OND Editors OND is a 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.
OND Editors Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, current leader Neon Vincent, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, wader, Man Oh Man, rfall, Doctor RJ and JML9999. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse, ek hornbeck, ScottyUrb, Interceptor7, BentLiberal, Oke and jlms qkw. The guest editor is annetteboardman.
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BBC
Boko Haram freed women tell of captivity horror
Former hostages held by Boko Haram militants in northern Nigeria say some fellow captives were stoned to death as the army approached to rescue them.
The women said Boko Haram fighters started pelting them when they refused to run away as the army came nearer.
A group of nearly 300 women and children was brought out of the vast Sambisa forest to a government camp.
The military says it has rescued more than 700 people in the past week in an offensive against the Islamist group.
BBC
Gunmen shot dead outside Dallas conference on Prophet cartoons
Two gunmen have been shot dead after they opened fire outside a conference on cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in a suburb of Dallas, police say.
A security officer was also injured. Police have put the Curtis Culwell Center in Garland on lockdown and told participants in the event not to leave.
Dutch anti-Islamic politician Geert Wilders was attending the conference.
Mr Wilders tweeted that shots had been fired and he had now safely left the building.
It was not clear if the shootings were related to the event.
One eyewitness told the Associated Press news agency that he heard about 20 shots, which appeared to come from a car driving past the conference centre, followed by two individual shots.
The event was organised by the American Freedom Defense Initiative, which has campaigned against the building of an Islamic centre near the World Trade Center site in New York.
Sunday's meeting included a $10,000 award for a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad.
BBC
Mediterranean migrant crisis: Thousands of migrants rescued at sea
More than 5,800 migrants have been rescued and 10 bodies recovered off the Libyan coast over the weekend, the Italian coastguard says.
The survivors were picked up from wooden and rubber boats, in 17 separate operations by Italian and French ships.
The migrants are now being taken to Italy. Rescue missions are continuing.
At least 1,750 people have died this year trying to cross the Mediterranean, a 20-fold increase on the same period in 2014 when 96 people died.
The final number of people rescued over the weekend is expected to rise. The busiest two days for rescues so far this year were April 12 and 13, when 6,500 people were picked up.
Many more migrants are expected to make the crossing in the coming weeks as smugglers take advantage of calmer weather.
Al Jazeera America
Baltimore mayor lifts curfew after dozens arrested overnight
Baltimore's mayor lifted a citywide curfew Sunday, six days after the death of Freddie Gray sparked protests across the city.
The order for residents to stay home after 10 p.m. had been in place since Tuesday, and officials had planned to keep it in place until 5 a.m. Monday. Rallies since last Monday's violence have been peaceful, and the announcement of charges against six officers involved in Gray's arrest eased tensions.
Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said in a statement that her goal was not to maintain the curfew any longer than was necessary.
"My number one priority in instituting a curfew was to ensure the public peace, safety, health and welfare of Baltimore citizens," the Democratic mayor said Sunday. "It was not an easy decision, but one I felt was necessary to help our city restore calm."
Capt. Eric Kowalczyk, a police spokesman, said Sunday that 486 people had been arrested since April 23 — 46 people on Saturday night. The Guardian reported that legal observers and medical volunteers were among those arrested on the final night of the curfew.
C/Net
GoFundMe pulls crowdfunding page for Baltimore police officers in Freddie Gray case
The crowdfunding website GoFundMe has pulled a campaign that sought financial support for the six Baltimore police officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray.
The Baltimore Sun reports that the campaign, created by the Baltimore police union on Friday, was removed for violating GoFundMe's terms. Those terms bar campaigns "in defense of formal charges or claims of heinous crimes."
The six officers have been charged with various crimes, including murder and manslaughter, in the death of Gray, a 25-year-old Baltimore resident who died from injuries sustained while in police custody and whose death sparked rioting in the city. The campaign intended to raise funds for the officers' legal defense.
Al Jazeera America LOL Report
Ben Carson, conservative neurosurgeon, running for president
Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson told a Florida television station on Sunday that he is running for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.
"I'm willing to be part of the equation and, therefore, I'm announcing my candidacy for president of the United States of America," Carson said in an interview with CBS affiliate WPEC-TV in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Carson, 63, who is popular with the conservative tea party movement, created an exploratory committee in March, which allowed him to begin raising money for a formal White House bid. He is expected to formally declare his candidacy at an event in Detroit on Monday.
Carson, who has never run for public office, is expected to be the only high-profile African-American to enter the GOP's presidential primary as he tries to parlay his success as an author and speaker into a competitive campaign against established politicians. The field is likely to be large, and the first GOP primary debate is set for August.
"I see myself as a member of `we the people,"' he told the Associated Press in an interview earlier this year, arguing that his lack of experience is an asset.
"I see myself as a logical American who has common sense," he continued, "and I think that's going to resonate with a lot of American, regardless of their political party."
The Guardian
Most buildings in Kathmandu deemed uninhabitable or unsafe following quake
More than three-quarters of the buildings in Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu, are uninhabitable or unsafe following the 7.9-magnitude earthquake nine days ago, a new survey has revealed.
Assessments of 2,500 buildings carried out by more than 1,000 local engineers during the last four days have revealed that a fifth are no longer habitable and three-quarters need repairs before they can be considered safe.
“The sample is a random one and so representative of the city as a whole. The damage is bad. We are still discovering its extent and will have to do a full and thorough final assessment at some point,” said survey coordinator Drubha Thapa, president of the Nepali Engineers Association (NEA).
The new assessment indicates a much greater number of buildings will need repairing than previously estimated by the Nepalese government. Local officials have so far counted 153,000 buildings that are in ruins across the country, with another 170,000 damaged. The government of Nepal, one of the world’s poorest countries, has already said post-quake reconstruction may cost more than £6.5bn ($10bn).
Experts yesterday described this estimate as “conservative.” More than 7,200 people are known to have died in the quake, with more than 15,000 injured.
The Guardian
Jewish migration to Israel up 40% this year so far
Jewish immigration into Israel has surged more than 40% this year, but it is Ukrainians and Russians who are responsible for the rise, not western Europeans fleeing after the Paris attacks.
Between January and March, 6,499 Jews arrived in Israel, the vast majority from Europe. But the figures produced in an interim report by the Jewish Agency for Israel, an NGO, reveal that the only substantial increase came from eastern Europe with numbers from western Europe remaining more or less steady.
In all, 1,971 people came from Ukraine in the first three months of 2015, a 215% rise on the 625 in the same period last year. The number of Russians rose by almost 50% to 1,515.
The numbers naturalising from France – which in 2014 became the largest source of immigration to Israel for the first time with 7,000 Jews leaving – rose by 11% to 1,413. Antisemitism certainly plays a role, but so does the declining economy and other social factors. As journalist Anshel Pfeffer pointed out in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, this “rise is actually in line with the gradual increase in immigration from France over the past four years” and is largely attributed to economic hardship.
Raw Story
CA. teacher banned from using Bill Nye/Ken Ham evolution debate to sneak creationism into classroom
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A California high school teacher has been banned from showing his students a debate between science educator Bill Nye and creationist Ken Ham as a way to insert creationism into the classroom.
According to the Friendly Atheist, science teacher Brandon Pettenger of Arroyo Grande High School has been showing the video to his students, and then having them summarize the debate by posting on creationist websites.
Pettenger has been accused of “teaching the controversy” despite scientific consensus that the theory that God created the universe roughly 10,000 year ago has no basis in fact.
The debate, between the popular TV science personality Nye and Christian author and Creation Museum founder Ham, took place in February of last year at the Creation Museum and has been viewed by millions
Due to the efforts of the the Freedom From Religion Foundation and the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science, Pettenger has been instructed to desist from bringing creationism into the classroom via any source.
N Y Times
Ex-C.I.A. Official Rebuts Republican Claims on Benghazi Attack in ‘The Great War of Our Time’
WASHINGTON — The former deputy director of the C.I.A. asserts in a forthcoming book that Republicans, in their eagerness to politicize the killing of the American ambassador to Libya, repeatedly distorted the agency’s analysis of events. But he also argues that the C.I.A. should get out of the business of providing “talking points” for administration officials in national security events that quickly become partisan, as happened after the Benghazi attack in 2012.
The official, Michael J. Morell, dismisses the allegation that the United States military and C.I.A. officers “were ordered to stand down and not come to the rescue of their comrades,” and he says there is “no evidence” to support the charge that “there was a conspiracy between C.I.A. and the White House to spin the Benghazi story in a way that would protect the political interests of the president and Secretary Clinton,” referring to the secretary of state at the time, Hillary Rodham Clinton.