Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, eeff, Magnifico, annetteboardman, Besame and jck. 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: No criminal charges against Chicago Police officers in fatal shootings of 13-year-old Adam Toledo and Anthony Alvarez by Matthew Hendrickson, David Struett, Manny Ramos, and Tom Schuba
Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx said Tuesday she will not file criminal charges against Chicago Police officers in the deaths of 13-year-old Adam Toledo and 22-year-old Anthony Alvarez last year, although she still had harsh words for the actions by police leading up to the shootings.
Foxx made the announcement almost a year after the officers shot and killed Toledo and Alvarez in separate incidents in March.
“This is a somber announcement. There are no winners in this situation,” Foxx said at media conference at the Cook County Administration Building downtown.
While Foxx said while her office’s investigation and a review by an outside agency found no evidence to support criminal charges in either incident, she was still critical of the actions by officers — particularly in the Alvarez pursuit — that “created the conditions” that led to his shooting.
Detroit Free Press: Ohio woman charged, accused of sending racist death threats to Michigan lawmakers by Dave Boucher
An Ohio woman faces two felony charges after allegedly sending death threats brimming with racism to two Michigan Democratic lawmakers, according to the office of Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel.
Sandra Bachman, 58, of Batavia, Ohio, is accused of leaving threatening voicemails for Rep. Sarah Anthony, D-Lansing, in May 2021 and Rep. Cynthia Johnson, D-Detroit, in June 2021.
She's charged with one count of false report or threat of terrorism, one count of ethnic intimidation and two other counts related to making a threat using a phone. If convicted, she could be sentenced to more than 20 years in prison, according to Nessel's office.
In a statement, Anthony thanked Nessel's office for their work and condemned persistently violent dissension.
“The division in our country, and in Michigan especially, has continued to build and develop over the last few years to a point where it’s getting in the way of our democracy and distracting us from good governance," Anthony said.
Washington Post: Man arrested in shootings of homeless people in D.C., New York by Peter Hermann, Fredrick Kunkle, Emily Davies, and Shayna Jacobs
A D.C. man whose family said he struggles with mental illness and sometimes lived on the streets was arrested Tuesday and charged in a series of attacks on homeless men that rattled vulnerable communities in the District and New York.
Gerald Brevard III, 30, had been in and out of jail in D.C., Virginia and Maryland on varying charges including assaulting a police officer and shoplifting, court records show. Most recently he served several months in Fairfax County jail after he was arrested on an abduction charge that was reduced to misdemeanor assault in a plea agreement.
Now, police in D.C. said they charged Brevard with first-degree murder, assault with intent to kill and assault with a dangerous weapon in connection with attacks on three homeless men in Northeast Washington between March 3 and March 9. One of those men died.
USA Today: Pfizer-BioNTech requests FDA authorization for fourth COVID vaccine shot for 65 and older by Karen Weintraub
Pfizer and its collaborator BioNTech requested federal permission Tuesday to provide an additional booster dose of their COVID-19 vaccine Comirnaty to people 65 and older.
The request is based on data from Israel during a recent omicron outbreak there. One study of more than 1 million Israelis over 60 showed that those who got a fourth dose were half as likely to become infected and four-times less likely to fall severely ill than those who had only three shots.
In a second study of 700 Israeli health care workers, those who received a fourth dose, saw a 10-fold jump in protective antibodies two weeks after the shot.
The fourth dose was delivered three months after the third in both studies and neither raised new safety concerns. Neither study has been peer-reviewed.
New York Times: Submarine Spy Couple Tried to Sell Nuclear Secrets to Brazil by Julian E. Barnes, Andre Spigariol, Jack Nicas, and Adam Goldman
WASHINGTON — In 2020, a United States naval engineer and his wife made the fateful decision to try to sell some of America’s most closely guarded military secrets, the technology behind the nuclear reactors that power the U.S. submarine fleet.
Then the couple faced another important choice: To which foreign government should they try to peddle the stolen secrets?
The engineer appeared to believe that soliciting American adversaries like Russia or China was, morally, a bridge too far, according to text messages released in court. Instead, Jonathan and Diana Toebbe thought of a country that was rich enough to buy the secrets, not hostile to the United States and, most importantly, increasingly eager to acquire the very technology they were selling: Brazil.
The identity of the nation approached by the Toebbes has until now remained shielded by federal prosecutors and other government officials. But, according to a senior Brazilian official and other people briefed on the investigation, Mr. Toebbe approached Brazil nearly two years ago with an offer of thousands of pages of classified documents about nuclear reactors that he had stolen from the U.S. Navy Yard in Washington over the course of several years.
Guardian: ‘Europe stands with you’: EU leaders vow support for Ukraine during Kyiv visit by Daniel Boffey and Jennifer Rankin
Volodymyr Zelenskiy told reporters “with allies like this we will win this war” after the prime ministers of Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia made a perilous train journey to Kyiv to offer their support.
In a press conference after the meeting Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala told Ukrainians “Europe stands with you”.
“The main goal of our visit and the main message of our mission is to say to our Ukrainian friends that they are not alone,” he said.
The leader of Poland’s ruling party said an international peacekeeping mission should be sent to operate in Ukraine.
“I think that it is necessary to have a peace mission - Nato, possibly some wider international structure - but a mission that will be able to defend itself, which will operate on Ukrainian territory,” Jaroslaw Kaczynski said during the conference, which was broadcast on Polish television.
France 24: Ancient tombs discovered at Paris’ Notre-Dame Cathedral as restoration continues
Several tombs and a leaden sarcophagus likely dating from the 14th century have been uncovered by archaeologists at Paris' Notre Dame cathedral following its devastating 2019 fire, France's culture ministry has said.
The burial sites "of remarkable scientific quality" were unearthed during preparatory work for rebuilding the ancient church's spire at the central spot where the transept crosses the nave, the ministry said on Monday.
Among the tombs was the "completely preserved, human-shaped sarcophagus made of lead," it added.
The coffin might have been made for "a senior dignitary" and likely dated from the 1300s -- the century following the cathedral's construction.
As well as the tombs, elements of painted sculptures were found just beneath the current floor level of the cathedral, identified as parts of the original 13th-century rood screen -- an architectural element separating the altar area from the nave.
BBC News: Afghans turn to cryptocurrencies amid US sanctions by Anamaria Silic
US sanctions, failing banks, and the drying up of foreign aid and cash transfers since the Taliban takeover have left Afghanistan's economy in tatters. Crypto is coming to the rescue.
Following the Taliban takeover in August last year, 22-year-old Farhan Hotak from the province of Zabul in southern Afghanistan was left with no cash in hand.
Mr Hotak's sole source of income became a few hundred dollars of Bitcoin in a virtual wallet. After turning it into a traditional currency, Hotak managed to flee to Pakistan with his family of ten.
"After the Taliban takeover, crypto spread like wildfire over Afghanistan," he said. "There is almost no other way to receive money".
Mr Hotak and his friends use Binance's P2P crypto exchange, which allows them to buy and sell their coins directly with other users on the platform. Finding temporary refuge in Pakistan, Mr Hotak is trading Bitcoin and Ethereum again and is now back traveling through Afghanistan, vlogging and teaching people about cryptocurrencies - digital money with no physical form that can have value.
DW: COVID digest: South Korea witnesses deadliest day of pandemic
South Korea on Tuesday recorded the highest number of daily COVID-19 deaths since the start of the pandemic as the highly infectious omicron variant sweeps across the country and the wider region.
The East Asian nation reported 293 deaths related to COVID-19 and 1,196 virus patients in serious or critical conditions — also a new high.
Officials said the medical response is still stable following efforts to expand resources, with more than 30% of intensive care units designated for COVID-19 treatment still available. But this may change in the coming weeks due to time lags between infections, hospitalizations and deaths.
"We anticipate the number of (serious or critical cases) to grow to around 2,000. We are preparing our medical response for that,'' the senior Health Ministry official Park Hyang said during a briefing.
Park said it was thanks to high vaccination rates that the country had so far weathered the surge in the omicron variant better than the United States and Europe had in terms of fatalities. Nearly two thirds of South Koreans have received booster injections.
AlJazeera: Haiti: Health workers on strike over surge in gang kidnappings
Protesters burned tyres and blocked roads in Haiti on the second day of a strike by doctors, nurses and other health professionals over a spike in gang-related kidnappings that have further destabilised the crisis-stricken island.
The three-day strike began on Monday and included the shutting down of public and private health institutions in the capital Port-au-Prince and beyond, with only emergency rooms accepting patients.
“We are living a catastrophic situation where no one is protected,” said Dr Louis Gerald Gilles, who closed his private practice on Tuesday in the neighbourhood of Delmas to protest the recent kidnappings of two doctors.
“No professional is protected. Today, it could be a doctor; tomorrow, they could enter the office of a lawyer or an architect.”
Everyone have a great evening!