Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, current leader Neon Vincent, regular editors jlms qkw, maggiejean, wader, Oke, rfall, and JML9999. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse, ek hornbeck, ScottyUrb, Interceptor7 and BentLiberal. The guest editor is annetteboardman.
Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.
The Guardian
The father of the two Boston bombing suspects has said he will fly from Russia to the US to seek "justice and the truth" this week, as federal investigators seek to interview the American wife of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the elder Tsarnaev brother who was killed in a shootout with police.
In an interview on Sunday, Anzor Tsarnaev said he had "lots of questions" for police, and told the Associated Press he wants to "clear up many things".
His wife, Zubeidat, told journalists on Monday that her husband planned to fly to the US on Wednesday and that the family would try to bring the body of Tamerlan, 26, back to Russia. The elder Tsarnaev died after a frenzied gun battle with police on Friday in the Boston suburb of Watertown
The Guardian
Dzohkhar Tsarnaev charged
The surviving Boston bombing suspect, Dzohkhar Tsarnaev, was charged today as he lay in his hospital bed.
Reuters quotes Gary Wente,circuit executive for the US courts for the first circuit, as confirming the development. "There has been a sealed complaint filed," Wente said.
He said that a magistrate judge was present when Tsarnaev was charged at his bed in Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital.
'Not an enemy combatant'
White House press secretary Jay Carney just said Dzhokar Tsarnaev will not be treated as an enemy combatant at a Monday briefing.
Tsarnaev will instead be tried in the US criminal justice system civilian courts. “This exactly the right way to go and the appropriate way to go,” Carney said.
Criminal Complaint here
Spiegel Online
In the years since 9/11, the response to acts of terror has been disproportionately strong in the United States. After Boston, President Obama took pains to remain calm, breaking with a deplorable tradition. The more routine our response to these crimes, the weaker they become.
The flashes of two explosions, severed limbs, three dead, including a child, thousands of innocent people attacked by murderers who transformed a cheerful day in the worst way possible. That's what happened in Boston, and the bad news is: It will happen again, sooner or later, in another place and at another time, because this is the world in which we live today.
What happened in Boston is part of everyday life in Baghdad and Kabul, a constant threat in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and a nagging fear in Moscow, Lahore and Islamabad. Major acts of violence have become traumatic events in Beslan in the Russian Republic of North Ossetia, in Balinese and Tunisian villages, in Egypt, Algeria and Norway. They have engraved themselves into the history of large, proud cities like London, Madrid, Mumbai and Marrakesh, Istanbul, Jakarta and New York.
CNET
Reddit General Manager Erik Martin used the company's blog to publicly apologize for the site's role in fueling an "online witch hunt" for Sunil Tripathi, a missing Brown University student falsely identified as a possible suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing.
"The Reddit staff and the millions of people on Reddit around the world deeply regret that this happened," Martin said. "We have apologized privately to the family of missing college student Sunil Tripathi, as have various users and moderators. We want to take this opportunity to apologize publicly for the pain they have had to endure."
The Guardian
Two very disparate commentators, Ali Abunimah and Alan Dershowitz, both raised serious questions over the weekend about a claim that has been made over and over about the bombing of the Boston Marathon: namely, that this was an act of terrorism. Dershowitz was on BBC Radio on Saturday and, citing the lack of knowledge about motive, said (at the 3:15 mark): "It's not even clear under the federal terrorist statutes that it qualifies as an act of terrorism." Abunimah wrote a superb analysis of whether the bombing fits the US government's definition of "terrorism", noting that "absolutely no evidence has emerged that the Boston bombing suspects acted 'in furtherance of political or social objectives'" or that their alleged act was 'intended to influence or instigate a course of action that furthers a political or social goal.'" Even a former CIA Deputy Director, Phillip Mudd, said on Fox News on Sunday that at this point the bombing seems more like a common crime than an act of terrorism.
US NEWS
BBC
The prisoners are protesting against their indefinite detention. Most are being held without charge.
Sixteen of the 84 prisoners are being force-fed and five are being treated in hospital. None has a life-threatening condition, according to the military.
The hunger strike started in February and has grown rapidly in recent weeks.
The number of strikers last Wednesday was 52 and by Friday had reached 63.
NPR
The job hunt is complicated enough for most high school and college graduates — and even tougher for the growing number of young people on the autism spectrum. Despite the obstacles that people with autism face trying to find work, there's a natural landing place: the tech industry.
Amelia Schabel graduated from high school five years ago. She had good grades and enrolled in community college. But it was too stressful. After less than a month she was back at home, doing nothing.
"I did go to a community college for a semester, but that definitely was not for me," she says.
Schabel has Asperger's syndrome, a disorder on the "high functioning" end of the autism spectrum.
The Guardian
Barack Obama has been accused of reneging on his disarmament pledges after it emerged the administration was planning to spend billions on upgrading nuclear bombs stored in Europe to make the weapons more reliable and accurate.
Under the plan, nearly 200 B61 gravity bombs stockpiled in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Turkey would be given new tail fins that would turn them into guided weapons that could be delivered by stealth F35 fighter-bombers.
"This will be a significant upgrade of the US nuclear capability in Europe," said Hans Kristensen, a nuclear weapons expert at the Federation of Nuclear Scientists. "It flies directly in the face of the pledges Obama made in 2010 that he would not deploy new weapons."
In its Nuclear Posture Review in 2010, the US undertook to do reduce the role and numbers of its nuclear weapons, in part by not developing new nuclear warheads, and pledging it would not "support new military missions or provide for new military capabilities".
NPR
As the Mississippi River has risen in St. Louis, the city's Lewis and Clark statue has — as often happens in the spring — been partially submerged.
The good news is that "the big river didn't get too big," The St. Louis Post-Dispatch writes this morning.
"Sandbags held back the cresting Mississippi River from several towns north of St. Louis on Sunday," it adds, "while the forecast for the immediate vicinity remained high but manageable."
But The Associated Press reports "there is growing concern that spring floods are far from over." According to the National Weather Service, "last week's rainfall is still keeping many rivers in flood stage across Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, Indiana and Michigan. Larger rivers, such as the Mississippi and Illinois rivers, will take longer to recede."
CNN
Just like the government warned a few months ago, air travelers have started experiencing late flights caused by forced federal spending cuts. On Monday afternoon, all three New York City-area airports reported delays for all incoming flights, in part because fewer air traffic controllers reported for duty as they were forced to take unpaid time off, according to unions and airline trade groups.
Charlotte Douglas International Airport was also reporting "ground delays" with extra wait time averaging of 20 minutes due to furloughs and weather problems, according to Victoria Day of Airlines for America, a trade group for the major airlines.
Furloughs kicked in on Sunday for 47,000 Federal Aviation Administration workers, including 15,000 air traffic controllers.
On Sunday night, flights into to New York's John F. Kennedy International and LaGuardia airports were delayed by an average of 70 minutes.
BBC
Canada's authorities say they have arrested and charged two people with conspiring to carry out an "al-Qaeda inspired" attack on a passenger train.
At a news conference, the authorities said the suspects Chiheb Esseghaier, 30, and Raed Jaser, 35, were arrested in Montreal and Toronto on Monday.
They allegedly planned to derail a VIA passenger train in the greater Toronto area. It was not clear when.
The suspects will now appear in court on Tuesday for a bail hearing.
As a militant Salafist Islamic movement, al-Qaeda preaches a radical anti-Shia ideology that places it firmly at odds with Shia Iran.
In Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, al-Qaeda has warred with factions and ethnic groups it considers close to Iran.
Despite this enmity, al-Qaeda and Iran have co-operated where it suited one side or the other.
After the defeat of the Taliban in Afghanistan, Tehran allowed several top al-Qaeda associates - including one of Osama Bin Laden's wives and several of his children - to live under a loose form of house arrest in eastern Iran.
WORLD NEWS
AlJazeera English
Thousands of demonstrators have marched against the Serbian government to protest against an agreement to normalise relations with breakaway Kosovo.
Flag-waving Serbs chanted "Treason, Treason", as they gathered in the capital Belgrade hours after the government unanimously approved on Monday the European Union-brokered deal, Al Jazeera's Aljosa Milenkovic, reporting from Belgrade, said.
Our correspondent said many of the protesters saw the agreement, which reportedly would give away 12 percent of Serbian territory to Kosovo, as a "betrayal" on Serbia, and they want it withdrawn.
Up to 10,000 more Serb protesters also gathered in the divided northern Kosovo town of Mitrovica against the deal that could end years of tensions, and put the Balkan rivals on a path to EU membership.
Reuters
(Reuters) - Israel suggested on Monday it would be patient before taking any military action against Iran's nuclear program, saying during a visit by U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel there was still time for other options.
With Iran's presidential election approaching in June there has been a pause in hawkish rhetoric by Israel, which has long hinted at possible air strikes to deny its arch-foe any means to make an atomic bomb, while efforts by six world powers to find a negotiated solution with Tehran have proved fruitless so far.
"We believe that the military option, which is well discussed, should be the last resort," Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon told reporters at a news conference with Hagel.
"And there are other tools to be used and to be exhausted," Yaalon said, listing diplomacy, economic sanctions and "moral support" for domestic opponents of Iran's hardline Islamist leadership.
Iran has denied seeking nuclear weapons capability, saying it is enriching uranium only for domestic energy purposes while calling for the elimination of the Jewish state. Israel is widely believed to have the Middle East's only nuclear arsenal.
Reuters
(Reuters) - Nigerian authorities said on Monday there had been heavy fighting between security forces and Islamist militants in a remote part of the northeast, but there was no confirmation of reports from a local official that 185 people had been killed.
Fighting erupted on Thursday in Baga, a fishing town on the shores of Lake Chad, adjacent to the Chadian border, spokesmen for the Borno state government that administers the area and its military said.
A delegation from the state government visited the town on Sunday in the aftermath of the fighting, and a community representative put the death toll at 185, Borno spokesman Umar Gusau said by telephone.
"We are investigating," he said. "For now, we don't have a very good basis for the figure. These people say they have died and they have buried them. From my experience, most times residents exaggerate figures."
He added that since the town had already buried the victims, it had been impossible for authorities to count the bodies.
Authorities were questioning residents about family members who had died to try to estimate the death toll, he said.
Reuters
(Reuters) - At least 109 people have been documented as killed and up to 400 more are likely to have died in an almost week-long offensive by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on a rebellious Damascus suburb, opposition activists said.
If the accounts are confirmed, the killings in the mainly Sunni Muslim suburb of Jdeidet al-Fadel would amount to one of bloodiest episodes of the two-year-old uprising against Assad. Many of the dead were civilians, the activists said.
Syrian state media gave no death toll but confirmed the army had been fighting in Jdeidet al-Fadel. It said it had saved the town from what it described as criminal terrorist groups, killing and wounding an undisclosed number of them.
On Sunday activists said at least 85 people had been killed and the toll might reach 250, but with the army beginning to pull back they said more accounts were emerging which suggest the final figure could be even higher.
NPR
According to Voice of America:
"Xinhua news agency says the first team of rescue workers arrived in Baoxing [county] Monday. Authorities say the road was cut off by an aftershock-triggered landslide. State media say hard-hit parts of Lushan county were also not reachable by road, with phone services cut off. But rescuers have since dynamited highways to clear landslide debris, allowing heavy equipment to reach affected areas, and electricity and phone services have been restored to thousands of people."
More than 180 people are reported to have been killed in building collapses and other problems created by the worst quake to hit China in the past three years.
Spiegel Online
Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once Russia's richest man and Putin's strongest adversary, could soon be released from prison. Can the polarizing oil tycoon reinvigorate a beleagered opposition?
Standing in the midst of wool socks from Armenia and hats from Turkey, Anna, the street market vendor, lowers her voice. At the onset of winter, the heat remained off for many weeks in the city's apartments -- the fault, she says, of "this oligarch who has fallen upon us like a meteorite from the sky."
Anna hates Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Before his arrest he was Russia's richest man, while she still remains so poor that she has to supplement her meager monthly pension of less than €100 ($130) by selling cheap clothing.
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
The Guardian
EBay has begun lobbying millions of its users against a bill it claims will impose an unfair tax burden on small businesses.
The US Senate is expected to vote early this week on the Marketplace Fairness Act, a bill that will give states the power to collect online sales tax on goods bought outside their borders. Currently, only merchants with a physical presence within the state have the right to collect the sales tax.
In emails that started going out over the weekend, eBay chief executive John Donahoe argues the bill unfairly burdens small online merchants and asks users to email members of Congress, asking for change. "This legislation treats you and big multi-billion dollar online retailers – such as Amazon – exactly the same," Donahoe wrote. "Those fighting for this change refuse to acknowledge that the burden on businesses like yours is far greater than for a big national retailer."
Bloomberg
In East London's Shoreditch, an area once better known for poverty, the murders of Jack the Ripper and the Victorian gin epidemic, it's now tech that rules the streets.
Hundreds of startups including Last.fm dot the district. Entrepreneurs, programmers and journalists network in hidden members-only bars. And Prime Minister David Cameron can be found making speeches in the neighborhood about the importance of innovation for Britain’s future.
While that's a good thing for East London, which wants to become Europe's Silicon Valley, there's a flip side: The area has become so popular that new, cash-strapped startups are having a hard time finding office space. And that is forcing entrepreneurs, who rely on networking with others to develop ideas, recruit talent and raise money, to seek residence away from the center of activity.
“There was just nothing,” said Matthew Gunn, an entrepreneur who became frustrated looking for space in East London. “It wasn’t just about desk space. You don’t get the ability to bounce ideas off of like-minded people.”
CNET
Facebook has begun using a Google image format called WebP that could lower its network costs and speed up its Web site. But the move has angered some members.
When people upload JPEG photos, the social-networking juggernaut converts them into the WebP format. And now it also apparently has begun delivering those images to people with browsers that can handle them, which today means Chrome and Opera.
Even if it's just a limited test, Facebook's scale and influence means that's a major endorsement of Google's image format.
But problems arise when it's time for people to do something with those images beside gaze upon them in the browser. Google has positioned WebP as an image format for the Web, at least to start, but when people save them to their hard drives, edit them, or reshare them, problems arise. Windows, OS X, Photoshop, and most other software can't handle WebP.
CNET
Intel's fledgling TV business has lost one of its lead engineers, the company confirmed, potentially dealing a blow to its efforts to get the business off the ground.
Jim Baldwin, who served as vice president and general manager of engineering for Intel Media, has left the company to pursue other opportunities, an Intel spokesman said. Baldwin's LinkedIn profile, meanwhile, said he has retired from the company.
Baldwin couldn't immediately be reached for comment. The Intel spokesman said that the company has "a deep engineering leadership bench" and has taken steps internally to address the transition. "There are no changes to our plans for 2013," he said.
CNET
Windows 8 users hoping for a return of the traditional Start button and Start menu in Windows 8.1 may be disappointed.
Rumors have floated recently that Microsoft may revive the familiar Start button in the Windows 8.1 update scheduled for release later this year. A new report today from
The Verge claims that "sources familiar with Microsoft's plans" have confirmed the return of the Start button.
But -- and there always seems to be a "but" -- the new Start button apparently will not trigger a traditional Start menu but instead simply bounce users back to the Start screen, according to The Verge's sources. If true, that means the button would serve the same role as the Start screen thumbnail that appears when you move your mouse to the lower left "hot" corner.
Excuse me? Assuming The Verge's sources are correct, I guess such a Start button would benefit people who don't know they can access the Start screen thumbnail by hovering over the left corner. Otherwise, I don't see the advantage in a Start button that just brings you back to the Start screen.