| Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... |
by Lowell
Here are a few international, national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Friday, January 16.
- The Climate Question That Economists Cannot Answer (“Models can predict catastrophic or modest damages from climate change, but not which of these futures is coming.”)
- Less Foreign Aid, More Climate Risk (“The Massive Costs of Gutting USAID”)
- X still allowing users to post sexualised images generated by Grok AI tool (“Despite restrictions announced this week, Guardian reporters find standalone app continues to allow posting of nonconsensual content”)
- China and Canada announce tariffs relief after a high-stakes meeting between Carney and Xi
- Russia says it’s monitoring Trump’s ‘extraordinary’ push to take over Greenland
- European troops arrive in Greenland as Trump throws another curveball
- Republicans are scrambling to counter Trump on Greenland
- This Is Not a Nobel Prize (“Today in the inanity of evil”)
- Venezuela’s Machado gave Trump her Nobel prize. In return she received a swag bag but no promise of support
- Trump Will Keep Nobel Peace Prize Medal Offered by María Corina Machado
- Machado Leaves White House Visit With Little to Show (Brilliant, huh?)
- What Happens Next in Iran: Strongman, Coup, Collapse? (“Iran’s Revolutionary Guards brutally cracked down on the protests — and will wield power going forward”)
- ‘A Massacre Happened’: The 24 Hours That Bloodied Iran (“Authorities shut down the internet on Jan. 8. Then the large-scale killings began.”)
- Trump Was Told Attack on Iran Wouldn’t Guarantee Collapse of Regime
- Israel and Arab Nations Ask Trump to Refrain From Attacking Iran (“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel asked the president to postpone any planned attack. Israeli and Arab officials fear Iran could retaliate by striking their countries.”)
- Kari Lake stops Radio Free Europe from broadcasting into Iran over politics
- Trump’s Gaza ceasefire plan faces great uncertainty as it moves into a new phase
- How Kristi Noem turned ICE into the Proud Boys
- The Right Wants ICE to Crush the Wine Mom Insurgency
- Emergency Call Transcripts Record a Crisis Unfolding in Real Time
- Trump press secretary launches tirade against reporter who asked about ICE (“Karoline Leavitt brands journalist who asked about deaths in ICE custody and killing of Renee Good ‘a leftwing activist’”)
- Minneapolis is becoming a critical testing ground for Trump’s strongman project
- Newly Released Records Detail Chaos During Fatal ICE Shooting in Minneapolis
- Video Analysis of ICE Shooting Sheds Light on Contested Moments
- Under Trump, a Shift Toward ‘Absolute Immunity’ for ICE
- Push for greater ICE training grows on some Republicans
- Medical examiner believes death of man in ICE custody was homicide, recording says
- Mike Johnson Goes Off Rails in Vile Gaslighting Display on Trump, ICE (“As the House speaker offers disgusting comments about ICE and Renee Good, a scholar of the religious right explains how it is that evangelicals like him see no evil whatsoever in ICE’s violent attacks on Americans.” Mike Johnson is a f’ing disgrace.)
- By Instituting the Insurrection Act, Trump Has Launched an Attack on Our Civil Liberties (“Minneapolis is now an occupied city, as much as Paris or Prague once was.”)
- The Minnesota War Zone Is Trump’s Most Trumpian Accomplishment
- Ex-FBI Deputy Director Slams DHS Claims About Latest ICE Shooting: ‘They Have No Credibility’
- Why ICE Can Kill With Impunity (“Over the past decade, US immigration agents have shot and killed more than two dozen people. Not a single agent appears to have faced criminal charges.”)
- ‘It feels like an invasion’: Minnesotans stunned as federal officers flood their state
- ‘I couldn’t save my husband’: the Minnesota families ripped apart by ICE (“Family members left stunned and bereft after their loved ones were spirited away by federal immigration agents”)
- Inside The Invasion Of Minneapolis
- Democrats escalate opposition to DHS funding in bid to rein in ICE
- North Minneapolis ICE shooting: Children hospitalized after flash bang, tear gas hits van
- CBS News report on ICE officer’s injuries drew ‘huge internal concern’ (CBS “News” with the word “News” in air quotes.)
- Federal immigration agents filmed dragging a woman from her car in Minneapolis (“A U.S. citizen on her way to a medical appointment in Minneapolis was dragged out of her car and detained by immigration officers, according to a statement released by the woman on Thursday”)
- Kristi Noem Says ICE Agents ‘Doing Everything Correctly’ In Minneapolis (Substitute the word WRONG for “right,” and you’re much closer to the facts.)
- Trump Cabinet secretaries conspired to violate Constitution, judge says
- The MAGA media system is going into overdrive.
- Judge deals blow to the Trump Justice Department’s use of the Civil Rights Act to ‘clean’ voter rolls
- Something Is Rotten in the State of America
- Trump’s Fed fight looks like something from another country
- Trump’s anti-climate agenda won’t just hurt the planet, but American incomes too
- Trump underwater on issues that got him elected, polling shows
- Trump, Vance, and the Mainstreaming of Far-Right Hate
- Majority of Americans call Trump’s first year back in office a failure
- Donald Trump Hates America (“He shows it with his middle finger, literally, and by his daily attacks against American interests and our people. He must be defeated.”)
- Pentagon to overhaul independent military newspaper, calling it ‘woke’ (Anything these right wingnuts don’t like, they just call “DEI” or “woke” or whatever. Complete bullshit.)
- Pentagon taking over Stars and Stripes to eliminate ‘woke distractions’
- California GOP appeals their redistricting loss to Supreme Court in last-ditch bid to block voter-approved map
- Chart: Solar is finally bigger than coal in Texas (“Sure, coal had a comeback in 2025. But the year also marked the first time Texas got more power from solar than from the increasingly expensive fossil fuel.”)
- Judge allows offshore windfarm halted by Trump to resume construction (“Setback for president, who has called windfarms ‘losers’, as Empire Wind project allowed to move forward”)
- Kyrsten Sinema Accused of Having Relationship With Former Bodyguard
- Top Senator Accused of Druggy Affair With Married Bodyguard
- Lawsuit filed to protect rare Appalachian salamander found in Virginia, neighboring states
- Kaine, Warner clap back at Trump regime effort to suppress vote
- Video: Sen. Tim Kaine Argues That Trump’s “Foreign Adventurism” Is Primarily the Result of Him Being “Bored,” “Frightened,” “Trying to Change the Subject.” But…Is That Actually True? (Sometimes not everything is 12-dimensional chess; better to just go with “Occam’s Razor” instead.)
- Video: Sen. Tim Kaine Says There’s “Skittishness” Over a Virginia 10D-1R US House Map; “I think the maps just look more kind of logical [at 9D-2R]” (Sen. Kaine: “my unsolicited advice to Abigail is tell the federal delegation and the General Assembly to get on the same page”)
- VIDEO: Virginians for Fair Elections — the “Yes” Campaign — Launches to Level the Playing Field for Virginia (“Free and fair elections are the cornerstone of our democracy, and right now, they’re under threat”)
- Virginia prepares for historic moment as Spanberger takes office in Richmond
- 40 years after Baliles proclaimed a ‘New Dominion,’ it may have finally arrived (“The Virginia that Abigail Spanberger takes over Saturday is quite different from the one that Gerald Baliles looked out on in 1986. Here’s what Virginia looks like today.”)
- Pope & Schapiro: Youngkin’s farewell, constitutional amendments, and Abigail Spanberger’s inauguration
- Editorial: Gov. Youngkin touts progress, ignores setbacks as he leaves office (“The commonwealth was neither as dismal as Gov. Youngkin says it was when he took office, nor as triumphant as he claims now that he leaves it.”)
- Virginia’s openly gay elected officials vote to roll back ban on gay marriage enshrined 20 years ago
- Youngkin ran on culture war issues. Here’s how he changed Virginia schools. (That’s a totally whitewashed headline; in fact, Youngkin run on race baiting, trans bashing, etc. – and the WaPo SHOULD say so! Also, WTF are “culture wars” exactly? Isn’t it mostly a right-wing assault on people’s freedoms in America? So the phrase “culture wars” is a false equivalence/”both sides” framing.)
- Virginia lawmakers propose a bevy of data center reform bills
- Mark Obenshain mourns the political end of Glenn Youngkin (“There’s a reason why Virginia went from four years of Glenn Youngkin and Jason Miyares trying to turn us into West Virginia and went with Abigail Spanberger and her team in a landslide. Mark Obenshain lives in an alternate reality.”)
- VA Del. Dan Helmer Announces Settlement in Defamation Case He’d Brought; Says He’s “pleased” at That, but Also “no amount of money will make up for the harm borne by my family” (“While we always knew our politics were dirty, the false accusations leveled against me were a new low.”)
- Why the Tysons casino matters for the rest of Virginia
- Woman sues Virginia Beach special-ed teachers in death of her son (“Julie Xirau is suing his teachers, and their employer SEPEC, for wrongful death after finding that they had deliberately trapped and isolated her son in an unpadded corner of a Virginia Beach elementary school classroom for hours, causing him to self injure while attempting to free himself from fear and discomfort.)”)
- CWG Live: Tamer wind chills today with snow showers possible early Saturday
