Monday News: “Of Course Trump Will Tank the Economy. It’s What Republicans Do.”; “Trump Says He’s ‘Not Joking’ About Seeking a Third Term in Defiance of Constitution”; “Tim Kaine: 250 years later, the Virginia flag still warns us about tyranny”; “This is what corruption looks like”

by Lowell

Here are a few international, national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Monday, March 31.

• Can offshore wind help some fish? Research increasingly says yes.
• Pension Funds Push Forward on Climate Goals Despite Backlash
• EU exploring weaker 2040 climate goal (“The European Commission wants to keep a 90 percent emissions-cutting target but to change how countries calculate their progress.”)
• Trump ‘very angry’ with Putin over ceasefire talks, as strikes continue on Ukraine
• Trump Vents Anger With Putin Over Ukraine and Hints at Oil Curbs
• Trump ‘running out of patience’ with Putin over Ukraine ceasefire, says Finnish president (“Alexander Stubb – who played golf with Trump this weekend – suggested deadline and US sanctions package”)
• Ukraine war briefing: Trump sanctions threat on Russian oil buyers could hit China, India
• My Fellow Republicans and President Trump, We Must Stand Up to Putin
• How Trump Supercharged Distrust, Driving U.S. Allies Away (“Other countries are increasingly trying to go their own way as they prepare for intimidation to be a lasting feature of U.S. relations under President Trump.”)
• Netanyahu Names New Intel Chief Despite Showdown With Court
• Israel Issues Wide-Ranging Evacuation Order for Southern Gaza
• “We’ll Get Greenland. Yeah, 100%,” Trump Tells NBC News (Insanity.)
• Greenland’s new PM rejects Trump’s latest threat: ‘We do not belong to anyone else’ (“Newly sworn in Jens-Frederik Nielsen says ‘Trump says that the United States is getting Greenland. Let me be clear: the United States won’t get that’”)
• Vance’s posturing in Greenland was not just morally wrong. It was strategically disastrous (“Thanks to Trump’s administration, the US could soon have to fight wars to get things that, just a few weeks ago, were there for the asking”)
• Germany decides to leave history in the past and prepare for war
• Marine Le Pen found guilty in EU funding embezzlement case (“It could mean the leader of the far-right National Rally is banned from standing in the 2027 French presidential election.”)
• The Forgotten Dystopian Vision That Explains Trump’s Canada Obsession (“The president’s outlandish fixation on annexing Canada and Greenland makes sense when you understand his worldview. It’s pretty similar to one articulated in 1941.”)
• Myanmar hospitals overwhelmed as military government says more than 1,700 killed in quake
• Trump’s tariffs threaten to escalate a trade war. China wants to talk, but it’s ready to fight
• Global stock markets fall as new Trump tariffs loom
• Stocks Extend Plunge With Deepening Tariff Fears: Markets Wrap (“Global stocks sold off for a fourth day ahead of Trump unveiling a fresh round of tariffs.”)
• Trump’s Reciprocal Tariffs Set to Start With All Countries
• World markets and US dollar suffer worst monthly losses since 2022 as Trump tariffs fuel recession fears (“Shares slide after President Donald Trump says new reciprocal tariffs expected this week will include all nations, and Goldman Sachs say US recession more likely”)
• Why Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariff transformation is so risky
• Trump Makes Yet Another Flip-Flopping Threat on Tariff War (“Markets plunge as the risk of recession reaches 40 percent on the back of a fresh threat.”)
• There’s One Problem With Trump’s Tariffs: They Make Absolutely No Sense
• Goldman Sachs sees Trump tariffs spiking inflation, stunting growth and raising recession risks
• Of Course Trump Will Tank the Economy. It’s What Republicans Do. (“As the president’s “Liberation Day” nears, it’s time to liberate ourselves from the vicious cycle of Democrats having to clean up the GOP’s messes.”)
• Trump makes sweeping HIV research and grant cuts: ‘setting us back decades’ (“Trump administration’s slashes to prevention and access expansion likely to erode progress on eliminating epidemic”)
• Trump won’t rule out seeking a third term in the White House, tells NBC News ‘there are methods’ for doing so (By that reasoning, Michelle Obama could have run for election in 2016, and Barack Obama could have been de facto president. Or Obama could have just run for a third term…)
• Trump Says He’s ‘Not Joking’ About Seeking a Third Term in Defiance of Constitution
• “I’m Not Joking”: Trump Again Floats Running for Anti-Constitutional Third Term
• The Trump administration’s roundup of student protesters is genuinely shocking (“These are the kinds of scenes we expect to see in the world’s most repressive regimes. And they won’t stop at foreign students”)
• Americans want Trump’s focus more on prices, not tariffs; most approve of deportation efforts — CBS News poll
• Trump Posts Crackpot Signalgate Conspiracy: ‘WHAT ARE THE ODDS’
• The Great Grovel: How Trump forced elite institutions to bend to his will
• The Senate’s Age of Irrelevance (“Elon Musk’s DOGE and Trump’s executive orders are pushing Congress’s upper chamber from ineffectiveness to obsolescence. Will John Thune, the new Majority Leader, let them?”)
• Senate GOP races toward vote on Trump agenda blueprint
• States rush to hire federal workers out of work after DOGE cuts
• Faith Leaders Push Back After EPA Head Disparages Climate Action as ‘Religion’
• Republicans look to avert humiliation in Florida special election (“Republicans are pulling out all the stops ahead of the special election in Florida’s 6th Congressional District as worries of a narrower-than-expected margin grow in the district President Trump won by more than 30 points in November. “)
• Elon Musk hands out $1 million payments after Wisconsin Supreme Court declines request to stop him
• Elon Musk goes all in on Wisconsin Supreme Court race. Democrats hope it will mobilize their voters
• Why Is Elon Musk Trying to Buy a Wisconsin Supreme Court Seat? (“Tuesday’s election, as the only statewide race in the country before November, is a crucial test for the growing backlash against the Trump Administration’s agenda.”)
• Trump signs order on Washington DC as Republicans exert control over city (“President says order will make capital ‘safe, beautiful’ by stepping up arrests of undocumented people” How exactly are “undocumented people” making Washington, DC not “safe” or “beautiful?”)
• Kaine, Warner cornering Senate Republicans on Trump Canada tariffs
• Video: Sen. Mark Warner Says He Had “1,500 people at two town halls here in Hampton Roads, and people are pissed!” (“I’ve got a hell of a lot of fight left in me and the energy I saw today gives me energy to go back on Monday and keep this fight going.”)
• Tim Kaine: 250 years later, the Virginia flag still warns us about tyranny
• Fmr. VA Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling (R), Who Voted for Trump, Says “There is just no good reason for the manner in which we have soured our relationship with both Greenland and Denmark.” (So why didn’t people like Bolling see this s*** coming if they put Trump back in the White House???)
• Here’s what to expect at this week’s General Assembly session (“The real action will be with the amendments the governor has proposed to both 159 bills, plus another 205 amendments to the budget.” “Democrats might be just as eager to block Cuccinelli’s appointment as they are to send a message to VMI.”)
• Amanda Chase Says “Don’t shoot the messenger,” But If She Doesn’t Make the Ballot, Winsome Earle-Sears Will Lose to Abigail Spanberger and “Many have said they are going to move out of Virginia”
• Earle-Sears says ‘it’s not unusual’ to lose a job so federal job cuts aren’t a ‘huge, huge thing’
• Youngkin vetoes bill to protect prisoners from extreme heat (Appalling by Youngkin.)
• Virginia watermen object to cost of effort to save terrapins from crab pots (Definitely need to allow the turtles to escape.)
• Virginia’s energy future: Balancing growth and costs amid rising demand (“Over the next 15 years, Virginians’ energy bills are expected to rise as much as 50%, primarily driven by the growing demand from energy-intensive data centers.”)
• A new state law could help nurse midwives alleviate Virginia’s maternity care shortages. Will hospitals resist the change?
• Local groups plan Trump/Musk protest rallies in Staunton, Harrisonburg, Charlottesville
• During water crisis, VCU Medical Center narrowly avoided catastrophe
• Complaints cause temporary ‘pause’ to Dominion Energy’s major forestry project on W&OD trail (“Last week, the Vienna Town Council unanimously voted on a resolution to request an end to Dominion Energy’s tree cutting along the trail.”)
• CWG Live updates: Warm before possible strong to severe storms later today