Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, eeff, Magnifico, annetteboardman, Besame, jck, and JeremyBloom. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) Interceptor 7, Man Oh Man, wader, Neon Vincent, palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse (RIP), ek hornbeck (RIP), rfall, ScottyUrb, Doctor RJ, BentLiberal, Oke (RIP) 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.
Chicago Sun-Times: Obama surprises South Shore pre-K class with presents and a story by Mohammad Samra
About 20 children in a prekindergarten class at Parkside Community Academy, at 6938 S. East End Ave., in South Shore squealed and cheered as former President Barack Obama arrived.
Obama — donning a Santa cap with a red sack full of presents slung over his shoulder — smiled as he greeted the children, who were unaware that they’d be visited by the former president.
“Oh, my God,” one young student yelled in excitement as Obama entered the spacious classroom.
He took a seat near the entrance of the classroom and began to read “Santa’s Gotta Go” by Derrick Barnes to the students, occasionally pausing to crack a joke.
“He called Mrs. Claus babe!” Obama exclaimed after reading a section of the book as children and teachers laughed.
Obama, who was joined by Parkside Principal Tori Williams-Hughes; CPS Chief Schools Officer Felicia Sanders; and CPS Network 12 Chief Shenethe Parks, made the surprise holiday visit as a way of spreading holiday cheer ahead of winter break in the community.
New York Times: Harvard’s Board Unites Behind Its President, but Its Campus Remains Splintered by Jeremy W. Peters, Dana Goldstein, and Anemona Hartocollis
As universities across the country strained under pressure to take a public position on the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas, few were as tormented as Harvard.
First school officials said nothing when a pro-Palestinian student group wrote an open letter saying that Israel was “entirely responsible” for the violence. Harvard followed up with a letter to the university community acknowledging “feelings of fear, sadness, anger, and more.” After an outcry, Harvard’s president, Claudine Gay, issued a more forceful statement condemning Hamas for “terrorist atrocities” while urging people to use words that “illuminate and not inflame.”
The difficult and divisive questions over how universities should respond when student demonstrations cross a line into threatening, disruptive and harmful behavior came to a head at Harvard over the last week, as Dr. Gay faced calls to resign after her widely criticized appearance before a congressional committee looking into antisemitism on campus. When asked a question about whether threatening Jewish people with genocide would violate the school’s code of conduct, she equivocated.
On Tuesday, Harvard’s governing body said it stood firmly behind Dr. Gay, offering her a unanimous show of support after several days of silence and intense public pressure. Under fire from some of the university’s major financial backers, prominent Jewish alumni and lawmakers, the board deliberated late into the night on Monday before issuing a statement of support.
Washington Post: ‘Problematic pockets’: How Discord became a home for extremists by Samuel Oakford, Chris Dehghanpoor, James O’Donnell, and Shane Harris
After white supremacists used Discord to plan the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017, company executives promised to clean up the service.
The chat platform built for gamers banned prominent far-right groups, built a trust and safety team and started marketing to a more diverse set of users.
The changes garnered attention — Discord was going
mainstream, tech analysts said — but they papered over the reality that the app remained vulnerable to bad actors, and a privacy-first approach left the company in the dark about much of what took place in its chatrooms.
Into that void stepped Jack Teixeira, the young Air National Guard member from Massachusetts who allegedly exploited Discord’s lack of oversight and content moderation to share top-secret intelligence documents for more than a year.
NBC News: After FSU snub, Florida's AG launches antitrust probe against the College Football Playoff selection committee by Antonio Planas
Florida’s top prosecutor on Tuesday announced an antitrust probe against the College Football Playoff selection committee, seeking answers as to why the undefeated Florida State Seminoles were kept out of the four-team competition earlier this month.
Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody said in a statement that her office is seeking communications from the 13-person committee about how it reached its decision on Dec. 3 that the playoff teams would be Michigan, Washington, Texas and Alabama.
The latter two schools were selected while having one loss apiece.
“My Office is launching an investigation to examine if the Committee was involved in any anticompetitive conduct. As it stands, the Committee’s decision reeks of partiality, so we are demanding answers — not only for FSU, but for all schools, teams and fans of college football," Moody wrote. "In Florida, merit matters. If it’s attention they were looking for, the Committee certainly has our attention now.”
El País in English: Biden and Netanyahu clash openly over Gaza for the first time in over two months of war by Antonio Pita and Macarena Vidal Liy
Four days after the United States again saved Israel from a binding resolution at the U.N. calling for a ceasefire, the differences between the two allies over the war in Gaza have been laid bare for the first time since the conflict began on October 7. The rift in relations, which had previously been contained behind closed doors, was made public by both President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. This Tuesday, in Washington, Biden said that Netanyahu must change his hard-line government because “it is the most conservative in Israel’s history” and it is “making it very difficult for [the prime minister] to move” because his government “doesn’t want a two-state solution” to the Palestine-Israel conflict. “You cannot say no [to a] Palestinian state… That’s going to be the hard part,” the U.S. president added. Biden also warned that Israel is “starting to lose support” over its “indiscriminate” bombing of Gaza, which have killed more than 18,000 people, more than two-thirds of them children and women.
“Israel’s security can rest on the United States, but right now it has more than the United States. It has the European Union, it has Europe, it has most of the world… But they’re starting to lose that support by indiscriminate bombing that takes place,” Biden said at a re-election fundraising event.
The remarks were, by far, Biden’s harshest words on the Israeli military campaign in Gaza. Until now,
the U.S. president had limited himself to reiterating that Israel has the “right and obligation” to finish off Hamas to ensure that an attack like the one that took place on October 7 — which left 1,200 people dead and over 200 kidnapped — can never occur again. Thus, Biden had closed ranks around Netanyahu in a way that stood out, especially considering previous tensions between the two leaders, mainly over the prime minister’s controversial judicial reform.
BBC News: Aid stalemate leaves Zelensky with little to show from US trip by Anthony Zurcher
Volodymyr Zelensky's third visit to Washington on Tuesday was tinged in desperation. It was a last-ditch effort to win new military aid from Congress before the currently approved amount runs dry.
The Ukrainian president is desperate because his nation's fate may hang in the balance. His American counterpart, Joe Biden, is desperate because he views the Ukrainian war as a pivotal battleground in a world conflict between democracies and autocratic regimes.
At the end of the day, however, there was little to show for their efforts.
When Mr Zelensky came to Washington last year, he was cheered on by a joint session of Congress and treated to a red-carpet reception at the White House. Shortly after, the US approved a $50bn aid package that helped fuel Ukraine's efforts to regain territory ceded at the outset of the Russian invasion.
POLITICO Europe: ‘End of reign’: Macron faces ungovernable France after shock immigration loss by Clea Caulcutt
President Emmanuel Macron has been stopped dead in his tracks over the failure of a flagship immigration bill that shows how hard it will now be to run France without an absolute majority in the National Assembly.
On Monday, the National Assembly rejected his flagship immigration bill in a dramatic vote that took the government by surprise. The defeat was made more humiliating by the fact that lawmakers didn’t even debate the text, but rejected it in a preliminary vote.
The upset sent shockwaves through the political establishment and raised questions about whether France has become ungovernable.
“It could mean we are reaching the end of his mandate faster than expected, that we are entering Emmanuel Macron’s end of reign. He’s running out of steam, and will find it harder and harder to keep his MPs in check,” said political analyst Chloé Morin.
Doubts about Macron’s ability to govern France have been swirling since he lost the parliamentary elections last year. While his centrist coalition remained the largest group in the National Assembly, he no longer had an absolute majority to pass legislation.
Finally tonight, I be jammin’!
Everyone have the best possible evening!