The Overnight News Digest is a nightly series chronicling the eschaton and the fall of the Republic.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Seeing his city on fire would 'devastate' George Floyd, girlfriend says
George Floyd’s family urged protesters to remain peaceful in Minneapolis, the city where the 46-year-old man died after his curbside detention this week and where a second day of demonstrations turned into a night of fires, looting and violence.
“I am heartbroken” by all the unrest that erupted Wednesday night and continued into Thursday, said Floyd’s girlfriend, Courteney Ross, as she took in the mayhem overwhelming her city for many blocks along or near Lake Street and stretching west to the Uptown business district.
“Waking up this morning to see Minneapolis on fire would be something that would devastate Floyd,” said Ross, his girlfriend for the past three years. “He loved the city. He came here [from Houston] and stayed here for the people and the opportunities. … Floyd was a gentle giant. He was about love and about peace.”
Ross said she wants everyone who took to the streets “to know that I understand their frustration. … I want people to protest in a peaceful way.”
Gov. Tim Walz activates Minnesota National Guard; Mayor Jacob Frey declares local emergency in Minneapolis
Gov. Tim Walz activated the Minnesota National Guard to restore order in the wake of protests, riots and looting following George Floyd’s death.
Walz’s order issued Thursday afternoon came after Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey’s calls for assistance after widespread damage across Lake Street Wednesday night. Damage and looting has since spread to St. Paul. […]
“It is time to rebuild. Rebuild the city, rebuild our justice system, and rebuild the relationship between law enforcement and those they’re charged to protect,” Walz said in a statement. “George Floyd’s death should lead to justice and systemic change, not more death and destruction. As George Floyd’s family has said, ‘Floyd would not want people to get hurt. He lived his life protecting people.’ Let’s come together to rebuild, remember, and seek justice for George Floyd”.
The Root
Protests Erupt in Minneapolis for 2nd Straight Night after Death of George Floyd; All 4 Officers Involved Identified
Parts of Minneapolis were still smoldering Thursday morning as the city awakened from a second night of violent clashes between police and thousands of protesters, enraged by the death of 46-year-old George Floyd at the hands of four officers Monday.
As the Star Tribune reports, Wednesday night’s protests erupted in violence in certain parts of the city. While protests outside of the South Side police station were mostly peaceful, around E. Lake Street and Minnehaha Avenue, long-simmering anger at the police and lack of accountability came to a head. Some protesters were filmed damaging property and taking items out of stores, while MPD launched flash-bang grenades, sprayed tear gas and shot other projectiles at demonstrators.
One person was fatally shot during the protests. According to the Star Tribune, the suspect in the shooting is a pawn shop store owner who suspected the victim was burglarizing his store. Police have not yet released numbers on the number of people arrested Wednesday night.
The Washington Post
‘Nothing short of murder’: After officers allegedly suffocate a suspect, condemnation grows
Condemnation rained down Thursday on the four Minneapolis police officers involved in the death of George Floyd this week, as local officials, police organizations and … Trump denounced the incident as a tragic and unacceptable case of police brutality.
Trump vowed a federal investigation of the incident, which rose to national attention after a bystander’s video showing then-officer Derek Chauvin holding Floyd in a prolonged and illegal hold, his knee on the black man’s neck, as a crowd of onlookers begs for Floyd’s life and he gasps: “I can’t breathe.”
D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham on Thursday said the officers’ actions were “nothing short of murder” — echoing law enforcement leaders nationwide who were unusually quick to denounce the use of force and side with activists who called it an outrageous abuse of power.
‘Zombie fires’ are erupting in Alaska and likely Siberia, signaling severe Arctic fire season may lie ahead
The bitterly cold Arctic winter typically snuffs out the seasonal wildfires that erupt in this region. But every once in a while, a wildfire comes along that refuses to die.
These blazes, known as “zombie fires” or “holdover fires,” can burrow into the rich organic material beneath the surface, such as the vast peatlands that ring the Arctic, and smolder under the snowpack throughout the frigid winter.
With the Siberian Arctic seeing record warm conditions in recent weeks and months, scientists monitoring Arctic wildfire trends are becoming more convinced that some of the blazes erupting in the Arctic this spring are actually left over from last summer.
CBS News
Stacey Abrams' voting rights group to track absentee ballot problems in Georgia
The group founded by former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams is launching a new initiative to reach out to Georgia voters to track the stories of those who have had trouble getting their absentee ballots for the June 9th primary election.
Fair Fight PAC, is launching its outreach efforts Thursday, over social media. It will be asking voters who have not received ballots to contact Fair Fight's voter protection team to talk about their experiences. In a statement to CBS News before the launch, Fair Fight voter protection director Liza Conrad said the primary "has been marred by postponed elections and absentee ballot request forms riddled with errors, causing voter confusion."
The COVID-19 pandemic caused the primary to be delayed twice, and to help protect voters from the spread of the virus, the state decided to mail absentee ballot request forms to all of the state's 6.9 million active voters, a process that has suffered a few setbacks.
Minneapolis releases transcript of George Floyd 911 call
A transcript of the 911 call made Monday night during George Floyd's arrest has been released by the City of Minneapolis. According to the transcript, the caller told the dispatcher there was a "tall guy" who was "awfully drunk and he's not in control of himself."
Floyd, 46, died after a police officer kept his knee on his neck for several minutes while he cried out that he couldn't breathe, an incident caught on camera that has sparked nationwide protests. Floyd was being taken into custody on suspicion of forgery.
Floyd's family has called for the officers involved to be charged, saying his death was "clearly murder."
Los Angeles Times
Coronavirus cases spiked after these counties reopened. Now, officials are scaling back
Sonoma County was one of the first regions in California to begin reopening after months of restrictions aimed at controlling the spread of the coronavirus.
Public health officials loosened constraints on construction, car sales and landscaping services in early May. A week later, they began allowing retail stores to reopen for curbside pickup and delivery. Last week, outdoor dining, summer camps, drive-in religious services and other ceremonies were allowed to resume.
Then, coronavirus cases began rising again, forcing officials to slow the county’s efforts to reopen.
Coronavirus ravages poorer L.A. communities while slowing in wealthier ones, data show
A major shift was already underway last month as coronavirus deaths were rising across Los Angeles County and officials were trying desperately to prevent a surge in cases.
In mid-April, while officials urged people to stay home, limit shopping trips and wear masks, infection rates in poor communities for the first time overtook wealthy ones, a Times analysis of county health data shows.
Confirmed cases per capita diverged on April 17 and the gap has kept growing since. The analysis found the virus is increasingly ravaging predominantly black and Latino neighborhoods with higher poverty levels, while wealthier, majority-white enclaves that initially reported some of the highest infection rates see much slower growth.
AP News
Rising US job losses stir fears of lasting economic damage
The coronavirus crisis threw at least 2.1 million Americans out of work last week despite the gradual reopening of businesses around the country, stoking fears Thursday that the scourge is doing deep and potentially long-lasting damage to the U.S. economy.
Despite a few glimmers of hope, most of the latest economic news from around the globe was likewise grim, as some of the world’s most populous countries reported rising infections and deaths. The confirmed U.S. death toll has surpassed 100,000, the highest in the world.
The latest job-loss figures from the U.S. Labor Department bring to 41 million the running total of Americans who have filed for unemployment benefits since the coronavirus shutdowns took hold in mid-March.
Court rejects bid to revive cancelled US pipeline program
A federal appeals court on Thursday turned down the Trump administration’s request to revive a permit program for new oil and gas pipelines, an outcome that industry representatives said could delay more than 70 projects across the U.S. and cost companies up to $2 billion.
The case originated with a challenge by environmentalists to the Keystone XL crude oil pipeline from the oil sands region of Canada to the U.S. It’s now affecting oil and gas pipeline proposals across the nation.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permitting program allows pipelines to be built across streams and wetlands with minimal review if they meet certain criteria. Environmental groups contend the program, known as Nationwide Permit 12, leaves companies unaccountable for damage done to water bodies during construction.
The Guardian
Boris Johnson brushes off Tory revolt over Dominic Cummings
Boris Johnson has brushed aside a growing revolt of almost 100 of his own MPs and defied ongoing calls for Dominic Cummings to be sacked, despite a police investigation that failed to exonerate him for a potential breach of lockdown.
The prime minister was again besieged by questions about his chief adviser as the crisis overshadowed his decision to cautiously ease the lockdown in England, which will require millions of citizens to abide by the letter and spirit of new guidelines.
Johnson said the matter was closed after Durham police concluded Cummings may have broken lockdown rules but decided they would take no action against him.
Climate crisis making world’s forests shorter and younger, study finds
Climate breakdown and the mass felling of trees has made the world’s forests significantly shorter and younger overall, an analysis shows.
The trend is expected to continue, scientists say, with worrying consequences for the ability of forests to store carbon and mitigate the climate emergency and for the endangered wildlife that depends on rich, ancient forests.
The analysis of more than 150 previous studies found the death rate of trees has increased, doubling in North America and significantly increasing in the Amazon, for example. The impact of forest destruction had cut the area of old growth forest by a third since 1900, the researchers said.
Stuff
Coronavirus: Just one active Covid-19 case in NZ, no new cases on Friday
Friday marks another day with no new Covid-19 cases, and the number of active cases has reduced to just one.
The Ministry of Health confirmed in a statement that the total confirmed and probable cases remained at 1504 - 1154 of which are confirmed, the remainder are probable.
A new case hasn't been reported for seven days. An additional seven cases have recovered, taking the total number of recovered cases to 1481. There are no additional deaths to report. The country's death toll grew by on one Thursday.
The Atlantic
This Summer Will Scar Young Americans for Life
[…] Millions of younger Americans are facing an idle, empty summer, meaning lost earnings and work experience, missed hours of education, and unmade professional networks, as well as a whole lot of stress and boredom. The pandemic and the recession it has caused are forcing an unwanted communal caesura on Generation Z. And it threatens to leave scars that might take a lifetime to fade.
Young adults, those aged roughly 16 to 24, are in a delicate transition. Generally, kids go to school. Adults work, in the home or outside of it. But teens and 20-somethings? They go to school, they enroll in training programs, they work, and they do some combination of those things—and sometimes they do very little at all.
But the coronavirus and the economic depression have forced dramatic vocational changes on the young. Young workers were heavily concentrated in the hardest-hit industries, including food service, hospitality, retail, and leisure. Millions of jobs at mall kiosks, concert venues, movie theaters, and sandwich shops have disappeared. Moreover, teenagers and people in their early 20s normally pick up millions of seasonal jobs in the warmer months, doing things like landscaping, lifeguarding, camp-counseling, waiting tables, and selling food at sports stadiums. Much of that work is gone too.
The Advantage of a Biden Shadow Cabinet
Joe Biden beat a rival in the Democratic primary whose slogan was “Not me, us.” Now a growing number of Democrats believe that Biden should adopt Bernie Sanders’s rallying cry for himself—with a twist.
For Sanders, “Not me, us” conveyed that he viewed himself as the voice and vessel of a mass movement. That’s not a realistic aspiration for Biden, but the slogan could symbolize a compelling alternative role. The “us” wouldn’t be his passionate grassroots following; it would be a new generation of diverse public officials he would promise to bring into government with him if he’s elected.
To run on this message, Biden could identify the officials he would appoint to many of the top Cabinet positions in his administration—a roster that would inevitably include several of his competitors for the 2020 Democratic nomination. That approach would cast Biden less as a singular savior after the bruising conflicts of the Donald Trump years than as the convener of a generational transition in national leadership.
NPR News
Pence Chief Of Staff Owns Stocks That Could Conflict With Coronavirus Response
Marc Short, the chief of staff to Vice President Pence, owns between $506,043 and $1.64 million worth of individual stocks in companies doing work related to the Trump administration's pandemic response — holdings that could run afoul of conflict of interest laws.
Many of the medical, pharmaceutical and manufacturing companies – including 3M, Abbott Laboratories, Gilead Sciences, Procter & Gamble, Medtronic, Bristol Myers Squibb and Johnson & Johnson – in which Short and his wife hold stock have been directly affected by or involved in the work of the coronavirus task force chaired by Pence.
14 Million People In Latin America, Caribbean At Risk Of Hunger, U.N. Report Says
The coronavirus pandemic has put nearly 14 million people in the Caribbean and Latin America at risk of missing meals, according to a report released Wednesday from the U.N.'s World Food Programme.
The virus has spread quickly in the region in recent weeks, with Latin America surpassing Europe and the United States in its daily numbers of new coronavirus cases reported.
The Americas have become the "epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic," the Pan American Health Organization said earlier this week.
Health officials have even warned of a potential humanitarian crisis in Haiti due to a rising number of cases.
CNN
Republican operatives worry Trump will lose both the presidency and Senate majority
A little more than three months ago, as Democrats cast their ballots in the Nevada caucuses, Republicans felt confident about their chances in 2020. The coronavirus seemed a distant, far-off threat. Democrats appeared poised to nominate a self-described socialist for president. The stock market was near a record high. The economy was roaring. … Donald Trump looked well-positioned to win a second term, and perhaps pull enough incumbent Republicans along with him to hold the party's majority in the Senate. Today, that view has drastically changed.
"Put it this way, I am very glad my boss isn't on the ballot this cycle," said one high-ranking GOP Senate aide.
Republican strategists are increasingly worried that Trump is headed for defeat in November and that he may drag other Republicans down with him.
China approves controversial national security law for Hong Kong
China's legislature has approved a proposal to impose a highly contentious national security law in Hong Kong, in an unprecedented move that critics say threatens fundamental political freedoms and civil liberties in the semi-autonomous territory.
The country's rubber-stamp parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC), nearly unanimously approved the resolution Thursday to introduce the sweeping security legislation, which bans secession, subversion of state power, terrorism, foreign intervention and allows mainland China's state security agencies to operate in the city.
Only one delegate voted against the proposal, while 2,878 voted for and six abstained.
UPI
Antarctic ice sheets can retreat as fast 165 feet per day
Antarctic ice sheets can retreat much faster than modern satellite measurements suggest, new research shows.
According to a survey of ridge patterns along the Antarctica seafloor -- published Thursday in the journal Science -- the continent's ice sheets can retreat upwards of 165 feet per day.
"By examining the past footprint of the ice sheet and looking at sets of ridges on the seafloor, we were able to obtain new evidence on maximum past ice retreat rates, which are very much faster than those observed in even the most sensitive parts of Antarctica today," Julian Dowdeswell, director of the Scott Polar Research Institute at the University of Cambridge, said in a news release.
Pending U.S. home sales see largest drop since 2001, figures show
Pending U.S. home sales -- those based on contract signings -- fell 34 percent in April compared to the same month in 2019, an industry report said Thursday.
The National Association of Realtors said pending April home sales fell 21.8 percent compared to March, a steeper-than-expected decline. The latest numbers represent the greatest decline in pending home sales since the NAR began keeping track in January 2001.
"With nearly all states under stay-at-home orders in April, it is no surprise to see the markedly reduced activity in signing contracts for home purchases," Lawrence Yun, NAR's chief economist, said.
Deutsche Welle
UN condemns US police killing of George Floyd
UN Human Rights chief Michelle Bachelet on Thursday condemned the death of a man at the hands of police, urging US authorities to take "serious action" to stop the killings of unarmed African Americans.
On Monday, 46-year-old restaurant worker George Floyd was handcuffed and placed on the ground by police officers outside of a store, when one of them pressed his knee on Floyd's neck for more than five uninterrupted minutes. […]
"This is the latest in a long line of killings of unarmed African Americans by US police officers and members of the public," Bachelet said, listing of several other high-profile cases of African-American deaths at the hands of police and vigilantes.
UN peacekeepers: Numbers are going down
World powers are becoming increasingly reluctant to commit their forces to UN peacekeeping missions. As a result, others are stepping into the breach. […]
Nearly 90,000 soldiers and police officers are currently taking part in UN peacekeeping deployments. That is a drop of around twenty thousand since 2015.
"Some members of the UN Security Council have the feeling that UN missions are too expensive and achieve too little," says Jaïr van der Lijn, a senior researcher at SIPRI, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, "which is why they want to reduce the budget for peacekeeping missions, with the Trump administration leading the way.”
Nearly 4,000 blue helmets have been killed during peacekeeping missions.
Vox
Joe Biden has a chance to make history on climate change
Two seemingly contradictory developments have unfolded on the left over the past few years.
On the one hand, the broad left-of-center coalition, from climate activists to environmental justice advocates to unions to party leaders in Congress, has come into alignment around an ambitious climate policy platform, focused on sector-specific standards, large-scale public investments, and a commitment to justice for vulnerable workers and communities…
On the other hand, former Vice President Joe Biden effectively won the Democratic primary… He just won without them.
But he will need their help to win in November. Much like Hillary Clinton in 2016, he is polling low with youth voters in key swing states. Especially in a largely online election, in which he is denied the hand-shaking retail politics at which he excels, he will need youth enthusiasm and creativity to break through in a crowded media environment.
The unbearable grief of Black mothers
When one of us loses a child, all of us feel that hurt; vicarious trauma is an integral aspect of Black motherhood.
My grandmother raised children in the legacy of Mamie Till-Mobley, the mother of 14-year-old Emmett Till, who was kidnapped, beaten, mutilated, and dumped in the Tallahatchie River in 1955. My mother grew up in the shadow of Till and the 16th Street Baptist Church bombings, where four Black young girls were killed and many others injured in what was the third bombing in 11 days in 1963. And in a sick twist of fate, I’ve had to carry them all — including the fears of my children becoming the next Trayvon, Tamir, or Aiyana.
These days I turn on the news and I am faced with the murders of Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor — young unarmed Black people at the hands of armed, white men, both in uniform and plainclothes. Then there is the death of George Floyd, who died after several minutes of saying, “I can’t breathe,” pleading for a police officer to stop pressing a knee into the back of his neck during an arrest. I carry these children, too.
Ars Technica
Russian hackers are exploiting bug that gives control of US servers
A Russian hacking group tied to power-grid attacks in Ukraine, the world’s most destructive data wiper worm, and other nefarious Kremlin operations is exploiting a vulnerability that allows it to take control of computers operated by the US government and its partners.
In an advisory published on Thursday, the US National Security Agency said that the Sandworm group was actively exploiting a vulnerability in Exim, an open source mail transfer agent, or MTA, for Unix-based operating systems. Tracked as CVE-2019-10149, the critical bug makes it possible for an unauthenticated remote attacker to send specially crafted emails that execute commands with root privileges. With that, the attacker can install programs of their choosing, modify data, and create new accounts.
A patch CVE-2019-10149 has been available since last June.