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.
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Chicago Sun-Times: One year after Adam Toledo’s killing, family renews call for justice, change by Cheyanne M. Daniels
Last year, when Kristian Armendariz heard about the death of Adam Toledo in his community, he began knocking on doors, trying to rally his Little Village neighbors to create change.
On Tuesday, one year after Toledo was fatally shot by a Chicago police officer, Armendariz stood with the Toledo family and fellow members of the Little Village Community Council at the same alley where Toledo was shot in a renewed call for justice.
“This is not the place where Adam deserved to die, in an alley alone at night at 13 years old,” his sister, Esmerelda Toledo, said tearfully during the vigil Tuesday.
Washington Post: White House turns to air quality in latest effort to thwart coronavirus by Dan Diamond
The White House is pivoting to emphasize that poorly ventilated indoor air poses the biggest risk for coronavirus infections, urging schools, businesses and homeowners to take steps to boost air quality — a move scientists say is long overdue and will help stave off future outbreaks.
“Let’s Clear the Air on COVID,” a
virtual event hosted Tuesday by the White House science office, came after President Biden’s coronavirus response team and other leaders have elevated warnings that airborne transmission is the primary conduit of coronavirus infections, a reversal of earlier federal guidance.
“The most common way COVID-19 is transmitted from one person to another is through tiny airborne particles of the virus hanging in indoor air for minutes or hours after an infected person has been there,” Alondra Nelson, head of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, wrote in a blog post last week. “While there are various strategies for avoiding breathing that air — from remote work to masking — we can and should talk more about how to make indoor environments safer by filtering or cleaning air.”
CNN: As drought pushes east, more intense wildfires are sparking in new areas by Rachel Ramirez
(CNN)— Only a few months into 2022 and it's already a dreadful year for wildfires. More than 14,781 separate wildfires have scorched over half a million acres as of this week, according to the National Interagency Fire Center, the largest number of fires year-to-date the agency has recorded in the past decade.
But many of these recent fires haven't been igniting in California or the Pacific Northwest -- which
have endured several
devastating fire seasons in a row -- they've been popping up in places like
Colorado and
Texas, and have burned hundreds of thousands of acres in the past few weeks alone.
Earlier in March, scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted
drought conditions would expand eastward this spring and worsen in some locations -- conditions that are now priming the landscape in the Southern Plains for dangerous, fast-moving fires.
New York Times: Biden Signs Bill to Make Lynching a Federal Crime by Michael D. Shear
WASHINGTON — President Biden on Tuesday signed a bill making lynching a federal crime, for the first time explicitly criminalizing an act that had come to symbolize the grim history of racism in the United States.
“Lynching was pure terror to enforce the lie that not everyone, not everyone belongs in America, not everyone is created equal,” Mr. Biden said, speaking to civil rights leaders and others in the Rose Garden of the White House.
Moments after Mr. Biden signed the law — named for Emmett Till, the Black boy who was murdered in Mississippi in 1955 — he described the atrocity that he said was carried out against 4,400 Blacks between 1877 and 1950.
“Terror, to systematically undermine hard, hard fought civil rights. Terror, not just in the dark of the night, but in broad daylight. Innocent men, women and children hung by nooses from trees,” he said. “Bodies burned and drowned and castrated. Their crimes? Trying to vote, trying to go to school, to try and own a business or preach the gospel.”
Guardian: Records show long gap in Trump phone logs as January 6 violence unfolded by Ed Pilkington
The House committee investigating the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol is reportedly looking at a “possible cover-up” of White House records focusing on Donald Trump’s phone logs from that fateful day, which bear an unexplained gap of seven hours and 37 minutes covering the period when the violence was unfolding.
Between those times Trump addressed a rally on the Ellipse,
exhorting supporters to “fight like hell”; hundreds of Trump followers overran police barricades and stormed the Capitol building; and Mike Pence, the vice-president, who had been overseeing the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election, was forced to go into hiding.
New York Times: Live Updates: Russian Pledge to Ease Attack Is Greeted Skeptically by West by Anton Troianovski
ISTANBUL — The first signs of significant progress in peace talks between Russia and Ukraine emerged on Tuesday, but there was no hint of an imminent end to the suffering, with Russia appearing determined to capture more territory in eastern Ukraine and officials predicting that weeks of further negotiation were needed.
After three hours of talks in Istanbul, Ukrainian officials said their country was ready to declare itself permanently neutral — forsaking the prospect of joining NATO, a key Russian demand — and discuss Russian territorial claims in exchange for “security guarantees” from a group of other nations. An aide to Ukraine’s president called the Russian delegation “constructive,” while Russia said it would “drastically” scale back its military activity around Kyiv to “increase mutual trust.”
Russia’s statement that it will de-escalate the fighting around Kyiv — even as it keeps pounding other parts of Ukraine — may be little more than putting a positive gloss on its military being stymied in its attempts to seize or encircle the capital. In recent days, Ukrainian counteroffensives around the city have forced back Russian forces in some of the fiercest street battles of the war, though they remain within striking distance of Kyiv.
Now, Russian officials said, the goal will be to take more territory in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, where Russia has installed two separatist statelets that President Vladimir V. Putin recognized last month as independent, but that no other nation has formally acknowledged.
DW: Mother of Russian soldier: Ukraine war is a 'bloodbath' by Oxana Ivanova
On February 24, Russia launched war on Ukraine though Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to refer to the campaign as a "special military operation." Scores of Russian soldiers have been killed since fighting broke out roughly one month ago. But often, neither the soldiers nor their families are told where they will be been sent to fight.
So far, Russia's Ministry of Defense has only twice reported fatality figures relating to its troops. On March 25, authorities acknowledged a total of 1,351 Russian servicemen had been killed in Ukraine. Yet a NATO source cited in the Washington Post estimates roughly 7,000 to 15,000 Russian soldiers could have fallen since February 24. On March 20, Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda reported 9,861 Russian deaths, citing the Ministry of Defense. The piece was quickly removed from the website, with editors claiming the newspaper had been hacked.
26-year-old staff sergeant Yevgeny was killed in the early days of the war near Ukraine's capital Kyiv. He had never taken part in combat operations before.
Despite losing her son Yevgeny, Natalya (not her actual name) argues the invasion of Ukraine is justified. Yet she thinks Russia's campaign amounts to a full-fledged war, rather than a "special operation."
BBC News: Twenty fines to be issued over No 10 lockdown parties
Twenty fines will be issued as part of the police inquiry into Downing Street parties that broke Covid rules.
The Met police will not be saying who is fined or which events the fixed penalty notices relate to.
However, Downing Street has said before that it would confirm if the prime minister was facing a fine.
Fixed penalty notices are a sanction for breaking the law, and mean a fine, which needs to be paid within 28 days, or contested.
If someone chooses to contest the fine, the police will then review the case and decide whether to withdraw the fine or take the matter to court.
AlJazeera: Number of migrants crossing dangerous Darien Gap soars: UNHCR
The number of people crossing Panama’s Darien Gap, the notorious and lawless route taken by migrants and refugees trying to head north to the United States, has almost tripled compared with the same period last year, according to the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR).
In a statement on Tuesday, UNHCR said 8,456 people crossed the dangerous jungle area between Colombia and Panama in the two first months of this year, compared with 2,928 in the first two months of 2021.
This year’s total also included 1,367 girls, boys, and adolescents, the agency said.
The Darien Gap, a stretch of mountainous jungle 160km (100 miles) long and 50km (30 miles) wide, is controlled by criminal groups known for acts of violence, including sexual abuse and robbery. To cross, migrants also must tackle natural hazards.
An office of the EU’s Advisory Mission to Ukraine was hit by Russian shelling in Mariupol, but no one working there was injured, EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said Tuesday.
“Today, the EU Advisory Mission Ukraine (EUAM) has obtained credible information that the premises of its Mariupol Field Office were recently hit by Russian shelling,” the EU’s top diplomat said in a statement.
While the office itself and equipment sustained “major damage,” neither members of the mission staff nor contractors were hurt, Borrell added.
The statement did not specify when the shelling occurred.
Borrell strongly condemned the attacks. “We demand Russia to cease its military offensive immediately and unconditionally withdraw all forces and military equipment [from] the entire territory of Ukraine,” he said.
Everyone have a good evening!