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.
Raw Story
Major hurricane threatens Baja California coast, evacuations ordered
Hurricane Odile swirled menacingly toward Mexico’s Los Cabos resorts on Sunday, leading authorities to evacuate high-risk areas and open shelters as the powerful storm threatened to thrash the Pacific coast.
Odile weakened slightly to category three strength in the five-level Saffir-Simpson scale as it crept toward the Baja California peninsula, packing 125 mile (205 kilometer) per hour winds, according to the US National Hurricane Center.
“All preparedness actions to protect life and property should be rushed to completion,” the Miami-based center said, warning the hurricane could produce life-threatening floods and mudslides.
The core of Odile will pass close to, or over, the southern tip of the peninsula, known for its luxury resorts, late Sunday and Monday, it added.
Hotel occupancy in Los Cabos is low at this time of year, but authorities evacuated an unspecified number of people from vulnerable coastal areas and prepared shelters for 30,000 residents as heavy rain covered the region.
Raw Story
Airplanes flown at children on deadbeat dad Mark Sanford’s deadly South Carolina plantation: Wonkette Wonkette’s Kaili Joy Gray (Ah, yes, we knew her when.)
Wonkette’s Kaili Joy Gray obtained the family court hearing transcript that includes details about the divorce between South Carolina Representative Mark Sanford (R) and his ex-wife, Jenny.
According to Gray, the 79-page transcript details how Sanford attempted to avoid paying college tuition for his son, Marshall, claiming that “I’m renowned for being cheap. I want you to keep in mind again, how [Jenny] knows I’m cheap. Anybody out there knows I’m cheap.” When Jenny attempted to collect tuition money, he claimed to be “really squeezed for cash” after losing his job as governor of South Carolina.
The court documents acquired by Wonkette also shed light on some of the more bizarre details of the Sanford’s divorce settlement — foremost among them, that “the parties agree that…no airplanes will be flown at children.” Jenny’s attorney, Deena S. McRackan, had her describe an photograph taken at the Coosaw air strip.
“This is a game of chicken on the Coosaw air strip,” she said. “And it is Mark Sanford with a pack of children. And the plane is a Mooney. They fly 175 to 200 miles per hour and they fly straight at the children. And the game is to see who can stand up the longest.”
BBC
Brazil builds giant Amazon observation tower
Construction has begun on a giant observation tower in the heart of the Amazon basin to monitor climate change.
The Amazon Tall Tower Observatory is expected to rise 325m from the ground.
Its instruments will gather data on greenhouse gases, aerosol particles and the weather in one of the largest continuous rain forests on the planet.
Brazilian and German scientists hope to use the data to better understand sources of greenhouse gases and answer questions on climate change.
The tower is being constructed out of steel that was brought thousands of kilometres from the south of Brazil by road and river raft to the site 170 km outside the Amazonian city of Manaus.
Because of its height, the tower will make it possible to investigate the alteration and movement of air masses through the forest over a distance of several hundred kilometers.
BBC
David Haines: PM says Britain will 'hunt down' IS killers
The UK will take "whatever steps are necessary" to keep safe after a video showing the killing of hostage David Haines was issued by Islamic State militants, the prime minister has said.
David Cameron said the UK would "hunt down" the killers of the aid worker, whom he called a "British hero".
He said the "menace" of IS had to be destroyed in a "calm, deliberate" way.
In the video, IS also threatened to kill a second Briton, who has been named as Alan Henning, 47.
Mr Henning, a married father-of-two from Salford, worked as a taxi driver and was a volunteer on an aid convoy.
Speaking at Downing Street after a meeting of the UK emergency committee Cobra, Mr Cameron said of IS, also known as Isil and Isis, "they are not Muslims, they are monsters".
snip
US officials later said several Arab countries had offered to take part in air strikes against IS militants in Iraq - subject to approval from the Iraqi government.
US Secretary of State John Kerry - speaking in Paris after a whirlwind tour of the Middle East trying to drum up support for action against IS - said he was "extremely encouraged" by such promises.
BBC
Islamic State crisis: Australia to send 600 troops to UAE
Australia says it is sending 600 troops to the Middle East ahead of possible combat operations against Islamic State (IS) militants in Iraq.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the deployment, initially to the United Arab Emirates, was in response to a specific US request.
C
Nearly 40 countries, including 10 Arab states, have signed up to a US-led plan to tackle the extremist group.
France is hosting a regional security summit on Monday.
US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Paris late on Saturday after a four-day tour of the Middle East trying to drum up support for action against IS.
Last week, US President Barack Obama presented a strategy to fight the group in both Iraq and Syria.
Speaking on Sunday, Prime Minister Abbott said Iraq had made it clear that it would "very much welcome" a military contribution to restore security.
Raw Story (When is he not unhinged?)
Lindsey Graham unhinged: We will ‘all get killed back here’ if Obama lets ISIS open ‘the gates of hell’.
“It’s going to take an army to beat an army, and this idea [that] we’ll never have any boots on the ground to defeat them in Syria is fantasy, and all this has come home to roost over the last three years of incompetent decisions,” Graham told Fox News host John Roberts. “It’s delusional in the way that they approach this.”
The senior senator from South Carolina said that ISIS was similar to Nazi Germany, but instead of a master race, they were “a radical Islamic army that’s pushing the theory of a master religion.”
“It’s about protecting millions of people throughout the world from a radical Islamic army,” he added. “They’re intending to come here. So, I will not let this president suggest to the American people we can outsource our security and this is not about our safety. There is no way in hell you can form an army in Syria to go after ISIL without a substantial American component.”
The Guardian
Southern California wildfire forces evacuation of 200 homes
Authorities say a wildfire in southern California has been 20% contained but more than 200 homes near the Cleveland National Forest remain evacuated.
Captain Steve Concialdi of the Orange County fire authority said on Sunday that more than 1,000 firefighters and fire personnel are battling the two-and-a-half square mile blaze.
Concialdi says six firefighters have suffered minor injuries since the fire began on Friday in Orange County’s Silverado canyon, many of them heat-related as temperatures reach triple digits.
Concialdi said more than 200 homes remain under an evacuation order issued late on Friday.
N Y Times
In Pursuit of Casinos, It’s Worst Foot Forward
NEWBURGH, N.Y. — Broad grassy lots are all that remain of most of the shipyards and factories that once gave this city on the Hudson River its muscle and identity.
Boarded up rowhouses and vacant storefronts line the streets north of City Hall and of Broadway, the city’s main thoroughfare. Drug dealers rule some corners. The sound of gunfire occasionally echoes through the streets.
The city’s major employers today are “eds and meds,” said Mayor Judy L. Kennedy — the community college and the hospital that replaced the brickyards, mills and machine shops.
Ms. Kennedy talks about the possibility of a Las Vegas-style casino nearby as if it were the economic salvation that has eluded her beleaguered city for half a century.
“It will provide 2,800 jobs for people who desperately need work,” she said, “and change the destiny of the valley. If we can pull this city out of the hole, we can pull up the whole mid-Hudson region.”
Ms. Kennedy offers a compelling argument. But her case also underscores a vexing problem facing New York State as it forges ahead with its ambitious plan to roll out Las Vegas-style casinos.
The Newburgh plan is one of six casino sites proposed in Orange County, a tantalizing location because it is 40 to 60 miles northwest of New York City with its thick, rich vein of tourists and residents.
But building casinos in Orange County would likely doom, or severely undercut, any proposals in counties farther north in the Catskills, where elected officials have long sought the economic boost from jobs and tourism that state officials argue a casino would produce.
Santa Rosa Press Democrat
River Rock Casino taking hit in wake of Graton casino opening
River Rock, Sonoma County's first tribal casino, has seen its revenues plummet since the opening of the Graton Resort and Casino in Rohnert Park, forcing a significant reduction in employees along with cuts in payments and benefits to its tribal members.
The competition from Sonoma County's newest casino appears to be every bit as tough as River Rock and its owners, the Dry Creek Rancheria tribe, anticipated prior to Graton's debut in November.
Dry Creek Tribal Chairman Harvey Hopkins acknowledged the 12-year-old casino has seen more than the 30 percent drop in revenue that was anticipated prior to Graton's opening.
Although he declined to be more specific, other tribal officials indicated the situation was dire.
"Graton is knocking the crap out of us. Forty to 45 percent of our revenue is gone," one source with knowledge of the casino's finances said last week.
The last full year River Rock's casino revenue was publicly reported was in 2010, when it was $124 million.
Hopkins said approximately 100 employees have left River Rock — which once had more than 600 workers — to go to work at the bigger, glitzier Graton casino. "We're still looking at the possibility of not rehiring or filling those vacancies," he said Monday
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Raw Story
This is the first map of Rosetta’s comet 67P/ Churyumov-Gerasimenk
DC Agle, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Scientists have found that the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko -- the target of study for the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission -- can be divided into several regions, each characterized by different classes of features. High-resolution images of the comet reveal a unique, multifaceted world. ESA's Rosetta spacecraft arrived at…
S F Gate
Greg Norman recovering from chain-saw accident
ATLANTA (AP) — Greg Norman is recovering from a chain saw accident that nearly cost him his left hand, but not his sense of humor.
"At least I can still play tennis," Norman told The Associated Press by phone Sunday morning.
Norman, the Hall of Fame golfer and entrepreneur, was cutting back trees in his South Florida home when the weight of a branch pulled his left hand toward the chain saw. He said the blade hit him just below where a person would be wearing a wrist watch. He said doctors told him it missed his artery by a fraction of an inch.
"Thank God the blade wasn't running full speed or it would have taken my hand off," Norman said. "I handled everything as calmly as I could. There is no major damage. There is nerve damage, but no muscular damage. They fixed me up and here I am."
He posted a photo on Instagram from the hospital bed of his heavily bandaged left hand protected by a large piece of purple foam. "Working with a chainsaw ALWAYS be respectful of the unexpected. I was one lucky man today. Damaged, but not down & out. Still have left hand," he posted.