Overnight News Digest, aka OND, is a community feature here at Daily Kos. Each editor selects news stories on a wide range of topics.
The OND community was founded by Magnifico, who had no idea when he started the positive impact he'd have on so many.
Welcome to all, join us in the comment section to share a news articles and jump into the community chat. News is not required to pull up a chair and chat, just be kind to ceiling cat.
Storms, tornadoes kill 25 in Alabama alone
Reuters Staff
Tornadoes and storms lashed the South on Wednesday, leading to 25 deaths in Alabama alone over a 24 hour period, state authorities said.
The deaths occurred across the northern and central parts of the state and nine people were also injured, said Valerie Hayes of the Alabama Emergency Management Agency.
"I can confirm the 25 deaths in Alabama were related to today's weather," she said.
The thunderstorm that produced a tornado in Tuscaloosa in western Alabama was still producing a tornado-force winds three hours later in northwestern Georgia, said Josh Nagelberg, a meteorologist on the AccuWeather.com website.
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Sony sued, could bleed billions following PlayStation Network hack
By Winda Benedetti
Gamers and government officials are irate over Sony's admission that a massive security breach gave hackers access to large amounts of personal data from the company's PlayStation Network and, surprise(!), one gamer has already filed a lawsuit.
Meanwhile, analysts estimate the hammered game company could lose billions of dollars from the debacle.
On Tuesday afternoon, Sony of America's director of communications said that "an illegal intrusion" in their system has caused a "compromise of personal information." And while Sony officials don't believe credit card information was taken, they say that hackers may have taken names, addresses, email addresses, birthdates and passwords among other things.
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Companies can block customers' class-action lawsuits, Supreme Court rules
By David G. Savage
The Supreme Court dealt a blow to class-action lawsuits that involve small claims affecting thousands or even millions of people by ruling that corporations may use arbitration clauses to block dissatisfied consumers or disgruntled employees from joining together.
In a 5-4 decision, the justices said Wednesday the Federal Arbitration Act of 1925, originally aimed at disputes over maritime and rail shipments, trumps state laws and court rulings in California and about half the states that limit arbitration clauses deemed to be "unfair" to consumers.
The ruling was "the biggest ever" on class actions, said Vanderbilt University law professor Brian Fitzpatrick, an expert on such litigation.
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Brazil Air France Rio crash flight recorder found
BBC
Search teams say they have discovered part of a flight recorder from the Air France plane that crashed in 2009, off the coast of Brazil.
But they say they have yet to find the section containing crucial data which could reveal the cause of the crash.
The Air France Airbus plane went down in the Atlantic on 1 June 2009, killing all 228 people on board.
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Berkshire says Sokol deceived, broke law
By Ben Berkowitz
Former Berkshire Hathaway executive David Sokol deliberately misled Warren Buffett when pitching an investment to him, the company's board concluded in a scathing report that may add fuel to a pending SEC probe of Buffett's one-time heir apparent.
The committee said it may sue Sokol to recover the $3 million of trading profit he made when Berkshire bought chemicals company Lubrizol Corp and could seek damages from him for harm to the company's reputation. The company will cooperate with any government probe in the matter as well.
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John Paul's Rise Toward Sainthood: Going Too Fast?
by Barbara Bradley Hagerty
The chants began even before Pope John Paul II had been put to his final rest, as his coffin was carried through St. Peter's Square: "Santo subito! Santo subito!"
"Sainthood now!"
A month later, Pope Benedict XVI — his successor and close friend — launched the process that would do just that. On Sunday, John Paul II will be beatified in Rome, bringing him one step away from sainthood.
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Roy Orbison: Songs We Love
NPR Staff
Roy Orbison would have turned 75 on April 23. For the occasion, Sony Legacy has collected all the singles he recorded for Monument Records, the label he called home during his most productive period — the years when he recorded "Only the Lonely," "Crying" and "Oh, Pretty Woman." Between 1960 and '64, Orbison dominated the charts. For a while, he withstood even the British Invasion, scoring huge hits in the U.K.
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Exclusive: Facebook investors look for exits
By Lauren Tara LaCapra and Jennifer Sab
A group of Facebook shareholders is seeking to offload $1 billion worth of shares on the secondary market, a sale that would value the company at more than $70 billion, according to five sources with direct knowledge of the situation.
It would represent one of the largest transactions of Facebook shares to date and points to a growing wariness among early-stage investors and employees who fear Facebook's growth cannot keep pace with its market valuation.
The sellers have lowered their price after previously trying to offload shares at a price that valued the company at $90 billion, which would make Facebook more valuable than Time Warner Inc and News Corp combined. But buyers balked.
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Cyberespionage: US finds FBI agents in elite unit lack necessary skills
By Mark Clayton
Many of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's field agents assigned to an elite cyber investigative unit lack the skills needed to investigate cases of cyberespionage and other computerized attacks on the US, the Justice Department inspector general reported Wednesday.
That's a problem because the US is under constant and increasing cyberattack with 5,499 known intrusions into US government computer systems in 2008 alone – a 40 percent jump from 2007, the inspector general's office found.
Investigating these kinds of cyberespionage attacks falls largely on the FBI as the lead agency for the National Cyber Investigative Joint Task force, which also includes representatives from 18 different intelligence agencies and is assigned to investigate the most difficult national security intrusions – those by a foreign power for intelligence gathering or terrorist purposes.
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Aid Ship Reaches Libyan Rebel-Held Port
Voice of America
An international aid ship has docked in Libya's rebel-held port of Misrata after NATO airstrikes helped stop a bombardment of the area by pro-government forces.
The International Organization for Migration says relief workers began rescuing refugees from the besieged western port and unloading humanitarian aid after the ship pulled into Misrata on Wednesday.
Intense shelling by forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi delayed the ship's docking on Tuesday. At least three migrant workers were reported killed and up to 20 wounded in the assault.
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Far-Right Parties Gain Ground In European Politics
By Alan Greenblatt
Italy has taken in more than 20,000 refugees this year fleeing political upheaval in Tunisia and other North African countries.
France, though, has refused to accept even a trainload holding visas from Italy. One big reason for the French resistance is the political challenge French President Nicolas Sarkozy faces from the right. Recent polling shows Sarkozy trailing Marine Le Pen, the leader of France's anti-immigrant National Front Party, ahead of next year's election.
Mainstream politicians all across Europe are feeling pressure from the right.
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Istanbul's new Bosphorus canal 'to surpass Suez or Panama'
By Sam Jones
The ferries, fishing boats and pleasure cruisers which crisscross the Bosphorus may one day have more room for manoeuvre on the watery highway that separates Europe and Asia.
If Turkey's prime minister can get what he calls his "crazy and magnificent" plan to work, the gargantuan tankers that clog the strait will be diverted into a man-made waterway linking the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan's project, which he calls Canal Istanbul, is nothing if not ambitious: the channel will be around 30 miles long, 25 metres deep and 150 metres wide. It would, he confidently predicted, be an unparalleled feat of engineering. "We are building the canal of the century, a project of such immense size that it can't be compared to the Panama or Suez canals," he said.
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Why many Venezuelans scoff at Chávez's minimum wage hike
By Jasmina Kelemen
You might think Venezuelans would be cheering this week over President Hugo Chávez's announcement that he will raise the minimum wage by 26.5 percent beginning May 1, or International Worker’s Day. Instead, workers here know all too well that annual inflation will eat right through their raise.
Inflation in 2011 is expected to hit between 28 percent and 30 percent, according to the local consultancy Ecoanalitica. Last year, inflation topped out near 27 percent and was among the highest rates worldwide, despite government price caps on most basic food items and energy costs.
While the president has raised the minimum wage every year since 1999 just in time to declare his revolutionary love for the worker ahead of May Day, many Venezuelans don't quite feel the affection since the raise has in recent years failed to keep pace with rising costs.
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Guantanamo secret files show U.S. often held innocent Afghans
By Tom Lasseter
Naqibullah was about 14 years old when U.S. troops detained him in December of 2002 at a suspected militant's compound in eastern Afghanistan.
The weapon he held in his hands hadn't been fired, the troops concluded, and he appeared to have been left behind with a group of cooks and errand boys when a local warlord, tipped to the raid, had fled.
A secret U.S. intelligence assessment written in 2003 concluded that Naqibullah had been kidnapped and forcibly conscripted by a warring tribe affiliated with the Taliban. The boy told interrogators that during his abduction he'd been held at gunpoint by 11 men and raped.
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Lock down your Wi-Fi or the FBI might come knocking
By Tony Bradley, PCWorld
A New York man learned the hard way that leaving your wireless router open to the general public can have some very negative consequences, and that the authorities tend to act first and ask questions second.
You might think it's no big deal to share your wireless network with your neighbors. But that altruism can bite you in the butt when a less scrupulous neighbor, or a random stranger connects to the wireless network and uses it for illegal activity. As far as the authorities are concerned, that illegal activity originates from your wireless router, so you are the primary suspect.
So, what happened? Well, this guy left his home Wi-Fi network unprotected, and a slimy neighbor piggy-backed on his "free" wireless network to access thousands of child pornography images. He's not the first to fall victim to this scenario, and, unfortunately, he won't be the last.
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