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.
Special thanks to JekyllnHyde for the new OND banner.
Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.
DW
The World Health Organization (WHO) declared Nigeria Ebola-free on Monday, after a 42-day period with no new cases. The 42 days represent two incubation periods for the virus.
"The virus is gone for now," WHO country representative Rui Gama Vaz said Monday in the capital, Abuja. "The outbreak in Nigeria has been defeated. This is a spectacular success story that shows to the world that Ebola can be contained."
On July 25, Nigeria's Health Ministry had confirmed that a US-Liberian dual citizen had died of Ebola in Lagos and quickly tracked down and isolated all who had had contact with the man, whose condition was caught at the airport.
Al Jazeera
A total of 120 people are still being monitored for Ebola infection due to possible contact with one of three people diagnosed with the disease in Dallas, health officials in Texas said Monday as they noted that dozens more had being cleared of having the virus.
Some 43 people on the original watch list have now passed the 21-day incubation period for the disease and are in the clear, the officials said.
“There's zero risk that any of those people who have been marked off the list have Ebola. They were in contact with a person who had Ebola and the time period for them to get Ebola has lapsed. It is over. They do not have Ebola,” Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said at a news conference.
But others who cared for the three known cases in Dallas — Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian man who died of Ebola on Oct. 8 at a Dallas hospital, and two nurses who tended to Duncan, Amber Vinson and Nina Pham — remain at risk. Nov. 7 is when the wait period will end for all of those being monitored.
The Guardian
The first wave of people who may have had contact with Thomas Eric Duncan have been declared Ebola-free after 21 days of twice-daily temperature checks, bringing welcome news to a Dallas hospital that was sent into a tailspin by the discovery of the virus.
At least 43 of the 48 people who may have come into contact with Duncan, the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the US, are no longer at risk of developing the virus, the Texas department of health announced in a statement Monday. Duncan died from Ebola on 8 October.
“Epidemiologists have worked around the clock to call and visit people who may have had any exposure, to make sure they were asymptotic and doing well,” Texas state health commissioner Dr David Lakey said in a statement.
“I’m happy we can tell people they are free and clear of monitoring. It provides a measure of relief and reassurance.”
New York Times
GALVESTON, Tex. — In the end, there was never any risk of the Ebola virus aboard what became known as the Ebola Cruise.
Last week, the announcement that a passenger on the Carnival Magic was a Dallas lab supervisor who had handled an Ebola patient’s blood samples transformed a weeklong Caribbean jaunt into a high-seas drama showcasing anxieties over the spread of the virus. Passengers used hand sanitizer, avoided touching railings and offered elbow taps instead of handshakes.
As rumors swirled through the sun decks and dining rooms, the hospital worker and her husband agreed to quarantine themselves in their stateroom. Belize refused to allow the worker to be flown home through its international airport, and Mexico declined to let the ship’s passengers make a day trip to Cozumel. On Saturday afternoon, as the ship headed home, a Coast Guard helicopter swooped in to fetch a blood sample from the hospital worker, to cheers and applause from passengers.
Reuters
The United States issued stringent new protocols on Monday for health workers treating Ebola victims, directing medical teams to wear protective gear that leaves no skin or hair exposed to prevent medical workers from becoming infected.
The new guidelines from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta come as 43 people who were exposed to the first patient diagnosed in the United States were declared risk free, easing a national sense of crisis that took hold after two Texas nurses who treated him contracted the disease.
Under new protocols, Ebola healthcare workers also must undergo special training and demonstrate competency in using protective equipment. Use of the gear, now including coveralls, and single-use, disposable hoods, must be overseen by a supervisor to ensure proper procedures are followed when caring for patients with Ebola, which is transmitted through direct contact with bodily fluids but is not airborne. (CDC protocols: Tightened Guidance for U.S. Healthcare Workers on Personal Protective Equipment for Ebola)
Reuters
A program to compensate victims of a faulty ignition switch in General Motors Co (GM.N) vehicles has approved two new death claims, bringing the total number of deaths linked so far to the switch to 29, according to a report released on Monday by the lawyer overseeing the program.
Since it began accepting claims on Aug. 1, the program has received a total of 1,517 claims for deaths and injuries, according to the report by the office of Kenneth Feinberg, who GM has tapped to run the program. The report listed all of the claims received and approved as of Friday.
GM has faced criticism for waiting 11 years to begin recalling millions of cars with ignition-switch problems that were linked to fatalities.
Al Jazeera
LAREDO, Texas — In mid-May, 20-year-old Anissa Rangel’s gums began to bleed. At first she assumed it was related to her gingivitis, but one morning, she woke up in the bedroom that she shares with three siblings and saw her gray nightshirt stained dark red across the shoulder. A month passed before she told her mother that something was wrong. By then, another symptom was visible: purple bruises on her arms and legs.
It had happened to her twice before, once as an infant and again in eighth grade. “The first time we brought her in [to the hospital], they called the police on us,” recalls her father, Jose Rangel, a disabled truck driver with gout and a heart condition. It was only later that the doctors diagnosed her with idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, a platelet deficiency that causes fatigue, bleeding and speckly bruises called petechiae.
During her previous episodes, both acute, Rangel was admitted to a local hospital and subjected to bone-marrow tests. As a baby, she was given an intravenous blast of gamma globulin to revive her platelet count. She maintained her health through steroids, regular checkups and bloodwork, all paid for through public health insurance.
The Guardian
The bodies of seven women were found in north-western Indiana over the weekend after a man’s confession to one killing led police to the grisly discovery of the other bodies, authorities said on Monday.
Police investigating the slayings say the suspect, identified as Darren Vann, has told them that he may have killed people going back 20 years. Hammond police chief John Doughty said Vann is co-operating with authorities. Vann was convicted of sexual assault in Texas in 2009 and now lives in Gary.
The discoveries began after Vann, 43, allegedly confessed to killing a woman whose body was found on Friday in a Motel 6 in Hammond, Indiana. He then told investigators where more bodies could be found in abandoned homes in the nearby city of Gary, a former steel town about 30 miles south-east of Chicago, police said.
NPR
When social norms change, sometimes they change so fast it's hard to keep up.
Only 10 years ago, ballot initiatives opposing gay marriage were helping Republicans win elections. But two weeks ago, when the Supreme Court effectively cleared the way for legal same-sex marriage, the response from Republican leaders was deafening silence.
They were so quiet, some wondered whether the culture wars had finally ended with a Republican defeat.
Gary Bauer, a longtime social conservative activist, thinks that's nonsense.
"The idea that the culture wars are over is absurd," he says. "A war over the culture and the meaning of American liberty will continue to be a major factor in the American public debate."
NPR
Thanks to a quirk of history — and a love of bananas — New Orleans has had a Honduran population for more than a century. But that population exploded after Hurricane Katrina, when the jobs needed to rebuild the city drew waves of Honduran immigrants. Many of them stayed, and nearly a decade later, they've established a thriving — if somewhat underground — culinary community.
Signs of that community abound, if you know where to look.
You can see it in the lunch lines that form weekdays outside Taqueria La Delicia, a food truck, or lonchera, run by a Honduran immigrant. The lonchera sets up shop near a Lowe's Home Improvement store where day laborers congregate most days, looking for work. On weekends, you'll find vendors cooking up pollo con tajadas, a traditional Honduran dish, alongside a city soccer field while an all-Latino league plays.
BBC
The US government has paid dozens of suspected Nazi war criminals millions of dollars in social security after forcing them to leave the US.
The payments, funded by taxpayers, were made through a legal loophole, an Associated Press investigation has uncovered. Some are still being paid.
Former guards at Nazi labour camps, where millions died, are among them.
The US justice department says benefits are paid to individuals who renounce US citizenship and leave voluntarily.
But there is anger that public money is being used in this way.
"It's absolutely outrageous that Nazi war criminals are continuing to receive Social Security benefits when they have been outlawed from our country for many, many, many years," said Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney.
BBC
UN human rights officials have called for Detroit to restore water service to poor customers in arrears on their bills, arguing the shutoffs discriminate against minorities.
Catarina de Albuquerque and Leilani Farha say the shutoffs hurt "the most vulnerable and poorest".
Detroit has closed the taps for more than 27,000 people this year.
Activists in Detroit had appealed to the UN for assistance in stopping the practice in the high-poverty city.
"It is contrary to human rights to disconnect water from people who simply do not have the means to pay their bills," Ms de Albuquerque, UN special rapporteur on the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation, wrote in a statement on Monday.
"I heard testimonies from poor, African-American residents of Detroit who were forced to make impossible choices - to pay the water bill or to pay their rent."
SF Gate
HONOLULU (AP) — Sunny skies are returning to the Aloha State, the day after a storm left Hawaii without much more than heavy rain.
While the main Hawaiian island rode out the storm with no reports of any serious problems, the National Weather Service says Tropical Storm Ana has set her sights on a swath of a protected marine sanctuary that's about 1,200 miles north of Honolulu.
Reuters
Alabama's powerful Republican state house speaker was indicted on 23 criminal counts of corruption by a grand jury, court records released on Monday show.
Mike Hubbard, who helped guide Republicans to majorities in both houses of the Alabama legislature in 2010 for the first time in 136 years, was indicted on Friday on charges that include using his office for personal gain and legislating with a conflict of interest.
According to the indictment, handed down by a grand jury in Lee County, Hubbard solicited favors from a range of powerful Alabamans, including former Governor Bob Riley, a fellow Republican, along with several business leaders.
The charges are all Class B felonies, which under state law each carry a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a $30,000 fine.
Al Jazeera
Australia's parliament has abandoned amid an outcry a controversial plan to make women wearing the niqab or the face veil sit in separate glassed public enclosure in the building due to security concerns.
The backdown on Monday followed a decision on October 2 to seat people wearing face coverings in areas normally reserved for noisy school children while visiting parliament.
It followed heated debate about potential security risks since the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) organisation.
The ruling was condemned by human rights and race discrimination groups, and Prime Minister Tony Abbott asked that it be reconsidered.
Race discrimination commissioner Tim Soutphommasane told Fairfax Media the original ruling meant Muslim women were being treated differently to non-Muslim women.
Reuters
Turkey said on Monday it would allow Iraqi Kurdish fighters to reinforce fellow Kurds in the Syrian town of Kobani, while the United States air-dropped arms for the first time to help the defenders resist an Islamic State assault.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Washington had asked Ankara to help "get the peshmerga or other groups" into Kobani so that they could help defend the town on the Turkish frontier, adding that he hoped the Kurds would "take this fight on".
If the reinforcements come through, this may mark a turning point in the battle for Kobani, a town that has become a frontline of the battle to foil Islamic State's attempt to reshape the Middle East.
Reuters
U.N. experts questioned Israeli officials on Monday over alleged rights abuses ranging from the demolition of Palestinian houses to mistreatment of detainees and limited Palestinian access to water.
Israel's delegation defended its record before the United Nations Human Rights Committee, which examined respect for civil and political rights in Israel, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Each U.N. member state is reviewed every four years.
Israel says that its obligations under international covenants do not extend to the two Palestinian territories but the U.N. panel and International Court of Justice disagree.
Committee member Cornelis Flinterman noted that the committee was meeting soon after the latest Gaza conflict, when Israeli forces killed about 2,000 Palestinians, including 500 children, and displaced hundreds of thousands in July and August.
Reuters
A tentative agreement between the Ukrainian and Russian presidents has raised hopes of ending a dispute in which Moscow has halted natural gas supplies to Kiev, but several obstacles still have be overcome.
Movement on the gas row was the only sign of progress at talks between Vladimir Putin and Petro Poroshenko on Friday which failed to resolve differences over fighting in eastern Ukraine and a deep crisis in relations.
The two sides, whose energy ministers will meet in Brussels on Tuesday, still differ over how to calculate Kiev's huge gas debt and the schedule for payments and there are doubts about Ukraine's ability to pay.
"The devil is in the details. I don't think that Russian gas will be delivered soon to Ukraine," a Russian government source close to gas talks told Reuters.
DW
Airstrikes were carried out in the Syrian border town of Kobani, and in northern Iraq, as the US-led air campaign continued its mission to stem the spread of the IS jihadist group in the region.
In Syria, US strikes hit a "stray" resupply vehicle from the US airdrop of supplies earlier on Monday intended for Kurdish forces battling the militant group in Kobani. The US military said the strikes "prevented these supplies from falling into enemy hands."
IS fighters have for a month laid siege to Kobani, on the Turkish border, and only intense bombardments by US warplanes have halted their advance.
The strikes in Syria also destroyed IS fighting positions and one of the group's vehicles, according to US Central Command.
Spiegel Online
Market uncertainty over the future of the euro has returned, but that hasn't stopped France from flouting European Union deficit rules. Berlin is already busy hashing out a dubious compromise.
Following three hours of questioning at European Parliament, a visibly exhausted Pierre Moscovici switched to German in a final effort to assuage skepticism from certain members of European Parliament. "As commisioner, I will fully respect the pact," he said.
Moscovici was French finance minister from 2012 until this April and will become European commissioner for economic and financial affairs when the new Commission takes office next month. But can he be taken at his word? There is room for doubt.
Spiegel Online
Germany's foreign intelligence agency says its review of the crash of a Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 in Ukrainian has concluded it was brought down by a missile fired by pro-Russian separatists near Donetsk.
After completing a detailed analysis, Germany's foreign intelligence service, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), has concluded that pro-Russian rebels were responsible for the crash of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 on July 19 in eastern Ukraine while on route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.
NPR
Hong Kong's leader is blaming "external forces" for helping stoke student-led pro-democracy protests that have brought parts of the Chinese territory to a halt in recent weeks.
Leung Chun-ying's statement in a televised interview on Sunday marked the first time he blamed foreign involvement for the unrest, something that Beijing has said repeatedly during the three weeks of demonstrations, according to The Associated Press.
The AP writes: "When asked on the Newsline program about a Chinese official's comments on outside involvement, Leung said, 'There is obviously participation by people, organizations from outside of Hong Kong.' Leung added that the foreign actors came from 'different countries in different parts of the world,' but didn't specify which countries."
NPR's Frank Langfitt, reporting from Hong Kong, says that many Hong Kongers view Leung, who was not democratically elected, as a puppet of Beijing. His echoing of China's line on the demonstrations is likely to reinforce that image.
McClatchy
WASHINGTON — With its decision to drop ammunition and weapons to the defenders of the Syrian town of Kobani on the Turkish border, the Obama administration has inserted the United States into one of the most complex territorial and ethnic disputes to roil the Middle East. Unlike the better known split between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, or the battle to topple the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad, the battle over Kobani pits a relatively obscure political group against the extremists of the Islamic State.
Here are some of the key terms used to discuss the complex situation:
THE ENVIRONMENT, SCIENCE, HEALTH AND TECHNOLOGY
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DW
In a nod to the website's click-generating felines, BuzzFeed has gone live in Germany by hosting their launch in - where else - a cat café located in Berlin. Editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed Germany, Juliane Leopold, explained the company's new plans there on Thursday.
Consider the site a social experiment, much like everything BuzzFeed does. For the first eight months, readers will be exposed to what made the hub of social content the giant it is today: cat content and quirky quizzes.
After the initial stage, where Leopold hopes to grow the page's social media following beyond one million users, the content will shift to news and lifestyle journalism, bringing it more in line with its English-language counterpart, which now even includes its own investigative journalism division.
The Guardian
Google has removed two links to a site hosting stolen nude photos of Jennifer Lawrence after requests by the actor’s lawyers.
The takedown requests were filed under the digital millennium copyright act (DMCA), with her lawyers Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp stating that the stolen photos impinged on Lawrence’s copyright.
The DMCA, which governs the use of copyrighted material and is usually used in reference to pirated TV shows, films and music, requires sites to “expeditiously” remove unlawful images from their servers.
The site removed from Google’s search results has since changed its domain, which has caused the site to be re-indexed by Google and reappear in search results under the different website address. The takedown notice did not list the new domain, requiring another request to be filed to remove it from the search results.
The Guardian
The chief executive of the “anonymous” social media app Whisper broke his silence late on Saturday, saying he welcomed the debate sparked by Guardian US revelations about his company’s tracking of users and declaring “we realise that we’re not infallible”.
Michael Heyward’s statement was his first public response to a series of articles published in the Guardian which revealed how Whisper monitors the whereabouts of users of an app he has in the past described as “the safest place on the internet”.
Whisper hosts 2.6 million messages a day posted through its app, which promises users a place to “anonymously share your thoughts and secrets” and has billed itself as a platform for whistleblowers.
The Guardian’s disclosures, which were based on a visit to Whisper’s headquarters and detailed conversations with its executives, prompted privacy experts to call for a federal inquiry into the company.
NPR
The important thing is that Meghan knew something was wrong.
When I met her, she was 23, a smart, wry young woman living with her mother and stepdad in Simi Valley, about an hour north of Los Angeles.
Meghan had just started a training program to become a respiratory therapist. Concerned about future job prospects, she asked NPR not to use her full name.
Five years ago, Meghan's prospects weren't nearly so bright. At 19, she had been severely depressed, on and off, for years. During the bad times, she'd hide out in her room making thin, neat cuts with a razor on her upper arm.
C/NET
The latest update to Apple's mobile operating system has hit the market.
iOS 8.1, which Apple unveiled at its iPad and Mac event on Thursday, brings back "the beloved camera roll," as Apple software head Craig Federighi described it, and marks the debut of the iCloud photo library. It also adds support for Apple Pay, a new service that allows owners of Apple's latest devices to purchase items in stores and online using the touch of a finger on the gadget's Touch ID. And the update enables iPhone users to send and receive text messages from their iPads and Macs.
The OS update became available for download around 10 a.m. PT Monday.
C/NET
Rumors about a coming Microsoft smartwatch have been circulating for a while. As of a few months ago, that "smartwatch" was sounding more like it would be a fitness band.
On Sunday, Forbes reconfirmed its previous reporting and Windows SuperSite's reported that the first of Microsoft's new wearables looked to be a fitness band, not a more fully-featured watch. The latest reports claim the coming Microsoft fitness band could be available for purchase this holiday season. (Or at least by the very end of this year, if Microsoft can get its ducks in a row.)
Reuters
- Apple Inc (AAPL.O) posted a better-than-expected 12 percent jump in revenue after its best new-iPhone launch on record helped push sales of the smartphone to 39.27 million in the September quarter.
That surpassed the roughly 38 million some on Wall Street had expected, and excluded sales in China, its largest market outside of the United States. Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri said in an interview that the new iPhones, which went on sale last week in China, had already surpassed the previous-generation model in volumes.
Orders for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus began in September, helping Apple chalk up a 12.2 percent jump in revenue last quarter to $42.12 billion. That exceeded the roughly $39.9 billion that Wall Street analysts had predicted, on average.
ScienceBlog
A new study, which may have implications for approaches to education, finds that brain mechanisms engaged when people allow their minds to rest and reflect on things they’ve learned before may boost later learning.
Scientists have already established that resting the mind, as in daydreaming, helps strengthen memories of events and retention of information. In a new twist, researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have shown that the right kind of mental rest, which strengthens and consolidates memories from recent learning tasks, helps boost future learning.
C/NET
Amazon has reached a multi-year deal with Simon & Schuster to sell physical and electronic copies of its titles amid contentious negotiations with another book publisher.
The agreement, which was revealed in a letter to the publisher's writers, gives Simon & Schuster control over e-book pricing "with some limited exceptions," according to the letter, which was signed by Simon & Schuster CEO Carolyn Reidy and obtained by the New York Times. The existing contract between Amazon and Simon & Schuster, which is owned by CNET parent CBS, was due to expire in two months.
"Our new deal assures that your books will be continuously available for sale at this major retailer through this year's holiday book buying season and well beyond," Reidy wrote.