Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, current leader Neon Vincent, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, Doctor RJ, Magnifico, annetteboardman and Man Oh Man. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) wader, 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 12:00 AM Eastern Time.
Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.
I’m Chitown Kev and I will be substituting for annetteboardman tonight and next week.
Chicago Sun-Times: United passenger fiasco exposes wider security concerns at O’Hare by Fran Spielman
Aviation Commissioner Ginger Evans on Thursday expressed her “extreme regret” about viral videos of a bloodied passenger being dragged off a United Airlines flight by Chicago aviation police, but her evasive testimony at a City Council hearing exposed broader questions about the state of security at O’Hare and Midway airports.
Under questioning by Ald. Edward Burke (14th), Evans revealed that she had ordered aviation security officers — who have been lobbying for the right to carry guns with Burke as their champion — to remove the word “police” from their uniforms.
“In a directive in January, we ordered them to not use the word ‘police.’ To use the word ‘security’ on their jackets,” Evans said.
But Burke pointedly noted what the videos show: that the word “police” was still on the uniform of at least one officer involved in removing 69-year-old Dr. David Dao off a United Express jet bound for Louisville Sunday evening.
“Incorrectly,” the commissioner interjected.
Crain’s Chicago Business: CPD and city's black caucus put Emanuel in a vise by Greg Hinz
A day after rank-and-file Chicago police officers elected a hardliner as their new union president, leading African-American officials said Mayor Rahm Emanuel must continue efforts to curb excessive violence if he wants to keep their support.
"I'm convinced we can get the votes to reject a (new police) contract if our concerns are not met," Ald. Rod Sawyer, 6th, chairman of the City Council's black caucus, said at a City Hall news conference. While police may not want change, "We'll let our numbers do the talking. We're going to stand firm," he said.
The appearance by Sawyer—along with Ald. Pat Dowell, 3rd; U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Chicago; Cook County Tax Appeals Commissioner Larry Rogers; and Cook County Commissioner Robert Steele—came as City Hall tries to cope with a big upset in the election to head the Chicago lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police.
Boston Globe: Jury acquits Aaron Hernandez of murder charges by Travis Anderson
A jury on Friday cleared Aaron Hernandez of committing a double murder in 2012, handing the former New England Patriots star his first significant legal victory since his shocking arrest for a third slaying in June 2013. Hernandez is already serving a life term without parole for that killing.
Hernandez, 27, was acquitted in Suffolk Superior Court on charges of killing Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado in a drive-by shooting in Boston’s South End in the early morning hours of July 16, 2012.
The jury also acquitted him of witness intimidation in the shooting of the star prosecution witness, Alexander Bradley, in Florida in 2013.
He was convicted on just one charge, illegal possession of a firearm, and was immediately sentenced to serve four to five years in prison.
Some 60 people were in the ninth floor courtroom — relatives of the two murdered men, Boston police detectives, and Hernandez’s fiancee, Shayanna Jenkins-Hernandez — when the forewoman began announcing the verdict.
Washington Post: Arkansas judge prohibits state from using lethal injection drug, blocking scheduled executions by Mark Berman
An Arkansas circuit judge on Friday evening issued an order temporarily blocking the state from using one of its lethal injection drugs until further notice, throwing into question a series of executions scheduled to begin next week.
The order came a day after drug companies began taking aim at Arkansas for its upcoming executions, arguing that the state had improperly obtained their drugs for use in lethal injections. One company said the state misled them about why they were buying the drug, promised to return it and then did not do so, while others said they repeatedly reached out to the state and did not hear back. State officials declined to comment on those claims Friday.
Under the judge’s order, Arkansas officials are barred from using one of the three drugs it planned to use in lethal injections, effectively prohibiting them from carrying out the executions as planned. Arkansas officials quickly vowed to fight the order at the state Supreme Court.
Gothamist: False Reports Of Shooting Set Off Stampede At Penn Station by Jake Offenhartz
An already chaotic day at Penn Station turned dangerous Friday night after false reports of a shooting caused people to flee the building, leaving their suitcases and other belongings behind. The stampede that followed caused at least 16 injuries.
"Folks were screaming. I saw people fall to the ground; folks jumping over chairs," Natalie Tucker, who was in the Amtrak waiting room at the time, told Gothamist. "I ran into something but didn't take the time to figure out what it was. A woman next to me hurt her hand. It was mass hysteria."
According to law enforcement officials, multiple reports of the shooting were unfounded. A statement released by Amtrak notes that "an individual was subdued with a Taser by Amtrak Police inside New York Penn Station this evening and is now in police custody."
Christian Science Monitor: Church revival? More liberals are filling Protestant pews. by Harry Bruinius
APRIL 14, 2017 GREENPOINT, BROOKLYN—A year ago, Tammy Rose never imagined she’d be active again in church, holding a palm branch with a community of Christians marking the beginning of Holy Week.
For nearly two decades, in fact, she had more or less abandoned the faith, disillusioned by what she saw as a constant focus on conservative social issues and pressing needs for more donations.
But if politics helped drive her away, it is politics that, in some ways, is drawing her back to the fold. And on this sunny Sunday morning at Greenpoint Reformed Church, not too far from the Brooklyn artists collective where she lives, Ms. Rose is beaming as she joins the responsive call to prayer:
“Who are we?” intones the Rev. Jennifer Aull, the congregation’s minister for community service. Responding, the congregation says together: “We are young and old, gay and straight and in between. We are single and partnered, happy and sad, confused and inspired. We are street smart and college-educated. Some of us can’t pay our bills and others have more than enough to share.... We are God’s people. We are the body of Christ.”
You can read this story if you wish. it’s unimaginably petty and entirely unsurprising.
Reuters: Hackers release files indicating NSA monitored global bank transfers by Clare Baldwin
Hackers released documents and files on Friday that cybersecurity experts said indicated the U.S. National Security Agency had accessed the SWIFT interbank messaging system, allowing it to monitor money flows among some Middle Eastern and Latin American banks.
The release included computer code that could be adapted by criminals to break into SWIFT servers and monitor messaging activity, said Shane Shook, a cyber security consultant who has helped banks investigate breaches of their SWIFT systems.
The documents and files were released by a group calling themselves The Shadow Brokers. Some of the records bear NSA seals, but Reuters could not confirm their authenticity.
The NSA could not immediately be reached for comment.
Also published were many programs for attacking various versions of the Windows operating system, at least some of which still work, researchers said.
Reuters: North Korea warns against U.S. 'hysteria' as it marks founder's birth by Sue-Lin Wong and Damir Sagolj
North Korea warned the United States on Saturday to end its "military hysteria" or face retaliation as a U.S. aircraft carrier group steamed toward the region and the reclusive state marked the "Day of the Sun", the 105th birth anniversary of its founding father.
Concern has grown since the U.S. Navy fired Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian airfield last week in response to a deadly gas attack. That raised questions about U.S. President Donald Trump's plans for North Korea, which has conducted several missile and nuclear tests in defiance of U.N. and unilateral sanctions.
The North's warning came as leader Kim Jong Un, looking relaxing relaxed in a dark suit and laughing with aides, oversaw a military parade at Pyongyang's main Kim Il Sung square, named after his grandfather, on his birth anniversary.
Goose-stepping soldiers and marching bands filled the square, next to the Taedonggang River that flows through Pyongyang, in the hazy spring sunshine, followed by tanks, multiple launch rocket systems and other weapons.
Single-engine propeller-powered planes flew in a 105 formation overhead.
Guardian: Journalists fear reprisals for exposing purge of gay men in Chechnya by Shaun Walker
The Russian newspaper that broke the news of the mass detention and torture of gay men in Chechnya has said it fears for the safety of its journalists after a televised gathering of religious and social leaders in Grozny promised “reprisals” against them.
Novaya Gazeta, one of the few remaining independent news sources in Russia, first reported on the anti-gay violence in Chechnya several weeks ago. Authorities have denied they are rounding up gay men, and dismissed the reports as lies.
The Guardian published testimony on Thursday from two Chechen men who had been caught up in the anti-gay operation, which backed up Novaya’s claims of a broad crackdown on gay men in the region. One of the men said he had been held in an informal prison for more than a week with other gay men, and subjected to repeated beatings and torture using electric shocks.
Rights organisations have called on the international community to put pressure on the Kremlin to ensure the repression in the southern Russian region is brought to an end. There are also calls for the numerous western film, music and sports stars who have made paid appearances with the region’s leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, to take a stand against the violence.
New York Times: Bana al-Abed, Girl Whose Tweets Told of Aleppo’s Horrors, Gets Book Deal by Russell Goldman
A 7-year-old Syrian refugee, whose Twitter posts from the besieged city of Aleppo put a face to the country’s civil war for thousands of followers and turned her into an international celebrity, has been offered a book deal.
“I am happy to announce my book will be published by Simon & Schuster,” the girl, Bana al-Abed, wrote this week on Twitter. “The world must end all the wars now in every part of the world.”
“I am so happy to have this opportunity to tell my story and the story of what has happened in Aleppo to the world,” Bana added in a statement released by the publisher. “I hope my book will make the world do something for the children and people of Syria and bring peace to children all over the world who are living in war.”
The book, “Dear World,” will be published in the fall. A spokesman for the company would not disclose the financial details of the agreement or reveal if Bana had received an advance.
Guardian (AP): Ecuador presidential election: 10% of votes to be recounted
Ecuador election officials will recount nearly 1.3m votes cast in the Andean nation’s presidential election, though opposition leader Guillermo Lasso on Friday dismissed the gesture as a farce that would do nothing to quell accusations of fraud.
The National Electoral Council announced late on Thursday it would recount all ballots contested by both parties, about 10% of the total vote.
Official results from the 2 April election showed conservative former banker Lasso lost by less than three percentage points to President Rafael Correa’s handpicked successor, Lenín Moreno. International observers including the Organization of American States (OAS) have said they found no irregularities, though Lasso claims his campaign found numerous inconsistencies and has refused to accept the official results.
Council president Juan Pablo Pozo has said reviews showed no evidence of fraud but said he agreed to a recount for “the tranquility of the country”.
Mashable: This March was the second-warmest March in 137 years, because why stop now? by Andrew Freedman
So much for a global warming slowdown. New data released on Friday shows that March 2017 was the second-warmest on record, behind March of last year. The global average surface temperature was 1.12 degrees Celsius, or 2.016 degrees Fahrenheit, warmer than the 1951-1980 average.
The two top March temperature anomalies have occurred during the past two years.
March of last year was the hottest such month on record, with a temperature anomaly of 1.27 degrees Celsius, or 2.28 degrees Fahrenheit, above the 20th century average for the month.
March of 2017 was only the eighth month in NASA's database to have a global temperature anomaly at or above 1-degree Celsius, or 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit. This is especially relevant since world leaders have committed to limit global warming to "well below" 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, below preindustrial levels by the year 2100.
AlJazeera: South Korea's first black model by Jason Strother
Seoul, South Korea - Han Hyun-min strides down the runway with an expression of emotionless confidence, before pivoting around in front of the rows of photographers whose cameras click in rapid fire.
Han is 15 and fast becoming a regular on the catwalk, making his third appearance at the recent Seoul Fashion Week - a biannual event for South Korean designers. For one show, Han sported patched jeans and a plaid shirt partially covered by a puffy, silver vest.
The high school student is lanky. He has what Youn Bum, his agent at SF Models, calls a "distinct look", making him a rare commodity in the domestic market - and a victim of prejudice.
Han is his country's first black Korean model.
"People assume I'm a foreigner," says Han, who only speaks the Korean language. "I've gotten used to it."
Related: Vogue: This Korean-Nigerian Model Is Breaking Boundaries in Seoul by Monica Kim
BBC: This white hood carries many meanings by Kelly Grovie
Wizards wear them and so do dunces. In ancient Rome, freed slaves donned them as a sign of their emancipation. In the 15th Century, noblewomen in France and Burgundy wore them as a status symbol, as did 19th-Century women in the eastern Mediterranean, who elaborately encrusted them with pearls and precious stones. Iron-age mummies known as the ‘Witches of Subeshi’, excavated from China’s Tarim Basin, along the northern Silk Route, were found to have fashioned them from black felt - their characteristic steep spire tapering to a peak nearly 60cm (2ft) above their heads.
Despite its diverse ethnic origins, the tall pointed hat is likely, today, to elicit revulsion from those in the West who associate its distinctive shape with the sharp end of racial bigotry and the intimidating garb of the Ku Klux Klan. But photos circulating in the media this week from Seville, Spain, serve as a reminder of the multifarious meanings of even the most seemingly singular and inimitable of cultural symbols.
The Root: Paramount Wants to Make Coming to America Sequel, but It Won’t Work Without Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall by Stephen A. Crockett, Jr.
There are a few black legacies that shouldn’t be touched: the Obama family, Martin Luther King Jr., the importance of Timberland in the ’90s and Coming to America.
Well, it looks like the last one won’t be surviving the test of time, since Paramount has reportedly signed the original writers of the 1988 classic to pen a potential sequel.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Barry Blaustein and David Sheffield will be taking a look at what the Joffer family has been up to in 2017. Here is what Paramount, the black gods and Twitter all understand: There is no movie without Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall. They have to agree to be a part of the script from inception to completion or this has disaster written all over it.
Paramount should simply leave Coming To America alone, period.
Variety: Universal May Try to Nullify Recorded-Music Deal With Prince Estate by Jem Aswad
When Universal Music Group announced in February that it had completed a recorded-music deal with Prince’s estate, one sentence stuck out. Not only would the company license the majority of the artist’s recordings since 1996, but also, “beginning [in 2018], UMG will obtain U.S. rights to certain renowned Prince albums released from 1979 to 1995” — the years that the artist was signed with Warner Bros. Records and released his most commercially successful recordings by far, including the “1999,” “Purple Rain,” “Parade,” “Batman,” and “Diamonds and Pearls” albums.
That sentence sent reporters digging through their notes, pulling out their calculators and hounding reps for both record companies. Prince had cut a new deal with Warner in 2014 that sources say garnered him the rights to the majority of his work released on the label (albeit with certain key exceptions). So how was UMG’s claim possible?
Ten weeks later, it turns out the deal may not be all it was cracked up to be. Sources say that representatives for the estate — including the estate’s initial, temporary administrator, Bremer Bank; Comerica Bank, its current administrator; and special advisers Charles Koppelman and L. Londell McMillan, the latter of whom led the recorded-music deal — may have misrepresented the terms of the Warner assets, and Universal may attempt to nullify the deal and seek a full refund of approximately $30 million. (The news was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.)
Hyperallergic: 64 Highlights of the Internet’s Early Years, from the First Webcam to a Net Art Gallery by Claire Voon
You may not have heard it in over a decade, but it’s a sound you’ll never forget: the high-pitched, screeching tone of a dial-up modem that was an internet user’s punishment before the reward of connectivity. And you may listen to it again, emitted by an early modem from 1982, as part of 64 bits, an interactive exhibition at Here East in London that showcases 64 artifacts of the internet’s early history, from the first website to early ASCII art to one of the first visuals to go viral. Remember that “Dancing Baby” GIF of a 3D-rendered, animated infant from the 1990s? That’s the one.
Much of this digital flotsam is no longer accessible in its original form, and if if is, it is not easily viewed, preserved in museums and research centers around the world. 64 bits showcases them all on computers that each date to its content’s respective era, allowing visitors to experience and learn about stories from the web’s formative years that we may have forgotten. It’s curated by Jim Boulton as part of his ongoing project, Digital Archaeology, which seeks to preserve key moments of internet culture and raise awareness of the need to do so, through various exhibitions.
Don’t forget that Mr. Meteor Blades is hosting an open thread for night owls tonight.
Everyone have a great evening!