Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, current leader Neon Vincent, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, wader, Man Oh Man, rfall, and JML9999. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse, ek hornbeck, ScottyUrb, Interceptor7, BentLiberal, Oke and jlms qkw. The guest editors are Doctor RJ and annetteboardman.
Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.
BBC
Dien Bien Phu: Did the US offer France an A-bomb?
Sixty years ago this week, French troops were defeated by Vietnamese forces at Dien Bien Phu. As historian Julian Jackson explains, it was a turning point in the history of both nations, and in the Cold War - and a battle where some in the US appear to have contemplated the use of nuclear weapons.
"Would you like two atomic bombs?" These are the words that a senior French diplomat remembered US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles asking the French Foreign Minister, Georges Bidault, in April 1954. The context of this extraordinary offer was the critical plight of the French army fighting the nationalist forces of Ho Chi Minh at Dien Bien Phu in the highlands of north-west Vietnam.
The battle of Dien Bien Phu is today overshadowed by the later involvement of the Americans in Vietnam in the 1960s. But for eight years between 1946 and 1954 the French had fought their own bloody war to hold on to their Empire in the Far East. After the seizure of power by the Communists in China in 1949, this colonial conflict had become a key battleground of the Cold War. The Chinese provided the Vietnamese with arms and supplies while most of the costs of the French war effort were borne by America. But it was French soldiers who were fighting and dying. By 1954, French forces in Indochina totalled over 55,000.
Al Jazeera America
Criticism of Nigeria's government mounts over its inaction to retrieve more than 200 schoolgirls kidnapped in April
Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan met through the night with security, school and state officials and issued a new directive that "everything must be done" to free the 276 girls held captive by Boko Haram gunmen, one of his advisers said Sunday.
It was the first time the president met with all stakeholders in the situation, including the principal of the Chibok Government Girls Secondary School in northeastern Nigeria where the girls and young women were kidnapped in a pre-dawn raid on April 15.
The meeting came amid mounting outrage at the government’s failure to rescue the students. Protest marches last week in major Nigerian cities as well as New York City have spurred to action Jonathan's government, which many see as indifferent to the girls' plight.
The police said last week that the actual number abducted had risen to more than 300 and that 276 remain in captivity. It said 53 of the students managed to escape their captors. None have been rescued by the military, which initially said it was in hot pursuit of the abductors.
Some of the girls have been forced into "marriage" with their abductors and paid a nominal bride price of $12, according to a federal senator from the area whose report is unverified. Some of the young women have been taken across Nigeria's borders to Cameroon and Chad, the parents said last week quoting villagers. Child marriage is common in northern Nigeria, where it is allowed under an Islamic law that clashes with the country's Western-style constitution.
Al Jazeera America
2,100 believed dead in Afghanistan landslide
Afghan officials gave up hope on Saturday of finding any survivors from a landslide in the country’s remote northeast, putting the death toll at more than 2,100 people, as rescuers turned their attention to helping the roughly 4,000 others left displaced.
Despite the significant number of missing persons, officials say without modern equipment, their search is near hopeless.
Officials also expressed concern that the unstable hillside above the site of the disaster may cave in again, threatening the homeless as well as the U.N. and local rescue teams that have arrived in Badakhshan province, which borders Tajikistan.
"More than 2,100 people from 300 families are all dead," Naweed Forotan, a spokesman for the Badakhshan provincial governor, told Reuters.
Villagers and a few dozen police, equipped with only basic digging tools, resumed their search when daylight broke, but it soon became clear there was no hope of finding survivors buried in up to 300 feet of mud.
"Seven members of my family were here, four or five of them were killed ... I am also half alive, what can I do?" an elderly woman told Reuters.
CNN
Condoleezza Rice declines to speak at Rutgers after student protests
-- Condoleezza Rice, former US secretary of state announced on Facebook Saturday that she would not be speaking at the Rutgers University commencement this year, following student protests against her appearance.
The students made accusations against her in connection with the war in Iraq.
"Commencement should be a time of joyous celebration for the graduates and their families," Rice wrote.
"Rutgers' invitation to me to speak has become a distraction for the university community at this very special time."
In an open letter to the president of the school, printed in the student paper The Daily Targum on April 30th, "Rutgers Student Protestors" cited "destruction" in Iraq "at the hands of the Bush administration."
"Rice signed off to give the CIA authority to conduct their torture tactics for gathering information from detainees as well," the letter continues. "These are clearly human rights issues. By inviting her to speak and awarding her an honorary degree, we are encouraging and perpetuating a world that justifies torture and debases humanity.
L A Times
If it's good enough for Netroots…….
As it woos the GOP, Las Vegas' anything-goes image isn't an asset .
On a recent afternoon, in her airy office above downtown, Mayor Carolyn Goodman delivered an ode to Las Vegas: its weather, parks, dining, shopping, arts scene, airport, medical facilities.
Sin, she added almost as an aside, can be found anywhere in the world. Compare that to the city's speedy Internet service!
Throughout modern memory, this sprung-from-the-desert metropolis has been defined by its lascivious reputation, a source of both immense commercial profit and perpetual civic vexation.
Indeed, although Las Vegas has been the country's No. 1 convention destination for 20 years, there is one gathering the city has never hosted: a national political convention.
Nor, for that matter, has Nevada ever placed a candidate on the ticket of either major political party.
Now Las Vegas has emerged as one of six finalists to hold the 2016 Republican National Convention and, moreover, appears to be one of two front-runners, alongside buttoned-down Dallas. The result is a mix of pride, competitive esprit and defensiveness here in Nevada and, for the GOP, a quandary as it weighs the city's assets against any potential unseemliness that could tarnish the party's White House nominee.
L A Times
'Spider-Man 2' opens big, but falls short of 'Captain America' record.
Spider-Man's latest film netted a massive number at the box office this weekend -- but in the end, the superhero couldn't stick it to Captain America.
"The Amazing Spider-Man 2," which hit theaters Thursday evening, debuted with $92 million, per an estimate from distributor Sony Pictures. Heading into the weekend, pre-release audience surveys indicated the 3-D sequel starring Andrew Garfield would launch with around $95 million -- putting it in a tight race for the top opening of 2014. By weekend's end, however, that title still went to "Captain America: The Winter Soldier," a sequel featuring another Marvel Comics favorite that launched with $95 million last month.
Still, Spidey is off to a pretty great start -- though predicting just how big the film will ultimately get is complicated. The first entry in filmmaker Marc Webb's reboot of the Spider-Man franchise opened during the busy Fourth of July holiday in 2012, collecting $137 million during its first six days -- $62 million of which was made over the three-day weekend. The picture went on to gross $262 million domestically -- about 34% of its $752-million global haul.
N Y Times
Arms Cache Most Likely Kept in Texas by the C.I.A
WASHINGTON — In passing references scattered through once-classified documents and cryptic public comments by former intelligence officials, it is referred to as “Midwest Depot,” but the bland code name belies the role it has played in some of the C.I.A.’s most storied operations.
From the facility, located somewhere in the United States, the C.I.A. has stockpiled and distributed untraceable weapons linked to preparations for the Bay of Pigs invasion and the arming of rebels and resistance fighters from Angola to Nicaragua to Afghanistan.
Yet despite hints that “Midwest” was not actually where it was located, the secrecy surrounding the C.I.A. armory has survived generations of investigations. In a 2007 essay on the 20th anniversary of the Iran-contra affair, for example, a congressional investigator noted that the facility where the C.I.A. had handled missiles bound for Iran remained classified even as other “incredible things were unveiled during the hearings.”
But three years ago, it became public that the C.I.A. had some kind of secret location at Camp Stanley, an Army weapons depot just north of San Antonio and the former Kelly Air Force Base, though its purpose was unclear. And now, a retired C.I.A. analyst, Allen Thomson, has assembled a mosaic of documentation suggesting that it is most likely the home of Midwest Depot.
The Guardian
Obama mocks himself, Putin and the press at White House dinner
The US president, Barack Obama, joked about the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and issues much closer to home as he headlined the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner Saturday night.
The annual tradition has the president mocking others and himself as celebrities mingle with journalists and politicians.
Obama made fun of conservative television hosts' talk about Putin's bare chest and a comment from one last year about Putin being headed for a Nobel peace prize. “To be fair, they give those to just about anybody these days,” said Obama, who received the prize in 2009.
The president also joked about opposition claims that he had been born overseas rather than in the United States. Looking ahead to a possible successor, Obama said it will be a lot harder for Republicans to prove that Hillary Rodham Clinton was born in Kenya.
The president poked fun at CNN's extensive coverage of the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane. He said he was still jet-lagged from his visit in recent days to Malaysia and added, “The lengths we have to go to get CNN coverage these days!”
Raw Story
Texas gun group’s protest sends restaurant employees fleeing for freezer as cops respond
A demonstration by a pro-gun group in Ft. Worth, TX sent restaurant employees at a Jack in the Box location fleeing into the freezer as police responded to the scene thinking a robbery was in progress.
According to Dallas-Ft. Worth’s NBC Channel 5, Open Carry Texas protesters are irate that police treated them like criminals for staging a heavily armed protest without notifying authorities and without visible signs stating the purpose of the demonstration.
Sgt. Ray Bush of the Ft. Worth Police Department told Channel 5 that officers received a call Thursday night from employees of the restaurant who thought that the large group of heavily armed white men had come to rob them.
“I’m upset that that many officers had to arrive on the scene,” demonstrator Edwin Haros said. “I would estimate around 10 squad cars showed up, some with two per squad car. I believe we counted more than 15 officers showed up on scene.”
Haros is an Open Carry Texas member who believes it is his right to carry his Smith and Wesson semi-automatic rifle with him at all times and in all situations.
Raw Story
NV congressman calls on state, local officials to rid his district of Bundy ‘armed separatists’
Responding to complaints from his constituents, the congressman representing the district where the Cliven Bundy ranch is located, has called upon state and local officials to get rid of the militia members who have taken up residence on the ranch, calling them “armed separatists,” according to the Reno Gazette Journal.
Speaking to the Clark County Democratic Convention in Las Vegas on Saturday, Rep. Steven Horsford (D) said he was appealing for help from officials after being approached by residents wanting to know about his plans to get rid militia members who have set up encampments in the Bunkerville area.
“I am calling on (Gov.) Brian Sandoval, Sen. Dean Heller, the (Clark County) sheriff (Doug Gillespie) and any other elected official in Nevada to do their part to get rid of these armed separatists,” Horsford told the convention delegates.
Raw Story
Autism risk is half genetic, half environmental
A large study in Sweden has shown that genes are just as important as environmental factors in assessing the causes of autism.
Researchers were surprised to discover that the inheritability of the neurodevelopmental disorder was about 50 percent -- much lower than previous studies that put it at 80-90 percent -- and that it was equal to environmental causes, according to the study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The findings were based on data from more than two million people in Sweden from 1982 to 2006, and is the largest to date on the topic of understanding whether genes or the environment contribute to autism, which affects about one in 100 children globally, and as many as one in 68 in the United States.
"We were surprised by our findings as we did not expect the importance of environmental factors in autism to be so strong," said study author Avi Reichenberg from the Mount Sinai Seaver Center for Autism Research in New York.
The study did not pinpoint which environmental factors could be at play, but said generally they could include things like the family's socioeconomic status, birth complications, maternal infections or medications taken before and during pregnancy.