Welcome to the Overnight News Digest
The OND is published each night around midnight, Eastern Time.
The originator of OND was Magnifico.
Current Contributors are ScottyUrb, Bentliberal, wader, Oke, rfall, JML9999 and NeonVincent who also serves as chief cat herder.
Stories and Headlines
Manuel Galbán, Guitar Virtuoso With Cuban Bands, Dies at 80
Manuel Galbán, a Cuban guitarist best known for his work with the all-star ensemble Buena Vista Social Club and its various offshoots, died on Thursday in Havana. He was 80.
The cause was cardiac arrest, said World Circuit Records, the British label for which he most recently recorded.
Mr. Galbán was not on the 1997 album “Buena Vista Social Club,” produced by the American guitarist Ry Cooder, which created an international sensation by showcasing a number of veteran musicians who were virtually unknown outside Cuba.
NYT
|
When Fatty Feasts Are Driven by Automatic Pilot
(Well - NYT) - Scientists in California and Italy reported last week that in rats given fatty foods, the body immediately began to release natural marijuanalike chemicals in the gut that kept them craving more.
The findings are among several recent studies that add new complexity to the obesity debate, suggesting that certain foods set off powerful chemical reactions in the body and the brain. Yes, it’s still true that people gain weight because they eat more calories than they burn. But those compulsions may stem from biological systems over which the individual has no control.
...
In the recent rat studies, by a team from the University of California, Irvine, and the Italian Institute of Technology in Genoa, the goal was to measure how taste alone affects the body’s response to food. Among rats given liquid diets high in fat, sugar or protein, the ones who got the fatty liquid had a striking reaction: As soon as it hit their taste buds, their digestive systems began producing endocannabinoids, chemicals similar to those produced by marijuana use.
...
The findings were published online last week in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
|
Province wants relaxation of China's one-child policy
BBC - China's richest and most populous province has asked the central government to relax the law that restricts most families to one child.
Guangdong, in south-east China, wants to lead a pilot project that will allow some families to have a second child, according to state media.
...
Guangdong officials are concerned about a rapidly ageing population.
|
Stem cell hope for heart patients
BBC - Scientists have raised hope that stem cell therapy could provide significant relief for patients disabled by untreatable chest pain.
Patients with severe angina had stem cells from their blood injected into their heart.
The therapy, carried out by Chicago's Northwestern University, halved the number of bouts of angina chest pain.
|
Robo Cup 2011 Games Concluded in Istanbul, Turkey - robocup2011.org
Two good videos from the BBC: 1, 2.
Virginia Tech engineers sweep robotic soccer's world cup
Mechanical engineers from Virginia Tech swept the world cup of robotic soccer Sunday and are bringing home a major technology trophy on behalf of the United States.
Video recordings of the four-day RoboCup 2011 held in Istanbul, Turkey, show two adult-size humanoid robots chasing and kicking an orange ball on a small yellow court. In the final match, the spindly VT robot CHARLI-2 beat a robot from Singapore 1-0.
|
Political blogs: Why are they dominated by men?
BBC - Why do the vast majority of political bloggers appear to be men?
The flippant answer is that women probably have far better things to do with their time.
The reason given by the Hansard Society - which has done some research on the matter - is hardly more flattering to the male gender.
"'While writing and commenting on political blogs seems to be dominated by men; it mirrors other offline and non-political activities such as writing letters to newspapers for publication," said Andy Williamson, Director of the Hansard Society's Digital Democracy programme.
"Overall, the evidence for online politics suggests that the more an activity involves self-promotion, the more likely there is to be a male dominance.
|
Study: TransCanada Plays Down Pipeline Risk to American Regulators
Here are two stories on this, one from the Lincoln (Nebraska) Journal Star and one from the New York Times environmental blog.
Report: Worst-case spill from Keystone XL pipeline would be disastrous
By KEVIN O'HANLON / Lincoln Journal Star
A worst-case scenario spill from the proposed Keystone XL pipeline into the Platte River in Nebraska would form a plume of oil that could extend more than 450 miles, contaminating drinking water for people as far away as Kansas City, Mo., and threatening wildlife habitat, according to an independent analysis of the project released Monday.
The study by John Stansbury, a professor of water resources engineering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, also said a worst-case spill in the Sandhills region of Nebraska could pollute 4.9 billion gallons of groundwater with a plume of contaminants 40 feet thick, 500 feet wide and 15 miles long.
"This plume, and other contaminant plumes from the spill, would pose serious health risks to people using that groundwater for drinking water and irrigation," Stansbury said in the report.
The Keystone XL proposed by TransCanada would connect oil fields in Alberta with refineries along the U.S. Gulf Coast.
Read more: http://journalstar.com/...
|
TransCanada Plays Down Keystone XL Risks, Researcher Says
By IAN AUSTEN, New York Times Green Blog
A study released by a University of Nebraska researcher says that TransCanada has presented American regulators with an “an unrealistically optimistic” portrayal of the consequences of a spill from its proposed Keystone XL pipeline.
The pipeline is an expansion of an existing pipeline that delivers synthetic crude from Canada’s oil sands to the United States. Several environmental groups are urging regulators and the State Department not to approve Keystone XL, arguing that oil sands are a particularly dirty energy source.
At a news conference on Monday hosted by the group Friends of the Earth, John S. Stansbury, a professor of environmental and water engineering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said he anticipated that the pipeline would experience 91 spills producing leaks of more than 50 barrels of oil during its first 50 years of operation. TransCanada, by contrast, predicts only 11 spills of that size or larger, according to Dr. Stansbury’s analysis of its regulatory filings.
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/...
|
Pipeline Map. TransCanada's
interactive map.
Map from the TransCanada web site http://www.transcanada.com/...
More News
Court tells Obama Administration to clarify stance on gays in military
(Reuters) - Five days after ordering an end to the ban on openly gay men and women in the military, a U.S. court directed the Obama administration to make clear its legal position on the "Don't, Ask, Don't Tell" policy.
In a written order on Monday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said it appeared "the United States is not prepared to defend the constitutionality" of the military's longtime restrictions against gay men and lesbians in uniform.
A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court on Wednesday upheld a lower-court decision declaring "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" unconstitutional and ordered the military to immediately lift the ban, despite congressional action last year to end it.
|
British Tabloid Targeted Investigators’ Phone Data
(NYT) - LONDON — Shortly after Scotland Yard began its initial criminal inquiry of phone hacking by The News of the World in 2006, five senior police investigators discovered that their own mobile phone messages had been targeted by the tabloid and had most likely been listened to.
The disclosure, based on interviews with former and current officials knowledgeable about the investigation, raises the question of whether senior criminal investigators had concerns that if they aggressively investigated The News of the World, they would be punished with splashy stories about their secrets, some of which were tabloid-ready.
As it turned out, several damaging allegations about two of the senior officers’ private lives were later revealed by other news outlets — charges that one had padded his expense reports and was involved in extramarital affairs and that the other used frequent flier miles accrued on the job for personal vacations.
|
(Former UK Prime Minister) Gordon Brown 'targeted by Sunday Times'
(BBC) - Gordon Brown is said to be "shocked" after it was alleged the Sunday Times targeted his personal information when he was Chancellor.
Documents and a phone recording suggest "blagging" was used to obtain private financial and property details.
The Browns also fear medical records relating to their son Fraser, whom the Sun revealed in 2006 had cystic fibrosis, may have been obtained.
...
The company, a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, owns the Sun and the Sunday Times, and also owned the News of the World which was shut last week amid allegations of phone-hacking and illegal payments to police officers.
|
Israeli lawmakers pass West Bank settlement boycott law
BBC - The Israeli parliament has passed a controversial law that will punish any Israeli individual or organisation boycotting West Bank settlements.
Rights groups say the legislation stifles freedom of speech and compromises Israeli democracy.
After failed attempts to delay debate, it was voted through 47-36.
It follows several Israeli calls to boycott institutions or individuals linked to Jewish settlements on occupied Palestinian land.
|
See also the New York Times:
Israel Bans Boycotts Against the State
Australia plans to impose carbon tax on worst polluters
BBC - The Australian government has unveiled plans to impose a tax on carbon emissions for the worst polluters.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard said carbon dioxide emissions would be taxed at A$23 ($25; £15) per tonne from 2012.
The country's biggest economic reform in a generation will cover some 500 companies. In 2015, a market-based trading scheme will be introduced.
|
Krugman: No, We Can’t? Or Won’t?
NYT (OP-ED) - If you were shocked by Friday’s job report, if you thought we were doing well and were taken aback by the bad news, you haven’t been paying attention. The fact is, the United States economy has been stuck in a rut for a year and a half.
Yet a destructive passivity has overtaken our discourse. Turn on your TV and you’ll see some self-satisfied pundit declaring that nothing much can be done about the economy’s short-run problems (reminder: this “short run” is now in its fourth year), that we should focus on the long run instead.
This gets things exactly wrong. The truth is that creating jobs in a depressed economy is something government could and should be doing. Yes, there are huge political obstacles to action — notably, the fact that the House is controlled by a party that benefits from the economy’s weakness. But political gridlock should not be conflated with economic reality.
Our failure to create jobs is a choice, not a necessity — a choice rationalized by an ever-shifting set of excuses.
|
Boehner-Cantor rivalry affecting debt talks
By Lisa Mascaro and Kathleen Hennessey, Washington Bureau, LA Times
July 11, 2011, 7:49 p.m.
Reporting from Washington—A long-simmering rivalry between the top two Republicans in the House has tumbled into the open, with far-reaching implications for deficit-reduction negotiations with the White House.
Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) are at odds over President Obama's call for a massive deficit-reduction package to address fiscal problems and provide for an increase in the country's $14.3-trillion borrowing limit before an Aug. 2 deadline.
In private talks with the White House, Boehner favored a large package as part of pragmatic political deal-making. But Cantor, speaking for staunch conservatives in Congress, is opposed.
In a briefing Monday, Cantor downplayed the divisions, insisting repeatedly that he and the speaker were "on the same page." But friction between the two has grown obvious, reinforcing months-old questions over who controls House Republicans.
|
Biking on busy streets linked to heart risks
(sfgate.com) A new study published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives showed a link between biking in heavy traffic and heart health risks, with cyclists having heart irregularities in the hours after their exposure to a variety of air pollutants on busy roads.
Canadian study
The study by scientists from Health Canada, Environment Canada and the University of Ottawa does not suggest that bikers would be better off driving. Rather, the findings intensify the scrutiny on cyclists' pollution exposure and point to simple solutions for a cleaner ride, such as avoiding busy roads whenever possible.
For the study, 42 healthy, nonsmoking cyclists in Ontario wore heart monitors before, during and after cycling for one hour on congested and uncongested roads. Instruments on the bikes measured exposure to air pollution.
Short-term exposure to heavy traffic significantly decreased heart rate variability in the cyclists for up to three hours after they finished cycling. Heart rate variability is associated with a higher risk of heart attacks.
|