by Lowell
Here are a few international, national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Friday, October 3.
- Frailty in ageing populations worsened by air pollution, global review finds (“Coauthor of research says condition linked to heightened vulnerability and loss of independence – but is reversible”)
- Ukraine needs Europe to move faster on Russian ‘reparations’
- Attacking An Oil Production System (“Some Of The Nuts And Bolts–Starting With Refineries”)
- For the first time, Russia has a massive weak spot
- Putin warns of ‘new stage of escalation’ if U.S. supplies long-range missiles to Ukraine (Tell Putin to f*** himself.)
- U.S. to expand intelligence assistance to Ukraine for strikes on Russian energy facilities
- Israeli strikes kill dozens in Gaza as Hamas considers its response to Trump’s peace proposal
- Hamas to demand key revisions to Trump Gaza plan before accepting, sources say (“Turkey and Qatar putting pressure on group to make concessions – but condition it disarm is a sticking point” And so this horrible war will go on and on?)
- European protesters block traffic, vandalise shops after Gaza aid flotilla blocked (“In Barcelona, protesters smashed or spray-painted anti-Israel slogans on windows of stores and restaurants, accusing them of complicity in Israel’s offensive in the Gaza Strip.”)
- A Terrible Attack in Manchester (“On the holiest day of the year for Jews, two people were killed outside a synagogue in the United Kingdom.”)
- Sarah Mullally is first female Archbishop to lead Church of England
- Trump ‘Determined’ the U.S. Is Now in a War With Drug Cartels, Congress Is Told
- Lawmakers From Both Sides Pressed Pentagon on Legal Basis for Cartel Boat Strikes
- Venezuela says it detected 5 US ‘combat planes’ flying 75km from its coast, calls it a ‘provocation’
- Pope Leo’s critique of Trump ends honeymoon with conservative Catholics
- Abrego Garcia’s lawyers: Case must move forward during shutdown, or he should be released
- ICEBlock Owner After Apple Removes App: ‘We Are Determined to Fight This’ (“Apple removed ICEBlock reportedly after direct pressure from Department of Justice officials. ‘I am incredibly disappointed by Apple’s actions today. Capitulating to an authoritarian regime is never the right move,’ the developer said.”)
- Apple removes ICE tracking apps after Trump AG pressure
- ICE Agents Rappel from Helicopter in Overnight Chicago Raid, Dragging Kids from Beds to U-Hauls (WTF is this fascist insanity???)
- South Shore Residents Return To Ransacked Apartments After ICE Raid: ‘It Looks Like Hell’ (“A ‘now renting’ sign outside touts granite countertops. Inside, residents are trying to make sense of the raid that made their already neglected building even worse.”)
- Trump’s Deportation Machine Has Diverted Some 42,000 Crime Fighters From Other Tasks (“Feeling safer now?”)
- Government shutdown delays key monthly jobs report at a pivotal moment for the U.S. economy (“Federal Reserve officials may have to determine next steps for interest rates without access to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ September employment data.”)
- It’s Jobs Friday Without a Jobs Number: Here’s Where to Look for Alternatives (“The monthly government jobs numbers won’t arrive on time. But private firms are helping fill the gap.”)
- Shutdown delays jobs report, obscuring potential economic problems
- Anti-abortion groups furious as FDA approves generic abortion pill (“Abortion rights supporters hail win for evidence-backed medicine as Evita Solutions’ generic version of mifepristone given approval”)
- Trump Explores Bailout of at Least $10 Billion for U.S. Farmers (Trump causes the problem, then spends OUR TAXPAYER MONEY to try and fix it. Also, who gave him any authority to just send $10 billion???)
- Trump embraces Project 2025 after disavowing it during 2024 campaign (The media’s STILL not point out that Trump was COMPLETELY FULL OF SHIT when he supposedly “disavowed” Project2025 during the campaign last year. Seriously, the vast majority of these people shouldn’t be journalists.)
- Democrats are doing more to resist Trump than their voters think (“There’s only so much you can do without a majority.”)
- WIC funding could run out in weeks, as government shuts down
- White House Senses Political Risk on Healthcare Despite Shutdown Bravado (“Trump aides are discussing proposals to extend Obamacare subsidies on which millions of Americans rely”)
- Why some Republicans are getting cold feet about Trump’s shutdown layoff threats
- Senior government officials privately warn against firings during shutdown
- Government Workers Say Their Out-of-Office Replies Were Forcibly Changed to Blame Democrats for Shutdown (That’s APPALLING.)
- Raskin Statement on Trump Administration’s Use of Federal Departments and Agencies for Propaganda Purposes; Possible Violations of the Hatch Act
- Donald Trump’s Shutdown Power Play (“The President learned in 2019 how to undercut Congress in a funding fight, and he’s been making the same move ever since.”)
- Early polls show Trump and GOP taking more blame than Democrats for shutdown
- Republicans’ shutdown strategy: All ‘illegals,’ all the time (This headline fails to note that the Republicans are flat-out/wildly LYING about this.)
- Thune warns Democrats about Russ Vought: ‘We don’t control what he’s going to do’ (Thune is a disgrace to the US Senate, which of course DOES have a lot of power to deal with Russ Vought and whoever else in the Trump administration; Republicans just refuse to use any of that power.)
- John Thune Is Using Russell Vought to Bait the Democrats into Ending the Shutdown (“The Senate Majority Leader is acting like his party didn’t give Vought the job in the first place.” Thune is a f’ing disgrace.)
- JD Vance’s shutdown bet: MAGA loves racism more than health care (The thing that’s so infuriating about Vance is that HE KNOWS BETTER, but doesn’t give a f***)
- Democrats seek shutdown leverage with economy over Trump, GOP
- Meet Donald Trump’s Government Shutdown Hatchet Man (“White House budget director Russ Vought is the powerful, behind-the-scenes Trump official dishing out payback against blue states.”)
- Trump charts path to total control amid government shutdown (“Total control” = dictatorship.)
- Declining American Democracy: Trump is a Symptom, Not the Cause (“The modern GOP is inherently authoritarian”)
- A Government Shutdown, Weaponized
- Trump, 79, Posts Bizarre Grim Reaper-Themed AI Music Video (“If the music video is to be believed, Russell Vought is the Grim Reaper.”)
- Battered by mass firings and DOGE drama, federal workers now brace for weeks without pay
- Kash Patel fires FBI agent trainee for displaying gay pride flag
- Trump Offered Universities an Invitation for a Deal. Some See a Trap.
- Trump asks 9 colleges to commit to his political agenda and get favorable access to federal money
- Trump’s ‘Compact’ With Universities Is Just Extortion
- California vows to ‘instantly’ cut funding to universities that cave to Trump ‘compact’
- Director of Eisenhower Library in Kansas ousted after refusing to give Trump administration a sword (“The director of the presidential library and museum in Abilene, Kansas, said he was suddenly told to resign or be fired. He refused to give the Trump administration a historic sword from the museum’s collection.”)
- What Is Ezra Klein Thinking? (“The New York Times columnist is asking the right questions, but pushing the wrong answers.” He’s awful – and Democrats should NOT listen to him.)
- Paramount Officially Acquiring The Free Press and Making Bari Weiss CBS News Editor in Chief: Report (So much for Paramount and CBS “News”)
- Trump in talks to appear on CBS’ ’60 Minutes’
- Robert Morris, Texas megachurch pastor, pleads guilty to sexually abusing a child
- Justice Department fires key prosecutor in elite office already beset by turmoil, AP sources say
- Dems rush to support federal workers during government shutdown
- Virginia senator, congressional reporter, pollster weigh in on government shutdown (“‘There, candidly, isn’t a Republican party anymore,’ Warner said. ‘There’s just a party of Trump loyalists.'”)
- Notice of insurance rate hikes delayed two weeks in Virginia (Uhhhh…why???)
- Fmr. VA LG Bill Bolling (R/Trump Voter) on Egregious, Nasty, Error-Filled New Ad by Earle-Sears: “[I]f this is all the Sears campaign has to talk about, I think they are in serious trouble”
- NEW TV AD: Winsome Earle-Sears Supports An Abortion Ban With No Exceptions For Rape Or Incest (Sears: “We know abortion is wicked.”)
- ON CAMERA: GOP Governor Candidate Winsome Earle-Sears is “Speaking” About How She Wants to Restrict Abortion Access
- Commentary: Does Earle-Sears really believe race and gender don’t matter?
- Commentary: Earle-Sears’ mystifying Ramaswamy turn (It’s not “mystifying” at all – it’s who she is and how she thinks!)
- New Emerson College Poll of 2025 VA Governor’s Race: Spanberger 52%-Earle-Sears 42%; Early Vote So Far Spanberger 60%-Earle-Sears 38% (Youngkin’s approval at 46%-41%; Trump at 42%-54%; tpp issues the economy, education, healthcare, democracy, housing affordability)
- One poll says Spanberger leads by 10 percentage points. Another says 3. Here’s why they’re so different. (“A2 Insights has a more conservative sample and so, naturally, gets more conservative results.” This same polling outfit had Trump at 48% approval back in July…which was about 5 points higher than the polling average shows. So…definitely Republican-friendly.)
- NEW AD: Jay Jones Releases Ad Highlighting Jason Miyares’ Failure to Stand Up to Trump and Protect Virginia’s Economy
- ACLU of Virginia sues ICE over detention of immigrant children with legal protections
- Virginia health board moves ahead with push to bar trans athletes from female sports (“Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin directed the state’s Board of Health to adopt regulations that would restrict the facilities transgender people use, and the sports teams they play on.”)
- AARP poll | Virginia voters oppose Medicaid cuts at heart of shutdown (“Nearly two-thirds of Virginia voters oppose the reduction or elimination of Medicaid coverage, which is why Democrats aren’t signing on to the spending measure that congressional Republicans are holding over all our heads to keep the federal government open.”)
- Editorial: White House tariffs have put Virginia, U.S. farmers in a bind
- Pope & Schapiro: The shutdown, military matters, and October surprises
- Republican Candidate in Virginia Caught in Tumblr Nazi Porn Scandal (“John Reid has found himself in quite a scandal, as others call on him to resign from the race.”)
- Virginia Democrats call for Republican John Reid to exit lieutenant governor race in Nazi porn scandal
- Review of “The Lost Trees of Willow Avenue” (“a riveting and elegant story of climate change on one city street”) and an Interview with Its Author, Mike Tidwell of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network (Tidwell shares his thoughts on the VA Clean Economy Act 5 years after it passed; the Trump administration’s war on clean energy; data centers; etc.)
- FOIA Friday: Records reveal surge in ICE arrests across Virginia
- Frustrations spill out at Dept. of Corrections ombudsman meeting
- HCA Virginia to open freestanding emergency rooms in Richmond, Chesterfield and Loudoun next year
- Albemarle County | MAGA pushing for resignation of school board member over post (“A post on social media comparing Turning Point USA to the Ku Klux Klan has MAGA calling for an Albemarle County School Board member’s resignation. At-large representative Allison Spillman posted on social media Tuesday in regards to a TPUSA chapter meeting that was to be held at Western Albemarle High School in Charlottesville on Wednesday. Her post was later deleted.”)
- Longtime Roanoke County school board member charged with election-related misdemeanor (“Tim Greenway, who was first elected to the school board in 2015, had been under scrutiny over the summer related to issues with his paperwork to get on the ballot for this year’s school board race.”)
- Commentary: Richmond school board must reject rush to weaken workers’ rights
- CWG Live updates: More fantastic fall conditions through Tuesday (“Sunny and comfortable until a Wednesday cold front brings the potential for some welcome rain.”)
