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: Stalled stadium talks in Arlington Heights create opening for Chicago mayor — if he’s willing to rewrite his playbook by Fran Spielman
The Bears’ stalled stadium touchdown drive in Arlington Heights has cracked the door open for Mayor Brandon Johnson to keep the team in Chicago — but only if he’s willing to spend the enormous political capital it would take to move the team to the front of a long line.
Johnson is under intense pressure to deliver on his campaign promise to make $1 billion worth of “investments in people.” The smorgasbord of jobs, education, mental health and social programs is the cornerstone of the new mayor’s anti-violence strategy.
The migrant crisis has turned up the heat on Johnson even further, as evidenced by the protesters who shouted at Johnson during last week’s City Council meeting.
Against that “what about us?” backdrop, it would be tough to imagine Johnson moving a new stadium for the Bears to the top of his “to do” list — before reparations for descendants of slaves, creating a dedicated funding source to reduce homelessness or reopening Chicago’s mental health clinics.
Washington Post: Where wildfire smoke is hitting the U.S. the hardest — and when it will end by Matthew Cappucci
The smoky scenes and threat of fast-moving fires — so common in California during recent summers — are now paying the eastern United States an unwelcome, improbable and toxic visit.
A thick veil of Canadian wildfire smoke is spreading south over much of the Midwest, Ohio Valley, Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, bringing milky-white skies and dangerous air pollution to the most populous corridor of the country. Fine particles contained within the smoke, hazardous to breathe, have prompted air quality alerts for tens of millions of people from Baltimore to Boston to Burlington, but measurements show bad air affecting even a larger area that includes Minneapolis and Washington, D.C.
In some places, air quality measurements are the worst on record. Marshall Burke, a professor of environment at Stanford University, tweeted that this event is the “[n]ear worst or worst event” in the last two decades or so, based on smoke particle data.
New York Times: Florida Confirms Arranging Migrant Flights to California by Nicholas Nehamas and Shawn Hubler
After days of silence, officials in Florida confirmed on Tuesday that the administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis had orchestrated two recent charter flights that carried groups of migrants from New Mexico to Sacramento.
The flights had generated an immediate outcry from leaders in California, who promised to initiate criminal and civil investigations, saying that the migrants had been deceived into boarding the planes. They also sharply criticized Mr. DeSantis, a Republican presidential candidate. On Twitter, California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, suggested that “kidnapping charges” were warranted against those responsible for the flights, on Monday and last Friday.
In a statement released on Tuesday evening, Alecia Collins, the communications director for the Florida Division of Emergency Management, said that the migrants’ relocation to California had been “voluntary,” and that they had been taken to a nonprofit.
Newsweek: MAGA Gets Revenge on Kevin McCarthy by Nick Reynolds
Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy proved his critics wrong after brokering a deal with President Joe Biden's White House to avert defaulting on the national debt in exchange for long-sought-after concessions on federal spending, work requirements for certain entitlement programs, and other conservative policy goals.
Now, some of his party's most conservative members are making him pay for it.
Voting Tuesday on a rule necessary to advance GOP legislation barring the Biden administration from banning gas stoves in new residential construction, 11 Republican lawmakers joined their Democratic colleagues to block the bill from moving forward in an apparent rebuke of a debt limit agreement members believed conceded too much to Democrats.
If there was any doubt, all of the defectors on the gas stove bill had previously crossed party lines to oppose McCarthy's deal, with many at the time saying the sheer fact it had bipartisan support, as well as that of the White House, was a sign of a bad deal.
Guardian: As flood waters rise around them, Kherson residents cast blame for destroyed dam on ‘inhumane’ Moscow by Dan Sabbagh
On what should have been a Kherson street corner, Larysa Musian, a hydrologist, sits and watches the flood waters rising. The Dnipro River used to be 300-400 metres away, but after the dam at Nova Kakhovka was breached at 2.50am on Tuesday, it has burst into the city, flooding the first two or three blocks of the lowest lying quarter.
Every half hour, Musian rises from her stool, carrying a square charcoal grey ruler. The water, she says, is rising “6 to 8cm every half hour” and is 3 metres above where it was before the dam burst. She phones through her figures to colleagues in the regional monitoring centre in nearby Mykolaiv.
“When it goes back to 5cm an hour, and then four, we can start saying it has stabilised,” Musian continues, as she returns to her perch. But it is not clear when that will happen, not least because “we cannot say for sure how much water passed the dam, because it was controlled by the Russians”.
For now, the river waters continue to rise visibly, in line it seems with Musian’s calculations, lapping farther up the dry streets, the latest avoidable tragedy to hit a city already blighted heavily by the 15-month war.
BBC News: Prince Harry: I couldn't trust anybody due to phone hacking by Jemma Crew, Dominic Casciani, Tom Symonds, and Sean Coughlan at the High Court
Prince Harry has accused tabloid newspapers of hacking his voicemails when he was a teenager, saying it made him feel he "couldn't trust anybody".
Appearing in court in his case against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) he said he has "experienced hostility from the press" since he was born.
He is the first senior royal to give evidence in court in over 130 years.
MGN's lawyer said he had sympathy for the duke, but denied journalists' actions were "all unlawful".
Prince Harry arrived on Tuesday morning at London's High Court dressed in a dark suit and looking relaxed - dozens of journalists only had a matter of seconds to get their photographs as he made his way swiftly into the building.
Exactly eight days before the Balasore accident involving three trains claimed 278 lives and became one of the worst tragedies in rail history, officials of the railway board briefed the parliamentary standing committee on railways on safety measures and assured it that their “safety first and safety always’’ attitude had resulted in a decline in accidents from 141 in 2010-11 to just 48 in 2022-23.
The national transporter showcased an index based on the number of accidents per million train kilometres (AMTKs), which it said fell from 0.14 in 2010-11 to 0.03 in 2022-23. The optimism of the officials of Indian Railways’ apex management body has left many of the committee members upset after the accident.
“The presentation was about how accidents are to be stopped in India,’’ said Shiv Sena MP Dhairyasheel Mane. “The official did such a beautiful presentation. But if what they showed was correct, how could there be such an accident?’’
The meeting on May 25 was attended by 21 of the 31 members of the standing committee. It lasted 75 minutes and was addressed by the director general of safety and other officials who made a powerpoint presentation, which has been reviewed by HT.
In times of runaway inflation and the rise of teleworking, the cost of living has become a key factor for residents seeking to maintain their standard of living, and for those who are free to work wherever they like. According to a new study by the consulting group Mercer, Hong Kong, Singapore and Zurich top the ranking of the most expensive cities.
After the debacle of Credit Suisse, one of the symbols of Switzerland’s banking system, times are difficult for Swiss self-esteem, but its reputation for being one of the places preferred by big capital, and its high salaries, are also reflected in prices: four of the five most expensive European cities on the global Top Ten are in Switzerland: Zurich (third), Geneva (fourth), Basel (fifth) and Bern (seventh). The Danish capital, Copenhagen, completes the European quintet. Other expensive cities in Europe include London, Vienna, Amsterdam, Prague and Helsinki. In Spain, Barcelona ranks 75th and Madrid is in 83rd spot.
“Competition in the global talent market is fierce, and the cost-of-living crisis affects both employees and businesses, who need to be more flexible,” says Yvonne Traber, Global Managing Partner of Mobility at Mercer. The consultant acknowledges, however, that prices are not the only thing that influences the attractiveness of cities seeking to draw new companies and workers. “An equally important factor is the general quality of life that a city offers. Conversely, risks and other negative issues, such as natural disasters, political or economic turmoil, high crime rates, poor infrastructure, and inadequate international connectivity can be major deterrents for businesses and their employees.”
Have the best possible evening, everyone!