Thursday News: “The ‘Useful Idiots’ From America Whom Putin Is Playing Like a Flute”; “Hegseth Risked Endangering Troops With Signal Messages”; “The President Who Never Grew Up”; “After Missing 2025 Goals, Chesapeake Bay Leaders Agree on Longer Timeline and Tribal Role in Cleanup”

by Lowell

Here are a few international, national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Thursday, December 4.

• Global race to secure critical minerals for weapons threatens climate, warns report
• Nature Retracts Study Predicting Catastrophic Climate Toll
  
• The ‘Useful Idiots’ From America Whom Putin Is Playing Like a Flute
• Macron warned US could ‘betray’ Ukraine in leaked leaders’ call, Spiegel reports (“According to a transcript obtained by the German outlet, Europe rallied around Volodymyr Zelenskyy and sharply criticized Washington.”)
• Oil, defence and geopolitics: Why Putin is visiting Modi in Delhi
• Ukraine and US negotiators to meet in Florida after Moscow talks, White House says
• Ukraine stares down the barrel of population collapse (“As the country spirals into a demographic disaster, Ukrainian authorities face a quandary: who will be left to pick up the pieces once the war ends?”)
• Israel Says a Gaza Border Will Reopen, but Only for Palestinians to Leave
• Honduras election on knife-edge as count delayed by technical glitch
• Revealed: Myanmar junta ‘crony’ given key role behind Fifa peace prize (Insane.)
• Hegseth rides into controversies on a Trump-fueled tide of convention-busting bravado
• Dear Troops: Please Don’t Go to Jail for Pete Hegseth
• Survivors of Boat Strike Were Actively Continuing Drug Mission, Admiral to Tell Lawmakers (While clinging to the side of their sinking ship???)
• The shifting responses of Hegseth, Trump and others on the lethal boat strikes
• Pentagon knew boat attack left survivors but still launched a follow-on strike, AP sources say (That’s about as clear a war crime as you can imagine.)
• U.S. Military’s Boat Strikes Planning Takes On New Significance
• Hegseth Asked Top Admiral to Resign After Months of Discord
• Dear Troops: Please Don’t Go to Jail for Pete Hegseth
• Republicans begin to tighten the screws on Hegseth’s Pentagon
• Exclusive: Watchdog finds Hegseth risked endangering troops by sharing sensitive war plans on Signal, sources say
• Hegseth Risked Endangering Troops With Signal Messages
• Scrounging for a Hegseth defense, right-wing commentators seize on NY Times reportv
• Detainees at ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ facing ‘harrowing human right violations’, new report alleges (“Amnesty International finds immigrants at Florida facility were shackled and left outside in metal cage for up to a day” People need to go to prison over this!)
• Anxiety grips Minneapolis’s Somali community as immigration agents zero in on the Twin Cities
• President Trump’s contempt shocks the country’s largest Somali community
• New data: ICE arrests surge as agency chases Trump quota
• Most immigrants arrested in Trump’s D.C. crackdown had no criminal records
• Main Street bust threatens the entire economy
• The Supreme Court Is About to Hand Trump Insidious New Powers
• Trump Returns to Gasoline as Fuel of Choice for Cars, Gutting Biden’s Climate Policy (Totally insane and evil, really.)
• Trump says he will repeal Biden-era fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks
• A dozen former FDA commissioners condemn plan to tighten vaccine approvals
• CDC advisers are meeting to weigh major change to the childhood vaccine schedule
• ‘Never seen anything like this’: alarm at memo from top US vaccine official
• RFK Jr. Blames Pills—Not Guns—for School Shootings (“There is no credible evidence that antidepressants cause violence, but the health secretary now vows a “massive” effort to prove the failed theory.”)
• Mike Johnson faces widespread Republican revolt
• Republican Anger Erupts at Johnson as Party Frets About Future
• Scoop: Johnson blindsided by Trump’s Cuellar pardon
• Stefanik spars with House speaker as she seeks GOP nod for N.Y. governor
• Republican Burchett on Tennessee special election: ‘We got a real problem’
• Republicans on edge about 2026
• Trump pardons entertainment exec indicted by his own justice department
• Editorial: President’s outrage about video sends message to service members (“A president publicly threatening to execute members of Congress is a historic first that a divided America certainly could have done without.”)
• Poll: Trump’s own voters begin blaming him for affordability crisis
• “Double down”: Trump’s base sees ultra-MAGA as answer to GOP stumbles (His core “base,” though, is only like 35% or whatever.)
• Republican Burchett on Tennessee special election: ‘We got a real problem’
• Photos and video from Epstein’s private island released by House Democrats
• The President Who Never Grew Up (“Instead of focusing on governing, Trump spends his days chasing entertainment, attention and renovation projects that reflect a presidency stuck in adolescence.”)
• Trump pardons former top entertainment executive who was charged by his own Justice Department
• Trump Renames Institute of Peace for Himself
• New York Times Sues Pentagon Over First Amendment Rights
• The Operator (“Josh Shapiro has spent his life preparing to lead an America that might no longer exist.”)
• Mikie Sherrill Intends to Move Fast (“Sherrill, the governor-elect of New Jersey, argues that if Democrats don’t learn to work at Donald Trump’s pace, “we’re going to get played.””)
• Chesapeake Bay region leaders approve revised agreement, commit to cleanup through 2040
• After Missing 2025 Goals, Chesapeake Bay Leaders Agree on Longer Timeline and Tribal Role in Cleanup
• Sen. Mark Warner says military could ‘help save us’ from Trump
• Real AI ‘code red’: College grad unemployment could hit 25%, says Senator Mark Warner
• Kaine leads congressional effort to expand digital skills in workforce training (“U.S. Reps. Vindman and Valado join in Act’s introduction”)
• Video: VA Speaker Don Scott Speaks at UVA About the “Drunk Driver in DC” (Trump), Dems Focusing on Real Issues and “Stay[ing] Away from the Cray-Cray,” a Possible 10D-1R US House Map, VA Rs Needing to Stand Up to Trump, etc.
• Gov.-Elect Spanberger Announces Katie K. Frazier as Her VA Secretary of Agriculture & Forestry Appointment (“Since 2018, Katie has served as the Chief Brand Officer for Farm Credit of the Virginias.”)
• Spanberger picks ex-Richmond FBI leader as public safety secretary (“Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger picked Stanley Meador, former special agent in charge of the FBI’s Richmond Field Office, as secretary of public safety and homeland security.”)
• Jones moves to salvage appeal after judge strikes down Virginia background-check law
• Attorney General-Elect Jay Jones Announces Senior Staff for Office of the Attorney General (Including Tillman Breckenridge, the First African-American Solicitor General in Virginia’s History) (Also: Travis Hill will be Chief Deputy Attorney General; Nicky Zamostny will be Chief of Staff)
• Democratic Lt. Gov. Association Executive Director on “history-making candidate” Ghazala Hashmi Overcoming the “daily, just vicious racist attacks, not just by John Reid, but by Governor Youngkin and other Republicans” Against Her (Holst also talks about the Reid Tumblr account story not taking off, Trump cratering, the Republican Party “just go[ing] belly up and not put[ting] up a fight,” etc.)
• Virginia lost 10% of community pharmacies over 5 years, study finds
• Virginia must stop letting slot-style ‘skill’ machines prey on our communities
• UVA’s presidential search continues despite protests from politicians, faculty and students (“Virginia’s governor-elect, Abigail Spanberger, has asked UVA’s Board of Visitors to suspend its search for a new president. Students and faculty have joined the chorus, but an official search committee says it’s pushing ahead.”)
• Fairfax Co. weighs agency cuts amid $131M budget gap
• Henrico plans Dominion Energy solar farm on 1970s landfill
• Waynesboro went blue this year. Changing demographics have changed the city’s politics.
• Blacksburg: Virginia Tech student crossing street dead, struck by police officer (“Spencer Davis Woodson Forsling, 22, of Blacksburg, was crossing North Main Street when he was struck by an officer responding to an emergency call. Forsling died at the scene.” Horrible.)
• CWG Live: Colder air inbound for Friday along with light snow chance (“The coldest air of the season so far is on the way. A little snow comes along for the ride.”)