Sunday News: “Russia’s first lunar mission in 47 years smashes into the moon in failure”; “Why Hurricane Hilary is so strange — and how it could impact California”; “Biden campaign predicts GOP candidates will ‘out-MAGA each other’ at debate”; Youngkin Praises Right Wingnut Who Believes “males dominate females in the ‘natural world’”

by Lowell

Here are a few international, national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Sunday, August 20.

• How Heat-Shattering Ocean Temperatures Impacts Fisheries (“Fish species in particular are great canaries in our collective coal mine.”)
• Here Are Three Ways to End the War in Ukraine. One Might Actually Work. (“Putin has a veto over two endgames for Ukraine. But there’s a third that would bypass him.”)
• Zelenskyy vows retaliation for Chernihiv attack that killed seven people and wounded over a hundred
• Christie hits Trump on foreign policy: ‘I don’t want to be the apple of Vladimir Putin’s eye’
• Russia’s War in Ukraine Could Run for Years
• Paying the price of truth: Nobel peace laureate Dmitry Muratov won’t be silenced by Putin (“The Russian newspaper editor speaks from Moscow in an exclusive interview as a new film biography charts his defiance of the Kremlin during the war in Ukraine”)
• Russia’s first lunar mission in 47 years smashes into the moon in failure
• The Russian space agency says its Luna-25 spacecraft has crashed into the moon. (“The apparatus moved into an unpredictable orbit and ceased to exist as a result of a collision with the surface of the moon”)
• Russia’s first moon mission in decades fails after spacecraft collides with surface
• Solar Money in China Drives World Renewable Investment to Record
• China Urges More Loans, Debt Risk Reduction as Woes Compound
• US urges China to cease military pressure against Taiwan
• Why is China so afraid of Taiwan’s vice president? (“The prospects for reunification are waning — and it’s Beijing’s fault.”)
• China’s 40-Year Boom Has Ended. What Comes Next? (“The economic model that powered the country from poverty to great-power status seems broken, and everywhere are signs of distress.”)
• Europe shows it still can’t handle an influx of migrants
• Bidenomics is not a one-off. Ask the Australians.
• Talks between regional bloc and Niger’s junta yield little, an official tells The Associated Press
• German cabinet approves measure to expedite solar deployment (“The German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs has approved measures to streamline solar deployment, with a target of 215 GW of installed capacity by 2030.”)
• Ecuadorians choosing a new president amid increasing violence that may scare away voters
• Canada wildfires: thousands told to flee in British Columbia, as drone-flying tourists criticised
• Why Hurricane Hilary is so strange — and how it could impact California (“The storm should hit Mexico Sunday and could cause historic rainfall in the Southwest.”)
• Hilary weakens to Category 1 hurricane as storm moves within striking distance of Mexican peninsula
• Residents evacuate as Hurricane Hilary barrels toward California
• Montana’s landmark climate ruling: three key takeaways
• How conservatives use ‘verbal jiu-jitsu’ to turn liberals’ language against them (“Part of the answer comes down to effort and discipline — Republicans devote more time to turning words into weapons and do a better job of sticking to their message, says Lindsey Cormack, a political scientist who focuses on race, gender, communications and politics at Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey.”)
• A Growing Chorus of Conservative Legal Scholars Say Trump Should Be Barred from Presidency (This should also apply to insurrectionists in Congress, like Rep. Ben Cline, Rep. Bob Good, etc.)
• The Constitution Prohibits Trump From Ever Being President Again (“This protection, embodied in the amendment’s often-overlooked Section 3, automatically excludes from future office and position of power in the United States government—and also from any equivalent office and position of power in the sovereign states and their subdivisions—any person who has taken an oath to support and defend our Constitution and thereafter rebels against that sacred charter, either through overt insurrection or by giving aid or comfort to the Constitution’s enemies.” That applies not just to presidential candidates, but to Congress, the Supreme Court, state legislatures and governorships, etc.)
• A Legally Besieged Trump Focuses on a Personal Goal: Revenge Against Hillary Clinton (“Trump is fighting legal battles on multiple fronts. And yet he refuses to give up on a hopeless lawsuit that has already gotten him and his lawyer fined over its frivolous nature.”)
• The Memo: Georgia indictment reminds voters of the Republicans who stood up to Trump
• Trump’s Will-He-Or-Won’t-He Debate Strategy Was a Ploy for Favorable Coverage: Report
• Biden-Harris 2024 Memo on “The Deeply Unpopular, Extreme Blueprint We’ll Hear from the MAGA Republican Candidates on Wednesday”
• Biden campaign predicts GOP candidates will ‘out-MAGA each other’ at debate
• August 2023 National Poll: DeSantis Fades Into Tie with Ramaswamy; Trump Maintains Majority of GOP Support Ahead of Debate
• Chris Christie Recalls 2016 In Warning Ron DeSantis Against Using ‘Canned’ Debate Lines (“The former New Jersey governor also called on his rival to ‘get the hell out’ of the race if he defends Donald Trump onstage.”)
• How Ron DeSantis Joined the ‘Ruling Class’ — and Turned Against It (“Over the years, Mr. DeSantis embraced and exploited his Ivy League credentials. Now he is reframing his experiences to wage a vengeful political war.”)
• Florida’s restrictive sex ed rules are causing back-to-school mayhem (“The new war over AP Psychology is a glimpse at the confusing future of education in the state.”)
• Christie: Trump Canceled Election Fraud Press Conference Because ‘He’s Scared’ Of Jail
• Vivek Ramaswamy Says He Wants To Run the Government Like Elon Musk (Appalling.)
• MAGA world lashes out over DeSantis’ ‘listless vessels’ remark
• White House is torn over Joe Manchin’s fury at climate law he crafted (Utterly bizarre on Manchin’s part; this is HIS BILL!)
• Opinion | What Just Happened at West Virginia University Is Alarming
• Everyone at West Virginia University Knew Something Was Up. I Hate That We Were Right. (“The student population got smaller and smaller while fancy new buildings appeared.”)
• Georgia indictment sharpens rift between Trump and the Peach State
• Devastating wildfires caught Hawaii underprepared for ‘preventable disaster’
• The Burning of Maui (“The governor called the fires Hawaii’s ‘largest natural disaster’ ever. They would more accurately be labelled an ‘unnatural disaster.'”)
• Enrique Tarrio and the Curious Case of the Latino White Supremacist
• What a Kansas Newspaper Raid Says About the State of Local Media
• Alaska’s Slaughter of Bears Must Stop
• Thoughts on a Possible Youngkin 2024 GOP Presidential Run. Also, Youngkin’s Speaking at 4:30 pm Today at a Conference Run by Someone Who Believes “males dominate females in the ‘natural world’” (The far-right conference organizer also believes “it is sinful to approve of homosexual immorality or transgenderism”)
• A Kemp-Youngkin tandem has some Trump critics dreaming of a new GOP ticket (I’m linking to this sentence – “Youngkin captured a Democratic-dominated state in 2021 with a campaign that neither embraced nor rejected Trump and focused instead on pandemic-era education policies that infuriated many parents.” – is FALSE. First of all, Youngkin very much embraced Trump, saying OVER AND OVER AGAIN that he was proud of Trump’s endorsement, that “President Trump represents SO MUCH of why I’m running,” etc, etc. Second, he didn’t focus on “pandemic-era education policies that infuriated many parents,” he bashed Democrats for “CRT,” mask mandates that were supported by 71% of Virginians, etc. Just horrible, horrible “reporting” by this paper.)
• Opinion: Parent involvement critical in transgender decisions – The Virginian-Pilot
• “Gross Old Perverts” Party? “@VA_GOP should react immediately to this. This is pornography around children, is it not?”
• Levar Stoney: To combat learning loss, local and state leaders must rise to the challenge
• Editorial: Virginia’s colleges and universities should be bastions of academic freedom (“In June, two of Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s appointees to the University of Virginia Board of Visitors — Douglas Wetmore and Bert Ellis — “questioned why the university’s Diversity Dashboard does not include an assessment of student or faculty ideologies,” according to Inside Higher Ed. Tracking the political persuasion of individual faculty or students would have a deeply chilling effect on academic freedom (in addition to likely being illegal).”)
• Levar Stoney: To combat learning loss, local and state leaders must rise to the challenge
• Williams: Genealogy project in Richmond seeks to reveal roots and reclaim narratives
• Loudoun County farms are leaving. There’s a fight over how to save them.
• 2 officers injured, terminal evacuated after police segway bursts into flames at Dulles International Airport
• D.C.-area forecast: Heat builds today and tomorrow, dry through at least midweek