Vox Sentences - Guilty on all 3 counts

• Idriss Déby, the 68-year-old field marshall who led Chad as president for 30 years and this week won a sixth consecutive election term, was killed on Monday after what the state military called “clashes with rebels on the front lines.” [BBC]
• Rebels had been after Déby’s overthrow since 2016. The country will now be led by a transitional military council for 18 months before holding elections for a new leadership and parliament. A 14-day period of mourning was announced, along with an overnight curfew and the immediate closure of borders. [CBS News / Ibtissen Guenfoud]
• Déby’s death may make waves across the Central African region. For decades, the president had been regarded as a key bulwark to Boko Haram advances, along with Cameroon and Nigeria. Experts worry the disintegration of Chadian pressure on Boko Haram will embolden the militant group and increase its access to weapons and arms. [CNN / By Niamh Kennedy, Stephanie Busari, Tim Lister, and Stephanie Halasz]
• J. Peter Pham, a special envoy under former President Donald Trump, told the Washington Post that Déby’s death will also have implications on the way Western states conduct counterterrorism efforts in the region. France in particular has stationed thousands of troops in the capital, N’Djamena.  [Washington Post / Max Bearak]
• “Whatever else one might say about Déby,” Pham told the Post, “he had made himself an indispensable link. ... If his death results in a vacuum, these militants will undoubtedly exploit it.” [Washington Post / Max Bearak]

[Axios / Margaret Talev]

• Russia is holding military exercises that will take up roughly 27 percent of the Black Sea through October, a move that threatens to crush the Ukrainian economy. It’s a campaign condemned by the U.S. State Department as a blatant attempt to “destabilize Ukraine” and to effectively wrestle control of the Black Sea. [Axios / Jonathan Swan and Zachary Basu]
• China will roll out the world’s first official state-backed digital currency. At least 60 countries have been exploring such a possibility. Domestic economists don't have to contend with any new American currency forms just yet. The US hasn’t begun to field that economic question. [Axios / Bethany Allen-Ibrahimian]
• Walter Mondale, once a liberal leader in Washington, died on Monday at age 93. He served as Jimmy Carter’s vice president and was the Democratic nominee in the 1984 presidential election. [Rolling Stone / John Blistein]