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 with guest editors annetteboardman and Chitown Kev. 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
Scientists have found the first evidence that briny water may flow on the surface of Mars during summers, NASA announced on Monday.
“Mars is not the dry, arid planet that we thought of in the past,” Jim Green, the planetary science division director for NASA, said Monday in a press conference. “Under certain circumstances, liquid water has been found on Mars.”
Although the source and the chemistry of the water is unknown, the discovery could affect thinking about whether the planet that is most like Earth in the solar system could support present day microbial life. The finding is based on a study that was published Monday in Nature Geoscience.
The Guardian
Liquid water runs down canyons and crater walls over the summer months on Mars, according to researchers who say the discovery raises the chances of being home to some form of life.
The trickles leave long, dark stains on the Martian terrain that can reach hundreds of metres downhill in the warmer months, before they dry up in the autumn as surface temperatures drop.
Images taken from the Mars orbit show cliffs, and the steep walls of valleys and craters, streaked with summertime flows that in the most active spots combine to form intricate fan-like patterns.
Scientists are unsure where the water comes from, but it may rise up from underground ice or salty aquifers, or condense out of the thin Martian atmosphere.
Reuters
Briny water flows during the summer months on Mars, raising the possibility that the planet long thought to be arid could support life today, scientists analyzing data from a NASA spacecraft said on Monday.
Although the source and the chemistry of the water is unknown, the discovery will change scientists' thinking about whether the planet that is most like Earth in the solar system hosts microbial life beneath its radiation-blasted crust.
"It suggests that it would be possible for life to be on Mars today," John Grunsfeld, NASA's associate administrator for science, told reporters, discussing the study published in the journal Nature Geoscience.
NPR
Scientists have caught Mars crying salty tears.
Photos from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show dark streaks flowing down Martian slopes. The streaks appear in sunny spots or when the weather is warm, and they fade when the temperature drops.
Water was suspected to be involved, but now scientists have confirmed its presence. The new analysis, published in Nature Geoscience, shows salts mixed with water when the streaks are darkest. The water disappears when the streaks lighten.
New York Times
Scientists have for the first time confirmed liquid water flowing on the surface of present-day Mars, a finding that will add to speculation that life, if it ever arose there, could persist now.
“This is tremendously exciting,” James L. Green, the director of NASA’s planetary science division, said during a news conference on Monday. “We haven’t been able to answer the question, ‘Does life exist beyond Earth?’ But following the water is a critical element of that. We now have, I think, great opportunities in the right locations on Mars to thoroughly investigate that.”
That represents a shift in tone for NASA, where officials have repeatedly played down the notion that the dusty and desolate landscape of Mars could be inhabited today.
Al Jazeera America
This article was produced in collaboration with the New England Center for Investigative Reporting, a nonprofit news outlet in Boston that holds the powerful accountable and trains a new generation of investigative reporters.
GRAFTON, Mass. — In early 2012, residents of this sleepy town began to notice an unusual amount of activity around the Grafton & Upton rail yard at the north end of town. An old barn that had stood for over a century was knocked down. Bulldozers came out, clearing the land.
The tiny 16.5-mile railroad had been nearly defunct, but was purchased in 2008 by Jon Delli Priscoli, a major local developer with a penchant for railroads; he also owns a Thomas the Tank Engine theme park 70 miles away.
At least one town official who visited the site to ask about the construction said he was told that the railroad’s activities weren’t subject to review by the town.
Al Jazeera America
An Oklahoma appeals court on Monday narrowly denied a death row inmate's last-minute request for a new hearing and ordered that his execution may proceed.
In a 3-2 decision, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals denied Richard Glossip's request for an evidentiary hearing and an emergency stay of execution. The court ruled the state can proceed with Glossip's execution, which is scheduled for Wednesday at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester.
Glossip, 52, was scheduled to be set to death on Sept. 16 for ordering the beating death of a motel owner, despite his claims that he was framed by the actual killer, Justin Sneed, who is serving a life sentence. But just hours before he was set to receive a lethal injection the court granted Glossip a two-week reprieve, after his attorneys claimed they had new evidence that he was innocent, including another inmate's claim that he overheard Sneed admit to framing Glossip.
But the court ruled the new evidence simply expands on theories that were already raised on his original appeals.
The Guardian
The FBI will continue to resist pressure from legislators and activists for the creation of a fully comprehensive count of all killings by American police officers, the bureau’s director signalled on Monday.
Writing as the FBI released its annual crime statistics, James Comey said an existing voluntary system, under which police departments around the country choose whether or not to submit data on homicides by their officers, will carry on.
Comey said the FBI would try to collect more information – but gave no specific details about how this would be done.
He said of the current information collected: “As helpful as this information is, however, we need more law enforcement agencies to submit their justifiable homicide data so that we can better understand what is happening across the country.”
The Guardian
Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin met on the sidelines of the United Nations general assembly on Monday after clashing with an exchange of blunt rhetoric as they vied for global leadership on Syria and the fight against Islamic State.
The sharply conflicting speeches from the US and Russian presidents offered little hope of a breakthrough at their face-to-face encounter, which promises to be more of an arm-wrestling session to test personal resolve rather than a meeting of minds.
Before the meeting Obama and Putin shook hands in a small room bedecked with Russian and American flags, wearing slight grins but answering no questions from the press, according to pool reports.
Reuters
Legislation to avoid a U.S. government shutdown and provide temporary funds for federal agencies in the fiscal year beginning on Thursday cleared an important procedural hurdle in the Senate on Monday.
With the 60 votes needed, the Senate limited debate on the stopgap funding bill that would extend current agency spending until Dec. 11.
The Senate is expected to pass the bill on Tuesday or Wednesday, sending it to the House for passage before a midnight Wednesday deadline.
NPR
Amazing, simple, easy, fair.
Those are just four of the words Donald Trump used on Monday to describe his new tax plan. It sounds like a standard GOP tax plan, with cuts and limits on deductions. But when you look closer, it takes those ideas much further than his GOP rivals do — to the extent that it could cost the federal government trillions of dollars.
So what is he proposing? Here's what you need to know about it:
What does it do?
Here are the highlights from Trump's plan:
NHK World
The Japanese Prime Minister and Iranian President have agreed to strengthen bilateral cooperation in a range of areas.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and President Hassan Rouhani met in New York on Sunday.
Abe welcomed the final agreement reached in July between Iran and 6 world powers over Iran's nuclear development.
He said it's important for Iran to steadily implement the agreement in cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The prime minister also said he wants to work toward expanding bilateral economic ties and help Japanese companies to invest in Iran. He said he wants to contribute to Iran's economic growth.
Abe also said he wants to further discuss with Iran to develop bilateral cooperation at various levels.
NHK World
The organizers of the Tokyo Olympic Games have decided to propose the addition of 5 sports to the 2020 Games.
They are baseball and softball, karate, roller sports, sport climbing, and surfing.
The Tokyo organizing committee on Monday held its final meeting to decide on its recommendation, which would add 18 extra events.
The sports were approved from a list of 8 finalists. Squash, bowling, and wushu, which is a Chinese martial art, were not selected.
DW News
In his speech on Monday morning, Obama opened by calling for recognition of what the UN had achieved and called for international cooperation to solve problems.
He addressed the responsibilities big nations to preserve international order, and criticized both Russia's policies towards Ukraine and Chinese territorial ambitions in the South China Sea.
However, the US president's words on Syria had been the most eagerly anticipated, with Russia calling for international cooperation to defeat "Islamic State" ("IS"), and stating that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must have a role. Obama appeared dismissive of any long term role for the Syrian leader, who he branded a "tyrant."
"There cannot be a return to the prewar status quo. Let's remember how this started. Assad reacted to peaceful protests by escalating repression and killing in turn created the environment for the current strife."
NHK World
The organizers of the Tokyo Olympic Games have decided to propose the addition of 5 sports to the 2020 Games.
They are baseball and softball, karate, roller sports, sport climbing, and surfing.
The Tokyo organizing committee on Monday held its final meeting to decide on its recommendation, which would add 18 extra events.
The sports were approved from a list of 8 finalists. Squash, bowling, and wushu, which is a Chinese martial art, were not selected.
Al Jazeera America
NEW YORK — In the aftermath of a horrific stampede near Mecca that claimed the lives of possibly more than 1,000 pilgrims — many of them Iranian — relations between Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran have reached a new low.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, in New York for the 70th anniversary of the United Nations General Assembly, cut short his trip to return to Iran to be there in time to meet the coffins of victims. Before leaving, in his address to the General Assembly on Monday, he inserted a blast at Saudi authorities, accusing them of “incompetence and mismanagement” of the Hajj. Rouhani also demanded immediate consular access for Iran and other nations so that they could identify and return bodies of the victims and called for an independent investigation of the disaster.
Spiegel Online
No other state has catapulted itself into the future quite as rapidly, nor relapsed back into its dark past as suddenly, as Turkey. First there was modernization, and now the beginnings of a civil war. The country is divided by mistrust and hate.
This is Recep Tayyip Erdogan's country: a gorgeous mountain scenery on the Black Sea. On lush, green hillsides, people pick tea leaves and only interrupt their work to pray.
Erdogan calls them "his people," and for them, he erected an Ottoman-style mosque atop one of the highest peaks. It stands so high above the villages that it is barely discernable from below. A death-defying path winds up the mountain and takes about 45 minutes to traverse in a car, but many people here make the climb by foot anyway in order to feel closer to God -- and to Erdogan, their beloved president.
THE ENVIRONMENT, SCIENCE, HEALTH AND TECHNOLOGY
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Climate Central
The long list of maladies attributed to El Niño continues to grow. In addition to affecting weather patterns around the world, the climate phenomenon also has a profound impact on ocean levels in the Pacific that can hurt coral reefs.
New research chronicles those impacts and also points to more extremes in the future as climate change adds another layer to El Niño’s fury.
In its most basic form, El Niño is a warming of waters in the eastern equatorial Pacific. But El Niño also causes warm water to pile up on that side of the Pacific and in a classic case of equilibrium, it leaves a dearth of water in the western portion of the ocean basin. During super El Niños like the 1997-98 event, sea levels in the western Pacific can drop by as much as a foot, exposing coral reefs to the air. This year's strong El Niño has caused a sea level drop of up to 7 inches in the western Pacific.
There’s even a word for it in Samoan: taimasa, which means foul-smelling tide. The stinky tide is more than a cause to pinch your nose — it also has major ramifications for the reefs that protect small islands.
Climate Central
President Barack Obama said he hopes major countries agree to "aggressive enough targets" to cut carbon emissions at climate talks in Paris later this year, but he said any deal will fall short of what is needed to slow global warming.
"I'm less concerned about the precise number, because let's stipulate right now, whatever various country targets are, it's still going to fall short of what the science requires," Obama said in an interview published in Rolling Stone magazine.
Scientists say global warming needs to be limited to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) to avoid devastating droughts and rising sea levels.
Countries are submitting pledges to cut emissions ahead of the U.N. summit. So far, those pledges are estimated to limit warming to 3 degrees Celsius.
Obama said "a percent here or a percent there" in pledged cuts "is not going to be a deal breaker," but said it was critical to set up a system to require countries to review their pledges every five years and continue to make cuts after the Paris talks conclude.
McClatchy
Shell is abandoning its controversial efforts to drill for oil the U.S. Arctic Ocean after an expensive and disappointing drilling season.
The company said it will stop its oil exploration efforts off the coast of Alaska "for the foreseeable future."
"Shell continues to see important exploration potential in the basin, and the area is likely to ultimately be of strategic importance to Alaska and the US. However, this is a clearly disappointing exploration outcome for this part of the basin," said Marvin Odum, Shell’s upstream America’s director.
Shell has spent some $6 billion on its Arctic exploration effort and failed to extract any oil. With other oil and gas companies closely watching Shell’s pioneering efforts to see if drilling would succeed in the harsh environment, Shell’s result likely means that no one else will attempt to drill the U.S. Arctic Ocean anytime soon.
Environmental groups, who battled President Barack Obama’s decision to allow Shell to explore for oil in the Arctic, hailed the company’s announcement as a huge victory.
NPR
For the past 10 years, doctors have used a genetic test to decide which patients may be able to skip chemotherapy after surgery for breast cancer.
Now a study confirms that this test, called Oncotype DX, works well for a small group of patients. But a longer, follow-up study is needed to draw conclusions for a fuller range of patients with riskier tumors.
Oncotype DX analyzes 21 genes in the tumor to estimate a woman's risk of the cancer coming back after surgery.
For patients who fell into the test's low-risk category, 99 percent didn't develop metastatic breast cancer five years after surgery, even though they didn't have chemotherapy. The overall survival rate among this group was 98 percent, doctors reported Monday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
NPR
On any given day, about half a million children are living in foster care. They've been removed from violent or abusive households; many suffer physical and mental health problems that have gone untreated.
Their need is acute but the response is often dangerously slow, according to a policy statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics. The recommendations, published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, are intended as a wake-up call for pediatricians who care for foster kids.
According to the report, more than 70 percent of these children have a documented history of child abuse or neglect, and 80 percent have been exposed to significant violence, including domestic violence. Almost all are further traumatized by being removed from their families, says author Moira Szilagyi, a professor of pediatrics at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles.
NPR
The fact that a huge amount of food is wasted each year will be no surprise to anybody in the West. What might come as a surprise is that a large percentage of global food waste occurs in developing countries — primarily because of poor infrastructure and dysfunctional distribution networks.
As much as half of the food grown or produced in the developing world simply never makes it to market. And that loss is costing billions of dollars and blighting countless lives.
That's one of the issues raised in the book Food Foolish: The Hidden Connection Between Food Waste, Hunger and Climate Change by John Mandyck and Eric Schultz. Mandyck, who's the chief sustainability officer at United Technologies Building & Industrial Systems, and Schultz detail the causes and consequences of the $1 trillion mountain of food that is wasted around the world each year.