Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, current leader Neon Vincent, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, wader, Doctor RJ, rfall, JML9999 and Man Oh Man. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse, ek hornbeck, ScottyUrb, Interceptor7, BentLiberal, Oke and jlms qkw.
OND is a regular community feature on Daily Kos, consisting of news stories from around the world, sometimes coupled with a daily theme, original research or commentary. Editors of OND impart their own presentation styles and content choices, typically publishing each day near 12:00AM Eastern Time.
Special thanks to JekyllnHyde for the OND banner.
Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.
Al Jazeera America
Hillary Clinton announced her 2016 presidential bid on Sunday, kick-starting a long-awaited second run for the White House and becoming the clear front runner for the Democratic nod.
The formal word came from campaign chairman John Podesta in an e-mail to donors and supporters. “It's official,” the e-mail reads. “Hillary's running for president.”
The campaign followed up the e-mail with a tweet from Clinton and released an online video, featuring the stories of ordinary Americans, on the newly-launched HillaryClinton.com.
“Americans have fought their way back from tough economic times but the deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top,” Clinton said in the video. “I’m hitting the road to earn your vote because it’s your time, and I hope you’ll join me on this journey.”
Al Jazeera America
WASHINGTON — Marco Rubio on Monday became the latest presidential aspirant to officially enter the ranks of the 2016 White House contenders. The first-term Republican senator from Florida announced his candidacy during a conference call to donors, saying he is uniquely qualified to represent the future of the GOP. Rubio is also expected to hold a rally in Miami later this evening, where he will kick off his campaign in Freedom Tower, a kind of Ellis Island for Cuban émigrés in Florida.
Whereas other Republicans in the race — Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas — have staked out distinct political identities, how Rubio positions in the race for the GOP nomination remains a mystery.
The Guardian
Even as Americans wait for Clinton to actually say what she might propose to help the middle class, or to diminish inequality, or to do about police brutality, or to rein in the NSA, or to confront Russia in Europe and negotiate with Cuba and Iran, or … anything really – despite all these unknowns, New Yorkers seem to like her.
That’s not nothing. New Yorkers don’t really like anybody.
...
Marco Rubio has struggled to make a mark on domestic legislation and has instead tried to assert himself on the foreign relations committee.
Despite his generally affable relations with Senate veterans, Rubio’s voting record tilts conspicuously toward the Tea party at times.
In 2013, he voted not to renew the Violence Against Women Act – the law that made stalking illegal and set up support systems for women. (The law passed anyway.)
Reuters
U.S. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida told top donors on Monday that he will run for the White House because he is "uniquely qualified" to represent the Republican Party in the 2016 presidential race, a source familiar with the matter said.
During a conference call with donors, Rubio criticized Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton as a leader from yesterday and said the 2016 race will be a choice between the past and the future, the source said.
Rubio, a son of Cuban immigrants who rode the anti-establishment Tea Party wave of 2010 to national prominence, will formally announce his presidential bid later on Monday with a speech at Miami's Freedom Tower.
Reuters
Hillary Clinton cast herself as a champion for everyday Americans on Sunday, kicking off her long-awaited second run for the White House with a vow to fight for a level playing field for those recovering from tough economic times.
Clinton, who begins the 2016 presidential race as the commanding Democratic front-runner, entered the fray with a flurry of video, email and social media announcements that indicated she had absorbed some of the lessons of her painful 2008 loss and would not take anything for granted this time.
When she lost the Democratic nominating battle to Barack Obama, her campaign was heavily criticized for conveying a sense of arrogance and entitlement, and for being out of touch with the party's progressive wing.
The Guardian
A Lamborghini that was part of a sports car racing attraction at Walt Disney World crashed into a barrier, killing the passenger and injuring the driver on Sunday.
The Exotic Driving Experience attraction in Orlando, Florida lets sports car fans be drivers or passengers in luxurious cars such as Lamborghinis, Porsches or Ferraris.
The dead man was named by Florida highway patrol as Gary Terry, 36, from Davenport, according to the Orlando Sentinel. Terry was believed to be the operations manager at the Richard Petty Driving Experience track.
The driver was 24-year-old Tavon Watson, 24, who reportedly lost control of the high-speed car on one of track’s bends. He was taken to hospital with minor injuries.
A Disney spokeswoman declined comment.
The Guardian
The police officer who killed Walter Scott in South Carolina laughed about the adrenaline rush he was feeling, in a conversation that offers a new insight into his mindset in the minutes after the shooting.
Patrolman Michael Slager made the remarks during a discussion with a senior officer after fatally shooting Scott in North Charleston on 5 April. A recording of their conversation was obtained by the Guardian.
NPR
We've done a lot of writing and reporting at Code Switch over the last year on deadly police shootings of unarmed black people, cases that have become such a part of our landscape that they have a tendency to melt into each other. Indeed, sometimes the pattern of facts seems to barely change: Just last fall, we followed the story of another unarmed black man in South Carolina who was shot following a police traffic stop. The officer in that shooting, like Slager, was later fired and arrested once the video of that encounter surfaced and contradicted his initial report.
While names and places change, the backdrop against which these stories play out does not. We decided to pull together what we've learned along the way, along with some thoughtful commentary from other outlets about this case and the larger questions it raises.
The Guardian
Documentary film-maker Alex Gibney has written a comment piece for the Los Angeles Times criticising Scientology’s tax-exempt status.
Gibney, who recently made the controversial HBO documentary Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, has called for the organisation’s definition as a religion to be revoked, so that it becomes liable for taxation.
While he does believe that Scientology can be defined as a religion, he claims it fails to act in the way that a religion should, in order to be exempt from paying taxes. One of his key arguments concerns “private interests”, as a religion should not in any way serve the needs of just one individual.
NPR
The hemispheric summit meeting that just wrapped up in Panama was the first to include the president of Cuba.
But even if Raul Castro and his brother Fidel were kept out of sight at past Summits of the Americas, they were never out of mind.
Six years ago, President Obama stood on a rooftop in Trinidad, talking with reporters about his first summit. Scott Wilson, a Washington Post correspondent with lots of Latin-America experience, asked the president what he'd learned from listening to his fellow leaders.
Obama said he'd been struck by the goodwill Cuba had won throughout the hemisphere by sending thousands of doctors to practice in other countries.
NPR
As the rain and wind swirled outside the window during Superstorm Sandy more than two years ago, Liz Treston's family helped her into bed.
Treston, 54, was disabled in a diving accident when she was in her 20s. She uses a wheelchair to get around her Long Island, N.Y., home and an electronic lift machine to get into her bed. The night the storm hit, she wanted to be ready for sleep in case the power went out.
Under the covers, she listened as water rushed into her basement, pouring over the appliances and furniture she kept down there.
"I'm laying in bed and I could hear the refrigerator fall over and just make this wretched screeching noise, and it's dark," she says. "You could feel the water rising. I opened the drapery and you could actually see whitecaps in the middle of the street."
Reuters
As the United States and Iran come closer to a historic nuclear deal, many U.S. states are likely to stick with their own sanctions on Iran that could complicate any warming of relations between the long-time foes.
In a little known aspect of Iran's international isolation, around two dozen states have enacted measures punishing companies operating in certain sectors of its economy, directing public pension funds with billions of dollars in assets to divest from the firms and sometimes barring them from public contracts.
In more than half those states, the restrictions expire only if Iran is no longer designated to be supporting terrorism or if all U.S. federal sanctions against Iran are lifted - unlikely outcomes even in the case of a final nuclear accord. Two states, Kansas and Mississippi, are even considering new sanctions targeting the country.
Reuters
A former Blackwater security guard was sentenced to life in prison and three others got 30-year terms on Monday in the massacre of 14 unarmed Iraqi civilians at a Baghdad traffic circle in 2007, closing a case that had outraged Iraqis and inflamed anti-U.S. sentiment around the world.
The Sept. 16 incident stood out for its brazenness and formed a tense backdrop to talks between the United States and Iraq over the continued presence of U.S. forces in Iraq. It also sparked debate over private security contractors working for the U.S. government in war zones.
The four guards opened fire with machine guns and grenade launchers on the Iraqis, including women and children, at Nisur Square. A heavily armed, four-truck Blackwater Worldwide convoy the men were in had been trying to clear a path for U.S. diplomats.
NPR
News flash: Members of the U.S. Senate will work across party lines Tuesday for the sake of America's students.
Well, at least for a few more days.
A bipartisan group of senators on the HELP committee will begin hashing out the details of a proposed rewrite to the massive education law known as No Child Left Behind. The law, itself a reauthorization of the landmark Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, was supposed to have been revised back in 2007.
Obsessives and political ed junkies, grab your popcorn. You can stream the markup live here.
BBC
An Alaska Airlines plane declared an emergency and made a priority landing at Seattle after taking off with a worker trapped in the cargo hold.
The pilot of flight 448, bound for Los Angeles, was alerted by the sound of banging "from beneath the aircraft", an Alaska Airlines statement said.
The baggage handler emerged from the pressurised hold, saying he had fallen asleep inside it, the airline said.
The worker "appeared OK" but was taken to hospital as a precaution, it said.
The aircraft had been been in the air for 14 minutes.
Alaska Airlines said it was "actively investigating the matter".
The worker is employed by Menzies Aviation.
DW
He was a writer who forced post-war Germany to rethink itself and turned heads with strong political statements. Upon news of Günter Grass' death, here's how international politicians and intellectuals have responded.
Germany's Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said he was "profoundly devastated" by the death of Nobel Prize winner Günter Grass. He pointed out that Grass passed away in a hospital in Lübeck just one day before a G7 meeting would be held in the northern German city.
Grass was extraordinarily politically active during his career and actively supported the left-center Social Democratic Party (SPD), to which Steinmeier also belongs.
Andrea Nahles, the SPD's secretary general, praised Grass via Twitter on Monday for being a polemical intellectual, adding that this trait was missing from politics today.
DW
Germany's foreign minister has urged Russia and Ukraine to move forward with the terms of the Minsk ceasefire, ahead of a key meeting in Berlin. He rejected opposition calls to reinstate Russia in what's now the G7.
"We expect both Moscow and Kyiv to seize the central issue of the implementation of the next phase of Minsk," Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in Monday's edition of German daily Die Welt.
This phase foresees "the preparation of local elections in the areas occupied by the separatists, but also humanitarian aid access and reconstruction in eastern Ukraine," Steinmeier said.
Al Jazeera America
Chinese authorities curbed some travel from mainland China to Hong Kong on Monday to cool tensions over a growing influx of shoppers that has angered residents of the Asian financial hub.
The public security bureau in neighboring Shenzhen will stop issuing multiple visit passes to people who live in the border city and instead issue only once-a-week travel passes, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.
The move comes as anger simmers over the rising numbers of cross-border mainland Chinese travelers, who have been blamed for voracious buying of smartphones, cosmetics, medicine and luxury goods that distorts the local economy.
Chinese especially favor baby formula bought in Hong Kong over domestic brands after repeated food safety scares and because of the city's reputation for authentic goods.
The recent arson attack against a refugee hostel in Tröglitz has made headlines around the world. But it is far from the exception in Germany. Even as most asylum-seekers in the country are left in peace, there has been a disturbing rise in anti-refugee violence.
Four months after the night when peace went up in flames between the half-timbered houses of Vorra, the police posters are still hanging on the trees. They are hanging along the walking paths next to the Pegnitz River, which winds its way through the small town near Nuremberg. They are posted at playgrounds and at the train station. Everywhere really. Twenty thousand euros are being offered for clues that might help authorities find those behind the Dec. 12, 2014 arson attack, which saw three homes, newly renovated for refugees, set on fire. Police are still waiting in vain today for the decisive tip.
Reuters
Russia paved the way on Monday for missile system deliveries to Iran and started an oil-for-goods swap, signaling that Moscow may have a head-start in the race to benefit from an eventual lifting of sanctions on Tehran.
The moves come after world powers, including Russia, reached an interim deal with Iran this month on curbing its nuclear program.
The Kremlin said President Vladimir Putin signed a decree ending a self-imposed ban on delivering the S-300 anti-missile rocket system to Iran, removing a major irritant between the two after Moscow canceled a corresponding contract in 2010 under pressure from the West.
Reuters
China has unexpectedly released five women activists on bail, two lawyers said on Monday, after a vocal campaign against their detention by the West and Chinese rights campaigners.
The women were taken into custody on the weekend of March 8, International Women's Day, and detained on suspicion of "picking quarrels and provoking trouble". They had planned to demonstrate against sexual harassment on public transport.
Their case has outraged a swath of Chinese society. Dozens of students and workers have signed petitions and held slogans calling for their release.
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry also called for their release, prompting China's Foreign Ministry to lodge a formal protest with Washington
The European Union also expressed concern about the case.
NPR
Sixty-three percent of people who took part in a global survey of religious attitudes say they are religious, according to WIN/Gallup International, the organization that carried out the polling.
The poll also found that 22 percent said they were not religious while about 11 percent said they were "convinced atheists," according to the poll published today. It surveyed nearly 64,000 people in 65 countries.
Africa and MENA, a region comprised of Middle East and North Africa, were the most religious areas, with more than 80 percent of respondents saying they consider themselves religious. Here is a map of the five most religious countries and places.
THE ENVIRONMENT, SCIENCE, HEALTH AND TECHNOLOGY
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Al Jazeera America
Underlining a change across the United States, nearly 9 out of 10 adults now say they have health insurance, according to an extensive survey released Monday.
The Gallup-Healthways survey found that the share of adults who lack insurance dropped to 11.9 percent for the first three months of 2015, the lowest level since that survey began its tracking in 2008. As recently as 2013, slightly more than 8 out of 10 adults had coverage.
Coverage gains from 2014-2015 translate to about 3.6 million fewer adults uninsured since the fall, before open enrollment got under way, according to Gallup.
The survey overlaps with the period when the health law's second sign-up season was winding down.
The Guardian
Mars has liquid water just below its surface, according to new measurements by Nasa’s Curiosity rover.
Until now, scientists had thought that conditions on the red planet were too cold and arid for liquid water to exist, although there were known to be deposits of ice.
Prof Andrew Coates, head of planetary science at the Mullard Space, said: “The evidence so far is that any water would be in the form of permafrost. It’s the first time we’ve had evidence of liquid water there now.”
The latest findings suggest that Martian soil is damp with liquid brine, due to the presence of a salt that significantly lowers the freezing point of water. When mixed with calcium perchlorate liquid water can exist down to around -70C, and the salt also soaks up water vapour from the atmosphere.
The Guardian
Some 957,000 Americans preordered the Apple Watch on Friday, the first day the company accepted orders, according to measurement company Slice. The new device appears to be off to a reasonable start, though far short of analysts’ estimates for the first year of sales for the device – as high as 60m for the whole of 2015.
The watch is a rallying point for Apple lovers: 72% of purchasers had bought an Apple product in the past two years (though some of that probably has to do with the device’s iPhone requirement), and majority opinion favored both the larger of the two case sizes and the Apple Watch Sport, as opposed to the pricier Apple Watch proper or the much, much pricier Apple Watch Edition. Preorders will begin shipping in April, but some will ship as late as May and June.
NPR
In February, Medicare announced that it would pay for an annual lung cancer screening test for certain long-term smokers. Medicare recipients between the ages of 55 and 77 who have smoked the equivalent of a pack a day for 30 years are now eligible for the annual test, known as a spiral CT scan.
Medicare's decision was partly a response to a 2011 study showing that screenings with the technique could reduce lung cancer deaths by 20 percent.
NPR
There's no question mammograms can save lives by detecting breast cancer early. But they can also result in unnecessary testing and treatment that can be alarming and costly.
In fact, each year the U.S. spends $4 billion on follow-up tests and treatments that result from inaccurate mammograms, scientists report in the current issue of Health Affairs.
That's a "stunning number," says the study's lead author, Dr. Kenneth Mandl, at Harvard Medical School's Center for Biomedical Informatics.
Mandl and a colleague analyzed the insurance records of more than 700,000 women from 2011 to 2013. The women were between the ages of 40 and 59, and they all had routine mammograms to screen for breast cancer during that time period.
Climate Central
To understand why the West has been so dry since the turn of the century, cast your eye further west — to the natural waxing and waning of Pacific Ocean winds.
Strong trade winds have been forcing heat into ocean depths, contributing to a temporary slowdown in land surface warming over the past 15 to 20 years that some have called a warming hiatus, pause or false pause. New research published in the Journal of Climate has gone further — implicating those winds in stubborn droughts afflicting Western states.
NPR
In the week after Easter, we had a lot of old Peeps lying around. No one seemed that interested in eating them, so we used them to measure the speed of light.
For centuries the speed of light was an enduring, infuriating mystery. Philosophers, physicists and astronomers from Galileo on down studied flickering lanterns, spinning mirrors and distant moons, trying to figure out just how fast light travels. But today you don't have to go through all that rigmarole. You can find the speed of light in the comfort of your own kitchen.
All you'll need is a microwave, a ruler and something that melts: chocolate, marshmallows or ... stale Peeps.
Al Jazeera America
This is the first in a three-part investigative series on China’s inroads in Texas’ energy industry. It follows an investigative series on another push by Chinese politician-investors and U.S. officials for a methanol plant in a predominantly black neighborhood of St. James Parish, Louisiana.
TEXAS CITY, Texas — The administration of former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a likely 2016 GOP presidential contender, appears to have had a hand in helping two Chinese politician-cum-tycoons — who in recent years have come under public scrutiny on allegations of environmental abuses and corruption — park assets in a proposed methanol plant beside an underserved, predominantly black community in southern Texas.
What would be one of the largest methanol plants in the world, valued at $4.5 billion and receiving hefty tax incentives from Texas City and the state, would send its product to China, according to promotional materials. But China has in recent years struggled to find a use for all its methanol, which is used in producing biodiesel and as a solvent.
The market for Texas-made methanol remains unclear. But the Chinese entrepreneurs’ bid to pour funds into an overseas enterprise comes at a time when Beijing’s sweeping anti-corruption campaign has officials and industry magnates scrambling to put their wealth abroad to avoid losing it in probes that have targeted China’s ruling class.
When Gov. Jerry Brown of California imposed mandatory cutbacks in water use earlier this month in response to a severe drought, he warned that the state was facing an uncertain future. “This is the new normal,” he said, “and we’ll have to learn to cope with it.”
The drought, now in its fourth year, is by many measures the worst since the state began keeping records of temperature and precipitation in the 1800s. And with a population now close to 39 million and a thirsty, $50 billion agricultural industry, California has been affected more by this drought than by any previous one.
But scientists say that in the more ancient past, California and the Southwest occasionally had even worse droughts — so-called megadroughts — that lasted decades. At least in parts of California, in two cases in the last 1,200 years, these dry spells lingered for up to two centuries.