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: 11 guns recovered during party at North Ave. Beach on Memorial Day: ‘Why do you need a gun to enjoy the beach?’ by Tom Schuba
Struggling to respond to large gatherings of young people downtown following a spate of shootings, Chicago police arrested 13 people and recovered 11 guns during a daylong, sometimes rowdy Memorial Day party at North Avenue Beach.
Promoted on social media as a “2000s themed cookout,” the beach “takeover” on Monday drew hundreds of people as temperatures jumped into the 90s.
Officers began making gun arrests shortly after the event started and were pelted by glass bottles thrown by partygoers, according to Chief of Patrol Brian McDermott.
At one point, a call went out for a “mass arrest” after a cop was hit in the chest with a pineapple, McDermott said. Three people were then taken into custody.
Video shows at least one fistfight broke out on the beach and ended with one of the brawlers in the water. McDermott said guns were sometimes drawn during “personal disputes” during the party.
Texas Tribune: Uvalde school police chief blamed for slow response to shooting is not responding to investigators, state police say by Joshua Fletcher and Renee Oxner
The official response to the mass shooting at an Uvalde elementary school — a response already marred by shifting narratives, finger-pointing and a general lack of timely and accurate information — took a further turn toward dysfunction on Tuesday.
The Uvalde school district’s police chief — who made the decision to wait for more resources rather than confront the gunman sooner — had stopped cooperating with state investigators and had not responded to requests for information for over two days, the Texas Department of Public Safety said.
And the agency walked back an assertion that a teacher at Robb Elementary School propped open a back door prior to the shooting, allowing the gunman to enter and kill 19 students and two teachers. Earlier Tuesday the teacher’s lawyer had pushed back on the state’s account.
Texas Rangers investigating the response to the shooting want to continue talking to Pete Arredondo, chief of police at Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District. But he hasn’t answered a request made two days ago for a follow-up interview, according to two DPS spokespeople.
Washington Post: White House scrambles on inflation after Biden complains to aides by Tyler Pager and Jeff Stein
The White House launched a new push Tuesday to contain the political damage caused by inflation after President Biden complained for weeks to aides that his administration was not doing enough to publicly explain the fastest price increases in roughly four decades.
Aiming to demonstrate to the public that it is responding to its concerns, Biden met with Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell in the Oval Office, wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal about inflation and sent top aides across major networks to push the administration’s economic message.
The flurry of activity comes after Biden has privately grumbled to top White House officials over the administration’s handling of inflation, expressing frustration over the past several months that aides were not doing enough to confront the problem directly, two people familiar with the president’s comments said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.
New York Times: Supreme Court Blocks Texas Law Regulating Social Media Platforms by Adam Liptak
The Supreme Court on Tuesday blocked a Texas law that would ban large social media companies from removing posts based on the views they express.
The court’s brief order was unsigned and gave no reasons, which is typical when the justices act on emergency applications. The order was not the last word in the case, which is pending before a federal appeals court and may return to the Supreme Court.
The vote was 5 to 4, with an unusual coalition in dissent. The court’s three most conservative members — Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr., Clarence Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch — filed a dissent saying they would have let stand, for now at least, an appeals court order that left the law in place while the case moved forward. Justice Elena Kagan, a liberal, also said she would have let the order stand, though she did not join the dissent and gave no reasons of her own.
Justice Alito wrote that the issues were so novel and significant that the Supreme Court would have to consider them at some point.
Guardian: Russia cuts gas supplies to Netherlands and firms in Denmark and Germany by Joanna Partridge
Russia has further cut off gas supplies to Europe, after state energy giant Gazprom turned off the taps to a top Dutch trader and halted flows to some companies in Denmark and Germany.
The intensification of the economic battle on Tuesday over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine follows the EU’s overnight decision to place an embargo on most Russian oil imports as part of its financial sanctions against the Kremlin.
EU leaders said the ban would immediately impact 75% of Russian oil imports, rising to 90% by the end of the year.
Gazprom extended its gas cuts on Tuesday by stopping supply to GasTerra, which buys and trades gas on behalf of the Dutch government.
It later said it would also cut off gas flows to the Danish energy firm Ørsted and to Shell Energy for its contract to supply gas to Germany, after both companies failed to make payments in roubles.
AlJazeera: Death toll from torrential rains in northeast Brazil reaches 100
The death toll from flooding and landslides following torrential rains in northeast Brazil has reached 100, the AFP news agency and Brazil’s Folha de S Paulo newspaper have reported, citing local officials.
Mudslides have devastated entire impoverished communities outside the city of Recife, the capital of Pernambuco state. Disaster management officials for the state said on Tuesday that at least 14 people remain missing, AFP reported.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro had flown over the area on Monday, pledging to do everything possible to “ease the pain” of those affected.
Bolsonaro cited similar recent disasters in the mountains above Rio de Janeiro, in southern Bahia state and in Minas Gerais state. Flooding and heavy rain killed hundreds and forced thousands out of their homes in these areas during the past year.
DW: Iraq in political deadlock as it grapples with democracy by Cathrin Schaer
In a few days, Iraq will probably break a record. But it's not necessarily something for the country to be proud of. Iraq has now been without an official government for just over 200 days.
Although the Middle Eastern nation isn't close to breaking the world record for the longest period without an elected government — that's held by Belgium, with well over 500 days — the last time this happened in Baghdad was in 2010, and the record for Iraq back then was 208 days.
Iraq's last federal elections were held on October 10, 2021, and results were officially ratified at the end of December.
The winner was the Sairoun, or Forwards, alliance, the political arm of the movement led by prominent Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who caused controversy recently by proposing a law further criminalizing Iraqi relations with Israel.
Since last year, the Sairoun party and al-Sadr have been trying to form a coalition with other Iraqi parties.
Previously, Iraqi political parties would usually align in coalitions according to the sector of the Iraqi population they ostensibly represented. There are three of these. Two are based on religion — Shiite Muslim and Sunni Muslim — and the last on ethnicity, Iraqi Kurdish.
Peace!