by Lowell
Here are a few international, national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Tuesday, February 28.
- Solar set to overtake other energy sources by 2027 (“Cheaper installation costs and energy security concerns are driving expansion” “There is a boom, there is exponential growth, there is acceleration”)
- Scientists Boost The Efficiency of a Cheap And Promising Solar Panel Material by 250%
- BP CEO Says More Oil and Gas Investment Is Good for the Climate Fight (That’s completely insane.)
- A Gold Mine of Clean Energy May Be Hiding Under Our Feet (“There may be hundreds of millions of megatons of hydrogen in Earth’s crust, and even if only 10 percent of it is accessible, that would last thousands of years at the current rate of consumption, Geoffrey Ellis, a research geologist for the U.S. Geological Survey in Denver, told me.”)
- Facing a long war, Ukraine needs Western fighter jets
- Russians tighten noose on Ukraine’s Bakhmut, situation ‘extremely tense’ (Give Ukraine ATACMs and advanced aircraft.)
- Scrounging for Tanks for Ukraine, Europe’s Armies Come Up Short (“The struggle to deliver on promises to provide Leopard 2 tanks for use against Russian forces has exposed just how unprepared European militaries are.”)
- Moscow accuses U.S. of preparing ‘toxic chemicals’ provocation; Bakhmut situation deteriorating fast
- Ukraine war: Zelensky says situation in Bakhmut worsening
- Ukraine’s northeastern front could decide new battle lines
- For Ukraine’s Animals, a Home Is Getting Harder to Find (“Early in the war, thousands of pets were ferried out of danger, mostly to countries in Europe. But now adoptions are waning.”)
- To Save Ukraine, Defeat Russia and Deter China
- CIA Director Says Putin ‘Too Confident’ He Can Defeat Ukraine As China Weighs Lethal Aid
- Russia Turns to China’s Yuan in Effort to Ditch the Dollar
- US Navy reconnaissance flight over Taiwan Strait draws angry response from China
- Apple Suppliers Are Racing to Exit China, AirPods Maker Says
- China must be ‘more honest’ on COVID origins, envoy says
- Despite latest reports, there’s still not a speck of evidence that COVID escaped from a Chinese lab
- Little-known scientific team behind new assessment on covid-19 origins
- U.S. analysis keeps covid ‘lab leak’ theory in play
- Netanyahu’s balancing act got harder after post-summit violence
- ‘Never like this before’: settler violence in West Bank escalates
- Netanyahu Is Shattering Israeli Society (Anyone who voted for his party, Likud, or his far-right allies is responsible for this disaster.)
- Iranian officials to investigate ‘revenge’ poisoning of schoolgirls
- Last of Iran’s endangered Asiatic cheetah cubs in captivity dies
- Analysis: Sunak Hopes to Move Past Brexit, at Long Last (Good luck with that!)
- Partial results of disputed Nigeria election show Tinubu in lead
- Indonesia Shows It’s Possible to Tame Rainforest Destruction
- Eduardo Mendúa, Ecuadorian Who Fought Oil Extraction on Indigenous Land, Is Shot to Death
- Biden Administration’s Global Plastics Plan Dubbed ‘Low Ambition’ and ‘Underwhelming’
- Solar produced 4.7% of U.S. electricity in 2022, generation up 25% (“Wind generation broke through 10% of the nation’s electricity, and total emissions free generation grew again, reaching 37.8% of U.S. electricity in 2022.” That needs to rapidly approach 100%, but we’re making progress at least.)
- The Supreme Court will decide if a whole federal agency is unconstitutional (“That’s actually good news.”)
- Supreme Court Accepts Fifth Circuit’s Challenge to Play Jenga with the Federal Budget
- Supreme Court weighs Biden student loan plan worth billions
- The End of the English Major (“Enrollment in the humanities is in free fall at colleges around the country. What happened? — The crisis, when it came, arrived so quickly that its scale was hard to recognize at first.”)
- A bipartisan group of Senators is talking about raising the retirement age on Social Security
- Dropping the creator of ‘Dilbert’ is free speech at work
- Cartoonists say a rebuke of ‘Dilbert’ creator Scott Adams is long overdue (“Illustrators say the creator of Dilbert has held problematic views for a long time, from claiming that he lost job opportunities because he is white to questioning the legitimacy of the COVID vaccine.”)
- Scott Adams and the right-wing insistence on White victimhood
- Report finds right-wing radicals responsible for all extremist-related murders in 2022
- Trump’s polling strength causes heartburn for Senate GOP
- The 2024 GOP presidential primary becomes a referendum on ‘America First’
- If courts reject Perry’s defense, Trump and MAGA lawmakers should panic (“Courts could force Rep. Scott Perry to testify. If he does, he could end up providing some of the most significant evidence yet in the Jan. 6, 2021, investigation.”)
- Murdoch Acknowledges Fox News Hosts Endorsed Election Fraud Falsehoods (Anyone who thinks Fox “News” is an actual news network and not just right-wing propaganda is completely clueless, terminally naive, you name it.)
- Rupert Murdoch admits in new Dominion filing that Fox knew election fraud conspiracy theories were all lies it spread for profit (Murdoch is one of the most heinous people in the world. Period.)
- The 10 biggest revelations from Dominion’s explosive Fox News legal filing
- New Dominion filing: Rupert Murdoch provided Jared Kushner with confidential information about Biden campaign ads
- Rupert Murdoch admitted some Fox commentators ‘endorsed’ election lies
- Fox could be on the hook for campaign finance violations after new court docs drop: former FBI agent
- Sean Hannity ‘had been privately disgusted by Trump for weeks’: court docs
- Murdoch and other Fox execs agreed 2020 election was fair but feared losing viewers, court filing shows
- Fighting ‘Woke AI,’ Musk Recruits Team to Develop OpenAI Rival (In other words, Musk wants an AI where everyone can be as racist, abusive, misogynistic, nasty, etc. as they want to be.)
- U.S. Marshals Service suffers ‘major’ security breach that compromises sensitive information, senior law enforcement officials say
- White House: No more TikTok on gov’t devices within 30 days
- The latest DeSantis attack on education is part of a broader attack on professional competence
- DeSantis readies de facto presidential campaign (Trumpism, aka fascism, with a different face.)
- DeSantis’s ‘Apocalyptic’ Attack on Higher Education
- DeSantis takes over Disney district, punishing company (DeSantis is a thug.)
- Ron DeSantis’s scorn-filled book sets tone for potential campaign
- How Newsmax’s Cable-Fee Fight Spiraled Into the Right’s Latest “Censorship” Crusade
- Daily Wire host: “You have to ban transgenderism entirely” (Unhinged.)
- Inside the ‘New York Times’ Blowup Over Transgender Coverage
- Rep. Joaquin Castro diagnosed with cancer, undergoes surgery at MD Anderson Cancer Center
- CNN commentator lobbied for Norfolk Southern; the network didn’t tell its audience during East Palestine discussion (Ah yes, “journalism” – in air quotes.)
- Daniel Snyder’s demands anger NFL owners, renew talk of voting him out
- Commentary: Ben Cline’s appearance with Steve Bannon doesn’t exactly score points (Cline is an extremist and an insurrectionist who has absolutely no business being in Congress.)
- Congressman Scott is hopeful his union legislation can move forward
- Editorial: Virginia’s legislative exodus
- General Assembly undergoing shakeup with wave of retirement announcements, including State Senate Minority Leader Tommy Norment
- The Most Important News in Virginia Politics Yesterday Was Actually Senate GOP Leader Tommy Norment’s Retirement Announcement. Here Are a Few Thoughts.
- John Edwards decides not to seek another term as Roanoke senator
- Sen. John Edwards is retiring (“He’s served for 28 years. His retirement avoids a re-election campaign against state Sen. David Suetterlein, R-Roanoke County, who had been drawn into the same district.”)
- Byron, Edwards the latest senior legislators to announce retirements
- How Did the 2023 Virginia General Assembly Do? Overall Grade: C (For the most part, the Senate Dems’ “brick wall” stopped really bad Republican bills; unfortunately, House Republicans stopped most (very good) Dem bills as well…)
- 2023 Session: A Story Of MAGA Republicans’ Failure To Govern (“From their so called ‘error’ that kept 200 million dollars from our schools, to the decision to send 2,500 good paying jobs off to Michigan, and to their refusal to support women’s right to bodily autonomy — they’ve shown us they cannot lead.” – VA House Dems Leader Don Scott)
- Column: Rights restoration has bipartisan support. So why does it keep failing
- What Virginia’s General Assembly did — and didn’t — get done this session (“With a divided government, most controversial legislation got blocked.” It’s not even that it’s “controversial,” it’s that Republicans blocked just about anything pro-environment or progressive in any way.)
- Another session with vital work left undone: Virginia outgrows its part-time legislature (“There is a massive amount of work that the General Assembly shoehorns into one of the shortest legislative meeting schedules in the nation. The brunt of that heavy lifting falls on the staff of the committees where bills either die or advance to the floor.”)
- McClellan flipped two deep red rural counties. What does this mean? (“In Dinwiddie, McClellan took less than half of McAuliffe’s vote and less than one-third of Biden’s vote — but still wound up with a majority of the vote, because Benjamin’s vote was down even more.”)
- BREAKING: Del. Lamont Bagby Wins Democratic Nomination to Fill the Seat of Congresswoman-Elect Jennifer McClellan (D-SD09) (Bagby easily defeats Alexsis Rogers (21.1%) and Del. Dawn Adams (6.5%))
- National, UVa NAACP ‘outraged’ over Youngkin review of African American studies course
- Youngkin adviser says 2024 race is more than Trump, DeSantis
- Fairfax NAACP “Shocked and Deeply Saddened by the Unnecessary Brutal Slaying of a Black Citizen, Mr. Timothy Johnson, 37, by the Fairfax County Police Department” (“The Branch Demands an Independent Investigation Into the Death of Mr. Johnson”)
- Loudoun County Breaks Ground On A New “Missing Link” Road
- Temporary air pollution exception for data centers sparks opposition in Northern Virginia
- How Norfolk’s progressive prosecutor ended up in the crosshairs of debate over rising crime
- Terry Holland, who transformed Virginia basketball, dies at 80
- ‘How did we get here?’ Charlottesville residents ask police chief after recent shootings
- Virginia Beach schools receive influx of threats, task force launched to review safety concerns
- Montgomery museum plans exhibit to highlight Black history in southwest Virginia
- D.C.-area forecast: Clearing skies with temperatures warming today and tomorrow
