Welcome to Overnight News Digest where the usual crew, consisting of founder Magnifico, regular editors maggiejean, Chitown Kev, Man Oh Man, side pocket, rfall, and JML9999, alumni editors palantir, Bentliberal, Oke, Interceptor7, jlms qkw, and ScottyUrb, guest editors annetteboardman and Doctor RJ, and current editor-in-chief Neon Vincent, along with anyone else who reads and comments, informs and entertains you with tonight's news. 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.
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From the A.V. Club: Christopher Nolan restages WWII in first Dunkirk trailer
After spending some time in the world of Batman, dreams, and space, Christopher Nolan is returning with what appears to be a good old-fashioned WWII picture: Dunkirk. The first trailer for the film shows a straightforward—though, admittedly, visually stunning—take on the evacuation of trapped Allied forces from that titular French locale while under German attack in 1940.
Nolan, naturally, has assembled an impressive group of actors that includes recent Oscar winner Mark Rylance, Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy, and Kenneth Branagh. Still, the performer most of note to some is definitely former One Direction member Harry Styles, making his film debut. Styles doesn’t say anything in the footage released, but he is indeed heavily featured. Is casting a pop idol a little distracting when trying to make an epic war film? Sure. Will a bunch of people be curious to see how he does? Likely. Dunkirk—which doesn’t exactly look like light summer fare, but whatever—is headed to theaters July 21, 2017.
From Entertainment Weekly: Star Trek: Discovery casts Walking Dead actress as star — EXCLUSIVE
Huge news, Star Trek fans: The first new Trek series in a decade has found its star.
Sonequa Martin-Green, well known to genre fans for her role on AMC’s mega-hit The Walking Dead, has been cast as the lead of Star Trek: Discovery, sources tell EW.
The casting ends meticulous search to find the ideal actress to anchor the eagerly anticipated new CBS All Access drama. Martin-Green will play a lieutenant commander on the Discovery. (CBS Television Studios had no comment.)
Martin-Green is will continue to serve as a series regular on AMC’s zombie drama, where she has played the tough pragmatic survivor Sasha Williams since season 3.
From the Washington Post: Federal Reserve raises interest rates for second time in a decade
The Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rate on Wednesday for the first time in a year and signaled that rates could continue to rise next year more quickly than officials had expected.
The increase was unanimous and modest, raising the Fed’s key interest rate by a quarter point, from a range of 0.25 to 0.5 percent to a range of 0.5 to 0.75 percent. It reflects Fed officials' confidence in the strengthening of the U.S. economy and what officials see as budding signs of higher inflation.
But unlike corporate executives and stock traders, Fed officials do not appear to be anticipating a massive growth boost next year from economic policies implemented by President-elect Donald Trump, but they appear set to raise rates faster if those policies were to cause an overheating in the economy.
From TIME: Aleppo Cease-Fire Collapses Just as End Seemed in Sight
A cease-fire plan that would have allowed rebel fighters and civilians to exit the Syrian city of Aleppo collapsed less than a day after it was announced, as pro-government forces renewed airstrikes and artillery shelling on Wednesday.
The attacks suggest a resumption of the four-year-long battle for Aleppo, just when it appeared that its conclusion had finally arrived. The unraveling of the evacuation deal also raises the possibility that forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad could capture the remaining rebel-held neighborhoods of Aleppo by force, potentially imperiling the lives of tens of thousands of people. The shelling also comes a day after the U.N. human-rights office said it had credible evidence that pro-Assad forces had entered homes and shot civilians on sight.
“The massacres will start again and all the people in the city will get killed,” says Monther Ataki, an opposition activist in the rebel-held section of Aleppo, in a voice message to journalists on Wednesday morning.
From Reuters: Exclusive: China installs weapons systems on artificial islands - U.S. think tank
China appears to have installed weapons, including anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems, on all seven of the artificial islands it has built in the South China Sea, a U.S. think tank reported on Wednesday, citing new satellite imagery.
The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI) at the Center for Strategic and International Studies said its findings come despite statements by the Chinese leadership that Beijing has no intention to militarize the islands in the strategic trade route, where territory is claimed by several countries.
AMTI said it had been tracking construction of hexagonal structures on Fiery Cross, Mischief and Subi reefs in the Spratly Islands since June and July. China has already built military length airstrips on these islands.
"It now seems that these structures are an evolution of point-defense fortifications already constructed at China’s smaller facilities on Gaven, Hughes, Johnson, and Cuarteron reefs," it said citing images taken in November and made available to Reuters.
From the Boston Globe: Yahoo says 1 billion accounts were hacked in 2013
Yahoo, already reeling from its September disclosure that 500 million user accounts had been hacked in 2014, reported Wednesday that a different attack compromised more than 1 billion accounts in 2013.
The two attacks are the largest known security breaches of one company’s computer network.
The 2013 attack involved sensitive user information, including names, telephone numbers, dates of birth, encrypted passwords, and unencrypted security questions that could be used to reset a password.
Yahoo said it is forcing all of the affected users to change their passwords and invalidating unencrypted security questions — steps that it declined to take in September.
From the New York Times: Syria’s Faces Beckon to Us, to Little Avail
They keep coming, both
the bombs and the
images from Aleppo, so many of them, the munitions raining indiscriminately on trapped families, aid workers and
children. The Russian and Syrian government forces wouldn’t let them leave.
But the photographs and videos have made it out. The faces of the besieged, staring into the camera, at us, and at death, pleading for help, baffled by our indifference to the slaughter, describing the atrocities outside their bedrooms or just on the other side of the door. We see their faces from an angle we ordinarily see a friend’s face, up close, staring straight into our eyes.