by Lowell
Here are a few international, national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Wednesday, September 17.
- Climate Change’s Toll in Europe This Summer: Thousands of Extra Deaths
- Human-made global warming ‘caused two in three heat deaths in Europe this summer’
- EU set to miss UN deadline for new target under Paris climate accord
- Communities Around the World Find Plastic Pellets in Their Local Waterways
- ‘We’re still in the dark’: a missing land defender and the deadly toll of land conflict on Indigenous people (“Julia Chuñil is one of 146 land defenders who were killed or went missing last year, a third of them from Indigenous communities”)
- Chinese Miners Accused of Gold Pillage, Environmental Destruction in DRC (“A new report says illegal, semi-industrial gold mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is wrecking havoc on Congolese people and the environment.”)
- New tests show Alexei Navalny was poisoned in Russian jail, says his widow (“Yulia Navalnaya says that two separate tests show that Russian opposition figure was poisoned in jail as she blames Putin for his death”)
- Exclusive: Trump administration clears first Ukraine arms aid paid for by allies, sources say
- Trump celebrates TikTok deal as Beijing suggests US app would use China’s algorithm
- U.S. Investors, Trump Close In on TikTok Deal With China (Trump is ignoring a LAW – and Congress is doing nothing, as is the Supreme Court.)
- Thousands of Palestinians flee as Israeli troops push into Gaza City (This situation is horrible and unacceptable.)
- Netanyahu and an Israel Without Restraint (“With the assault on Gaza City, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has piled defiance on defiance, as any check from the Trump administration falls away.”)
- Israel opens ‘temporary’ route for residents to flee as troops and tanks push deeper into Gaza City
- South Korea to examine Georgia ICE raid for possible human rights abuses
- Stephen Miller’s Quota Likely Drove Korean Arrests In Immigration Raid
- Four arrested after photos of Trump and Epstein projected onto Windsor Castle during president’s U.K. visit
- Images of Trump and Epstein projected on Windsor Castle as US president visits UK
- How huge London far-right march lifted the lid on a toxic transatlantic soup
- Keir Starmer is betting everything on an America that doesn’t exist any more (“Cosying up to Trump is an all-in gamble. Britain should be building better relations with more reliable allies closer to home”)
- Former GOP officials fear US strikes on alleged drug smugglers aren’t legal (They’re clearly illegal; the question is, will anyone DO ANYTHING about that illegality? I’m thinking the answer to that question is no, unfortunately.)
- Fed set to cut rates, but forecast for rest of 2025 is key to markets with politics clouding the picture
- Trump asks the Supreme Court to give him total control over the US economy (“The next few months could be the most consequential period for US constitutional law since the Roosevelt administration.”)
- G.O.P. Again Cedes Power on Tariffs to Avoid Crossing Trump (“House Republicans extended a maneuver they engineered earlier in the year that effectively strips Congress of the power to disapprove of President Trump’s tariffs.”)
- House again votes to surrender tariff powers to Trump (“The vote was gaveled down after a drawn-out struggle on the floor with a band of Republican holdouts.”)
- RFK Jr.’s Crusade Against Vaccines Hits Its Action Phase (“His anti-vax-stacked advisory committee is expected to revise rules for life-saving hepatitis B vax.” Horrendous.)
- Trump has crushed offshore wind plans, but states haven’t quite given up hope (“Virginia leaders have committed to building 5.2 gigawatts of offshore wind projects by the end of 2034, a goal that one state lawmaker will now be ‘desperately hard to meet.'”)
- Fed Divisions Thrust Powell Into Uncharted Territory (“Analysts are watching whether Trump-appointed Fed governors will back a larger rate cut or instead negotiate for stronger interest-rate clues.”)
- Fired BLS Chief Breaks Silence, Calls Her Dismissal a ‘Dangerous Step’
- The Trump Fantasy Is Unraveling
- The Two-Speed Economy Is Back as Low-Income Americans Give Up Gains
- Democrats Oppose Stopgap Bill, Raising Odds of a Shutdown
- Revealed: Trump administration retreats on combating human trafficking and child exploitation (“Experts say decades of progress are under threat; Trump officials say administration remains committed to fighting trafficking and sex abuse”)
- GOP Lawmakers Are Talking Out Of Both Sides Of Their Mouths On Political Violence (“On different social media accounts, Republicans are simultaneously decrying and fanning violent rhetoric in response to Charlie Kirk’s killing.”)
- We must not let the shooting of Charlie Kirk become Trump’s Reichstag fire (“Take heed from European history: this could be the pretext for the repression of the US president’s political opponents”)
- House Republicans threaten to cancel anyone who disparages Charlie Kirk
- Charlie Kirk, Redeemed: A Political Class Finds Its Lost Cause (“By ignoring the rhetoric and actions of the Turning Point USA founder, pundits and politicians are sanitizing his legacy.” The “mainstream media” – PBS, NPR, CBS, NBC, ABC, WaPo, NY Times, CNN, etc, etc. – have all definitely engaged in this.)
- MAGA debates how to respond to Kirk’s killing (“Nearly a week after President Donald Trump called for targeting “organizations” and blamed the “radical left” for the killing, the policy response is still very much in flux.” This was very much a SINGLE INDIVIDUAL who committed a heinous crime. That’s it, period – no “they” involved.)
- Sotomayor rebukes calls to ‘criminalize free speech’ in apparent swipe at Pam Bondi
- The Attorney General’s Attack on Free Speech (“Pam Bondi stated that the federal government will ‘go after’ Americans ‘if you are targeting anyone with hate speech.'”)
- The Irony of Using Charlie Kirk’s Murder to Silence Debate (“The conservative activist couldn’t have risen to prominence without robust free speech.” Absolutely – in many other countries, Kirk would have gotten into major trouble.)
- Pam Bondi’s ‘hate speech’ comments lead even some conservatives to cry foul (“Bondi on Monday made it so some of them could no longer shrug. They quickly cried foul over her comments on a podcast that the Justice Department would go after ‘hate speech.’ The National Review’s Charles C.W. Cooke wagered that the Supreme Court would reject Bondi’s view 9-0.”)
- Pam Bondi Is Really Wrong About Hate Speech
- Bondi Prompts Broad Backlash After Saying She’ll Target ‘Hate Speech’ (Bondi either doesn’t understand the First Amendment or, worse, DOES understand it but doesn’t GAF. Either way, she’s utterly unfit to be Attorney General.)
- Trump files $15 billion defamation lawsuit against ‘New York Times’ (This is frivolous bulls*** on one level, an assault against free speech on another level.)
- Trump news at a glance: president vows to stop ‘radical left media’ after filing NYT lawsuit
- Trump Invokes Kirk’s Killing in Justifying Measures to Silence Opponents (Kirk’s killer was a young white male from a conservative family of gun owners – and a lone wolf, to boot. In short, Trump is just looking for an excuse, however far-fetched, to do what he wanted to do anyway, which is to become a dictator, destroy any opposition to his rule, etc.)
- Obama Says the Nation Is in a ‘Political Crisis’
- Trump’s takeover of American society is nearly complete (“The public mourning of Charlie Kirk is more about Donald Trump than the deceased”)
- Some People Seem Very Determined Not to Face What We Actually Know About Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Shooter
- Charlie Kirk suspect confessed in hidden note to roommate, prosecutors allege
- You can have democracy or social media. Maybe not both. (“I used to be a cautious optimist, but the internet has changed our politics for the worse.”)
- DOJ Deletes Study Showing Domestic Terrorists Are Most Often Right Wing
- Prosecutors to seek death penalty for Charlie Kirk’s accused assassin
- Gov. Shapiro slams Oval Office’s ‘cherry picking’ of recent political violence (“The Pennsylvania governor and his family were targeted in an April firebombing.”)
- Another massive Trump corruption scandal for right-wing media to bury (“How many orders of magnitude worse is Trump’s corruption than various Hunter Biden claims the right said justified his father’s impeachment: An investigation”)
- Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success
- Adam Schiff and Kash Patel get into a shouting match (HORRIBLE framing by Politico; in fact, Patel had an unhinged meltdown – why doesn’t the Politico headline say that???)
- Republican pushes Patel for faster release of Epstein files (“Sen. John Kennedy warned the FBI director that ‘this issue’s not gonna go away.'”)
- Musk’s X can sue watchdog Media Matters in Texas, US judge rules (This lawsuit is TOTAL crap.)
- The Washington Post has broken my heart (The WaPo has had serious flaws for many, many years, but under Jeff Bezos, in the past few years it’s pretty much imploded – certainly its editorial page, which is now a complete joke….)
- Fani Willis Loses Bid to Continue Prosecuting Georgia Trump Case (“The 4-3 ruling means that the criminal case against President Trump, related to his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss, will not move forward anytime soon, if ever.” F’ing fiasco.)
- House Passes D.C. Crime Bills as Trump Crackdown Continues (The NY Times continues to buy the b.s. that this is all about a “crackdown” on crime. That definitely isn’t Trump’s main motivation here.)
- Luigi Mangione Wins a Major Victory in Court
- Democrat wins special election for seat held by slain Minnesota lawmaker Melissa Hortman
- Oklahoma court stops social studies standards with 2020 election misinformation from taking effect
- The Georgia Election Chief Who Angered Trump Plans Run for Governor (“Brad Raffensperger refused to “find” more votes for Trump, survived MAGA’s fury and is now seeking the state’s highest office.”)
- Trump-MAGA Fury Drove a Georgia GOPer Into Exile. He Just Struck Back. (“Geoff Duncan was the Peachtree State’s lieutenant governor who defied Trump in 2020. Now he’s running for governor as a Democrat—and in an interview, he explains why.”)
- Oklahoma Schools Were Instructed to Hold a Moment of Silence for Charlie Kirk (Oklahoma, where MAGA runs the schools…with predictable results.)
- So much for states’ rights | Why is Jason Miyares trying to tell Maryland what to do?
- Mark Warner: Here’s how we fix Virginia’s affordability crisis
- Reps. Rob Wittman (R-VA01) and Jen Kiggans (R-VA02) Vote to Protect Trump’s Cost-Spiking Tariffs (a Major New Tax on the American People) (Both of these jokers richly deserve to lose next year.)
- Virginia July-August 2025 Campaign Finance Reports Coming In [UPDATED: Spanberger, Hashmi, Jones All Outraise Their GOP Opponents]
- Video: Spanberger Calls on Winsome Earle-Sears to Cancel Rally With Vivek Ramaswamy, “One of the Original ‘DOGE’ Leaders” (Among other things, Ramaswamy “has often equated abortion to murder,” called climate change a “hoax,” “pledged to fire 75% of federal employees” etc.)
- Winsome Earle-Sears schedules campaign event with former leader of Trump’s DOGE efforts
- Virginia July-August 2025 Campaign Finance Reports Coming In [UPDATED: Spanberger, Hashmi, Jones All Outraise Their GOP Opponents]
- Democrats continue cash advantage in Virginia election campaigns (“The latest campaign finance reports, covering July and August, show Virginia Democrats flush with cash as early voting is set to begin on Friday.”)
- Spanberger leads near-total Democratic sweep in fundraising
- Spanberger, Earle-Sears clash over Medicaid at statewide disability forum (“Six candidates running for the top three elected offices in Virginia – governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general — deliberated issues like federal cuts to Medicaid and voting rights at a virtual disability forum this week.”)
- A promise to check Trump and lots of money in Va. attorney general race (“The race carries impact beyond the state’s borders, as Democrats hope to add Virginia to the ranks of blue states working to block Trump priorities.”)
- VA Democratic AG Nominee Jay Jones Releases Comprehensive Plan “outlining how he’ll prevent fentanyl addiction, support addiction recovery, and combat the illicit market for the drug”
- Sentence-trimming program inmates can earn under fresh scrutiny amid Va. attorney general race
- Eli Lilly to build $5 billion drug manufacturing plant in Virginia
- Working Families Party weighs in on Virginia’s ‘very pivotal’ election (“All of the Virginia candidates endorsed by the WFP are Democrats, but not all Democrats are endorsed.”)
- Are boxwoods doomed in Virginia? New invasive pest detected in state this summer
- Three Democrats break from Clean Virginia and take Dominion money (“Since its inception, only three Democrats — prior to this year — have flipped on Clean Virginia: Ayala, former HD-84 candidate Michelle Joyce, and former Del. Clint Jenkins. None of the three holds elected office now.”)
- RTD cuts metro reporters in latest round of newspaper layoffs
- Education Dept., parents’ suit decry Loudoun probe over locker room incident (“The incident is the latest in an ongoing debate in the Northern Virginia district over policies over gender.”)
- Despite concerns, Fairfax Co. supervisors tout proposed Beltway toll lane extension to cut commutes (In general, building more roads is almost never the right answer.)
- Candidates in Lynchburg commonwealth’s attorney’s race have been at odds before
- Augusta County | Where the Scopes trial has yet to be resolved, a hundred years later
- Virginia Beach gets over 7″ of rain in a day, more than city leaders expected
- CWG Live updates: Cloudy and cool today with showers, then increasing sun and warmth (“Shower chances decrease tonight before we warm up Thursday into Friday.”)
