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.
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Chicago Sun-Times: Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx won’t seek reelection by Matthew Hendrickson, Fran Spielman, and Andy Grimm
After serving two terms marked by near-constant criticism of her policies and handling of high-profile cases, Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx announced Tuesday she will not seek reelection.
“I leave now with my head held high, with my heart full,” Foxx said as she concluded a speech to the City Club of Chicago.
Foxx said she informed Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson of her decision Monday and called him “the man of the moment” whose election reminds her of her own first win in 2016.
“I told Mayor-elect Johnson as a Black man in leadership that his role would be very difficult,” Foxx said. “You have to keep going. But know what’s coming. His responsibility is to do the work with the full knowledge that it’s not going to be fair … but he has a job to do and elevate the voices of the people who put him there.”
Washington Post: Biden’s balance sheet: Weak numbers, but in Donald Trump, a valuable foil by Dan Balz
President Biden begins his campaign for a second term in both an enviable and unenviable position. Unenviable because the country remains in a sour mood, his approval ratings are weak, and there is minimal enthusiasm for his candidacy. Enviable because Donald Trump, who at the moment is Biden’s most likely opponent, is an ideal foil to make the election a choice and not a referendum.
Biden’s announcement video released Tuesday morning was an echo of his 2020 campaign video, with images and language that put the former president and his followers at the center of a 2024 message. Biden will run in part on his legislative record and his desire to “finish the job,” as he said in the video. But just as much, he will continue to warn voters, as he did in both 2020 and in 2022, of the dangers ahead if Trump wins the White House and of the policies of a Trump-dominated Republican Party.
Incumbent presidents generally win reelection, but few presidents — Trump is a recent one — have ratings as weak as Biden’s as he starts his campaign. His approval rating in a new NBC News poll stands at 41 percent. On the economy, it’s 38 percent. In that same poll, 70 percent of Americans said they do not want him to run for reelection, including 45 percent of those who identify as Democrats.
New York Times: Head of a Major Law Firm Bought Real Estate From Gorsuch by Charlie Savage
WASHINGTON — One month after Neil M. Gorsuch was appointed to the Supreme Court in April 2017, he and two partners finally sold a vacation property they had been trying to offload for nearly two years. But when he reported the sale the next year, he left blank a field asking the identity of the buyer.
County real estate records in Colorado show that Brian L. Duffy, the chief executive of Greenberg Traurig, a sprawling law firm that frequently has business before the court, and his wife, Kari Duffy, bought the property.
The buyer’s identity — and Justice Gorsuch’s decision not to disclose it — was reported earlier on Tuesday by Politico. Although experts said that the omission did not violate the law, they added that it underscored the need for ethics reforms given the intensifying scrutiny on financial entanglements at the Supreme Court and renewed calls by Democratic lawmakers for tightened rules.
ProPublica reported this month that Justice Clarence Thomas had not disclosed that he had repeatedly received free travel for lavish vacations and other purposes from a Republican megadonor, Harlan Crow, and that he had sold properties to Mr. Crow in Georgia.
NBC News: Proud Boys blame Trump as defendants prepare to find out fate in sedition trial by Ryan J. Reilly
WASHINGTON — Attorneys for the Proud Boys placed blame for the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol on Donald Trump in closing arguments in their seditious conspiracy trial Tuesday.
An attorney for Enrique Tarrio, the head of the Proud Boys, said federal prosecutors were trying to make him a "scapegoat for Donald J. Trump and for those in power." A lawyer for Joe Biggs said the defendants came to Washington because their "commander-in-chief" told them it would "be wild," referring to Trump's infamous tweet on Dec. 19, 2020, that called on supporters to come to Washington on Jan. 6.
“‘Be there, it’s going to be wild,’ the commander-in-chief said. And so they did,” Norm Pattis, an attorney for Biggs, told jurors, adding that “their commander-in-chief sold them a lie.”
Tarrio, Biggs and fellow Proud Boys Ethan Nordean, Dominic Pezzola and Zach Rehl each face at least nine counts, including seditious conspiracy, a rarely used Civil War era law. The trial has been underway for more than three months, and jury selection began in December 2020. The government said in closing arguments Monday that the Proud Boys wanted to be "Donald Trump's army" and were "thirsting for violence and organizing for action” ahead of the Jan. 6 attack.
BBC News: Taliban kill IS leader behind Kabul airport bombing by Nadine Yousif
The Islamic State mastermind believed to have been responsible for the 2021 bombing at Kabul's airport has been killed by the Taliban, US officials have said.
The August 2021 bombing killed 170 civilians and 13 US troops as people were trying to flee Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
US officials told BBC's US news partner CBS that the leader died weeks ago, but it took time to confirm his death.
His name has not been released.
US officials said they determined through intelligence gathering and monitoring of the region that the leader had died, though they did not provide further details on how they learned that he was responsible for the bombing.
AlJazeera: Aid groups raise alarm as Sudan fighting eclipses shaky truce
Sudanese and foreigners have streamed out of the capital of Khartoum and other battle zones, as fighting shook a new three-day truce brokered by the United States and Saudi Arabia.
Aid agencies on Tuesday also raised increasing alarm about the crumbling humanitarian situation in a country reliant on outside help.
Al Jazeera’s Hiba Morgan, reporting from Khartoum, said that there are areas throughout the Sudanese capital where the ceasefire has not held. Heavy clashes have been reported in the vicinity of the presidential palace and the general command of the army.
“A hospital was hit in the city of Omdurman [north of Khartoum] following an artillery strike; at least a dozen people have been injured and the hospital was closed,” she said, adding that patients and the injured were evacuated to another hospital 3km (1.9 miles) away.
Guardian: Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó ejected from Colombia by Tom Phillips
Venezuela’s best-known opposition leader, Juan Guaidó, has touched down in the United States after being unceremoniously ejected from Colombia while attempting to gatecrash a summit about the political future of his crisis-stricken homeland.
Guaidó shot to fame in early 2019 and for a brief moment looked poised to topple Venezuela’s authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro, with the support of dozens of foreign governments including the US, UK and Brazil.
But four years later the 39-year-old’s star has waned dramatically as a result of his failure to unseat Hugo Chávez’s political heir.
Maduro has crushed street protests and
consolidated power. Most of the international community has abandoned Guaidó’s parallel “presidency” and “interim government”.
Hollywood Reporter: Harry Belafonte, Singer, Actor, Producer and Activist, Dies at 96 by Mike Barnes
Harry Belafonte, the actor, producer, singer and activist who made calypso music a national phenomenon with “Day-O” (The Banana Boat Song) and used his considerable stardom to draw attention to Martin Luther King Jr., civil rights issues and injustices around the world, has died. He was 96.
Belafonte, recipient of the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2014, died Tuesday of congestive heart failure at his Manhattan home on the Upper West Side with his wife, Pamela, by his side, longtime spokesman Ken Sunshine told The Hollywood Reporter.
A master at blending pop, jazz and traditional West Indian rhythms, the Caribbean-American Belafonte released more than 30 albums during his career and received a Lifetime Achievement Grammy from the Recording Academy in 2000.
Calypso, which featured “Day-O” and another hit, “Jamaica Farewell,” topped the Billboard pop album list for an incredible 31 weeks in 1956 and is credited as the first LP to sell 1 million copies. It was one of three albums he had that year that made it into the top 3.
On the big screen in the late 1950s, Belafonte was a matinee idol and rarely seen non-white sex symbol.
Have the best possible evening, everyone!