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Overnight News Digest August 30, 2022 [1]
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Date: 2022-08-30
Washington Post: Mikhail Gorbachev, last leader of the Soviet Union, dies at 91 by David E. Hoffman
Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, who embarked on a path of radical reform that brought about the end of the Cold War, reversed the direction of the nuclear arms race and relaxed Communist Party controls in hopes of rescuing the faltering Soviet state but instead propelled it toward collapse, died Aug. 30 in Moscow. He was 91. His death was announced by Russian news agencies, citing the government hospital where he was being treated, but no further details were immediately available. For the sheer improbability of his actions and their impact on the late 20th century, Mr. Gorbachev ranks as a towering figure. In 1985, he was chosen to lead a country mired in socialism and stultifying ideology. In six years of cajoling, improvised tactics and increasingly bold risks, Mr. Gorbachev unleashed immense changes that eventually demolished the pillars of the state. The Soviet collapse was not Mr. Gorbachev’s goal, but it may be his greatest legacy. It brought to an end a seven-decade experiment born of Utopian idealism that led to some of the bloodiest human suffering of the century. A costly global confrontation between East and West abruptly ceased to exist. The division of Europe fell away. The tense superpower hair-trigger nuclear standoff was eased, short of Armageddon.
x This Mikhail Gorbachev Pizza Hut commercial is what historians will someday say marked the real end of the cold war and is a masterpiece. pic.twitter.com/CJhZybXVdK — The Wokest Numbersmuncher (@NumbersMuncher) August 30, 2022
Chicago Sun-Times: Day after scathing report, Chicago’s top cop announces changes aimed at giving police officers more time off by Fran Spielman and Tom Schuba
Chicago’s top cop on Tuesday announced changes aimed at cutting back on the controversial practice of canceling days off, a day after the city’s watchdog issued a scathing report showing the police department scheduled nearly 1,200 officers to work at least 11 straight days earlier this year. Long decried by overworked officers, the department’s reliance on cutting time off faced intense scrutiny after three officer suicides rocked the force in July. Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Chicago Police Supt. David Brown had downplayed the scope and impact of the practice but have since taken more sympathetic stances. “While our officers work to safeguard this city, we must also put safeguards in place to protect our officers,” Brown said in a statement announcing the changes. “The health and well-being of our officers is a top priority, and we have taken steps to ensure they have time to rest and re-energize.” Under the new directive, effective immediately, most officers can’t have more than one off day canceled each week, Brown said. But they can still have two off days canceled during certain periods, including the historically violent Memorial Day, July 4th and Labor Day holidays.
New York Times: Biden Calls Out Republicans on Guns and Crime in Pennsylvania Speech by Zolan Kanno-Youngs
WASHINGTON — President Biden gave a forceful defense of the F.B.I. during a speech in Pennsylvania on Tuesday and called out allies of former President Donald J. Trump for failing to condemn those who attacked law enforcement during the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. During a visit to a key swing state, Mr. Biden took what have been political vulnerabilities for the White House — policing and rising crime — and cast them as strengths ahead of the congressional elections in November. “It’s sickening to see the new attacks on the F.B.I.,” Mr. Biden said, referring to some congressional Republicans who have called to “defund” or even “destroy” the F.B.I. over its search of Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home on Aug. 8. “I’m opposed to defunding the police,” the president added, speaking at Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. “I’m also opposed to defunding the F.B.I.”
CNN: Everyone knew Jackson’s water crisis was coming by Zachary B. Wolf
While drought has parched the West and threatens the region’s water supply, in Jackson, Mississippi, it’s deluge that’s overwhelmed the water system and threatens normal life. Flooding taxed the city’s frail water system, leaving many unable to flush toilets. What’s more shocking is that this is becoming a routine occurrence in Jackson. Residents had already been under a boil-water notice since late July. It wasn’t the first time. Freak storms. In February 2021, it was a freak winter storm that froze and burst pipes and left many residents without water for a month. A broken system. In January of this year, the Clarion Ledger published a report from Jerry Mitchell of the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting that detailed the problem: erupting sewer lines unable to deal with rainstorms, leaking 100-year-old pipes, faulty meters, malfunctioning water treatment plants, an understaffed water utility unable to keep up and a lack of money devoted to any one problem, much less all of them.
Guardian: As Americans ditch Covid measures, pandemic worsens for the vulnerable by Eric Berger
In the last few months, Dr Jeannina Smith has seen organ transplant recipients who have been very careful throughout the pandemic venture out for one activity, contract Covid-19 and lose their transplant. “I have been at the bedside of a transplant recipient” who “was very ill and in the hospital, and she got Covid the second time in a healthcare setting”, said Smith, medical director of the infectious disease program at University of Wisconsin Hospitals and Clinics. “She was sobbing because she said, ‘It’s so hard for me to see that people care so little about my life that wearing a mask is too much for them.’” While much of US society has breathed a collective sigh of relief at no longer having to wear a mask in public, that freedom has placed people who are immunocompromised at risk, such as Smith’s patients. Nor are they the only ones. Older adults, the very young and those with long Covid are at greater risk too. So while for many Americans the pandemic increasingly feels over, for others – often the most vulnerable – it rages on.
BBC News: Brazil election: Bolsonaro and Lula trade insults in first debate
Brazil's far-right President, Jair Bolsonaro, and left-wing former leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva have taken part in a fiery first television debate ahead of October's general election. Mr Bolsonaro accused the ex-president of having led the most corrupt government in Brazil's history. Lula, in turn, said Mr Bolsonaro had destroyed Brazil. Opinion polls suggest Lula - who served as president from 2003 to 2010 - is ahead in the election race. But the gap between the two candidates seems to be narrowing. On Sunday, the two frontrunners appeared on TV in São Paulo along with four other presidential candidates.
AlJazeera: Zelenskyy warns Russian forces amid southern Ukraine offensive
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged Russian soldiers to flee for their lives after his forces launched an offensive to retake southern Ukraine, but Moscow said it had repulsed the attack and inflicted heavy losses on Kyiv’s troops. Ukraine said on Monday its ground forces had gone on the offensive for the first time after a long period of aerial raids on Russian supply lines, especially ammunition dumps and bridges across the strategically important River Dnieper. “If they want to survive, it’s time for the Russian military to run away. Go home,” Zelenskyy said in a late-night address. “Ukraine is taking back its own [land],” he said, adding that he would not disclose Kyiv’s battle plans.
MSNBC: Pakistan's flooding crisis highlights the cruel reality of climate catastrophe an opinion by Natasha Noman
A third of Pakistan is submerged, an area tantamount to the size of the United Kingdom, as the country suffers devastating floods. Around 33 million people are displaced (roughly the population of California, the most populous state), and over a thousand are dead. Images show children sleeping on rags on the floors of government buildings after having watched their homes get demolished and, in some cases, loved ones die. Why, then, has the world not mobilized a humanitarian response equivalent to that for Ukraine — where, incidentally, around 12 million people have been displaced, or around a third of the number in Pakistan? The uncomfortable answer is: racism. Were the entirety of the U.K. submerged, the global outcry, the fear around the impacts of climate change and the humanitarian response would likely be entirely different beasts. Deprioritizing crises that affect Black and brown people might make them more tolerable for the industrialized world in the short term, but it is a surefire way to amplify climate-related fallout in the long run, making the world more violent and less inhabitable for all of us.
Deutsche Welle: Iraq's political crisis: Where to now, after latest violence? By Cathrin Schaer and Abbas al-Khashali
Iraq's capital, Baghdad, is calm again after a night filled with the sound of rockets and gunfire. Overnight on Monday, one of the traditionally most secure parts of Baghdad was the scene of fighting between local militias and state security forces. The Green Zone, also known as the international zone and home to parliament buildings, ministers' compounds and heavily guarded foreign embassies, was invaded by supporters of the influential Iraqi cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr. Apparently frustrated after months of political gridlock and a failure to form a new government, al-Sadr, a phlegmatic figure, gave a speech in which he said he was quitting politics altogether. Although this is not the first time that al-Sadr has resigned from public life like this, in his speech he also expressed concerns that he might be assassinated. As a consequence of his speech, his followers, who were already protesting the state of Iraqi politics, breached security in the Green Zone and broke into government buildings.
Washington Post: Serena Williams insists audiences see her, not just her stats a perspective by Robin Givhan
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