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.
BBC
Heatwave in Pakistan's Sindh province leaves 120 dead
More than 120 people have died during a heatwave in Pakistan's southern Sindh province.
Health officials say most of the deaths have been in Karachi, which has seen temperatures as high as 45 degrees Celsius (113 deg F) in recent days.
The city has seen power cuts, caused by an increased demand for electricity caused by the extreme weather.
The head of the emergency department at Jinnah Hospital in Karachi said the majority of the victims were elderly.
"Patients with heat stroke brought to the hospital had high-grade fever, altered state of consciousness, dehydration and fits," said Dr Semee Jamali,
"Since Saturday 114 people have died in Karachi and eight others in three districts of Sindh," provincial health secretary Saeed Mangnejo told the Agence France-Presse news agency.
According to Pakistan's metrological office, very hot and humid weather is likely to continue on Monday, but cooler weather is forecast from Tuesday.
BBC
Islamic State web accounts to be blocked by new police team
A Europe-wide police team is being formed to track and block social media accounts linked to Islamic State (IS).
A recent US study found there were at least 46,000 accounts on Twitter linked to the militant group, many of which help to recruit new IS members.
The European police agency Europol will now work with unnamed social media companies to track the accounts.
They aim to get new accounts closed down within two hours of them being set up.
Europol believes up to 5,000 EU citizens, including people from the UK, France, Belgium and the Netherlands, have travelled to territories controlled by IS.
Rob Wainwright, Europol's director, told the Guardian that the remit of the new team, which starts its work on 1 July, would be to "identify the ringleaders online".
BBC
Greece debt crisis: EU leaders step up efforts for deal
European leaders have intensified their efforts to reach a deal over the Greek debt crisis, ahead of an emergency Brussels summit to break the deadlock.
French President Francois Hollande has warned that "everything must be done" to keep Greece in the eurozone.
Greek PM Alexis Tsipras set out new proposals in a bid to prevent a default on a €1.6bn (£1.1bn) IMF loan.
Greece must repay the loan by the end of June or risk crashing out of the single currency and possibly the EU.
Talks have been in deadlock for five months, with the European Commission, the IMF and the European Central Bank (ECB) unwilling to unlock the final €7.2bn tranche of bailout funds until Greece agrees to economic reforms they want to see introduced.
The Guardian
New York prison break manhunt follows 'credible sighting' 350 miles away
An intense manhunt for two escaped convicts continued on Sunday around the tiny town of Friendship in south-western New York state, following what police described as a “credible sighting” of men resembling the fugitives.
Richard Matt and David Sweat escaped from Clinton correctional facility in upstate New York two weeks ago, cutting their way through pipes to emerge through a manhole in a Dannemora street. A massive manhunt failed to find them despite grid searches of dense forests and vacant buildings and cabins by up to 800 investigators and rangers.
Authorities scrambled on Saturday afternoon and evening to get officers to the remote, rural area 350 miles south-west of the prison.
At a Sunday afternoon press conference, Major Michael Cerretto of New York state police confirmed that the call which came in from a “witness” on Saturday was deemed credible because it “fit the description” of the two fugitives.
Officers questioned the member of the public, Ceretto said, and began searching in the area of Friendship, New York, near the Pennsylvania border. The new search area prompted fierce media interest on Saturday evening but by Sunday afternoon there was still no confirmed sighting of the convicts and they were still at large.
N Y Times
An Array of Oversights Set the Stage for New York Killers’ Escape
DANNEMORA, N.Y. — By the time David Sweat and Richard W. Matt engineered their extraordinary escape from the maximum-security prison here, corrections officers were rarely shining lights over the faces of inmates during hourly bed checks, making it hard to know whether a living, breathing person was inside a cell.
The catwalks and underground tunnels that made their getaway possible were no longer being inspected regularly.
And no one was inside two of the 35-foot-high guard towers when Mr. Sweat and Mr. Matt, convicted killers, climbed out of a manhole outside the prison walls and fled into the night.
No single lapse or mistake in security enabled the two men to break out of the Clinton Correctional Facility, long considered one of the most secure prisons in the nation. But it now appears an array of oversights, years in the making, set the stage for the prison break a little over two weeks ago and for the ensuing manhunt, which this weekend zeroed in on a possible sighting of the men in Friendship, N.Y., more than 350 miles southwest of the prison, even as the State Police said the focus of the search would remain around Dannemora.
Raw Story
Teen pot usage drops despite legalization: study
Medical marijuana advocates now have evidence legalizing pot for medical purposes does not lead to increased underage usage of the drug. A massive study analyzing data on 1 million teenagers in 48 states found legalizing medical marijuana actually reduced teen usage, the Guardian reported.
The study, published in the medical journal Lancet Psychiatry, tracked 1,098,270 8th-grade, 10th-grade and 12th-grade students over 24 years. The teens were asked if they had smoked or used marijuana products in the prior month. Teenage pot use didn’t increase with the rise of legal medical marijuana in 21 states as of 2014, the study found. Instead, teenage usage decreased from 8 percent before legalization to 6 percent afterward.
With Alaska and Hawaii, a total of 23 states have legalized medical marijuana. Maryland, Minnesota and New York legalized pot for medicinal purposes last year, according to the website ProCon.org. Last week, Delaware lawmakers decriminalized possession of less than an ounce of pot.
Raw Story
Every 2016 GOP presidential candidate is fine with South Carolina flying Confederate flag
Fearing a backlash from voters for wading into a contentious issue that they would rather not address, leading candidates for the 2016 GOP nomination for the presidency are running for cover rather than take a stand on South Carolina’s Confederate flag controversy.
While 2102 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney once again took a stand against the flag as he did in 2008, current nominees are stepping carefully around the issue, deferring to “state’s rights” without offering a personal opinion.
On Saturday, Romney renewed his support for taking the flag down, tweeting, “Take down the #ConfederateFlag at the SC Capitol. To many, it is a symbol of racial hatred. Remove it now to honor #Charleston victims.”
South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham defended his home state flying the flag, saying, “Well, at the end of the day it’s time for people in South Carolina to revisit that decision. [That] would be fine with me, but this is part of who we are,”
The New York Times reports that former Florida Governor Jeb Bush said he retired the flag to a museum under his watch, but left the door open for South Carolina residents to make their own decision once they get over the shock of the Charleston church murders committed by Dylan Roof.
Reuters
Pentagon chief planning for longer-term rift with Russia
The United States and its NATO allies are preparing militarily for the prospect that their rift with Russia could outlast President Vladimir Putin, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Sunday.
Russia's intervention in Ukraine has put NATO allies in eastern Europe on edge and triggered a series of military moves by the alliance, including an acceleration of exercises and the creation of a NATO rapid response force.
Carter, speaking at the start of a week-long trip to Europe, said the United States hoped Russia would return to a forward- looking course and noted areas of diplomatic cooperation with Moscow, including talks over Iran's nuclear program.
But ongoing changes to NATO's military posture, which are meant in part to deter a Russian intervention, illustrate preparations for longer lasting tensions, he said.
"The adaptations I was talking are specifically in anticipation that Russia might not change under Vladimir Putin, or even thereafter," Carter said before landing in Berlin.
Asked whether he thought Putin might change course, Carter said he hoped so, but "I can't be sure."
C/Net
Uber says no guns in cars, changing policy
Uber, the ride-hailing company based in San Francisco, has reworked its legal policies to include a ban on firearm possession by its drivers and passengers.
"We seek to ensure that everyone using the Uber digital platform...feels safe and comfortable," the new policy reads. "Uber and its affiliates therefore prohibit possessing firearms of any kind in a vehicle." Those found violating the rule may lose access to Uber's services.
The update was first reported by the New Republic, amid news of Wednesday's shootings in Charleston, SC, where a 21-year-old white man opened fire at the historically black Emanuel A.M.E. Church, killing nine people.
Uber has noted, however, that its policy change was made June 10 -- a week before the shootings occurred. The company said it made the change "after assessing existing policies and carefully reviewing recent feedback from both riders and driver-partners."
In March, Uber announced it would amp up efforts to increase rider safety, after a number of passengers had accused drivers of crimes including assault, kidnapping and rape.
Dumbest statement ever:
Raw Story
Tucker Carlson: Obama’s Secret Service detail should lose guns first if he wants gun control
Fox News host Tucker Carlson argued over the weekend that President Barack Obama should have to give up his armed Secret Service security detail if he was going to be pushing for gun control.
On Saturday’s edition of Fox & Friends, Carlson suggested that the president had used the recent massacre at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston to advance a “political” agenda against guns.
“The president has said a number of times guns are the problem, guns cause violence,” Carlson complained. “There’s nobody in the world surrounded by more armed people than President Obama himself. I notice he’s not suggesting the people around him disarm. He wants to remain protected, but the rest of us have to go without means to self-protection.”
Left-leaning Fox News contributor Jehmu Greene found Carlson’s remarks offensive.
“To say that the president of the United States is hypocritical because he has people with guns around him, Tucker, that is beneath this discussion,” Green explained. “You are trying to compared Secret Service armed people to someone who walks into a church and kills nine people.”