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: Facing stiff headwinds, Lightfoot launches campaign for a second term by Fran Spielman
Facing stiff headwinds, Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Tuesday started her uphill climb to reelection with a River North fundraiser and a video embracing the combativeness that some view as her greatest weakness.
The piece-by-piece rollout of a campaign that has long been a given will continue on Wednesday with five campaign stops — in Ashburn, Greater Grand Crossing, Little Village, Garfield Park and Boystown.
“They say I’m tough. They say I get angry. They say sometimes, I take things personally. You know what I say? They’re absolutely right,” Lightfoot says in the video, an updated version of the infamous fuzzy sweater commercial that a dictatorial Mayor Rahm Emanuel used to win a second term.
“When we fight for change, confront a global pandemic, work to keep kids in school, take on guns and gangs, systemic inequality and political corruption only to have powerful forces try and stop progress for Chicago, of course I take it personal — for our city. Change doesn’t happen without a fight. It’s hard. It takes time. And I’ll be the first to admit: I’m just not the most patient person. I’m only human. And I guess sometimes, it shows. But just because some may not always like my delivery, doesn’t mean we’re not delivering.”
Washington Post: Hopes for quick gun deal fade as Senate negotiators plead for patience by Mike DeBonis
Senators buckled down Tuesday for days of additional negotiations on a response to recent high-profile mass shootings, retreating from earlier calls for quick action even as they expressed optimism that a long-elusive deal to address gun violence might eventually be possible.
The calls for patience came as a small bipartisan group of senators continues delicate talks on a legislative package that could include the first significant new federal gun restrictions in three decades, along with provisions dealing with school security and mental health. But they are fighting a tide of recent history demonstrating that Congress’s appetite for action tends to quickly fade as tragedies such as the killings in
Buffalo and
Uvalde, Tex., last month fade from the headlines.
Last month, as the Senate prepared to leave Washington for a holiday recess days after the Uvalde shooter killed 19 fourth-graders and two teachers, Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) upbraided Republican opponents of gun control and said he would move to a vote if the talks did not “bear fruit in a short period of time.”
Mother Jones: Who Exactly Is Trapped in an “Echo Chamber”? by Ali Breland
TV pundits, op-ed columnists, and think-piece writers want the platonic ideal. A sagely figure who views politics from every angle—unconfined by the circumstantial common sense inscribed by their upbringing, geography, or social media algorithm. A perfect Homo omniviewpointicus. This is a person who does not live in a single “echo chamber.” This is a person of supreme rationality. This is a person who does not exist.
Pundits loathe echo chambers. Nicholas Kristof in a 2016 column wrote a warning of the “dangers of echo chambers on campus.” In 2012, Jennifer Rubin wondered “is the liberal echo chamber a trap?” And in 2020, David Brooks derided the “anti-Trump echo chamber.” The ire is assumed to be so self-evident that the problem is barely explained.
Usually, an echo chamber is described as a winnowed world of homogeneous viewpoints. Take Kristof’s critique. He cites a study by legal professor Cass Sunstein, which found that “when liberal judges happened to be temporarily put on a panel with other liberals, they usually swung leftward,” and vice versa with conservative judges. “It’s the judicial equivalent of a mob mentality,” Kristof concludes. Why this is bad, Kristof never explains. He assumes that there is no true enlightenment in this agreement. In fact, it seems whether a policy is good or bad doesn’t matter. The issue is that a consensus came from a place of political bias.
NBC News: FDA advisers vote in favor of authorizing Novavax Covid vaccine By Aria Bendix
An independent advisory group to the Food and Drug Administration voted Tuesday in favor of authorizing the Covid vaccine made by drugmaker Novavax for adults ages 18 and older.
Twenty-one members of the committee voted yes, and none voted no; one person abstained. Next, the FDA will decide whether to authorize the shot for emergency use, which would make it the fourth coronavirus vaccine available in the U.S. The FDA often follows the group’s recommendations.
If it is authorized, Novavax's shot would be the only protein-based Covid vaccine distributed in the country. That formulation is more traditional than the ones used in the mRNA shots from Pfizer and Moderna. The FDA has approved several protein-based vaccines in the past, including one for hepatitis B and another for shingles.
Because of that, some of the FDA committee members think it might appeal to U.S. residents who have thus far chosen not to get vaccinated.
New York Times: Yellen Defends Pandemic Spending as Inflation Persists by Alan Rappeport
WASHINGTON — At her confirmation hearing in early 2021, Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen told lawmakers that it was time to “act big” on a pandemic relief package, playing down concerns about deficits at a time of perpetually low interest rates and warning that inaction could mean widespread economic “scarring.”
A year and a half later, prices are soaring and interest rates are marching higher. As a result, Ms. Yellen’s role in crafting and selling the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, which Congress passed in March of last year, is being parsed amid an intensifying blame game to determine who is responsible for the highest rates of inflation in 40 years. After months of pinning rising prices on temporary supply chain problems that would dissipate, Ms. Yellen acknowledged last week that she had gotten it “wrong,” putting the Biden administration on the defensive and thrusting herself into the middle of a political storm.
“I think I was wrong then about the path that inflation would take,” Ms. Yellen said in an interview with CNN, adding that the economy had faced unanticipated “shocks” that increased food and energy prices.
BBC News: Ukraine war: Angela Merkel defends her record on Putin by Patrick Jackson
Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel has defended her record on handling Vladimir Putin in her first major interview since Russia invaded Ukraine.
She said she had "nothing to apologise for" over her response to Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, when she supported sanctions.
She also defended her opposition in office to Ukraine joining Nato.
Mrs Merkel has been accused of leaving Germany vulnerable by pursuing business-led relations with Russia.
The Nord Stream 2 pipeline to carry Russian natural gas directly to Germany was built while she was chancellor and only suspended by her successor, Chancellor Olaf Scholz, shortly before Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February.
Under pressure to impose stringent new sanctions over the invasion, Germany is struggling to reduce its dependence on Russian energy without damaging its own economy.
AlJazeera: Ghani unlikely to have fled Kabul with millions in cash: Report
Former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani almost certainly did not flee Kabul with millions of dollars that disappeared during the Taliban’s military takeover of the capital city, according to a US government watchdog’s interim report published on Monday.
The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) in its interim report said that $5m went missing from the presidential palace and tens of millions of dollars were taken from the vault at the National Directorate of Security.
It was not clear where the money came from or what it was for, “but it was supposedly divided by members of the Presidential Protective Service after the helicopters departed but before the Taliban captured the palace,” it said.
The report said there appears to have been “ample opportunity and effort to plunder Afghan government coffers”.
But, the watchdog added, it “does not have sufficient evidence to determine with certainty whether hundreds of millions of dollars were removed from the country by Afghan officials as the government collapsed or whether any stolen money was provided by the United States”.
Guardian: Plan to ship grain out of Ukraine dealt blow due to mines by Daniel Boffey and Joanna Partridge
A plan mediated by Turkey amid a global food crisis to open shipping corridors out of Ukrainian ports has been dealt a blow as officials in Kyiv said it would take six months to clear the coast of Russian and Ukrainian mines.
As Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, arrived in Ankara on Tuesday, Turkey’s defence minister, Hulusi Akar, said in a statement that his government was making progress with the UN, Russia and Ukraine on reopening ports under Russian blockade in the Black Sea.
Ships leaving Ukrainian ports would be escorted by Turkish naval vessels under the proposal being discussed.
The development appeared to offer some hope as the UN warned that the war in Ukraine – a world’s fourth biggest exporter of grain – was fuelling serious shortages of food around the world and pushing millions of people into famine.
DW: Could North Korea become a breeding ground for new COVID-19 mutations? by Julian Ryall
International health organizations are concerned that despite North Korea's insistence that it has the COVID-19 outbreak under control, limited vaccines, rudimentary medical facilities and the poor health of the general population make the isolated state the ideal environment for new variants of the virus to emerge.
Virologists point out that South Africa, which has an alarmingly high HIV infection rate, has had problems halting the spread of the disease and has been the source of at least one new mutation that has since spread around the world. And while South Africa has accepted outside assistance and aggressively fought the virus, North Korea has opted for isolation and, in the early phases of the pandemic, rebuffed offers of vaccines and other medical equipment.
In mid-May, the government finally admitted what virologists had always assumed: that COVID-19 was spreading rapidly among the local population and earlier reports of unspecified "fevers" across the country were cases of the virus.
Despite those offers of assistance from foreign governments and health agencies, Pyongyang claims that its coronavirus infection rate is in steady decline. On Tuesday, state media reported 61,730 new cases of "fever," bringing the total number of cases since late April to 4.19 million. That is approximately one in six people of the 25.78 million population.
Everyone have a good evening!