Welcome to the Overnight News Digest
(graphic by palantir)
The OND is published each night around midnight, Eastern Time.
The originator of OND was Magnifico.
Regular editors are jlms qkw, Bentliberal, wader, Oke, rfall, JML9999, and chief cat herder NeonVincent; with guest stints from maggiejean and annetteboardman. .
Egypt's army vows to hand power to elected president - Egypt's ruling military council has vowed to hand over power to an elected president by the end of June.
The promise comes as votes are counted after Sunday's presidential run-off election, with both candidates claiming they are ahead in early results.
However, the council had earlier issued a declaration granting itself sweeping powers over legislation and the introduction of a new constitution.
Opposition groups condemned the declaration as a "coup".
BBC
Shenzhou-9 docks with Tiangong-1 - China's Shenzhou-9 capsule, with its crew of three, has docked with the Tiangong-1 space lab.
The coupling of the vehicles occurred at 14:07 Beijing time (06:07 GMT; 07:07 BST).
The latest Shenzhou mission was launched on Saturday, taking the nation's first female astronaut into orbit.
BBC
U.S. deserter in Sweden steps forward after 28 years - A U.S. Air Force deserter who has lived secretly in Sweden since 1984 has revealed his identity and contacted his family in the United States who were overwhelmed to hear he was still alive, a Swedish newspaper reported at the weekend.
Dagens Nyheter said David Hemler had deserted aged 21 while serving at a U.S. Air Force base in Germany, after getting involved with a pacifist church and becoming disillusioned with the policies of former President Ronald Reagan.
He hitchhiked via Denmark to Sweden where he settled down, living under an assumed name for the last 28 years and not revealing his true identity to anyone.
--Patrick Lannin, Sophie Hares, Reuters
Apple and Google Go Head to Head Over Mobile Maps
(nytimes graphic)
For many people, phones have become an important way to navigate the world, and mobile maps are at the core of the journey. They are often the critical element in commerce, socializing and search. So far, Google has reigned supreme in the mobile map world, with its maps on every iPhone sold so far — and, of course, on every phone based on its own Android operating system.
Last week, though, Apple gave notice it would enter the battle, announcing that in the fall, its phones would no longer carry Google maps, but instead would have Apple’s own map service built in, part of its new mobile operating system. Maps are simply too important to be left to a rival.
The question is: Can Apple build a map service that does as good a job, or a better one, than Google has?
If Apple slips up, consumers in the highly competitive smartphone market may have a good reason to turn to Android phones. If Apple succeeds, Google will be under pressure at a time when it already has to deal with other competitors in map services.
QUENTIN HARDY, nytimes
I love San Francisco. YMMV! :) --BL
S.F. to study birds to keep America's Cup afloat - To keep the big America's Cup contest afloat, San Francisco has agreed to spend $150,000 to study whether the racing boats - and their towering sails - will scare birds on the bay.
The study, which will be conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey, is part of a settlement of a lawsuit brought by a group that included former Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin.
Matier & Ross, sfgate
Lobbying Effort Is Said to Sink New Controls on Painkillers - Efforts to impose stricter controls on prescription drugs that are subject to rampant abuse have apparently failed after a groundswell of lobbying by pharmacists and drugstores, members of Congress said on Monday.
The proposed controls, sought by senators and law enforcement officials, would apply to products like hydrocodone that are used for the treatment of moderate to severe pain.
The Senate approved the new restrictions last month as part of a bill reauthorizing user fees for the Food and Drug Administration. The House version of the legislation does not address the issue. House and Senate negotiators announced Monday night that they had reached a bipartisan agreement on the overall bill, and said they hoped Congress would approve it by the end of the month.
Abuse of prescription medications has risen sharply in the last decade, with hydrocodone products among those most often misused, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.
ROBERT PEAR, nytimes
Lost in Recession, Toll on Underemployed and Underpaid - These are anxious days for American workers. Many, like Ms. Woods, are underemployed. Others find pay that is simply not keeping up with their expenses: adjusted for inflation, the median hourly wage was lower in 2011 than it was a decade earlier, according to data from a forthcoming book by the Economic Policy Institute, “The State of Working America, 12th Edition.” Good benefits are harder to come by, and people are staying longer in jobs that they want to leave, afraid that they will not be able to find something better. Only 2.1 million people quit their jobs in March, down from the 2.9 million people who quit in December 2007, the first month of the recession.
“Unfortunately, the wage problems brought on by the recession pile on top of a three-decade stagnation of wages for low- and middle-wage workers,” said Lawrence Mishel, the president of the Economic Policy Institute, a research group in Washington that studies the labor market. “In the aftermath of the financial crisis, there has been persistent high unemployment as households reduced debt and scaled back purchases. The consequence for wages has been substantially slower growth across the board, including white-collar and college-educated workers.”
Now, with the economy shaping up as the central issue of the presidential election, both President Obama and Mitt Romney have been relentlessly trying to make the case that their policies would bring prosperity back. The unease of voters is striking: in a New York Times/CBS News poll in April, half of the respondents said they thought the next generation of Americans would be worse off, while only about a quarter said it would have a better future.
MICHAEL COOPER, nytimes
When ALEC Takes Over Your Town - The Rhode Island State Legislature finally adjourned its 2012 session around 3:30 a.m. on Wednesday morning. It had been a brutal last few days.
In May, the State Senate had approved a supplemental property tax increase of 13.8 percent, to be imposed on the residents of Woonsocket, a struggling city with a $10 million deficit. But when the bill moved to the House of Representatives, two conservative Woonsocket representatives refused to go along, and no amount of late-night negotiating could change their minds. Everyone finally gave up and went home.
The state has named a budget commission to grapple with Woonsocket’s money woes. Ultimately, though, a receiver may have to be appointed — which is to say, a person not beholden to the voters, who would nonetheless have the power to abrogate union contracts and do whatever else he or she deems necessary to erase the deficit. Incredibly, the two Woonsocket legislators have pushed for a receiver, despite the pain that it would likely bring their city.
Or maybe it’s not so incredible. It turns out that one of them, Jon Brien, is also on the national board of the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC.
JOE NOCERA, nytimes OPINION
Hollywood to Black Mothers: Stay Home - The movie “What To Expect When You’re Expecting” was, sadly, exactly what I expected: devoid of any real representation of African-American motherhood. Whenever Hollywood sets out to portray the joys and trials of modern motherhood on the big screen, black mothers are blatantly and consistently missing from the mix.
Like when I excitedly trekked to the movie theater to see Uma Thurman in “Motherhood,” as the epitome of a frustrated New York City uber-mom and blogger. But “Motherhood” must have been filmed in the same Hollywood version of New York used for years for the shooting of “Friends” (and currently being used to film HBO’s “Girls”): the no-blacks-except-for-the-extras version. Really?
Later, I was super-excited to see the big-screen adaptation of one of my favorite books, “I Don’t Know How She Does It,” starring Sarah Jessica Parker. But apparently black mothers don’t do it at all.
Whenever there is a significant mainstream movie on motherhood, black mothers aren’t there.
KIMBERLY SEALS ALLERS, nytimes. Photo: Theatrical Release Poster/Lionsgate.
Scientists use light to control brain with flick of a switch
Implants that deliver pulses of light into the brain could lead to new treatments for diseases such as epilepsy and Alzheimer's Disease.
It is an area of science that has the power to control the human mind with the flick of a light switch.
Scientists have developed a way of using pulses of light to turn the brain cells that control our everyday actions and thoughts on or off at will. It provides a way of controlling the brain that has never been possible before.
The researchers have already conducted tests in monkeys, our closest relatives, using light to send them to sleep. They now hope to develop the techniques further for use in humans.
The technology promises to provide revolutionary new treatments for diseases that are notoriously difficult to control such as epilepsy, Alzheimer's Disease and psychiatric illnesses. It could even help people make new memories.
But like many scientific advances, it is likely to divide the public, scientists and the medical community as it combines three already controversial technologies.
Richard Gray, Science Correspondent, London Telegraph
Happy 70th Paul McCartney -sfgate
The Beatles in Bangor: 1967 BBC Wales archive footage - BBC