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
Iraqi forces lack will to fight - Ashton Carter
US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter has said the rout of Iraqi forces at the city of Ramadi showed they lacked the will to fight against Islamic State.
Mr Carter told CNN's State of the Union the Iraqis "vastly outnumbered" the IS forces but chose to withdraw.
The head of Iraq's defence and security committee said the comments were "unrealistic and baseless".
The Iraqi government has now deployed Shia militias to the area to try to halt the advance of IS.
On Saturday, the militiamen retook Husayba, east of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, with heavy fighting continuing in the area on Sunday.
The US has invested in a policy of training and arming the Iraqi forces since it withdrew its combat troops at the end of 2011.
But Iraqi forces have suffered a number of defeats at the hands of IS over the past year, leaving behind US-supplied materiel.
Al Jazeera
ISIL reportedly executes hundreds in ancient Syrian city of Palmyra
Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighters have executed at least 400 people in Palmyra since capturing the ancient city four days ago, Syrian state media reported Sunday.
It was not immediately possible to verify the account, but it was consistent with reports by activists that the fighters had carried out executions since capturing the city from government troops.
The armed group seized the city of 50,000 people, site of some of the world's most extensive and best preserved ancient Roman ruins, on Wednesday, days after also capturing the city of Ramadi in neighboring Iraq.
The two near-simultaneous victories were ISIL's biggest successes since a U.S.-led coalition launched an air campaign against the fighters last year, and have forced an examination of whether the strategy is working.
The fighters have proclaimed a caliphate to rule over all Muslims from territory they hold in both Syria and Iraq. They have a history of carrying out mass killings in towns and cities they capture, and of destroying ancient monuments which they consider evidence of paganism.
"The terrorists have killed more than 400 people... and mutilated their bodies, under the pretext that they cooperated with the government and did not follow orders," Syria's state news agency said, citing residents inside the city.
The Guardian
John McCain mocks Obama for calling climate change a threat as Isis advances
Senator John McCain on Sunday attacked the president for citing climate change as a threat to national security, suggesting that the Obama administration’s focus on environmental issues was detracting from the fight against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria.
The comments by the Senate armed services committee chairman were part of a rotating blame game over the Memorial Day weekend about who is responsible for recent gains by Isis fighters, who last week took control of the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra and the Iraqi city of Ramadi.
“There is no strategy, and anybody who says there is, I’d like to hear what it is,” McCain said, appearing on CBS News. “Because it certainly isn’t apparent. Right now we are seeing these horrible reports, in Palmyra, they’re executing people and leaving their bodies in the streets.
“Meanwhile the president of the United States is saying that the biggest problem we have is climate change.”
In a commencement address at the US Coast Guard Academy last week, President Barack Obama said climate change posed an “immediate risk”.
Al Jazeera
Greece 'cannot afford' to repay IMF on schedule
A Greek government minister has said that Athens will not be able to repay the IMF on schedule next month, reiterating previous warnings by officials during tense talks on reaching a bailout deal with the country's creditors.
"The installment to the IMF won't be paid," Interior Minister Nikos Voutsis told Mega TV on Sunday. "The installments for the IMF in June are $1.8bn. This money will not be given. There is not any to be given. This is a known fact."
Voutsis added, however, that the negotiations between Athens and its creditors were taking place "on the basis of cautious optimism that there will be a strong agreement".
Greece faces four debt repayments to the IMF from June 5. Athens would struggle to meet all of them without using bailout funds due to it that are being blocked by its international creditors.
A failure to honour the repayments could result in default, raising the spectre of a possible exit from the euro.
Al Jazeera
Women peace activists cross North-South Korea border
Female activists including Gloria Steinem and two Nobel Peace laureates were denied an attempt to walk across the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) dividing North and South Korea on Sunday, but were allowed to cross by bus and complete what one of them called a landmark event aimed at ending hostilities between the two sides.
The group of 30 women from 15 countries made a final appeal to authorities on both sides to allow them to walk across the demarcation line, but were turned down. The North allowed a South Korean bus to cross the demarcation line to pick them up on the North side of the DMZ and transport them over the border to South Korea.
United Nations Command officials met the group inside the DMZ after they crossed the demarcation line, and allowed them to march again after the final checkpoint on the southern side.
"We were able to be citizen diplomats," said Steinem, the 81-year-old feminism pioneer and author.
"We are feeling very, very positive. We have received an enormous amount of support," she said after passing through South Korean immigration.
The group included Nobel Peace laureates Mairead Maguire, from Northern Ireland, and Leymah Gbowee, from Liberia.
The women walked, carried banners and sang on the North Korean side of the first checkpoint leading into the DMZ. They were then met by a large contingent of media on the South side.
Raw Story
Mom of gun-toting Quiverfull family: 14-year-old Josh Duggar was ‘playing doctor,’ so leave him alone
Responding to criticism of the Christian “Quiverfull” movement, the wife of a Texas pastor who promotes the “be fruitful, and multiply” philosophy, took to Facebook to explain that admitted child-molester Josh Duggar was “playing doctor” as a teen and should be “left alone to live a good life.”
The conservative fundamentalist Quiverfull movement sees children as a blessing from God and promotes constant procreation, eschewing all forms of birth control.
In her rant on Facebook, Carrie Hurd, wife of Heritage Covenant Church Pastor Patrick Hurd, blasted Quiverfull critic Vyckie Garrison for being critical of Duggar, and Christians in general.
[snip]
She then compared the then-14-year-old Duggar’s actions to children “playing doctor.”
“When I was a kid, it was often called ‘playing doctor’, there were just as many girls initiating this kind of behavior as boys. Most of those never went on to perp horrible things, ” she explained.
If that's playing doctor, that kid was going for his PhD.
N Y Times
Catholic Church Ponders Future After Same-Sex Marriage Vote in Ireland
DUBLIN — The morning after Ireland learned it had become the first nation to approve same-sex marriage by popular vote, Diarmuid Martin, the archbishop of Dublin, looked out at the future of the Roman Catholic Church.
It could be found at St. Mary’s Pro-Cathedral here, in downtown Dublin, as two rows of children awaited confirmation before him in the lofty, column-lined church.
“Boys and girls, I made my confirmation 60 years ago,” he told them, adding, “Your world is different from mine.”
Not far away, the streets were quiet after a long night of celebrating. Revelers filled the bars, beeped horns, waved rainbow flags and drank Guinness after the result was announced on Saturday. The size of the victory energized supporters, with the referendum affirmed by 62 percent of the electorate and passed in all but one of Ireland’s 43 districts.
After the votes were counted, the carefully planned and executed campaign by activist groups seemed as much about putting behind a past entrenched in theocracy and tradition as it was about marriage for gays and lesbians. And it underscored how different Ireland is today for the young, who turned out in droves to vote. In a little more than a generation, Ireland has both distanced itself from the church and sharpened its secular identity.
BBC
Rain deluge brings floods to Texas and Oklahoma
A deluge of rainfall has burst rivers and brought flood warnings to several southern US states, with Texas and Oklahoma the worst hit so far.
A fire-fighter lost his life when swept away by floodwater in Oklahoma and a man died in San Marcos, Texas.
Parts of Texas saw up to 10 inches (25cm) of rain over a 24-hour period, with more predicted across the region.
There were numerous rescues on Sunday after banks burst, and hundreds of homes were destroyed in central Texas.
Warnings and alerts stretch from Colorado through to Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri and eastern Kansas.
One of the worst hit rivers was the Blanco in Texas.
At one point it cre.sted at 43ft (13m) - some 30ft above the designated flood stage and 7ft higher than the 1929 record.
A flash flood emergency - reserved for the most life-threatening situations - is in effect in the river basin area
C/Net
Meditation can make you miserable, psychologist says
As the age of Aquarius had yielded to the age of app-everywhere-ius, there are, of course, technological aids for those inclined toward meditation and the ways of the Buddha.
However, one academic mind offers that the glorious benefits of meditation may sometimes be accompanied by more deleterious effects.
Miguel Farias, who leads the brain, belief and behavior research group at Coventry University in England, has just released a thoughtful work called: "The Buddha Pill: Can Meditation Actually Change You?"
As London's meditatively right-wing Times reports, Farias has spent 20 years looking at transcendental meditation and other methods of mindfulness and found them holy, but also full of holes.
He and his co-author, Catherine Wikholm, described by the Amazon page whereupon you can buy their book as "pioneering psychologists," examined available research and did some of their own.
They found one study that showed 63 percent of people, having ommmmed and aaaaahhhhed their way through various meditative experiences, have suffered from at least one downward side effect. Confusion and depression are examples. Mania and psychosis have been observed too.