| Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... |
by Lowell
Here are a few international, national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Monday, July 21.
- Rising food prices driven by climate crisis threaten world’s poorest, report finds
- How Climate Change Is Raising Your Grocery Bill
- In an Age of Climate Change, How Do We Cope with Floods?
- Dire predictions about renewable energy were all wrong (“Europe, China and the U.S. are making great strides on carbon emissions. But we need more innovation.”)
- BP appoints new chair to oversee shift back to fossil fuels (FU BP)
- Superbugs could kill millions more and cost $2tn a year by 2050, models show (“Exclusive: Research on burden of antibiotic resistance for 122 countries predicts dire economic and health outcomes”)
- Ukraine Anti-Graft Investigator Detained Over Russia Links
- Ukraine Increases Its Arms Production, Asking Allies to Pay for It
- Russian attacks on Ukraine kill two, cause widespread damage
- Major Ukrainian drone attacks sow chaos at Moscow’s airports
- Caught between a fossil fuel past and a green future, China’s coal miners chart an uncertain path
- China Stood Up to Trump, and It’s Not Giving Europe an Inch, Either
- China begins building world’s largest dam, fuelling fears in India (“When completed, the $12bn yuan ($1.67bn; £1.25bn) project – also known as the Motuo Hydropower Station – will overtake the Three Gorges dam as the world’s largest, and could generate three times more energy.”)
- EU Is Racing to Secure US Trade Deal and Preparing for the Worst
- ‘Japanese First’ party emerges as election force with tough immigration talk (Yuck.)
- Japan’s Ishiba says he’ll stay in office to tackle inflation and US tariffs despite election loss (“Ishiba’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its junior coalition partner Komeito were short three seats to maintain a majority in the 248-seat upper house in Sunday’s vote. Though the LDP is still the leading party, its ruling coalition is now a minority in both houses of the Diet, or parliament, which makes it difficult for the coalition to pass any legislation.”)
- The rise of the far-right ‘Japanese First’ party (“The party was born in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic, where it gained prominence with YouTube videos that spread conspiracy theories about vaccinations. More recently, it has built its platform on a nationalist “Japanese First” agenda, warning against a ‘silent invasion of foreigners’.”)
- Israeli Troops Kill Dozens Seeking Food Near Border, Gazan Officials Say (This is completely unacceptable.)
- Officials say 85 Palestinians seeking aid are killed in Gaza as Israel widens evacuation orders (Horrible.)
- Israeli forces launch ground assault on Deir al-Balah in central Gaza for first time
- Why Israel’s Chaotic New Food Program in Gaza Has Turned So Deadly (“Visit to one distribution site shows how system designed to squeeze out U.N. and Hamas continues to draw hungry Palestinians into deadly encounters”)
- Musk’s X refuses to hand over data in ‘politically-motivated’ French investigation
- Ecuador extradites notorious drug kingpin ‘Fito’ to US (“Gang leader Adolfo Macías was recaptured in June, more than a year after escaping a high-security prison”)
- Donald Trump’s Tariff Dealmaker-in-Chief (“How Howard Lutnick, the Secretary of Commerce, plans to transform government into a money-making enterprise.” Crazy.)
- Trump Is Bringing Europe Together Again
- EU budget plan would deal ‘devastating blow’ to nature (“Biodiversity restoration is no longer ring-fenced in the EU budget. Campaigners fear that means green funds will flow to industrial programs.”)
- Naturalized Citizens Are Scared (“To become Americans, we promised to defend the laws of the United States. What if defending them now puts our status at risk?”)
- Ice chief says he will continue to allow agents to wear masks during arrest raids (“Legal advocates and attorneys general argue practice poses accountability issues and contributes to a climate of fear”)
- ICE head says agents will arrest anyone found in the U.S. illegally, crack down on employers of unauthorized workers (So much for just going after “criminal” aliens.)
- Volunteers flock to immigration courts to support migrants arrested in the hallways
- Migrants at Ice jail in Miami made to kneel to eat ‘like dogs’, report alleges (“Migrants at a Miami immigration jail were shackled with their hands tied behind their backs and made to kneel to eat food from styrofoam plates ‘like dogs’, according to a report published on Monday into conditions at three overcrowded south Florida facilities.” Arrest anyone involved in this. Immediately.)
- ICE Chief Doubles Down On Arresting Undocumented People With No Criminal History (“It adds to the administration’s departure from targeting the ‘worst of the worst’ in its immigration enforcement.”)
- This is the summer of flooding across the US, and scientists know why
- Trump fossil-fuel push setting back green progress decades, critics warn (Utter insanity.)
- Trump officials accused of defying 1 in 3 judges who ruled against the president (“A comprehensive analysis of lawsuits against Trump policies shows dozens of examples of defiance, delay and dishonesty, a serious test for the court system.”)
- Pete Hegseth is skirting law by bringing back Confederate names of army bases
- Trump’s Perversion of Justice Has Reached a New Phase
- CBS News poll finds support for Trump’s deportation program falls; Americans call for more focus on prices
- This week’s big questions: Can Trump finally quell the Epstein storm — and is it hurting his presidency?
- Trump, 79, Posts Deranged AI Video of Obama Being Arrested (“The bizarre post came as the president seeks to move on from the Epstein controversy tearing apart his base.”)
- Desperate Trump Tries to Get MAGA Not to Care About Epstein
- The Epstein Cover-Up at the FBI
- An Accuser’s Story Suggests How Trump Might Appear in the Epstein Files
- Epstein Accuser Twice Told FBI About His Ties to Trump
- Epstein Victim Twice Named Trump to Law Enforcement
- A MAGA bot network on X is divided over the Trump-Epstein backlash (“Researchers have found hundreds of fake X accounts that support the Trump administration.”)
- How Trump’s game-planning for the 2026 midterms
- Republicans fear Washington headed for shutdown after bruising spending fights
- Wide Open: A Look Ahead at the 2028 Democratic Presidential Race
- Democrats’ 2026 Rallying Cry Is Staring Them in the Face (“The key for Democrats in 2026 will be portraying Donald Trump, his policies, and his ideological project as a protection racket for the elites. And here’s the good news for the party: He’s already provided more than enough fodder for them.”)
- Vance’s and Marco Rubio’s Senate successors avoid GOP primary drama
- The Situation: The Wilde-Hiss Effect (“Why on Earth is Trump suing the Wall Street Journal?”)
- Elon Musk’s Empire Is Creaking Under the Strain of Elon Musk (“Tesla, SpaceX and xAI are struggling to deal with the fallout from Musk’s Trump feud and wild bets.”)
- Enshittification and the Bitterness of Billionaire Bros (“Hell hath no fury like a tech god scorned”)
- Trump threatens Washington stadium deal unless NFL team readopts Redskins name
- Trump threatens to hold up stadium deal if Washington Commanders don’t switch back to Redskins (Trump is a thug, also a racist.)
- Trump clamors for return of Washington Redskins name: Threatens stadium deal
- Sen. Mark Warner: U.S. strikes on Iran were a ‘success,’ but what happens next is critical
- U.S. Senator Kaine urges young people to get involved in politics
- Video: In Glen Allen Townhall, Beto O’Rourke Imagines Telling Future Generations – “If We Survive This” – What We Did to Save Our Democracy
- Earle-Sears and Spanberger both say they want to eliminate the car tax. Here’s why that is unlikely to happen. (“Talking about doing away with the tax is easy and popular; actually doing so is not. For one thing, it’s not a state tax, it’s a local tax.” It’s also, as former VA Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling – a Trump voter and Republican – has said, HORRIBLE public policy.)
- The SCC swallows Dominion’s IRP and serves stakeholders a nothingburger (“It would be hard to imagine a less enthusiastic endorsement than the SCC’s in its final ruling of Dominion’s latest IRP, columnist Ivy Main writes, and the lack of analysis leaves advocates wondering, where’s the meat?”)
- Trump DOJ targets George Mason over its ineffective diversity program (“Pretty clear what the actual aim is: they’re going at a Black guy who is the president of a school that is efforting to be more inclusive. This is a win-win with the White supremacists and their self-loathing people of color co-conspirators in MAGA world. Get the scalp of the Black guy, and gutting the diversity program is just icing on the cake. Then, the thumb can go back on the scale to help White applicants, like has always been the case.”)
- Advocates protest detentions and deportations of cruise ship employees in Norfolk
- These Hampton Roads candidates raised the most money in House of Delegates races
- Virginia Supreme Court upholds state commission’s decision to deny Dulles Greenway rate hike
- A nonprofit grew on a beautiful manor, rent-free. The deal is ending. (“The Arc of Loudoun has provided services for children and adults with disabilities for more than a decade on the property. Now, its future is uncertain.”)
- Richmond forms two work groups to tackle water system woes (“New internal and regional teams will focus on long-term planning, infrastructure upgrades, and interlocal coordination.”)
- Hanover planning board recommends restricting new smoke and vape shops
- CWG Live updates: Gorgeous weather to start week before shift toward more heat, humidity
