by Lowell
Here are a few international, national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Monday, May 8.
- The Massive “Batteries”Hiding Beneath Our Feet (“Aquifer thermal energy storage can heat and cool structures with few emissions.”)
- Hottest Ever April Recorded in Spain, Portugal as Heat Wave Hits Europe (Get off fossil fuels on an emergency basis!)
- Climate change: Vietnam records highest-ever temperature of 44.1C
- Russia rains missiles across Ukraine ahead of May 9 Victory Day holiday
- Is Putin’s Russia Worse Than the Soviet State?
- Russia is sending Soviet era tanks to Ukraine. Experts say they may still be effective
- Latest Ukraine satellite images reveal devastation of Russian invasion
- ‘We can’t afford anything’: Turkey’s cost-of-living crisis threatens Erdogan’s re-election
- Germany unveils plans to add 150GW of solar by 2030, as gas use slumps (“Germany outlines plan to add 150GW of solar by 2030, including agri and floating PV. Meanwhile, gas use slumps by nearly one quarter in a year.” We should do the same.)
- Beijing is destroying the last vestiges of democracy in Hong Kong
- ‘Lack of vision’: UK green energy projects in limbo as grid struggles to keep pace
- Migrants surge US borders as pandemic-era expulsion law sunsets
- Yellen calls invoking 14th Amendment a ‘constitutional crisis’
- Yellen Says No Good Alternative to Congress Lifting Debt Cap
- Yellen warns of ‘economic chaos’ unless Congress raises the debt ceiling
- Senate Democrats Worry Kevin McCarthy Has No Interest in a Deal (“Senate Democrats aren’t really interested in negotiating over raising the debt limit. But they’re certainly less interested when Kevin McCarthy is their negotiating partner.”)
- Why Biden Should Not Negotiate With Kevin McCarthy on the Debt Ceiling
- Biden prepares to take debt ceiling battle to vulnerable GOP lawmakers
- Tanked Biden FCC pick shows influence of dark-money on US politics
- What Conservatives Can’t Say About Clarence Thomas (“Everyone already knows he’s just a conservative activist in a robe”)
- Democrat urges Justice Roberts to act over Clarence Thomas’s ‘tangled web’ (“Senate majority whip and judiciary committee chair Dick Durbin ups pressure on chief justice Roberts to impose new ethics rules”)
- Alarm after lawyer who aided Trump’s 2020 election lie attacks campus voting (“Rightwing lawyer Cleta Mitchell faces criticism after comments to GOP donors urging new rules to make voting harder for students”)
- As 2024 elections near, US media grapples with how to cover Trump (“CNN’s Wednesday town hall with the ex-president could be a warning bell for cable news to not repeat mistakes from 2016”)
- Senate GOP sees Trump as looking increasingly dominant
- There’s only one way to fix gerrymandering (and it’s not through the courts) (“As we examine in a recent report, gerrymandering is made possible by the use of single-member districts, used for the U.S. House and most state races in which voters elect a single official to represent them. Most democracies instead use proportional multi-member districts, in which multiple officials are elected in each legislative district proportionate to votes cast. Single-member districts are uniquely susceptible to gerrymandering; proportional multi-member districts make the practice prohibitively hard.”)
- What has gotten into Republican women? (“GOP women freak out over losing reproductive rights, but embrace cruelty when it’s someone else’s rights at stake”)
- Thomas Zimmer NAILS It: “‘Polarization’…obscures what the key challenge is – the anti-democratic radicalization of the Right” (“Polarization” framing “feeds a nostalgia that is being weaponized by reactionaries, and it allows the Right to deflect and completely distort the picture.”)
- Biden says he would sign gun legislation immediately if he could (Any sane/normal president would.)
- Massacre witness refutes right-wing talking point: ‘It wasn’t mental health that killed these people’ (Every other country in the world has people with mental health problems, but they do NOT have a plethora of high-powered firearms among their citizens.)
- The Gun Industry Wants America’s Malls and Schools to Be War Zones
- “Do Not Watch the Video from Texas…Even for an ER Nurse… It Was Almost Impossible.” (“There is a reason the AR-15 and its ilk was designed the way it was – to maim and kill as efficiently as possible.”)
- Texas gunman’s white supremacist views eyed as possible motive
- Texas Mass Shooter Posted Neo-Nazi Content, FBI Document Reveals (Domestic terrorism.)
- ‘RWDS’: What the Patch Found on the Texas Gunman’s Chest Stands For (“The suspected gunman behind a mass shooting at a Dallas-area mall reportedly wore a patch on his chest that said ‘RWDS’—an acronym for Right Wing Death Squad.”)
- ‘Now it’s God’s fault’: Texas Republican slammed for claiming ‘the almighty’ controls shootings
- Agents reviewing Texas gunman’s extremist social media postings
- BPD: 8 dead, 10 injured when SUV strikes crowd near migrant shelter
- 7 killed by driver near Texas migrant shelter; police say it may have been intentional
- A weekend of tragedy in Texas spotlights two distinctly American political fissures
- Why Texas, a clean energy powerhouse, is about to hit the brakes (“The state’s clean energy boom could be impeded by Texas leaders’ push for legislation that would boost natural gas and place new restrictions on wind and solar projects” So stupid.)
- Scoop: Tucker Carlson ready to torch Fox News
- Sen. Kyrsten Sinema says she has no interest in becoming a Republican
- String of horse deaths before the Kentucky Derby reignites scrutiny about the sport (Horse racing is animal abuse.)
- By trying to demolish DEI initiatives, Va. Republicans dig in on history’s wrong side (“Diversity initiatives exist because injustice indisputably existed and continues. Those initiatives, like all government endeavors, are imperfect, but where abuses exist, address them — legislatively, if necessary.”)
- Meet the Four Newly Minted, Faaaar-Right (100% Pro-Gun, Anti-Abortion, Trumpist, etc.) Virginia Republican Nominees for State Senate, House of Delegates
- ‘Godsend’ caregiver program for Virginians with disabilities set to end this fall
- Youngkin-backed legislators win Virginia Senate nominations
- Millions of dollars are on the table for Virginia to raise awareness of its red flag law
- Support for building solar farms on top of landfills is growing in Virginia
- For ninth straight year, more people move out of Virginia than move in
- Republicans nominate Griffin for House seat that takes in Amherst County and parts of Bedford and Nelson (“He called Democrats ‘communists’ and ‘groomers.’ He will face Democrat Sam Soghor in a district that voted 73% Republican in 2021.”)
- Cycling advocates pan Maryland-Virginia bridge crossing plan as potentially deadly (“So what we’re left with is a plan to flash a blinking light at drivers driving 50 miles an hour to warn them there might be a bike on the bridge and that’s the plan, right? I would describe that as engineering malpractice. I would say that anyone affiliated with a decision like that has no business designing bike or pedestrian infrastructure and should be banned from the practice.”)
- D.C.-area forecast: A warm week with some showers and storms at times (“Tuesday is probably the week’s coolest and wettest day.”)
