Thursday News: “Trump’s Auto Tariffs, Threats on Allies Intensify Trade War”; “The New Video of Federal Agents Ambushing a Student and Disappearing With Her Should Chill You to Your Core”; “Trump Demands Congress Defund NPR and PBS ‘IMMEDIATELY’ in Late-Night Meltdown”

fby Lowell

Here are a few international, national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Thursday, March 27.

• Coca-Cola plastic waste in oceans expected to reach 602m kilograms a year by 2030 (“Analysis published by non-profit group Oceana comes amid fears over human health risks posed by the spread of microplastics” Horrific.)
• Biodiversity loss in all species and every ecosystem linked to humans – report (“Sweeping synthesis of 2,000 global studies leaves no doubt about scale of problem and role of humans, say experts”)
• Zelensky hopes US will ‘stand strong’ in face of Russian demands
• Bessent opens door to Russian return to major international banking system (That’s completely nuts.)
• 4 American soldiers who went missing in Lithuania have died, NATO leader says
• ‘I want to see my kids walk the streets without hiding’ – Zelensky
• Von der Leyen vows EU will protect its interests as Trump announces huge car tariffs
• Europe Politics
  Trump threatens ‘far larger’ tariffs if EU and Canada unite to do ‘economic harm’ to the U.S.
• Trump’s Auto Tariffs, Threats on Allies Intensify Trade War
• Trump announces new auto tariffs in a major trade war escalation
• Trump places 25% tariff on imported autos, expecting to raise $100 billion in tax revenues
• Canada freezes rebate payments to Tesla, bans it from future rebate programs due to tariffs
• Europe Confronts Reality That Vance’s Hostility Is More Than Just a Show
• Greenland Business Rescinds Invite for Usha Vance Visit
• China Is Courting, and Confronting, U.S. Allies Made Uneasy by President Trump
• Signal Leak Bared U.S. Aims in Yemen. But Defeating Houthis Won’t Be Easy.
• Yale professor who studies fascism fleeing US to work in Canada (“Jason Stanley, who says grandmother fled Berlin with his father in 1939, says US may become ‘fascist dictatorship'”)
• Noem sends warning to immigrants as she tours El Salvador prison
• Turkish student at Tufts University detained, video shows masked people handcuffing her (“It looked like a kidnapping…They approach her and start grabbing her with their faces covered. They’re covering their faces. They’re in unmarked vehicles.”)
• The New Video of Federal Agents Ambushing a Student and Disappearing With Her Should Chill You to Your Core
• WATCH: The Moment Masked ICE Agents Arrested Tufts Graduate Student Who Spoke Out in Support of Palestine (“Ozturk’s attorney, Mahsa Khanbabai, says her team is unaware of her whereabouts, has been unable to contact her, and that no charges have been filed against Ozturk that they are aware of. The ICE locator database on Wednesday afternoon listed Ozturk as being held in the ‘South Louisiana Processing Center’ in Basile, Louisiana – more than 1,400 miles away from Somerville, Massachusetts, where Ozturk was detained. ICE and the White House did not respond to requests for comment.” Wildly unacceptable.)
• “You’re Here Because of Your Tattoos” (“On Friday, March 14, Arturo Suárez Trejo called his wife, Nathali Sánchez, from an immigration detention center in Texas. Suárez, a 33-year-old native of Caracas, Venezuela, explained that his deportation flight had been delayed.”)
• Exclusive: Trump’s “pro-Hamas” purge could block foreign students from colleges
• ‘Trump Slump’ Looms as Foreign Visitors Rethink Travel to U.S.
• RFK Jr. Is Hiring a Vaccine Skeptic at HHS to Analyze Vaccine Studies
• Trump administration at ‘war’ with mRNA technology: scientists alarmed vaccine skeptics could kill research
• H.H.S. Scraps Studies of Vaccines and Treatments for Future Pandemics
• Trump Administration Abruptly Cuts Billions From State Health Services (“States have been told that they can no longer use grants that were funding infectious disease management and addiction services.”)
• Federal Judiciary Seeks to Curb Threats as Trump and Allies Single Out Judges
• Trump Loses Bid to Pause Ruling on Federal Funding Freeze
• Trump’s Attacks on Press Freedom Are Paving the Way for Authoritarianism (“A leading global democracy research institute says democratic ‘backsliding’ must be turned around quickly—warning that after 10 years, recovery is ‘close to impossible.'”)
• The Supreme Court hands a rare loss to gun companies (“Justice Neil Gorsuch’s ‘ghost guns’ opinion is extremely narrow, but it is correct.”)
• Kavanaugh and Barrett appear likely to break with the Supreme Court’s MAGA wing (“At least for now…”)
• Judge at centre of row with Trump over Venezuela deportations will hear Signal lawsuit
• The White House says the Yemen security breach is a hoax. Here’s why it’s not
• ‘They invited me – now they’re attacking me’: Signal chat journalist speaks to BBC
• Here Are the Attack Plans That Trump’s Advisers Shared on Signal
• The country’s most powerful institutions are bowing to Trump. The Atlantic just backed him into a corner.
• Hegseth Comes Under Scrutiny for Texting Strike Details as Fallout Grows
• Republican senators break ranks to call for investigation of Signal leak scandal
• Private Data and Passwords of Senior U.S. Security Officials Found Online
• Mike Waltz Left His Venmo Friends List Public
• Michael Waltz’s Venmo Is Public, and It’s Full of Journalists
• ‘Somebody has to go down’: Trump allies take aim at Michael Waltz
• Trump changes his tune on Signalgate: ‘I always thought it was Mike’
• The Five Scandals (and One Fascinating Political Insight) of Signalgate
• Trump officials downplay the Signal leak. Some military members see a double standard
• Duckworth: ‘Pete Hegseth is a ‘f‑‑‑ing liar’
• Trump Adviser Lied About Not Knowing Atlantic Editor in Group Chat
• Trump says Signal chat isn’t ‘really an FBI thing.’ The FBI has a long history of such inquiries
• As defense experts say the information Pete Hegseth shared in a Signal chat was classified, Fox insists that it wasn’t
• Trump’s executive order on elections is a blatant power grab
• Social Security backs off plan to cut phone services for disabled people
• Sadopolitics: Why MAGA clings tighter to Trump the more his policies hurt them (“Psychology helps to explain why Trump’s followers will not abandon him”)
• Democratic group aims to spend $40m on key 2026 races for election oversight
• A populist uprising stirs among Democrats furious at their leaders
• Schumer keeps his job as Democrats wonder if he’s on borrowed time
• Now that Trump has silenced Voice of America, could U.S. public media outlets be next? (“The president’s decision to shutter the global news organization portends ever more troubling repression of independent journalism in the United States.”)
• Trump Demands Congress Defund NPR and PBS ‘IMMEDIATELY’ in Late-Night Meltdown
• The New Lavender Scare (“The McCarthy-era purge of gays and lesbians in the American government was a uniquely dark episode. Some federal workers see chilling parallels now.”)
• Scoop: Chris Pappas is running for Senate in New Hampshire
• The Greater Scandal of Signalgate (“The spectacle of incompetence and the attempts to smear a reporter are a misery; even worse is the encroaching threat of autocracy that cannot be concealed or encrypted.”)
• Video: Sen. Mark Warner Says People Need to Be Held Accountable for “Signalgate,” Not Just “Trump somehow blaming this on Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama or whoever”; “we need to get those phones” (“…the idea of disputes between American senior leaders before an attack, Russia and China would give their right arm for that”)
• Senator Mark Warner says Hegseth should resign over group chat leak
• EMILYs List Puts Three U.S. House Republicans (John McGuire, Rob Wittman, Jen Kiggans) from Virginia “On Notice” As Key 2026 Flip Targets (House Republicans’ “chaos and cruelty has no bounds” – “It’s time for [them] to go”)
• Youngkin Vetoes Legislation Which “would have ensured enforcement of current law that requires perpetrators of domestic violence to relinquish their firearms.” (Youngkin “stand[s] with the NRA and the gun lobby rather than protecting women and victims from deadly domestic violence”)
• VA GOP Gubernatorial Candidate Winsome Earle-Sears Dismisses Concerns of Virginians Who Have Lost Jobs Because of Trump: “Do Not Fret…Don’t Worry”; “everybody has lost a job…it is life happening”
• Video: Virginia Physicians Denounce Gov. Youngkin’s Prescription Drug Affordability Board Veto; Share How Board Would Have Helped Patients Better Afford Prescriptions
• Youngkin amasses record number of vetoes as he takes aim at gun control
• Lucas and Scott say Youngkin’s Virginia Gaming Commission amendment is “DOA”
• Virginia governor vetoes comprehensive AI consumer protections
• After years of unsuccessful attempts, Virginia closes campaign spending loophole
• What will lawmakers do with Youngkin’s amendments to license plate readers legislation?
• Schapiro: The McAuliffe-ization of Glenn Youngkin (There’s interesting stuff in this article, but comparing Youngkin to McAuliffe seems…odd, let’s just put it that way.)
• Sweeping COVID program cuts hit Virginia Department of Health
• Scoop: Virginia health department faces layoffs after $11.4B in federal cuts
• After delay, Va. education department to start releasing history instructional guides in April
• Gov. Glenn Youngkin Appoints Ken Cuccinelli, Who Conducted a “Climate Science Denial Witch Hunt” Against UVA (and Former UVA Climate Professor Michael Mann), to the UVA Board of Visitors
• Youngkin fires one of his appointees to University of Virginia board
• Governor Youngkin fires appointee Bert Ellis from Board of Visitors (“Several hours later, the Governor announced his intention to appoint Ken Cuccinelli as Ellis’s replacement”)
• Youngkin fires Ellis from UVa’s board; will appoint Cuccinelli
• Editorial: As discrimination protections erode, a Virginia housing rights case stands out
• Virginia Gov. Youngkin reshuffles Commerce department, people familiar say (“Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) asked Commerce Secretary Caren Merrick to move to Natural Resources to make way for her deputy, Juan Pablo Segura, to assume her job.”)
• Governor Youngkin proposes state funding for survivors of February floods
• CWG Live updates: Mild sunshine today before big weekend warm-up