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.
Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.
The New York Times: With Threat to Wipe Out Iran’s Civilization, Trump’s Rhetoric Goes Beyond Bluster by Katie Rogers
It was a stunning threat that promised to eliminate Iranian civilization, delivered with all the casual callousness that has become President Trump’s preferred style of communication.
“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.”
And that is what passed as a normal Tuesday-morning update from the Trump White House: a warning of mass destruction and what international law would define as war crimes, blithely delivered on Truth Social, posted alongside ads for bullet-shaped pens, patriotic hats and a gala dinner at Mar-a-Lago.
“However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS?” Mr. Trump wrote in his message. “We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World.”
CNN: Judge Chris Taylor will win Wisconsin Supreme Court race, CNN projects, expanding court’s liberal majority by Arlette Saenz
Judge Chris Taylor will win a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, CNN’s Decision Desk projects, expanding the liberal majority on the panel in a key battleground state.
Taylor, a state appeals court judge from Dane County, will defeat conservative judge Maria Lazar, a state appeals court judge from Waukesha County. Liberals have now secured a 5-2 majority on the court, solidifying their hold potentially through the end the decade.
The two women ran to replace retiring Justice Rebecca Bradley, a conservative. The race was technically nonpartisan, but the liberal victory marks another bright spot for Democrats, who have seen heightened enthusiasm and success in recent elections.
The match-up between Taylor and Lazar did not receive as much national attention as the state’s 2025 judicial race, which turned into a referendum of Elon Musk after he unsuccessfully poured millions of his personal fortune in support of the conservative candidate.
USA Today: DHS threatens to remove customs officers at sanctuary city airports by Noe Padilla
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin suggested removing U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers from airports in sanctuary cities, prompting criticism from the California governor over the prospect of "halted" international travel at some of the country's biggest hubs.
Mullin, who was appointed as the DHS secretary on March 23, told Fox News that his department was taking "a hard look" at how to handle sanctuary cities during an interview on the outlet's "Special Report" on April 6.
Specifically, he noted that the department was considering limiting or removing Customs and Border Protection officers from airports in cities that restrict cooperation between local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities.
"Some of these cities have international airports; if they are a sanctuary city, should they really be processing customs into their city?" Mullin said.
DW: Europe mulls the prospect of a NATO without the US by Teri Schultz
"NATO is broken," said Ivo Daalder, not mincing his words. The former US ambassador to the trans-Atlantic alliance believes tensions between Donald Trump and European allies over the Iran war have thrust NATO, which turned 77 years old this month, into the "worst crisis" in its history.
But alarm bells have been ringing for some time now. Already a year ago, Daalder published an articleoutlining how European member states might reconstruct NATO to function without the US, around whose leadership the organization was built.
How did we get here?
Daalder, a senior fellow at Harvard's Belfer Center, told DW that several factors have brought NATO to this low point. It's not just the insults Trump flings at the alliance and its European members, to which they've become quite accustomed. Trump repeated his view on Monday that NATO is a "paper tiger" that won't support the US in its war against Iran.
Nor, the former ambassador said, is it even Trump's repeated threats to withdraw from NATO, which is accompanied by the more practical concern that he would be unwilling to participate in collective defense if another ally were attacked, the guarantee pledged by NATO's Article 5.
The Guardian: Ukraine war briefing: Kyiv lays out how ‘Russian satellites help Iran in war’ by Warren Murray
-
Russian satellites made detailed imagery of military facilities and critical sites across the Middle East including US bases and other targets that were attacked by Iran soon afterwards, according to a Ukrainian intelligence assessment. Reuters reported that the assessment cited at least 24 surveys of areas in 11 Middle Eastern countries from 21-31 March, covering 46 “objects” including US and other military bases and airports and oilfields. Within days of being surveyed, military bases and headquarters were targeted by Iranian ballistic missiles and drones, the assessment said.
-
Russian satellites were actively surveying the strait of Hormuz, according to the Ukrainians. Reuters said a western military source and a separate regional security cited their own intelligence in backing up the claims. Reuters said the Iranian foreign ministry had no immediate comment and the defence ministry in Russia did not respond to a request for comment.
-
Reuters said its regional security source confirmed a specific incident where a Russian satellite imaged Prince Sultan airbase in Saudi Arabia days before Iran struck the facility on 27 March, hitting a sophisticated US E-3 Sentry airborne warning and control system aircraft. The next day a Russian satellite passed over again to assess the damage, the assessment said. The Ukrainian report also alleges Russian and Iranian hackers were collaborating in the cyber domain.
El País in English: Aday Mara, the first Spaniard to win the NCAA basketball title in the United States by Guille Álvarez
There couldn’t have been a better birthday present for Aday Mara. He had barely begun celebrating his historic NCAA title when his teammates burst into song, singing “Happy Birthday” at midnight on Tuesday in Indianapolis. The center, born in Zaragoza on April 7, 2005, turned 21 minutes after achieving something unprecedented in Spanish sports: winning the NCAA and doing so as a key player on both offense and defense for the Michigan Wolverines, who triumphed 37 years after their only previous title.
In a packed stadium of 72,000 people, two stood out above the rest: Francisco Javier Mara, at 2.01 meters tall, a former power forward in the Spanish ACB league with CAI Zaragoza; and beside him, at 1.92 meters, Angélica “Geli” Gómez, a leading figure in Spanish volleyball with extensive international experience. The parents of this young talent, the patient architects of his magnificent emotional and competitive intelligence. Visibly moved, with tears in their eyes, they embraced the gentle giant, standing at 2.21 meters and destined to be one of the leading figures in Spanish basketball in the years to come.
“When I was in Spain, I barely knew what this was. I only followed European basketball and the NBA. It wasn’t until I got to UCLA that I realized the enormous influence and interest that the NCAA and these kinds of games generated, but I never thought this would happen to me; it’s a complete surprise,” the Aragonese player reflected during the title celebrations. His phone was already buzzing before the games, while he tried to take his usual nap, and it exploded after the championship win. Among the ocean of messages, the ones that will make him happiest are those from his idols, the Gasol brothers.
