraq War and said she "can't wait until he's back on TV."
Appearing alongside NBC talk show host Seth Meyers on Wednesday at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan, Williams said the past two weeks of professional turmoil have been "tough, obviously toughest on my dad," but she assured the audience, "I know you can trust him."
"One thing this experience has not done is shake my trust and belief in him as a man," Allison said about her father.
"He's a really good man," she said. "He's an honest man. He's a truthful man. He has so much integrity. He cares so much about journalism. And yes, he's a really good dad, but I know you can trust him because, as any good daughter does, I have tested him on that."
The nearly full crowd laughed at that point.
From the
Washington Post:
Robin Givhan at New York Fashion Week: Michael Kors, Delpozo, Bibhu Mohapatra, Boss and more
Part of the Hugo Boss collection
Instant reaction: “What are you gonna wear to work, you there, with the six-figure income?”
From the
A.V. Club:
In praise of artistic theft
The question of artistic appropriation came into renewed focus recently when Sam Smith retroactively gave songwriting credit to Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne, after someone—it’s not clear exactly who, but supposedly somebody at Petty’s publishing company—noticed that his hit song “Stay With Me” bore an uncanny resemblance to Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down.” Petty was magnanimous about the whole thing, which is probably easy to do when you’re already rolling in dough, but even so, Petty’s statement was forthright about the nature of songwriting: “All my years of songwriting have shown me these things can happen. Most times you catch it before it gets out the studio door but in this case it got by.” It’s an admission that gets at something essential about the nature of artistic expression: It’s no big deal when one piece of art turns out like another one. Because, frankly, there is no such thing as a purely original piece of art.
Pilfering another artist’s work is how anyone making art begins. You start by shamelessly aping a style you admire, and then, after doing that for a long time, it might start to look or sound like yours. Bob Dylan wasn’t born with The Times They Are A Changin’ locked and loaded in his mind. He spent years imitating his musical idols. Bruce Springsteen’s first album, Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J., features songs that the Boss himself now admits are pretty shamelessly derivative of Dylan, whom he worshipped. The fertile realm of poetic license is not just a breeding ground for subsequent art; it’s the only game in town.
But that’s too easy to say, critics will charge: Smith isn’t just starting out, he’s been doing this for years. And besides, there are plenty of people writing songs who don’t get charged with copyright infringement. What about cases like this, where it’s a mere three and a half minutes of the same chord progression, the same notes in the refrain—in short, the same basic thing? Shouldn’t there be some public outcry when this happens? After all, Petty’s song is famous; surely there’s no way that Smith didn’t realize how alike the two tunes were? It doesn’t take an adroit musicologist to spot the similarities.
The thing is, it doesn’t matter. It just doesn’t matter. (That sentence was stolen from Bill Murray, for your information.) Artistic appropriation is not only part and parcel of the process of making art, it’s 99 percent of the process—and that never changes. (It’s no coincidence that after a number of years, many great artists seem to borrow or recycle their own work.) There are only 88 keys on a piano, and just six strings on a guitar—and if you want to make music that sounds appealing, especially in the confines of a pop structure, the possibilities for how many of those different keys and notes can be combined together drops precipitously.
From
The Hollywood Reporter:
'American Sniper': Chris Kyle's Widow at Center of Quiet Furor Over Profits
When he was alive, Chris Kyle told friends and business associates that he viewed any profits from his memoir American Sniper as "blood money." The legendary Navy SEAL, whose account of his four tours of duty in Iraq was adapted into the Clint Eastwood movie that is now up for six Oscars including best picture, maintained that he wanted the money to go to support struggling military families. After Kyle and a friend were shot and killed in 2013 by a veteran Kyle was helping, The New York Times retold this widely known point of view: "Though his book became a best-seller, he never collected money from it, friends said, donating the proceeds to the families of two friends and fallen SEAL members, Ryan Job and Marc Lee."
Yet today, with more than $6 million banked from the American Sniper franchise (boosted by the sale of more than 2 million books) and millions more on the way as the Warner Bros. film nears $400 million worldwide, a quiet dispute festers over who is entitled to that windfall. At the center of the discord is Kyle's widow, Taya, 40, who is alleged to have ignored her late husband's wishes and withheld money from the bereaved families he publicly had promised to support.
Neither Lee's family nor Kelly Job, the widow of Ryan Job, have filed lawsuits, and none is expected. Legal experts say that because Kyle's promise was verbal and he died without a will, prevailing in a court case would be unlikely. Sources also say Kelly Job, who lives in California with a daughter, and Lee's mother and two siblings are unwilling to be seen taking legal action against a celebrated widow. (Both families declined comment.) But the Lees and Jobs are said to be upset that they haven't received even a small share of the proceeds from Sniper after Kyle died. They maintain, according to sources close to the families, that Kyle's wishes are not being fulfilled.
From
Billboard:
Drake's Surprise Album Debuts at No. 1 on Billboard 200
Drake's surprise album If You're Reading This It's Too Late blasts in at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart as expected, easily scoring the hip-hop star his fourth chart-topper.
The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week based on multi-metric consumption, which includes traditional album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). If You're Reading This It's Too Late moved 535,000 units in the week ending Feb. 15, according to Nielsen Music, with pure album sales comprising 495,000 of that figure -- all from digital downloads.
Industry forecasters had projected the set to sell over 500,000 copies, but it fell just short of that half-million threshold. Still, it's a remarkable start for an album that arrived with no notice, was sold only through digital retail, is termed a mixtape by Drake (and not a proper studio album) and only had a little more than three days of sales powering its debut. The new set was released in the evening of Thursday, Feb. 12 through Young Money/Cash Money/Republic Records. The tracking week ended at the close of business on Sunday, Feb. 15.
From
Jezebel:
Selena Gomez on Dating Bieber: 'You Live and You Learn, You Know?'
In the upcoming issue of V Magazine, Selena Gomez goes into detail about her intense romantic relationship with Justin Bieber, false king of the Seven Kingdoms. "I think the next time [I have a boyfriend] will be much different," she says.
Gomez goes on to tell interviewer James Franco:
"I was 18 years old, and it was my first love. The older I get, I'm guarding certain things more...When you're young and you're being told so many different things...It almost felt like all we had was each other, like the world was against us, in a way. It was really weird but it was incredible...I would never take it back in a million years. You live and you learn, you know? ... I think this year is going to be incredible. I feel the best I've ever felt in my life. I'm super stoked that I've got some bumps on me, some scars, some bruises. I actually really love that. And I don't mean that in a morbid way."
From
NBC10 Philadelphia:
Tour Manager for Nicki Minaj Killed in Philly Stabbing
A tour manager who worked with rap superstar Nicki Minaj was killed Wednesday after a bar fight spread into a Philadelphia street. The argument began around 2:35 a.m. Wednesday inside Che Bar & Grill along Stenton Avenue in Philadelphia’s West Oak Lane neighborhood.
“We believe that both of the victims, as well as the perpetrator, were all inside of this bar and that’s when an argument started,” said Chief Inspector Scott Small. The argument spread outside the bar where one of the men pulled out a knife, police said ... The two men, identified by police as De'Von Pickett, 29, of the Bronx, New York and Eric Reed, 27, were both stabbed several times. Pickett suffered stab wounds in the torso while Reed suffered stab wounds to his left arm and left side.
Both men were taken to Albert Einstein Medical Center. Pickett died from his injuries at 2:45 a.m. Reed is currently in fair condition.
From
The Times of India:
Angry Indian bride marries wedding guest
All was going well at the wedding ceremony of 25-year-old Jugal Kishore, a resident of Moradabad, and his 23-year-old bride Indira from Rampur. That's until the "varmala" ceremony, where the groom garlands his would-be wife, began. Just as he extended his arms to do that, Kishore had an epileptic fit, falling to the ground in front of the whole gathering.
The young bride, angry that her family had been kept in the dark about Kishore's medical condition, promptly changed her mind and announced that she would happily marry at the same ceremony a guest at the wedding, a man called Harpal Singh. The latter, incidentally, turned out to be her sister's brother-in-law.
Singh, caught unawares and dressed in jeans and a leather jacket, fumbled for a moment before declaring he would willingly take Indira as his wife. This time the "varmala" was exchanged between Singh and Indira, which went off without any hitch, with the pandit reciting the mantras and asking the new couple to take the seven "pheras".
Meanwhile, Kishore, who had been rushed to a doctor by his relatives, went back to the venue after he regained consciousness to see that his wife-to-be was now someone else's.
Kishore pleaded with Indira, telling her that he would not be able to face friends and neighbours if he returned without her. His relatives, too, tried to intervene on his behalf. Where persuasion failed, violence was used — spoons, plates and dishes became weapons as wedding guests tried to force the bride to change her mind. But all in vain. The young woman stood firm.