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 Besame. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) wader, planter, JML9999, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse, ek hornbeck, ScottyUrb, Man Oh Man, 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.
Not deja vu; subbing for maggiejean this evening.
BBC
Oliver North: NRA elects Reagan-era figure as president (scum)
The influential US gun lobby the National Rifle Association (NRA) has elected a former aide to President Ronald Reagan as its new president.
Oliver North, a retired US Marine Colonel, played a major role in the so-called Iran-Contra scandal.
During the 1980s he created a network which secretly sold weapons to Iran and diverted the proceeds to fund armed Nicaraguan anti-communist groups.
He later became a conservative radio host and Fox News contributor.
The Iran-Contra scandal was arguably the major controversy of the Reagan presidency, as the US Congress had forbidden sending military aid to rebels in Nicaragua.
In 1989, Mr North was convicted of three charges of unlawfully diverting US government funds.
His convictions were quashed on appeal in 1990 as it was found that witnesses may have been influenced by previous congressional testimony.
The Guardian
Amlo': the veteran leftwinger who could be Mexico's next president
It has been more than three decades since Teresa Jaber sneaked into a clandestine political meeting in this sweltering south-eastern city to watch the man they would come to know as “Amlo” preach revolution.
“I remember him saying: ‘The country cannot go on being the personal property of four of five people,’” said Jaber, recalling that underground gathering in 1987, after which she promptly signed up to his cause.
Before sending his followers out to spread the word, Jaber remembers Amlo offering a final prediction that night. “I am going to be the president of Mexico,” he told them.
Thirty-one years later it appears he may have been right.
With Mexico set to elect its next president on 1 July, Amlo – or Andrés Manuel López Obrador, to give him his full name – is in pole position.
Polls give the silver-haired 64-year-old leftist – whose coalition bears the name Together We Will Make History – a commanding lead over his closest rival Ricardo Anaya, a 39-year-old lawyer who is heading a right-left coalition.
The Guardian
Hezbollah makes strong showing in Lebanon elections
Hezbollah has gained political ground in Lebanon and consolidated Iran’s influence on the fragile state’s affairs after winning, along with its allies, a small majority in national elections.
The Shia militia-cum-political bloc’s gains came at the expense of the Sunni prime minister, Saad Hariri, whose authority was weakened by a relatively poor showing in stronghold areas.
Many of Hariri’s traditional supporters appear to have stayed at home on Sunday for the first parliamentary vote in nine years. His patron, Saudi Arabia, cut Hariri adrift in November and remained disengaged in the lead-up to the vote. It offered no immediate reaction to the result.
Hariri’s bloc, the Future Movement, lost one-third of its seats, and he blamed a “scheme” to “eliminate” it from the political process when speaking on Monday.
The Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, said the party’s goals had been achieved by the ballot, which has put it in a strong position for post-election negotiations that apportion ministries and control over state institutions.
Al Jazeera
Nigeria: 1,000 hostages rescued from Boko Haram
Nigeria's military says it has rescued more than 1,000 people held captive in northeastern Nigeria by the armed group Boko Haram.
Brigadier General Texas Chukwu, army spokesman, announced on Monday evening that the hostages were rescued from four villages in Borno State.
The Multinational Joint Task Force, which comprises Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Benin, helped to secure the release of the captives, mostly women and children.
Some men who had been forced to become Boko Haram fighters were among those rescued, the army said.
Boko Haram has been held responsible for thousands of abductions, especially of young girls and women, during its nine-year armed campaign in Nigeria and surrounding countries.
Reuters
U.S. Navy jets begin sorties against IS in Syria from Mediterranean
ABOARD USS HARRY S. TRUMAN (Reuters) - A U.S. naval strike force led by aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman began sorties on May 3 against Islamic State in Syria, continuing missions by a U.S.-led coalition against the militants.
The force joined the U.S. Sixth Fleet on April 18, nearly a week after the United States, Britain and France launched air strikes targeting what Western powers said were Syrian chemical weapons installations.
The Navy said it was a scheduled deployment to support coalition partners, NATO allies and U.S. national security interests.
“We commenced combat operations in support of Operation Inherent Resolve,” Truman’s commanding officer Captain Nicholas Dienna said, referring to the coalition operation launched in 2014 against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
“That operation demonstrates ... our resolve to our partners and allies in the region and our continuing fight to eliminate ISIS and their impact to the region,” he said.
Reuters
Former party boss in China's Chongqing city jailed for life for graft
BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese court has sentenced Sun Zhengcai, the former Communist Party boss of the southwestern city of Chongqing, to life in prison for corruption, the official Xinhua news agency said on Tuesday.
Sun, 54, who in April admitted to taking bribes of more than 170 million yuan ($27 million), is the latest former official taken down in President Xi Jinping’s war on graft.
Xinhua said Sun accepted the Tianjin intermediate court’s decision and would not appeal.
Christian Science Monitor
Reunification? Many young South Koreans say, 'Let's not.'
SEOUL AND BEIJING—In the days since Friday's summit between the leaders of North and South Korea, a newfound optimism has taken hold in Seoul. “Spring has come to the Korean Peninsula,” proclaims a giant banner stretched across the side of a downtown office tower. Newspaper headlines have been equally hopeful, as have many people.
“I cried when I saw it,” says Lee Chan-young, a 20-year old culinary arts student, referring to the moment on Friday when the two leaders first met. “When they shook hands, it was like a dream come true.”
The meeting in the border village of Panmunjom last week was no doubt historic. It was, among other things, the first time a North Korean leader has set foot in the South. But it was also only the start of what will surely be a long and complicated process. Establishing peace and denuclearizing the peninsula won’t come easy after seven decades of hostilities, to say nothing of the much loftier aim: reunification.
[snip]
Yet such mentions don’t make the prospect of reunification imminent. In fact, many South Koreans view the idea as increasingly far-fetched. Decades of division have created an ever-widening economic and cultural gap that analysts say could take years to overcome – and that’s if South Koreans want to overcome it at all. Reunification has lost much of its appeal to a generation of young people who have no memory of a united peninsula. Many of them see little to gain from trying to bring together the capitalist, democratic South and the impoverished, totalitarian North.
Buzzfeed Update from last night
Updates: Hawaii's Volcano Has Destroyed 35 Homes And Scientists Don't Know When It Will Stop
Hawaii Civil Defense officials say two new volcanic fissures have erupted near Leilani Estates, bringing the total in the area to 12.
The two new fissures emerged south of Malama Street on Monday and were emitting lava and gas, officials said in a statement.
"We saw similar things in 1955," said USGS geologist Janet Babb at a news conference. "A crack develops, then steam comes out, then a lot of steam, then lava will issue."
Babb said it was unclear when the eruption might end or where it could occur next.
"It's such a dynamic situation, with fissures changing at least daily, if not hourly," she said. "There's so much change going on right now that it's really difficult to forecast what might happen where, and so that makes it really hard to know exactly what place might be safe."
Raw Story
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis urges anti-China measure to be included in U.S. defense bill
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis urged top lawmakers shepherding a must-pass defense bill through Congress to include measures that would tighten oversight of foreign investment in the United States in hopes of hampering Chinese efforts to gain access to sensitive U.S. technology.
In the letter dated Friday, which was seen by Reuters and has not been previously reported, Mattis urged the Republican chairmen and top Democrats on the Armed Services committees in the House and the Senate to include in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) measures that would broaden the powers of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.Mattis said in the letter that he supported foreign investment but added: “DOD (the Department of Defense) also believes we must be clear-eyed that our adversaries have studied the weaknesses of our current laws and regulations and are exploiting them today.”
Washington Post
Trump expected to end waiver of sanctions on Iran, endangering nuclear deal
President Trump is expected to announce Tuesday that he will not continue a waiver of sanctions against Iran, according to current and former U.S. and foreign officials, a major step toward ending the nuclear agreement he has called an “insane” deal that “never, ever should have been made.”
The decision follows the failure of last-ditch efforts by the three European signatories to the agreement to convince Trump that his concerns about “flaws” in the 2015 accord could be addressed without violating its terms or ending it altogether.
While the deal itself contains no provisions for withdrawal, Iran has threatened to reactivate its nuclear program if the United States reneges on any of its obligations under the pact’s terms.
France and Germany, whose leaders visited Washington in recent weeks to appeal to Trump, have warned that nullification of the agreement could lead to all-out war in the Middle East. British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, in Washington on Monday, said that as far as he knows, the administration has no clear “Plan B” for what to do next.
Washington Post
Fatal police shootings of unarmed people have significantly declined, experts say
The number of deadly police shootings of unarmed people has generally declined since 2015 even as the tally of fatal shootings by law enforcement is on pace to hit nearly 1,000 for the fourth year in a row, according to data gathered by The Washington Post.
Fatal shootings of unarmed black men — such as the high-profile case in March of Stephon Clark in Sacramento — are among the kinds of killings that have fallen. Criminologists said the downturn in the number of cases and their analysis of the data indicate that evidence of racial bias by police who shoot and kill unarmed blacks has also declined but not disappeared.
“These trends mark significant changes,” said Geoff Alpert, a professor in the department of criminology and criminal justice at the University of South Carolina who has been reviewing and studying the data at The Post’s request. “What we don’t understand yet is what’s causing these numbers to move downward.”
C/Net
Comcast reportedly preparing cash offer for 21st Century Fox
Comcast is rounding up financing to make an all-cash $52 billion bid to acquire most of 21st Century Fox's assets, Reuters reported Monday.
The US cable giant's deal would upset Walt Disney's proposed deal with Fox. In December, Disney agreed to purchase 21st Century Fox in a $52.4 billion all-stock deal.
Comcast's 21st Century Fox bid is the latest in a frenzied period of media giants attempting to buy one another, as traditional television and film companies face growing competition with tech giants. Deep-pocketed companies like Amazon and Netflix have eye-popping budgets that are pouring money into media production.
Comcast in February offered $30 billion to acquire the remaining 61 percent of Sky TV, a major UK television company, undermining a long-standing takeover attempt by Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox.