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.
House Passes Bill To Bar Tax Subsidies For Abortion
by Julie Rovner
Late Wednesday afternoon the House voted 251-175 to pass a bill that would ban tax subsidies for many private insurance plans that include coverage for abortion services.
The GOP-led House of Representatives is set to approve one of its top bills today. And the title lets you know right up front what's on the line.
It's labeled HR 3, but is better known as the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act." Backers say the measure will simply write into permanent law a decades-old ban on federal funding for abortion. Opponents, however, say it goes much further, by also banning tax subsidies for health insurance plans that include abortion as a covered service, which many do.
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Scope of Alabama's tornado-spawned humanitarian crisis grows
By Patrik Jonsson
In a scene reminiscent of the days following hurricane Katrina in 2005, churches, nonprofit relief agencies, and government supplies are racing toward tornado-raked Alabama to alleviate what Tuscaloosa mayor Walt Maddox described as a "humanitarian crisis."
Last week's 200-tornado scattershot across the South became the second deadliest in US history, as the death toll rose to 337. With power still out for nearly 1 million people, hundreds, if not thousands, of homes obliterated and water supplies tainted, Alabamians – including official rescue personnel – struggled for basic needs as the shock of the storms that hit the South on Tuesday and Wednesday began to wear off.
"Something as simple as a toothbrush, clothing. There are some people, all they have got is a robe," a Pratt City, Ala. man told reporters. "So, we got to find clothing for them and provide those things for them, so that they can start back rebuilding their lives
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Tornadoes Smashed Alabama's Poultry Industry
by Bradley George
Alabama was the hardest hit state in the devastating spate of tornadoes that crashed through the South last week. It had the most deaths, most damaged homes and the most destroyed businesses. One industry in particular suffered deep losses: poultry farming.
At his chicken farm in Blount County — about an hour north of Birmingham — owner Clay Scofield lost about 500 chickens when a tornado ripped the roof off one of his poultry houses.
"We took 6,000 chickens out of this house and divided it up in to the other three," he says. "The other three have some roof damage, but certainly not as bad as this one."
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Alabama tornado damage photos
Birmingham Business Journal
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Seven fatalities after storms in Greene County (Tennessee)
WBIR.com
According to the National Weather Service, at least one tornado touched down in Camp Creek on Wednesday night. It was an EF2 with winds up to 115 miles per hour.
According to the Emergency Management Agency Director of Greene County, officials have confirmed seven fatalities.
Officials said all of those who were killed were adults in homes. Some were mobile homes, but everyone was in a structure. Some of the people were found in homes and some were outside.
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Towns Along Mississippi Warily Watch River Levels
by NPR Staff and Wires
Water continued to rise along the Mississippi River and its tributaries on Wednesday, as residents in parts of Tennessee were advised to evacuate their homes and the Army Corp of Engineers considered blasting more levees to control unprecedented flooding.
The Ohio River was holding steady at 54.7 feet at Metropolis, Ill., as of Tuesday night — about the same level as when the Corps blew open Missouri's Birds Point levee on Monday to prevent the river from rising and save a small Illinois town.
The blast dropped the river level in the town of Cairo, Ill. — situated at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers — about a foot and a half from where it was at the time of the breach.
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Foreclosure Victims Confront Wells Fargo
by Anthony Panarese
Hundreds marched from Justin Herman Plaza to Wells Fargo’s Annual shareholder’s meeting in downtown San Francisco earlier today to demand a voice in calling on the company to keep families in their homes and pay their fair share. When they got to the meeting, a delegation, led by Wells Fargo borrowers that included clergy and labor, went inside the meeting to talk directly to Wells CEO John Stumpf and the bank's board of directors. They stepped up to the microphone and demanded that the bank leadership meet with them to negotiate a moratorium on foreclosures and a host of reforms geared at keeping families in their homes and putting Wells on a path to be more responsible corporate partners.
Homeowners like Donna Vieira, a Wells Fargo victim organizing with the community group ACCE and the faith based organization, CCISCO, stepped up to the microphone to have their voices heard and directly confront CEO Stumpf. After homeowners passionately discussed how Wells Fargo’s policies are hurting families and whole communities and called on the Bank to embrace a moratorium, CEO Stumpf tried to argue back that we had it wrong and that foreclosures actually helped spur job creation.
The team of leaders then refused to step down from the microphone until the CEO changed his mind and agreed to our demands being laid out on behalf of thousands of homeowners and working people .
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Justice Dept. has 'serious questions' for NCAA on college bowl process
CNN
Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly reported the contents of a letter from the Justice Department to the NCAA about the Bowl Championship Series. The Justice Department has not announced an antitrust inquiry into the BCS. The letter asked for information about the BCS system to help determine if an inquiry should be launched. Also, the alert should have said the BCS system makes it more difficult for some athletic conferences to qualify for major bowl games, but it does not exclude them.
(CNN) -- In a letter to the NCAA disclosed Wednesday, the Justice Department said it has received several requests for an antitrust investigation into the current Bowl Championship Series system, and it wants information to help it decide what to do.
That controversial system makes it very difficult for teams in some athletic conferences to qualify for major bowl games, potentially costing millions of dollars in revenue to those not chosen.
The Chicago-based company said the Phantom Ray climbed to 7,500 feet and reached a speed of 205 mph hour in a covert 17-minute event that took place April 27. Boeing officials did not confirm details until Tuesday.
"Serious questions continue to arise suggesting that the current BCS system may not be conducted consistent with the competition principles expressed in federal antitrust laws," Assistant Attorney General Christine Varney told NCAA President Mark Emmert.
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Forensic Testing on Faulty LCA-2
NASA
Technicians at the NASA Shuttle Logistic Depot in Cape Canaveral, Fla., are doing additional forensic engineering testing today on a faulty power distribution box, called a Load Control Assembly 2 (LCA-2). It was removed yesterday morning from the aft compartment of space shuttle Endeavour on Launch Pad 39A at NASA?s Kennedy Space Center.
Technicians are trying to determine what caused the power box to fail. Initial testing from yesterday shows a driver (circuit) inside the LCA-2 shorted out. The LCA-2 feeds power to heaters on the fuel line for Endeavour's auxiliary power unit-1 (APU-1). Initially, when the shorted out driver was replaced, the LCA-2 appeared to work as designed.
Technicians are performing additional failure analysis on the driver today to confirm whether the short experienced by the system came from inside or outside the LCA-2. Depending on the results, additional testing of the box may be required.
Boeing's next-generation drone makes first flight from Edwards Air Force Base [Video]
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Boeing's next-generation drone makes first flight from Edwards Air Force Base
Los Angeles Times
Boeing Co. has released video of its stealthy Phantom Ray drone's maiden flight from Edwards Air Force Base.
A story about the robotic jet and its first flight appeared in Tuesday's Times.
Watch the video above as the Phantom Ray taxis onto the runway and takes to the skies. Takeoff begins at about 1:15.
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Romney lands N.H. endorsements, loses former aide'
Reuters
Likely Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney has scored a pair of important endorsements in the key early voting state of New Hampshire, but his one-time campaign chair there took a pass for 2012, reports on Wednesday said.
Romney got the thumbs-up from Doug Scamman, a former speaker of the New Hampshire House, and his wife Stella Scamman, a former state representative, the New Hampshire Union Leader newspaper reported.
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Exclusive: Facebook, Google mull Skype deals
By Nadia Damouni and Clare Baldwin
Facebook and Google Inc (GOOG.O) are separately considering a tie-up with Skype after the web video conferencing service delayed its initial public offering, two sources with direct knowledge of the discussions told Reuters .
Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg has taken part in internal discussions about buying Skype, according to one of the sources. Another source said Facebook had reached out to the Luxembourg-based company about forming a joint venture.
Google has also held early talks for a joint venture with Skype, the second source said.
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The unquiet ghosts of Kent State
Stewart J Lawrence
It turns out there won't be an event at Kent State University this year commemorating the killing of four university students there during a campus protest against the Vietnam war on 4 May 1970. The shootings, carried out by Ohio national guardsmen 41 years ago this Wednesday, shocked the national conscience – and probably helped force the Nixon administration to wind down the Vietnam war more quickly than it intended.
Even today, iconic images from the shooting – most notably, the anguished face of 14-year-old runaway Mary Ann Vecchio, as she leans over the body of one of the dead students, which won a Pulitzer Prize that year – remain disturbingly resonant. They remind us of a time when America was bitterly divided along racial and regional lines, and experiencing violent conflict almost daily. Mere words – and non-violent protest – could get you killed.
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Intel shows the way forward with breakthrough semiconductor design
By Rich Fichera
Intel has been publishing research for about a decade on what they call “3D Trigate” transistors, which held out the hope for both improved performance as well as power efficiency. Today Intel revealed details of its commercialization of this research in its upcoming 22 nm process as well as demonstrating actual system based on 22 nm CPU parts.
The new products, under the internal name of “Ivy Bridge”, are the process shrink of the recently announced Sandy Bridge architecture in the next “Tock” cycle of the famous Intel “Tick-Tock” design methodology, where the “Tick” is a new optimized architecture and the “Tock” is the shrinking of this architecture onto then next generation semiconductor process.
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Mubarak faces possible execution, Egyptian official says
By Nima Elbagir and Mohamed Fadel Fahmy, CNN
Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak could be executed if he is convicted of ordering the killing of protesters, Egypt's justice minister says.
"One of the charges he is facing is complicity in the killing of martyrs and issuing the orders for premeditated the killing of those people," said Justice Minister Mohamed Abdelaziz al-Juindy. "This is a charge with a harsh punishment -- the death penalty."
In his first television interview since taking office, the new justice minister said last week that Egyptian courts would not shy away from sentencing Mubarak to death if he is found guilty.
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Special report: Why the U.S. mistrusts Pakistan's spy agency
By Chris Allbritton and Mark Hosenball
In 2003 or 2004, Pakistani intelligence agents trailed a suspected militant courier to a house in the picturesque hill town of Abbottabad in northern Pakistan.
There, the agents determined that the courier would make contact with one of the world's most wanted men, Abu Faraj al-Libbi, who had succeeded September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Muhammad as al Qaeda operations chief a few months earlier.
Agents from Pakistan's powerful and mysterious Inter-Services Intelligence agency, known as the ISI, raided a house but failed to find al-Libbi, a senior Pakistani intelligence official told Reuters this week.
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Fleeing Violence, Syrians Cross Border Into Lebanon
By Kelly McEvers
Nearly all foreign journalists have been prevented from entering Syria since anti-government protests — and a deadly crackdown — began in March.
But at Syria's border with Lebanon, there's a place called "smuggler's paradise," where cheap Syrian goods are walked into Lebanon and sold at a premium. The official border crossing is down the road. At the unofficial border crossing, a muddy road leads into Syria. There's a very small checkpoint with a couple of Lebanese army soldiers.
And from here, you can see right into a small Syrian village named Talkalakh.
Usually people from Talkalakh come into Lebanon for a few hours, sell their stuff and go back home again. Lately, hundreds — if not thousands — have come to stay. They're mostly women and children. And they're often related to people on the Lebanese side of the border.
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Italy to host Libya coalition talks
Al Jazeera Staff
Ministers from the NATO-backed coalition against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi meet in Rome on Thursday seeking ways to get money to rebels who are desperate to buy food and medicine and shore up their administration.
The meeting of Libya Contact Group will bring together foreign ministers from countries including France, Britain, the United States, Italy and Qatar as well as representatives of the Arab League and the African Union.
As the conflict in Libya has ground into stalemate, the rebel Transitional National Council, which controls the region of eastern Libya around Benghazi and has been recognised by both France and Italy, has appealed for loans of up to $3 billion.
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