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.
Chicago Sun-Times: Rahm Emanuel 'not interested' in DNC chair, but far from done with politics by Fran Spielman
With his time as America’s ambassador to Japan ending, former Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Tuesday he has no interest in leading a Democratic comeback as his party’s national chairman, but he still loves public service and isn’t done with it.
“I’m not interested in the party. I’m interested in what the party can do for people. ... My enjoyment [is] in what I’ve done in public service,” Emanuel told the Sun-Times. “It’s about free community college for students of Chicago, free universal kindergarten and pre-K, raising the minimum wage.”
“I happen to have a view of what it takes to build a party, recruit candidates, build the infrastructure, raise your resources, develop a message,” Emanuel added. “But that wasn’t in my line of vision. It may have been in a line of vision for others. But it’s not in the line of vision for me.”
After returning to Chicago to celebrate Thanksgiving and his 65th birthday, Emanuel will make one last trip to Tokyo to wrap up his three-year stint as U.S. ambassador to Japan.
He’ll pack up a palatial ambassador’s residence that Supreme Allied Cmdr. Gen. Douglas MacArthur once called home, then return to his Ravenswood home to plot his next move.
Boston Globe: She cried. He said ‘life goes on.’ Democrats are experiencing a range of emotions in the wake of Kamala Harris’s loss. by Emma Platoff and Elizabeth Koh
In the days after Donald Trump won reelection, the two supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris had very different reactions.
At home in the Boston suburbs, Ania Zurowska cried. Seven hundred miles away, in Rocky Mount, N.C., Larry Marshall was far less perturbed.
“Life goes on,” he said, standing outside the train station and reaching for a cigarette.
The two Kamala Harris voters illustrate the broad range of responses to the election that the Globe found from interviews of dozens of voters in swing states and New England last month. Even among Democrats, Harris’s loss yielded starkly different emotions from people with widely varying senses of what was at stake for them and their communities.
Trump’s own victory was not built off a single demographic; he won by improving his performance among several groups, particularly people of color and young men. While Harris won about 53 percent of women, Trump slightly improved his performance with them compared to his showing in 2020, according to Associated Press data.
MSNBC: Supreme Court to hear historic argument on transgender rights by Jordan Rubin
The Supreme Court is scheduled to hold a hearing Wednesday in an appeal involving transgender rights that could be the most important case of the court’s term.
The legal question in the case, called United States v. Skrmetti, is whether a Tennessee law banning gender-affirming care for minors violates the Constitution’s equal protection guarantee. How the court answers the question could affect similar laws across the country and transgender rights more broadly.
Three lawyers are set to argue to the justices in Washington. U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar represents the federal government and Tennessee Solicitor General J. Matthew Rice represents the state, whose attorney general is Jonathan Skrmetti (hence the case name, United States v. Skrmetti). American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Chase Strangio represents the original plaintiffs in the lawsuit: transgender adolescents, their parents and a doctor who treats adolescents with gender dysphoria. Strangio will be the first openly transgender lawyer to argue at the court.
CNN: Musk and Ramaswamy suggest ending time changes, reviving an effort that has failed in the past by Michael Williams
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are suggesting the country stop its biannual ritual of falling back and springing forward – advocating a permanent end to time changes in a move that has garnered broad support in the past.
In a series of posts on X last week, both entrepreneurs called for the US to stop changing its clocks twice a year, with Musk declaring Americans want their country to “abolish the annoying time changes!” and Ramaswamy describing the century-old practice as “inefficient & easy to change.”
It’s unclear how seriously the two men are taking this push and whether they intend to make stopping time changes a priority for their newly formed Department of Government Efficiency, which President-elect Donald Trump has tasked with overhauling how the government operates and identifying and making recommendations to eliminate processes or programs deemed redundant.
While other objectives floated by Musk and Ramaswamy for their department to tackle have been criticized as unwieldy or not possible, the semi-annual clock change is a tradition that has lost its appeal to many voters, polls have shown.
El País in English: South Korean president agrees to lift martial law following parliamentary backlash by Guillermo Abril
South Korea’s conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol declared emergency martial law on Tuesday, accusing the opposition of controlling Parliament, engaging in anti-state activities, and sympathizing with North Korea. Yoon’s announcement, which was immediately met with widespread rejection from opposition politicians and members of his own party, sent shockwaves through one of Asia’s strongest democracies. Hours later, after Parliament voted to lift the martial law, Yoon announced that he would withdraw the measure during a forthcoming Cabinet meeting, according to Reuters.
This was the first time since 1980 that martial law had been declared in South Korea, a country that experienced a series of authoritarian leaders in its early history but has been regarded as a democracy since the 1980s. In a televised statement late in the day, which had not been announced in advance, Yoon stated that the measure aimed to eradicate “pro-North Korean forces” and “protect the democratic constitutional order.”
However, within hours, he faced strong opposition from Parliament. In an emergency session convened following the president’s announcement, the Parliament, with 190 of its 300 members present, passed a motion demanding the lifting of martial law. Woo Son-shik, the opposition speaker of Parliament, declared that President Yoon’s declaration would be “null and void” following the resolution. Lawmakers cheered when he demanded that soldiers and police leave the assembly hall. Despite the vote, the military has responded by stating it will maintain martial law until it is formally lifted by President Yoon, according to the country’s public radio.
Guardian: French government teeters on brink of collapse as no-confidence vote looms by Jon Henley
France is staring into the unknown as the minority government of the prime minister, Michel Barnier, faces near-certain defeat in a no-confidence vote that could dramatically intensify the political crisis in one of the EU’s key member states.
If the vote on Wednesday is carried, Barnier’s administration, which took office only in September, would be the first in France to be ousted with a motion of no confidence since 1962. Its fall, at the hands of the far-right and leftwing parties, would be a significant blow to Europe weeks before Donald Trump returns to the White House.
The vote risked making “everything more difficult and more serious”, a sombre Barnier told MPs on Tuesday, adding that France’s situation was already “difficult in budgetary and financial terms” and “very difficult in economic and social terms”.
AlJazeera: Ukrainians condemn US call to lower conscription age amid Russia’s war by Mansur Mirovalev
Vladislav thinks lowering the conscription age in Ukraine from 25 to 18 is a “bad idea”.
His military service is a sad yet telling example.
The fair-haired, gaunt 20-year-old volunteered to join the Ukrainian army two years ago – and suffered a heavy contusion near the eastern city of Kupiansk.
“It was scary, scary, scary,” Vladislav told Al Jazeera in central Kyiv, as he dragged on a cigarette.
“I’ve seen a lot. I’ve got problems with my head,” he said as if apologising for his reluctance to talk about his combat experience.
Vladislav is awaiting a medical assessment that would either have him demobilised – or dispatched back to the frontline in the southeastern Donbas region, where the outmanned and outgunned Ukrainian forces slowly lose ground to Russian invaders.
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