Tuesday News: “Montana Youth Activists Win Historic Climate Change Lawsuit”; “Trump and 18 Allies Slammed with 41 Charges in Sprawling Georgia Election Case”; “Trump Owns the GOP — and Its Future”; “Republicans Won’t Stop at Banning Abortion”

by Lowell

Here are a few international, national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Tuesday, August 15.

• NASA Study Reveals Compounding Climate Risks at Two Degrees of Warming
• July was record-breaking hot, pushed by climate change
• Evaluating fossil fuel companies’ alignment with 1.5 °C climate pathways
• Massive explosion at gas station in Russia’s Dagestan kills 30, injures scores more
• Russia’s Emergency Rate Hike Fails to Lift Ruble After Crash (“Russia’s central bank raises its key interest rate to 12%.”)
• The Hidden Trauma of Ukraine’s Soldiers (“Facing a growing mental-health crisis among soldiers, Ukraine’s therapists and doctors use a variety of treatments, but the demand far exceeds supply.”)
• China central bank unexpectedly cuts rates to support sputtering economy
• Argentine Shops Hit With 20% Overnight Price Hike After Election
• Roaring Back From Pandemic, Japan’s Economy Grows by 6 Percent
• Changing climate pushes migrating birds from parched Tunisian wetlands
• How (Many) Economists Missed the Big Disinflation
• Miners face ‘considerable challenges’ meeting demand from US climate law -study
• The Looming Supreme Court Nullification Crisis (“The precedent-smashing, highly political Roberts Court is likely to trigger outright defiance by the left and right. Just look at Alabama’s failure to comply with a recent Court ruling.”)
• Alabama Republicans defend not creating a second majority Black district in court
• Video: On the PBS NewsHour, Conservative Legal Icon Michael Luttig Declares, “We cannot function until the Republican Party comes to its senses.” (Luttig: “the former president [Trump] and [his] Republican allies and supporters declared war on American democracy.”)
• Donald Trump Owns the GOP — and Its Future
• Trump and 18 Allies Slammed with 41 Charges in Sprawling Georgia Election Case (“Late on Monday, an Atlanta grand jury handed down a massive indictment.”)
• Trump’s fourth indictment moves America closer to an election precipice (“Far from retreating from his bid to return to power, the ex-president appears to see reclaiming the presidency – and its unique executive powers – as his best hope of forestalling the tsunami of legal cases that now confront him and any convictions that may result, before or after the election in November 2024. But the case in Georgia is highly significant since the realities of the US federal system mean that Trump, even if he recaptured the White House, would struggle to shut down a state investigation and criminal trial and could not engineer his own pardon.”)
• Takeaways from the Georgia indictment of Donald Trump and 18 others
• Read the full text of the Trump Georgia indictment document
• How Donald Trump tried to undo his loss in Georgia in 2020 (Massive crime, committed partly in secret, partly in plain sight. Lock them all up…for a looong time!)
• 4 things revealed by Trump’s Georgia indictment
• Here’s who else was charged in Georgia (other than Trump) (“Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows, John Eastman and Sidney Powell are among the 18 others who were indicted”)
• Trump Fears His Unindicted Co-conspirators Will Turn On Him to Save Themselves: Report
• Trump and 18 co-defendants charged with racketeering in Georgia 2020 election probe
• ‘Much bigger than Watergate’: John Dean weighs in on Georgia indictment
• Trump’s Fourth Indictment: Five Ways Georgia Is Different
• The Georgia Indictment Offers the Whole Picture (“Fani Willis filed charges against Donald Trump and 18 others, alleging a sweeping scheme to overturn the 2020 election.” Great job by Fani Willis and her team!)
• Trump charged in Georgia 2020 election probe, his fourth indictment
• Trump, 18 others indicted for trying to overthrow 2020 Georgia election
• Two Months in Georgia: How Trump Tried to Overturn the Vote
• Finger-pointing begins inside Trump team over Jan. 6 indictment
• Mark Meadows, Trump’s former White House chief of staff, will face his first post-2020 election-related indictment in Georgia
• How a law associated with mobsters could be central in possible charges against Trump
• Trump tells Georgia witness not to testify (Witness intimidation. Lock him up!)
• Trump has no plans to stop posting about 2020 election conspiracy case despite stern warnings from judge
• Exclusive: Former Republican legal officials endorse special counsel’s speedy trial date proposal in Trump Jan. 6 case
• Trump ups the ante on going after judges and witnesses. Where’s the line?
• Trump, Co-Defendants Have Until Aug. 25 to Surrender in Georgia
• ‘He’s going to be very surprised’: Georgia DA Fani Willis prepares to face off with Trump
• Trump’s Georgia charges are a win for voting rights leaders (“Victory heralded as a landmark achievement for Democrats, particularly the Black voters who make up much of the party’s base”)
• Georgia Is Trump’s Nightmare Jurisdiction (“Again and again, he keeps losing there”)
• Hillary Clinton Promises She Gets No Satisfaction From Trump Indictment, Really
• Why the Fani Willis Prosecution of Donald Trump Is Indispensable
• Trump’s Jan. 6 Recusal Play Has No Chance
• Judge Chutkan blows the whistle on Trump’s stay-out-of-jail plan
• STUDY: Trump leads the 2024 Fox primary, is dominating on OAN and Newsmax
• Only 4% of national TV news segments about the catastrophic wildfires in Hawaii mentioned climate change (“Climate’s connection to Hawaii’s devastating wildfires was again the missing story in major TV news’ extreme weather coverage”)
• Climate change came for Maui. The rest of us are next.
• Experts Scrutinize Hawaiian Electric as They Search for the Maui Wildfire Cause
• These kids sued over climate change — and won (“The unprecedented ruling in Montana could signal a changing tide.”)
• Montana Youth Activists Win Historic Climate Change Lawsuit
• Hawaii crews may find 10 to 20 dead a day – governor
• Judge rules in favor of Montana youths in landmark climate decision
• Once-rare scorching heat wave builds across the Pacific Northwest
• Washington can’t get a climate pact. Gavin Newsom just cut another one. (“California’s role as a shadow climate negotiator is only becoming more important as geopolitical tensions rise.”)
• Why Republicans Are Complaining About the Hunter Biden Special Counsel That They Asked For (“Eager to shift attention from the crimes and malfeasances of their own likely Presidential candidate, Republicans are more than happy to move the goalposts on the Hunter Biden case.”)
• She Wasn’t Able to Get an Abortion. Now She’s a Mom. Soon She’ll Start 7th Grade. (This is the America that Republicans want.)
• Republicans Won’t Stop at Banning Abortion
• “I Have Never Seen a Worse Campaign and Candidate”: What Campaign Flacks Think of DeSantis 2024
• DeSantis says he will slash ‘footprint’ of all DC federal agencies by 50 percent (DeFascist strikes again.)
• DeSantis urges Bob Iger to drop Disney lawsuit, accept the end of ‘special privileges’
• Bodycam video shows confrontation between U.S. Rep. Ronny Jackson and law enforcement
• This Is What Happens When You Forget About the Fascism on the Ground (“The MAGA is very strong among local law enforcement, who have been encouraged from the top of our politics to let their vicious cop Id run free. What you get is what allegedly happened in Mississippi.”)
• Kansas newspaper says it investigated local police chief prior to newsroom raid
• CNN Majorly Shakes Up Its Lineup With First Overhaul Since Chris Licht’s Departure (“The network has announced new primetime shows for Abby Phillip and Laura Coates ahead of the 2024 election, in the biggest move from the interim leadership team yet.”)
• “This is a big disaster for Republicans not just in that district, but across the state.” (Per a recent WaPo poll, only 17% of Virginians want abortion laws to be made “more strict,” yet that’s what most if not all VA GOP candidates believe.)
• States Across the Country Act to Lower the Cost of Prescription Drugs While Virginia House Republicans Hold Up Progress (“Colorado, Maryland, Minnesota have seen recent movement, while support grows in Pennsylvania”)
• REPRO Rising Virginia PAC Announces First Round of Candidate Endorsements for the Virginia 2023 General Election (“This election will decide the future landscape of abortion access, not only for Virginians, but for those seeking care across the entirety of the South”)
• More inspections of Mountain Valley’s pipeline needed, federal safety agency says
• Wild Virginia vows to fight on against the Mountain Valley Pipeline
• Commentary: In rural Virginia, overzealous regulation of solar energy hinders progress
• Is Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin running for president? His own constituents call him ‘a big unknown.’
• Patience running out on both sides of budget battle (The media loves saying “both sides” – they just can’t quit that formulation.)
• Virginia regulators considering fall crabbing season extension
• Democrat appeals to Board of Elections for ballot access in November (“Democrat Trudy Berry expected her campaign to face an uphill battle in Senate District 9, a Republican stronghold on Virginia’s Southside where she hopes to face Sen. Frank Ruff, R-Mecklenburg.”)
• CASEY: Parents decry new restrictions for public speakers at RoCo School Board
• Hanover planning commission reviews comprehensive plan
• Richmond city, police miss deadline required by Floyd protest settlement
• Richmond’s new casino vote faces legal challenge
• History Of Arrests Preceded Suspect’s Hit-And-Runs Across Arlington (“The suspect who crashed a stolen truck and ambulance into several vehicles in Arlington and D.C. on Saturday has a history of arrests.”)
• D.C.-area forecast: Toasty with some scattered storms possible