by Lowell
Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Saturday, May 30.
- Antarctic Ocean Reveals New Signs of Rapid Melt of Ancient Ice, Clues About Future Sea Level Rise (We need to get off fossil fuels on an emergency basis. And no, denying the problem isn’t going to solve it.)
- Economic Giants Are Restarting. Here’s What It Means for Climate Change. (“Want to know whether the world can avert catastrophe? Watch the recovery plans coming out now in Europe, China and the United States.”)
- Merkel rebuffs Trump invitation to G7 summit
- China vows to ‘smash’ any Taiwan independence move as Trump weighs sanctions
- Global report: new clues about how coronavirus formed as US severs ties with WHO (“The US-based scientists said this ability could have been acquired from a virus found in pangolins – a scaly mammal that is one of the most illegally trafficked animals on the planet.” We need to immediately stop trafficking pangolins and every other animal. First of all, it’s appalling, cruel, destructive, etc. in its own right. Second, it can lead to viruses like COVID-19 jumping to humans.)
- Coronavirus live news: India reports record daily rise in infections (“Afghanistan similarly reports worst day yet; Angela Merkel said she will not attend G7 if Trump insists on holding it.”)
- Trump’s China Response Leaves Room to De-Escalate Tensions
- U.S. to Quit WHO; Indonesia Braces for Return: Virus Update
- To punish China, Trump begins to revoke Hong Kong trade privileges
- One in 10 Covid-19 patients with diabetes die within a week, study finds
- Outrage spills across America
- National Guard Summoned to Aid Cities Amid Police Clashes
- Chaos, unrest spreads across the country as thousands demand justice
- Let’s Connect the Dots Between Environmental Injustice and the Coronavirus (“There’s a link between race and class in this country.”)
- Gripped by disease, unemployment and outrage at the police, America plunges into crisis
- Newly Released Transcripts Show Michael Flynn Betrayed the United States
- New Transcript Shows Trump Adviser Michael Flynn Colluding With Russia in 2016 (Yep, there absolutely *was* collusion by the Trump administration with Russia.)
- Flynn urged Russian ambassador to take ‘reciprocal’ actions, transcripts show (“The documents at one point show Flynn engaged in a prolonged discussion with Kislyak over the sanctions the outgoing administration had slapped on Russia hours earlier for its campaign meddling, an apparent effort to convince Moscow not to retaliate and to embrace a new relationship with the incoming Trump team. They show no sign that he condemned Russia’s interference in the 2016 election to Kislyak.”)
- New documents show Flynn told Russian ambassador not to escalate on sanctions
- Flynn Discussed Sanctions at Length With Russian Diplomat, Transcripts Show
- Anything to get reelected: Trump once more stokes violence (“He foments violence and encourages deadly behavior.”)
- Analysis: Trump fuels new tensions in moment of crisis
- Trump’s been ‘glorifying violence’ for years — and he’s gotten away with it
- US anti-vaxxers aim to spread fear over future coronavirus vaccine
- The President’s Warped Definition of Free Speech
- George Floyd Updates: ‘Absolute Chaos’ in Minneapolis as Protests Grow Across U.S. (“Minnesota’s governor said the police and National Guard had been overwhelmed by protests, which raged even after a former police officer was charged with murdering George Floyd.”)
- Trump Is the Looter (“The president is exposing problems in America that most did not want to see.”)
- Trump Can’t Explain Away His Vile ‘Looting’ Tweet
- Trump’s novel reelection strategy? Running against his own government.
- This is the presidency George Wallace never had
- The History Behind ‘When The Looting Starts, The Shooting Starts’
- With ‘shooting’ tweet, Trump inflames rather than soothes tensions
- Trump seeks to explain ‘looting leads to shooting’ tweet that sparked outrage
- Race-Baiter Donald Trump Is America’s THUG-in-Chief (“The president routinely endorses and encourages police brutality, vilifies non-violent protesters of color and spits out racist views.”)
- Trump confronts a culture war of his own making as election looms (“The president finds himself torn between his longtime promotion of law enforcement and his desire to win over black voters.”)
- Supreme Court rejects request from US church to block restrictions on in-person services (Scary that it was only 5-4.)
- Trump’s Attack on Voting by Mail
- Pentagon puts military police on alert to go to Minneapolis
- Protests, some violent, spread in wake of George Floyd death
- How Western media would cover Minneapolis if it happened in another country (“In recent years, the international community has sounded the alarm on the deteriorating political and human rights situation in the United States under the regime of Donald Trump. Now, as the country marks 100,000 deaths from the coronavirus pandemic, the former British colony finds itself in a downward spiral of ethnic violence. The fatigue and paralysis of the international community are evident in its silence, America experts say.”)
- The Lies We Tell About Riots (“How America mystifies the wages of its racism.”)
- Did You Really Think Trump Would Mourn With Us? (“The president’s indifference to collective grieving is of a piece with a political movement that denies our collective ties.”)
- Minneapolis, COVID-19, and Trump’s Failure to See a Crisis Coming (“Like the coronavirus crisis, the riots following George Floyd’s death stemmed not from treacherous unknowns but from the Trump Administration’s failure to learn from even the most recent past.”)
- A Minneapolis cop, Amy Cooper and Trump — joined in their display of malice
- This rage isn’t just for George Floyd. It’s for every victim of the police like him.
- After Minneapolis, Can Trump’s Law-And-Order Strategy Work? (“In 2016, Trump was able to echo these sentiments from 1989 easily — he was on the outside looking in. But in 2020 it will take more dexterity to run a campaign angry at authority when he is the authority. Once you have promised to end an imagined carnage, only to encounter actual death and societal destruction, the misdirection of your talking points risks exposure.”)
- How the Supreme Court Lets Cops Get Away With Murder (“The courts protected police abuses for years before George Floyd’s death. It’s time to rethink ‘qualified immunity.'”)
- Biden Talks of Racial ‘Open Wound,’ Contrasting With Trump
- Video: Joe Biden to Speak on George Floyd Killing, Minneapolis Protests, Donald Trump’s Racist Tweet(s), etc. This Afternoon (Also, reactions by national and Virginia leaders…)
- SpaceX, NASA to try again for landmark launch of two astronauts from Florida
- Leaked posts show Facebook employees asking the company to remove Trump’s threat of violence
- Former Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin charged with murder in the death of George Floyd
- Obama’s George Floyd statement calls for a “new normal” for black Americans (“This shouldn’t be normal in 2020 America.”)
- Michelle Obama: ‘I’m Exhausted By A Heartbreak That Never Seems To Stop’
- Fox News hosts racist former detective Mark Fuhrman to analyze protests following George Floyd’s killing (“Fuhrman is a Fox News contributor”)
- Lou Dobbs blames “Black churches,” “Black teachers and leaders” for Minneapolis protests (Of course he does.)
- Partygoer at Lake of the Ozarks pool party tests positive for COVID-19, potentially exposing hundreds (That was inevitable.)
- While Twitter Confronts Trump, Mark Zuckerberg Keeps Facebook Out of It (“The companies have similar policies on the limits of what they allow users to post. But Facebook is more permissive when the user is President Trump.”)
- Mark Zuckerberg silent as Trump uses Facebook and Instagram to threaten ‘looting’ will lead to ‘shooting’ (Any list of people who have contributed to the decline of our country has go to include Mark Zuckerberg and his fatally flawed creation, Facebook.)
- Trump Is Doing All of This for Zuckerberg (“In reality, Trump’s salvo on social-media companies has primarily an audience of one: Mark Zuckerberg. And it is already working.”)
- AG Mark Herring – “BREAKING: We won a HUGE case to protect voting rights during the COVID crisis, defeating efforts by conservative activists to restrict voting by mail”
- Symone Sanders and Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney Host African American Young Professionals Virtual Happy Hour in Virginia
- VA Democrats Chair: Trump’s “racist and violent language is the opposite of leadership” (“The onus is on each of us to call out injustice and fight for peace in our country and Commonwealth.”)
- Governor Northam Statement on Recent Deaths of George Floyd, Breyonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery (“I make the commitment to ensure that we continue to address these issues head on, even when it is uncomfortable and difficult”)
- Virginia lawmakers want House and Senate leadership to include USPS in next relief package
- Mayor Stoney, Gov. Northam call for racial justice following death of George Floyd
- Del. Lamont Bagby: We Have to Stop Surprise Medical Bills – Now More than Ever
- Editorial: Riding high in the polls, Northam under fire (All this does is quote two columnists. Also, whether or not the Virginia Mercury is “generally left-leaning,” the author – Bob Lewis – isn’t. Typically cockamamie Roanoke Times editorial.)
- Friday (5/29) Virginia Data on COVID-19 Finds +1,132 Confirmed/Probable Cases (to 42,533), +87 Hospitalizations (to 4,529), +20 Deaths (to 1,358 From Yesterday)
- Coronavirus has infected 100,000 people in D.C., Maryland and Virginia (“That means six in every 1,000 residents have tested positive for the virus. At least 13,000 patients have been hospitalized, according to state data, and 4,284 have died.”)
- As virus-battered D.C. and Northern Virginia reopen, signs of normalcy are scarce (“Beneath a gray-sky morning, the nearly 4 million people of Washington and its Northern Virginia suburbs woke up Friday in communities where, for the first time in 60 days, they were not ordered to stay home — though many did anyway.”)
- Hall: Parole Board on a disturbing path
- Richmond protest turns violent with vehicles burned and shots fired into air; Va. police criticize death of George Floyd in Minneapolis
- Virginia Tech committee: Furloughs, pay cuts remain in play; tuition freeze takes another step
- Dozens of CVS Pharmacies in Virginia Offer Drive Through Testing
- VDH Corrects Zip Code Data, Adds Nearly 6,500 Results to Roanoke’s Tally
- ‘I can’t breathe.’ Black Lives Matter protesters shut down Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel (“Local activists from Black Lives Matter 757 blocked Interstate 64 in Hampton protesting the police restraint death of George Floyd.”)
- Protesters rally against George Floyd’s death outside University Baptist Church, federal courthouse
- Social media teams at Virginia colleges think creatively to engage fans, recruits
- Swimmers, sunbathers few and far between as Hampton beaches reopen
- Dominion Energy will stream the demolition of One James River Plaza starting at 7 a.m. (Next step: demolish the company? LOL)
- To celebrate reopening in Northern Virginia, four friends go (outdoor) bar-hopping
- Streak of nice days on the way as we close out May
