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Overnight News Digest July 22, 2025 [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-07-22

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.

Chicago Sun-Times: Mayor Brandon Johnson signs order to snuff out smoking on CTA L trains by Mariah Woelfel

Mayor Brandon Johnson said Tuesday he has “had enough” of cigarette smokers lighting up on L trains as he called the act “unthinkable” and signed an executive order aimed at cracking down on CTA smokers. Johnson said the effort will include placing social workers at CTA stops, starting an anti-smoking campaign on the “detrimental effects of smoking” and tasking city agencies to find other short-term and long-term interventions “to end smoking on our transit system.” The order came as a surprise to Ald. Bill Conway (34th), who introduced a resolution last month calling for “data-driven” enforcement of the city’s ban on CTA smoking.Conway said the mayor did not reach out to him for input or to inform him of th e new plan. “As they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. So I do appreciate that he’s taking it seriously,” Conway said. But Conway criticized the mayor’s approach, saying he doesn’t “really quite know how community meetings or social workers help with the cause.”

Huffpost: Oath Keepers Founder Pardoned By Trump Warns Of ‘Trouble’ Over Lack Of Epstein Files by Sebastian Murdock

The founder of a violent militia group who was pardoned for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol attack by President Donald Trump, warned that Trump faces “trouble” over not releasing documents related to the Jeffrey Epstein case. Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the far-right group the Oath Keepers, has joined a growing chorus of MAGA voices who have expressed anger that Trump hasn’t released more information about Epstein, the disgraced financier who allegedly killed himself in 2019 before he was set to face trial for sex crimes. “I believe 90% of his own base understands that Epstein was up to something and we know that’s the tip of the iceberg,” Rhodes told a crowd at a Comfort Inn in Texas last week, the Daily Beast first reported on Tuesday. Rhodes was referring to Attorney General Pam Bondi’s announcement earlier this month that documents related to Epstein ― including potential information on his co-conspirators ― don’t exist. Trump, a longtime friend of Epstein, has blamed Democrats over what he calls a “hoax.”

Mother Jones: Tulsi Gabbard’s Dangerous Disinformation Campaign Against America by David Corn

The Trump administration has launched a war on former Obama administration officials, and to do so, it has engaged in one of the most egregious and obvious acts of politicizing intelligence in decades. On Friday, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard released formerly classified US intelligence reports about the 2016 election that she said were evidence of an Obama administration “conspiracy to subvert President Trump’s 2016 victory and presidency.” In a hysterical press release, she accused former President Barack Obama and his national security aides of having “manufactured and politicized intelligence to lay the ground for what was essentially a years-long coup against President Trump.” Describing this as a “treasonous” plot, she said she was forwarding documents to the Justice Department, presumably to initiate a criminal investigation. Naturally, she went on Fox News to amplify her allegations against Obama and his advisers. It’s all a fabrication. What’s worse, her skullduggery appears to have been the catalyst for one of President Donald Trump’s most disturbing and dangerous social media posts: An AI-generated video of Obama in the Oval Office visiting a smiling Trump, being manhandled and arrested by FBI agents, and then tossed into a prison cell.

NBC News: Trump sets 15% tariff on Japanese imports as part of investment agreement by Steve Kopack

President Donald Trump said Tuesday on Truth Social that his administration had reached a deal with Japan, one of the largest U.S. trading partners, to lower its tariff rate to 15% as part of a sweeping trade agreement. That rate is lower than the 24% that Trump threatened Japan with on April 2 and the 25% he said he would hit Japanese imports with in a letter on July 7. Before Trump's current term, the effective U.S. tariff rate on Japanese imports was less than 2%, according to World Bank data. Japan’s Foreign Affairs Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the details of the agreement. Aug. 1 is the latest deadline Trump has imposed on countries to make deals to avoid tariff rates that Trump himself had set in dozens of letters he fired off on social media. Even though that deadline had been delayed before, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Tuesday on Fox Business Network that it was a "pretty hard deadline."

Guardian: Global outcry grows over Israel’s killing of starving civilians in Gaza by Peter Beaumont

Israel is facing intensifying international condemnation for its killing of starving Palestinian civilians in Gaza, and its attacks on humanitarian efforts, as the UN secretary general, António Guterres, said the “last lifelines keeping people alive [in the strip] are collapsing”. An angry chorus of senior figures, among them the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, and a senior Catholic cleric, expressed on Tuesday a growing sense of global horror over Israel’s actions. “I spoke again with [the Israeli foreign minister] Gideon Saar to recall our understanding on aid flow and made clear that IDF [Israel Defense Forces]must stop killing people at distribution points,” the EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, wrote on X. “The killing of civilians seeking aid in Gaza is indefensible.” She said “all options were on the table” if Israel does not deliver on aid pledges, but did not say what those options included.

DW: What part did Druze leader al-Hijri play in Syria violence? by Cathrin Schaer

Over the last ten days or so, as deadly violence broke out in the southern Syrian province of Sweida, there was one name that kept coming up: Hikmat al-Hijri. The 60-year-old spiritual leader of Syria's Druze community played a major role in events that saw over 500 people killed and threatened to overturn Syria's fragile transition, after decades ruled by a dictatorship. Al-Hijri's critics have blamed his belligerent attitude towards the new Syrian government for what happened as violence escalated. They describe him as an "unhinged warlord," a power-hungry traitor to his country and a drug smuggler with ties to remnants of the ousted Syrian dictatorship's military. But his fans say the Druze spiritual leader is a "symbol of dignity and nobility," who was right to defend his community against the overbearing new Syrian government and their potentially dangerous followers.

BBC News: Wild life of Ozzy Osbourne, rock's 'prince of darkness'

He was born John Michael Osbourne in the Aston area of Birmingham on 3 December 1948. His father Jack was a toolmaker, while his mother Lillian worked at the Lucas factory, which made car components. He picked up the nickname Ozzy at primary school and it stuck. Aside from gifting him his moniker, school was a dismal experience for young Osbourne. He suffered from dyslexia and what would now be termed attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). He left school at 15 and wandered into a series of random jobs, including some time spent working in a slaughterhouse, which allowed him to play practical jokes in pubs by putting cows' eyeballs in peoples' pints. He even turned his hand to crime but found he had little luck there either. A TV fell on him while he was burgling a house and he later spent six weeks in Birmingham's Winston Green prison after robbing a clothes shop.

Everyone have the best possible evening that you can!

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