Wednesday (3/18) News: “Iran, Not Trump, Decides When This War Is Over”; “The Last Thing Trump Wants to Do Is Save America”

by Lowell

Here are a few international, national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Wednesday, March 18.

• How climate change is fueling disease outbreaks
• Millions of children dying from preventable causes, report reveals (“Premature birth, pneumonia and malaria among leading causes of death in under-fives worldwide, as UN experts warn aid cuts are slowing progress on survival rates”)
• Cold winters are no match for modern cold-climate heat pumps (“In fact, several chilly Nordic countries lead the world in heat pump adoption.”)
• Is this the world’s first quantum battery? Australian scientists say so (“Researchers say their prototype is a big step towards fully functioning batteries with rapid charging times”)
• The Iran War Is Another Reason to Quit Oil (“What if the drone is to warfare as the solar panel is to energy?”)
• Ukraine faces missile shortage due to Middle East war, says Zelensky
• Everyone but Trump Understands What He’s Done (“Allied leaders know that any positive gesture they make will count for nothing.”)
• Russia Is Sharing Satellite Imagery and Drone Technology With Iran (And Trump’s doing nothing about it; actually, he’s rewarding RUSSIA!)
• Cheap drones are reshaping modern warfare — and catching the U.S. off guard
• Donald Trump, Petropresident (“Follow the Gulf oil money”)
• ‘Never heard him so angry’: Trump is furious that global allies aren’t pitching in in Iran (“Their assistance, the president said on Tuesday, is no longer needed.” What a pathetic loser.)
• Analysis Israel’s Assassinations Leave Iran With Inexperienced but Resilient Leadership (“With the assassination of Ali Larijani and senior Basij commanders, over half of the Islamic Republic’s most senior leadership is gone. Will their inexperienced replacements withstand the war’s pressure? ■ Hezbollah’s capabilities have not been impacted despite Israel’s active combat”)
• The top Iranian officials killed since Iran war’s start
• Netanyahu Hopes Strikes on Iran Will Lead to Uprising and Regime Change (Seems highly unlikely at the moment…)
• Israel says it killed another Iranian leader, but that doesn’t mean it’s winning the war
• Israel Is Hunting Down Iranian Regime Members in Their Hideouts, One by One (“The killings of two top officials mark milestones in a fierce campaign to bring down the Tehran government”)
• Live updates: Iranian Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib killed, Israel defense minister says
• How ignorance, misunderstanding and obfuscation ended Iran nuclear talks (“Negotiators had reached agreement on key issues despite Trump team’s idiosyncratic approach. Two days later, war began”)
• Middle East crisis live: Israel strikes central Beirut and claims to have killed Iran’s intelligence minister overnight
• Hezbollah ignites blowback from supporters as over 1 million flee war with Israel (“The militant group’s attacks on Israel have sparked anger even among its most loyal Shiite political backers in Lebanon, weakening its clout as the war widens.”)
• Fire damage, clogged toilets, and sinking morale: USS Gerald R Ford to set sail for repairs in Crete (“Aircraft carrier has been participating in strikes on Iran, after previously taking part in the operation to seize Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro”)
• Fact check: Trump’s barrage of false or unproven claims about the Iran war
• Iran launches retaliatory strikes on Israel and U.S. assets after security chief Larijani is killed
• Iran, Not Trump, Decides When This War Is Over (“The U.S. and Israel started the war, but with the Strait of Hormuz closed and gas prices skyrocketing, Iran is in control now.”)
• Trump’s Advisers Circle the Wagons as Signs of Dissent Over Iran Emerge (“Joe Kent’s resignation letter marked the first time a senior U.S. official publicly expressed opposition to the war”)
• Trump aides foresee Iran endgame divide: “Israel doesn’t hate the chaos”
• Top counterterrorism official Kent resigns over Trump’s Iran war, says Iran posed no imminent threat
• Onetime Democratic critics elevate Joe Kent’s conspiratorial resignation letter (“Democrats previously slammed Kent as an untrustworthy extremist in opposing his nomination. Now, amid his anti-Israel accusations, some argue he has a point”)
• Gulf States Want the U.S. to Cripple Iran’s Regime Before Ending the War (“In pivot for region that had courted Tehran, Gulf leaders now insist that Iran must be rendered incapable of future attacks”)
• A top Trump aide resigned over Iran. Liberals should stay away from him. (“Antiwar antisemitism is still antisemitism.”)
• Tulsi Gabbard in spotlight after top official resigns in protest over Iran war (“The director of national intelligence built her political career on her opposition to U.S. interventions abroad. But she has stayed mostly silent since the Iran war started last month.” Anything for power.)
• The First Big Administration Defection Over Iran (“Joe Kent has quit. Will Tulsi Gabbard be next?”)
• This Isn’t What Cubans Have Been Fighting For
• Judge Orders Voice of America to Restart All News Operations
• Judge reinstates 1,000 Voice of America employees, deems wind-down illegal
• Judge orders sidelined Voice of America employees back to work
• ICE “course correction”? Markwayne Mullin isn’t it (“The department of homeland security shutdown shows Republicans still answer to Stephen Miller”)
• Republicans hope Mullin will turn the page at DHS from Noem. Democrats aren’t buying it. (“The top Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security Committee assured reporters the Oklahoma Republican would face ‘robust’ questions at his confirmation hearing on Wednesday.”)
• Why the SAVE America Act . . . Won’t (Conservative WSJ editorial board: “A pyrrhic victory on voting isn’t worth busting the Senate filibuster.”)
• The Senate’s marathon elections debate is dividing Republicans, not Democrats (“So far discussions of the SAVE America Act are falling short of the ‘talking filibuster’ conservatives are demanding.”)
• Senate votes to begin marathon debate on SAVE America Act
• Trump is pressuring the Hill on voter verification — but not his own housing plan (“The president is aggressively lobbying for a voter verification bill while largely staying silent as a housing package containing one of his key affordability proposals stalls in the House.”)
• House conservatives revolt over stalled SAVE Act (This is an example of how the media fails us. In fact, ALL House Republicans are “conservatives”; what Axios much more accurately could and should say here is “House far-right extremists revolt…” But they won’t use that kind of language, because they’re cowards, among other things.)
• Watch Mike Johnson Struggle to Name Even One Example of Voter Fraud (“The House [S]peaker is unable to share even one real-life example of voter fraud that the SAVE Act would have stopped.”)
• The Last Thing Trump Wants to Do Is Save America (“This is what the president is fixated on right now?”)
• Roberts defends Supreme Court against Trump attacks (John Roberts is SHOCKED that the proverbial leopards are eating his and his fellow Supreme Court Justices’ proverbial faces. LOL)
• Fed Expected to Hold Rates, Weigh Oil Shock
• Powell’s Second-to-Last Meeting Previews an Increasingly Divided Fed (“As many as three governors are candidates to dissent at this week’s meeting, an unusual break that offers a glimpse of the fracture Kevin Warsh stands to inherit”)
• Somebody Finally Stood Up to RFK Jr. (“A federal judge’s ruling highlights the ways Kennedy’s anti-vax agenda is putting public health at risk.”)
• Troubled offshore wind farm completes construction in US – first to do so since Trump’s return to power (“Revolution Wind, a 50/50 joint venture between Global Infrastructure Partners’ Skyborn Renewables and Danish clean energy giant Ørsted, announced on Friday that it had begun delivering power to the New England electricity grid.”)
• Brendan Carr, the FCC, and the Banality of Evil (“The man leading Trump’s media vendetta is a brown-nosing bureaucrat. And that’s what makes him dangerous”)
• Comer subpoenas Attorney General Pam Bondi over Epstein files (“Rep. James Comer issued a subpoena to the attorney general over her handling of the files after the committee ordered her to testify before lawmakers.”)
• ‘CBS Evening News’ Viewership Drops Below 4 Million After Tony Dokoupil’s Colorful Start
• The new, bigoted leader of the College Republicans (“Kai Schwemmer, a 23-year-old college student from Utah, was named the new political director for the College Republicans of America (CRA) on March 5. The appointment has drawn criticism because Schwemmer has been an outspoken supporter of white supremacist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes. Devoted fans of Fuentes are known as “groypers.””)
• Tennessee Teens Sue Elon Musk’s xAI Over Child Sexual Abuse Images (“It’s the latest legal challenge against the Grok chatbot’s mass creation of nonconsensual sexual imagery of women and girls.”)
• Pritzker’s Gamble to Become a Kingmaker in Illinois Pays Off (“Gov. JB Pritzker invested capital, both political and the more traditional kind, in the Senate race of his lieutenant governor.”)
• AIPAC faces calls to reassess strategy after split results in Illinois (“In its first midterms test, the powerful pro-Israel group backed two victors but failed to secure its preferred outcome in the two districts where it spent the most.”)
• King of Illinois: Pritzker swings Senate race as he targets Trump (“Juliana Stratton’s victory in a heated Senate primary vindicates the governor’s political operation heading into 2028.”)
• The “Squad” left suffers complete wipeout in Illinois (“The left suffered a virtually total collapse in the Illinois Democratic congressional primaries on Tuesday night — even in races where the AIPAC-backed candidate lost.”)
• Jesse Jackson Jr.’s comeback bid fails in Illinois primary (“Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller defeated the former lawmaker in his attempt to return to Congress after more than a decade.”)
• Juliana Stratton wins Democratic primary, set to become Illinois’ second Black woman senator (“The lieutenant governor is all but certain to make history, becoming one of three Black women to serve in the Senate at the same time.”)
• Juliana Stratton wins Illinois Democratic Senate primary race (“The progressive candidate was behind Krishnamoorthi until she got an infusion of cash from Governor Pritzker”)
• Daniel Biss wins fierce House primary as Democrats fight over Israel and four Illinois open seats (“Donna Miller, Melissa Bean and La Shawn Ford also won open Democratic primaries in a quartet of Chicago-area House races partly defined by disagreements over Israel.”)
• Trump’s withheld endorsement hangs over Senate primary in Texas
• Texas Republicans’ Senate runoff moves forward as withdrawal deadline passes (“President Donald Trump called on whichever candidate he didn’t endorse to drop out. But the deadline to drop out has passed, and Trump hasn’t made his pick.”)
• Virginia Department of Health lifts recreational water advisory for Potomac River
• As Spanberger reviews state-level ‘Momnibus’ bills, Kaine and Booker try again on a federal package
• Sen. Mark Warner Demands Answers on $10 Billion TikTok Deal (Questions surround legality, conflicts of interest, and potential risks in administration-brokered sale)
• Mark Warner raises questions about Trump’s involvement in $10B TikTok deal
• Video: Sen. Mark Warner Rips “SAVE” Act as All About “suppressing and wrongfully influencing future elections” (Sen. Warner also points out that “ICE has got a $75 billion slush fund” (funding for the next 7 years), so “let’s reopen these critical agencies”)
• Video: Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-VA11) Says “I don’t see any scenario where I could support funding for a war that was unauthorized…illegal & substantively reckless.” (On the redistricting amendment, Rep. Walkinshaw says “I’m confident that it that it will pass”)
• New Report Finds Virginia Beach Hardest Hit by Kiggans-Trump Agenda (“Virginia Beach lost more jobs than almost any major U.S. city with a population of one million or more”)
• Virginia is making strides on clean energy – even as it falls behind (“Despite the Virginia Clean Economy’s path to 100% carbon-free electricity by 2025, Instead of ramping up additions of solar and storage, utilities are importing more fossil fuel electricity from other states, columnist Ivy Main writes…Never mind the Virginia Clean Economy Act, Virginia is going backwards on climate. “)
• Virginia moves to launch legal cannabis marketplace after years of delay (“General Assembly approves retail sales framework and sends measure to Gov. Spanberger after repeated vetoes under former Gov. Youngkin.”)
• Guns, wages, weed: The bills Virginia GA sent to Spanberger
• New statue in, old state song out: 10 more things the General Assembly did this year (“Democratic legislators named some Republicans to judgeships, created new commissions and studies but told the brown-belted bumblebee to buzz off as a potential state emblem.”)
• Loudoun County will fight to keep Amazon data center off just-sold GW campus in Ashburn
• Creeper Trail has $61 million annual impact on 4 Southwest Virginia counties, new study finds (“Work on the study began just days before Hurricane Helene hit the region and decimated half the trail. Researchers at Virginia Tech recommend that additional survey work be done after the trail fully reopens.”)
• Federal appeals court hears case after Liberty University fired trans employee
• Republican Andrew Rice wins House District 98 special election
• Richmond grand jury indicts Smithfield man accused of providing gun used in ODU attack (“A federal grand jury has indicted the Smithfield man accused of providing the handgun that Mohamed Jalloh used to kill a ROTC professor and wound two students at Old Dominion University. Kenya M. Chapman, 32, now has seven felony charges against him — up from four last week. The combined charges carry a maximum term of 50 years in prison.”)
• Memo: Avula says he’s ‘assessing’ how to comply with city code requiring publication of spending data
• Residents protest plan for high-voltage power line through nine Virginia counties
• Danville city manager’s proposed budget includes more revenue from casino, increased utility rates
• CWG Live: Chilly again today before spring starts a steady comeback (“Gradually warmer tomorrow into the weekend, with a shower chance here and there.”)