Overnight News Digest, aka OND, is a community feature here at Daily Kos. Each editor selects news stories on a wide range of topics.
The OND community was founded by Magnifico.
Welcome to all, join us in the comment section to share a news articles and jump into the community chat.
$100 to Fly Through the Airport
By SCOTT MCCARTNEY
Hate the full-body scans, pat-downs and slow going at TSA airport security screening checkpoints? For $100, you can now bypass the hassle.
The Transportation Security Administration is rolling out expedited screening at big airports called "Precheck." It has special lanes for background-checked travelers, who can keep their shoes, belt and jacket on, leave laptops and liquids in carry-on bags and walk through a metal detector rather than a full-body scan. The process, now at two airlines and nine airports, is much like how screenings worked before the Sept. 11 attacks.
To qualify, frequent fliers must meet undisclosed TSA criteria and get invited in by the airlines. There is also a backdoor in. Approved travelers who are in the U.S. Customs and Border Protection's "Global Entry" program can transfer into Precheck using their Global Entry number.
|
Crashed vehicle causes scare for Panetta at Afghan base
By Phil Stewart
An Afghan man driving a stolen pickup truck sped onto a runway ramp at an air base in southern Afghanistan and then emerged from the vehicle ablaze at around the time U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta was arriving aboard a military plane, U.S. officials said.
The Pentagon chief, making an unannounced visit at a time of high tensions after a U.S. soldier massacred 16 Afghan villagers on Sunday, was not hurt in the incident at Bastion Airfield, a British base, and continued on with his schedule of events.
The Afghan man, a civilian who was not believed to be carrying explosives, was being treated at the base for severe burn injuries, U.S. officials said. No explanation was given for how the man caught on fire. The pickup trunk apparently approached the runway ramp - where aircraft park - at high speed before ending up in a ditch, officials said. U.S. officials did not rule out the possibility that the incident in southern Helmand province was an attempted attack on Panetta, but said there was no indication that this was the case. They said an investigation was ongoing. "There is no evidence right now that the driver had any idea who was on that aircraft," U.S. Navy Captain John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters in Washington.
|
Civilian killings hurt Afghan war support for 40 percent of Americans
By Missy Ryan
Forty percent of Americans said the shooting spree by a U.S. soldier stationed in Afghanistan which resulted in the deaths of 16 villagers had weakened their support for the war, a poll showed on Wednesday.
Sixty-one percent of Americans surveyed in the March 12-13 online poll by Reuters/Ipsos said the remaining U.S. troops should be brought home immediately, down slightly from the 66 percent who expressed that opinion in a similar poll from early March. Seventeen percent disagreed.
|
Virginia Tech Is Liable in Shootings
By ARIAN CAMPO-FLORES And CAMERON MCWHIRTER
A jury found Virginia Tech negligent on Wednesday for failing to alert students quickly enough about a gunman loose on the university's campus who eventually killed 33 people, including himself, in a 2007 massacre.
Jurors in Christiansburg, Va., delivered the verdict in a wrongful-death suit brought by the families of two victims who died that day, Erin Peterson and Julia Pryde. The jury awarded $4 million to each family after deliberating for 3½ hours.
State law, however, requires the award to be capped at $100,000—a fact that was withheld from jurors.
|
Sea level studies: US coasts even more vulnerable than previously thought
By Pete Spotts
Cities and hamlets along America's popular coastlines are more vulnerable to rising sea levels than previously estimated, according to a pair of new studies.
The studies find up to 32 percent more coastal real estate vulnerable to a 1 meter rise in sea level, while the population exposed to rising water goes up by 87 percent.
The numbers vary markedly by region, with south Florida, southern Louisiana, and the Carolinas topping the list of states with the most land to lose. Populations would be most heavily affected in Florida, Louisiana, California, New York, and New Jersey, the studies find.
|
March 2012 guide to the five visible planets
By Bruce McClure
Wow, March 2012 is about as good as it gets for planet watching! Mercury, the innermost planet, makes its best evening appearance for the year in the Northern Hemisphere. All over the world, Mars shines at its greatest brilliance for the year – and moreover, the red planet stays out all night long. Plus, the brightest and second-brightest planets – Venus and Jupiter, respectively – come together for a stunning conjunction in mid-March. Saturn, the farthest and faintest visible planet, is nonetheless as bright as the brightest stars, and its glorious rings are surprisingly easy to view through a backyard telescope.
|
Syria marks anniversary of uprising, violence grows
Reuters
Syria marks the first anniversary on Thursday of an increasingly bloody uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, with recent army gains unlikely to quell the revolt and no diplomatic solution in sight.
Troops loyal to Assad have pummelled rebel strongholds across Syria this week, deploying tanks and heavy artillery to crush opponents in a string of cities and villages, including Deraa in the far south where the rebellion took hold last March.
Amid dire warnings that Syria is set to sink into a protracted civil war, the U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan has demanded further clarifications from Damascus over its response to proposals aimed at ending the violence.
|
Nevada Senate candidate can't 'Occupy' the ballot
By Ashley Powers
It’s the fault of “God Almighty.”
That’s the name Emil Tolotti Jr. used in 1992 to challenge U.S. Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada in the Democratic primary. He not only lost to “none of these candidates” -- another Nevada ballot option -- but he also inspired a law banning would-be officeholders from using politically charged nicknames.
That hasn’t stopped candidates from trying to sneak them onto the ballot, however. This year, Secretary of State Ross Miller stripped two candidates of their electoral monikers, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
|
Iditarod: Dog love, miracles and, oh yes, youngest winner ever
By Kim Murphy
The Iditarod, the grueling, frozen, 975-mile race between Anchorage and Nome that is the world’s premier sled-dogging event, is over. And 25-year-old Dallas Seavey has made history, becoming the youngest-ever winner of the event.
“I’m feeling a little tired and very elated,” he told an Iditarod TV crew as he pulled in Tuesday night after nine days, four hours and 29 minutes on the trail. The route offers the equivalent of running from Portland to Los Angeles — with a few steep mountain trails, frozen lakes and bone-chilling windswept plains thrown in.
Seavey, a light, powerful former championship wrestler who ran alongside the sled when going up hills, quickly hugged his dogs. They were wrapped in garlands and glory at the finish line, then moved quickly on to dinner and a nap.
|
Bad Girls Of History, How Wicked Were They?
by NPR Staff
With great power comes not-so-great nicknames. At least, that was the case for some of the most notorious queens and female rulers in history:
Egypt's Cleopatra: "Serpent of the Nile."
Rome's Agrippina: "Atrocious and Ferocious."
England's Mary Tudor: "Bloody Mary."
France's Catherine de Medici: "The Black Queen."
France's Marie Antoinette: "Madame Deficit."
China's Cixi: "The Dragon Empress."
But did these women deserve their nicknames? Were they judged differently because of when they lived? Were they condemned for traits that were excused — or even praised — in powerful men?
|