Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, current leader Neon Vincent, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, Interceptor7, Magnifico, annetteboardman, jck, and Besame. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) Man Oh Man, wader, palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse (RIP), ek hornbeck, 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.
Chicago Tribune: George Floyd fallout: Lightfoot asks Chicago to ‘stand for peace’ in TV address; National Guard to deploy to suburbs tonight; thousands march peacefully on South, North sides
In a televised speech aimed at calming a city rocked by widespread looting, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced a $10 million grant fund for looted businesses and promised to implement a series of long-stalled police reforms.
“If there is to be an uprising, let it be for peace. I call on all people of goodwill, young, old, black, brown, white, Asian, from all faith traditions, to rise up with me for peace,” Lightfoot said from her City Hall office. “Stand for peace.”
The mayor’s address came after an earlier announcement that Chicago will move ahead with looser coronavirus restrictions as planned on Wednesday despite widespread looting and heightened public health concerns brought on by thousands of people protesting in tight groups across the city. But Lightfoot said she hasn’t yet determined when full access to the city’s downtown will be restored to the public.
Chicago Sun-Times: ‘Black-Owned Business’ signs show solidarity in communities hit hard by looting by Evan F. Moore
After large-scale protests in response to the death of George Floyd devolved into violence and looting downtown and in surrounding neighborhoods, many small businesses in Chicago have been hurt by property damage and inventory loss.
Keeana Barber, owner and CEO of WDB Marketing Group, said she was distressed to see businesses damaged, especially knowing that many black-owned businesses were among those affected. After a conversation with a friend about what could be done to help protect local businesses, Barber realized she could use her unique skill set and resources to help.
The Roseland native enlisted her company’s printing services to produce signs that read “Black-Owned Business” and “Don’t Destroy Our Black Business,” and set to work distributing them to stores, particularly on the hard-hit South and West sides.
Houston Chronicle: Memorial and funeral service details released for George Floyd funeral by Marcy de Luna
Fort Bend Memorial Planning Center on Tuesday announced details regarding a memorial service and celebration of life honoring George Floyd.
On Monday, June 8, a public memorial will be held from 12 to 6 p.m. at The Fountain of Praise Church at 13950 Hillcroft Ave.
A private service at an undisclosed location is slotted for the following day, June 9, at 11 a.m., after a June 4 memorial in Minneapolis, where Floyd died in police custody last week, and a June 6 memorial service in North Carolina, where he was born.
All expenses for the funeral services are being handled by former professional boxer Floyd Mayweather, according to the release.
Buzzfeed: This Is What It Looked Like The Last Time New York City Had A Curfew by Kate Bubacz
The last time New York City had a curfew, it was imposed by then-mayor Fiorello La Guardia during World War II. It was in response to what was known as the Harlem riots, which started on Aug. 1, 1943, when a young Army private was shot by a white police officer in the Hotel Braddock uptown.
Private Robert Bandy, a young black man on leave from his New Jersey posting, interfered in the arrest of a woman at the hotel and got into a fight with the white police officer. The officer alleged that Bandy tried to grab his nightstick, causing him to discharge his gun. Bandy was wounded in the shoulder and taken to the hospital, but rumors that he had been killed sparked protests.
Tensions around race were already running high, with Jim Crow laws still commonplace in the South. At the same time, black service members were being treated as second-class citizens in segregated military units, despite their contributions to the ongoing war effort. The allegation that a white officer had shot a black soldier resulted in two days of riots, during which hundreds were injured, scores arrested, and dozens of stores — primarily white-owned ones — destroyed.
Boston Globe: Stand down, Mr. President by The Editorial Board
“Let me say this to the president of the United States on behalf of the police chiefs in this country,” said Art Acevedo, the head of the City of Houston’s police force, on Monday afternoon on CNN after learning that President Trump had called on governors to “dominate” protestors. “Please, if you don’t have something constructive to say, keep your mouth shut.”
Spoiler alert: The president, speaking from the Rose Garden and then in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Washington Monday night, did not heed Acevedo’s advice.
Instead, he doubled down on his vitriolic rhetoric, urging governors to militarize their response to protests with the National Guard and threatening to send military troops to American cities. In D.C. Monday night, the president put his ostensible power on display, in what amounted to the equivalent of flexing one’s biceps to prove you can successfully storm the beaches at Normandy. Outside the White House, federal law enforcement officers fired rubber bullets and tear gas at peaceful protestors on live television, all so he could pose for a photo with a group of all-white leaders, brandishing a bible as a stage prop. Trump promised, “As we speak, I am dispatching thousands and thousands of heavily armed soldiers, military personnel, and law enforcement officers to stop the rioting, looting, vandalism, assaults, and the wanton destruction of property” in the nation’s capitol.
(Yeah, there’s some deescalation and even “PR” on both sides, He listened...that’s something, I suppose.)
New York Times: Protesters Weigh Coronavirus Risks on Crowded Streets: Live Updates
The protests against police brutality and racism that have spread across the United States since the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis have spurred fears that they could result in a resurgence of the virus. Concerns have forced people sympathetic to the movement to weigh the risks of attending demonstrations, where there is often little social distancing.
“The police violence against black people — that’s a pandemic, too,” said Kelli Ann Thomas, 31, a community organizer who joined protests in Miami. “People are willing to risk their lives, to risk their health, to show solidarity with black people.”
Because of delays between exposure to the virus and symptoms, the effects of the protests on the spread of the virus will not be known for several weeks. But epidemiologists said the protests would almost certainly lead to more cases.
Health experts know that the virus is far less likely to be spread outdoors than indoors. And masks reduce the chance of transmitting respiratory droplets that contain the virus. But yelling, shouting and singing can increase how far those droplets are projected. Crowds also increase the risk of transmission. Police tactics such as spraying tear gas — which causes people to cough — herding protesters into smaller areas for crowd control and placing arrested individuals in buses, vans and holding cells also increase the risk of infection.
Reuters: After Facebook staff walkout, Zuckerberg defends no action on Trump posts by Katie Paul and Elizabeth Culliford
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told employees on Tuesday that he stood by his decision not to challenge inflammatory posts by U.S. President Donald Trump, refusing to give ground a day after staff members staged a rare public protest.
A group of Facebook employees - nearly all of them working at home due to the coronavirus pandemic - walked off the job on Monday. They complained the company should have acted against Trump’s posts containing the phrase “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
Zuckerberg told employees on a video chat that Facebook had conducted a thorough review and was right to leave the posts unchallenged, a company spokeswoman said.
She said Zuckerberg also acknowledged the decision had upset many employees and said the company was looking into “non-binary” options beyond either leaving up such posts or taking them down.
South China Morning Post: China plays it cool despite ‘alarm over India border stand-off’ by Liu Zhen and Jun Mai
China may be playing down its
border tensions with India but Beijing is alarmed by a stand-off in the Himalayas because of its proximity to Xinjiang and Tibet, analysts said on Tuesday.
It is not clear how the stand-off erupted on May 5 in the Galwan River valley on the border between Ladakh in Indian-administered Kashmir and China-administered Aksai Chin.
There have been several clashes in multiple spots along the border in the past month.
According to Associated Press, several Indian and Chinese soldiers were wounded in a high-altitude cross-border clash involving fistfights and stone-throwing at a remote but strategically important mountain pass near Tibet, the Indian Army said last month.
Neither country has protested over the clashes and Beijing said the situation was under control.
Guardian: Boris Johnson lays out visa offer to nearly 3m Hong Kong citizens by Patrick Wintour
Boris Johnson has opened the path to what he called one of the “biggest changes” ever to the British visa system, stating he was ready to offer a right to live and work in the UK to any of the nearly 3 million Hong Kong citizens eligible for a British National Overseas passport.
Ministers have been ambivalent since last Thursday on whether the government’s offer of an extendable 12-month visa would be available only to the 350,000 current BNO passport holders in Hong Kong, or would also include the more than 2.5 million eligible to apply for the passport.
In the Commons on Tuesday the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, implied the offer was only available to the narrower group stressing the government needed to be realistic about what it could offer. However, writing in Wednesday’s edition of the Times, Johnson appeared to make a far wider offer to all those eligible to hold a BNO passport.
Hey, BoJo, can I qualify for that? ‘Cause this shit over here…
Reuters: Protests over George Floyd's death expose raw race relations worldwide by Anthony Deutsch and Ingrid Melander
AMSTERDAM/MADRID (Reuters) - Images of a white police officer kneeling on the neck of African-American George Floyd, who then died, have sparked protests from Amsterdam to Nairobi, but they also expose deeper grievances among demonstrators over strained race relations in their own countries.
With violent clashes between protesters and authorities raging in the United States, anti-police-brutality activists gathered by the thousands in support of the Black Lives Matter movement in various European and African cities.
Peaceful protesters highlighted allegations of abuse of black prisoners by their jailers, social and economic inequality, and institutional racism lingering from the colonial pasts of the Netherlands, Britain and France.
“If you want to believe that we in the Netherlands do not have a problem with race, you should go ahead and go home,” Jennifer Tosch, founder of Black Heritage Amsterdam Tours, told a crowd in Amsterdam, from where the Dutch West India Company operated ships estimated to have traded 500,000 slaves in the 1600s and 1700s.
Don’t forget that Meteor Blades is hosting a Tuesday night owls thread tonight.
Everyone have a good and safe evening.