Sunday (8/30) News: Six Months In, “No One Knows How to End the War with Iran”; Lake Ontario Forever!

by Lowell

Here are a few international, national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Sunday, August 30.  Today’s biggest developments and headlines include the climate crisis (always at the top of these news highlights because it’s existential and should be a massive story every single day)…plus lots more…see below.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS (Climate crisis/Nepal; “No One Knows How to End the War with Iran”; ” Ontario premier answers Trump’s ‘Lake America’ with giant ‘Lake Ontario’ sign”; Trump’s wildly corrupt Venezuela oil deal; etc.)

• Nepal warns of possible fresh flooding as communities grapple with devastation
• Rescuers pump air into hydropower tunnel in search for missing workers after Nepal-China flooding (“The death toll has continued to rise while thousands remain missing days after the disaster.”)
• The ICC Tried to Take On the World’s Big Powers. Now It’s Fighting for Survival. (“The International Criminal Court finds itself snared in geopolitical conflicts after targeting the leaders of Israel and Russia”)
• CIA director floated Trump-Putin-Zelensky summit during Moscow visit, sources say
• Estonia’s spy chief: ‘Russia is in a very bad place – revolution could come overnight’
• Ukraine Says Russia Planning Ground Offensive on Kyiv, Chernihiv
• Russian drone strike on Kyiv warehouse storing weapons kills at least 37 (“Ukrainian prosecutors open investigation into why munitions were stored so close to residential buildings”)
• Germany plans to blame Russia for Leipzig attack as tensions with Putin escalate (“Chancellor Friedrich Merz is set to level new sanctions at Russian entities, in parallel with punishing new EU measures.”)
• Scott Bessent faces major G20 diplomacy test
• Treasury Bars Some Reporters From G20 Finance Meeting (“Specific reporters from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg were not granted credentials to cover the meeting of financial leaders next week in Asheville, N.C. “)
• Military leaders warn Hegseth against extending Iran war operations (“A recent classified assessment advised that prolonged large-scale operations in the Middle East risk weakening U.S. capabilities elsewhere.”)
• Trump’s ‘economic D-day’ against Iran risks driving the stakes even higher (“As with its approach to Hormuz, the US has mistaken applying pressure for an actual strategy. But Tehran has chips of its own to play”)
• No One Knows How to End the War with Iran (” Both Washington and Tehran want to inflict enough pain that the other side buckles. But neither side seems to be living in reality”)
• USS Abraham Lincoln sails past Singapore on its way home from Middle East
• Iran’s Mojtaba Khamenei urges Gulf rulers in written message to confront ‘real enemy’ (“Khamenei has not ⁠been seen in public since being injured in U.S.-Israeli airstrikes six ​months ⁠ago, but a series of written statements have been attributed to him.”)
• New Maps Show How Israel Has Thwarted Hopes for a Palestinian State
• Palestinian woman and NBC News team attacked by masked Israeli settlers in West Bank (Israel’s far-right government has GOT TO GO – elections in a couple months, can’t wait!)
• Pacific Islands Forum meeting in turmoil after several leaders pull out of Palau summit (“Solomon Islands prime minister cancels his appearance, along with leaders from Fiji, Vanuatu and Samoa”)
• Far-Right Party Wins Closely Watched Western Australia Vote (“The far-right One Nation party has secured its first lower house seat in the state parliament of Western Australia, defeating the ruling Labor Party to win a special election.” UGH!)
• Iceland votes against restarting talks on joining EU
• Inside Trump’s Plan to Give the Pentagon a Stake in Venezuela’s Oil Riches (“The substance of the agreement appears to be in direct conflict with Venezuela’s 1999 constitution, which states that the country’s oil reserves belong to the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and can’t be sold. Critics say Venezuela’s current government, populated by unelected officials kept in power by the Trump administration, has no legal authority to sell the country’s oil rights.”)
• Trump’s Oil Deal Riles Both Sides of Venezuelan Politics
• What we know about Trump’s deal giving U.S. access to vast oil reserves in Venezuela (This article is classic “mainstream” media, in this case AP and PBS – incredibly wimpy, doesn’t clearly say – or at all, really – that this is WILDLY illegal and corrupt.)
• How Trump took control of Venezuela’s democratic transition (“The U.S. has sidelined opposition leader María Corina Machado and bet on a ‘serious’ but little-known regime critic as it tries to restore democracy in Venezuela.”)
• ‘You’re at war when you get attacked’: Mark Carney shows combative nature in face-off with Trump
• Editorial: Picking a fight with Canada will mean higher prices for Americans (“There’s no question that Americans, including those in the commonwealth, will bear the brunt of Trump’s senseless, reckless and petulant actions. “)
• Ontario premier answers Trump’s ‘Lake America’ with giant ‘Lake Ontario’ sign
• Trump’s AI Slop Gets Weird With Lake Ontario
• Milo Yiannopoulos, Right-Wing Agitator, Deported Home to U.K.
• The fixer at the center of FIFA’s meltdown (“From Riyadh to Haiti to a leaked World Cup sell-off plan, Mario Gallavotti keeps turning up at the center of global soccer’s worst moments.”)

NATIONAL NEWS (More REALLY bad shit by DHS, ICE; Mark Zuckerberg’s Social Reckoning; “Nine years after Charlottesville, GOP pushes “blood and soil'”; “The Earth is sizzling, but climate isn’t a hot topic for Democrats in this year’s campaigns”; etc.)

• Relative of Afghans Who Helped U.S. Military Is Deported to Africa (“The Trump administration has deported thousands of immigrants to countries where they have no ties. Dozens were on the latest flight, to the Central African Republic.” Appalling.)
• Trump’s DHS is using an obscure law to secretly snoop on journalists, non-profits and unions: ‘It’s outrageous’ (“Even after judges rejected the same ploy, the Trump administration is going directly to social media and telecommunications companies”)
• Judge declares Rubio’s speech-based student deportations violate the Constitution (“Northern District of California Judge Noël Wise, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, sided with the Stanford Daily in its suit against Secretary of State Marco Rubio.”)
• Warsh, After Talking Tough on Inflation, Faces a ‘No-Win Situation’ on Rates
• How Trump’s Policy Agenda Runs Through One Federal Court, in Texas (“For years, conservative litigants flocked to Judge Reed O’Connor’s district. Now, North Texas has become a favorite destination of the Justice Department.”)
• Documents leaked by Trump official to bolster a conspiracy show ‘absolutely nothing’
• Tech backlash reaches fever pitch as AI angst collides with social media fears (“More than half of Americans say they’re more concerned than excited about the growing use of AI in daily life, according to a recent report from the Pew Research Center…The tech backlash picked up momentum this week as Meta agreed to a landmark settlement in a case brought by dozens of state AGs.”)
• Mark Zuckerberg’s Social Reckoning (“The Meta settlement will force meaningful changes on Facebook and Instagram. It also reflects the degree to which public outrage is outmatched by the speed and size of Big Tech.”)
• What Might Happen to Trump’s Ill-Gotten Gains (“Lessons from fallen autocrats”)
• Last-minute doomsday scenarios for the 2026 election
• Postal Service Rule Could Bar Millions From Voting By Mail (“A judge temporarily blocked the agency from refusing to deliver ballots in noncompliant states, which could disproportionately affect many battleground elections.”)
• Nine years after Charlottesville, GOP pushes “blood and soil” (“The nativist doctrine lives on in JD Vance’s vision for the US”)
• The Earth is sizzling, but climate isn’t a hot topic for Democrats in this year’s campaigns (Notice how, with the “mainstream” media, only Democrats have agency? Why isn’t the headline, “Republicans are actually climate DENIERS, while Democrats aren’t talking about it much?”)
• If the party wants to win elections and defeat Trumpism for good, they’ll all have to get out of their comfort zone. (“If the party wants to win elections and defeat Trumpism for good, they’ll all have to get out of their comfort zone.”)
• The Florida GOP’s Red Scare Is Losing Steam (“You’re telling me that a former Republican congressman and Republican lobbyist is now a socialist?”)
• El-Sayed apologizes to Jewish Democrats as he seeks to bridge party divides
• ‘I Made a Mistake’: El-Sayed Apologizes for Comment About Synagogue Attack (“Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate nominee in Michigan, faced criticism from Jewish Democrats after remarking, ‘hurt people hurt people.'”)
• Michigan Senate candidate Mike Rogers says he saw Bin Laden’s body with his ‘own eyes’. He did not (“Ex-House intel committee chair, now running against Abdul El-Sayed, instead saw photo of Osama bin Laden’s body” Big difference!)
• What Darline Graham’s Ugly, Viral Outburst About Death Really Reveals (“The senator’s parents died when she was a kid. That’s tragic. But it’s also tragic that she’s against the kind of care that could help untold numbers of people avoid that fate today.” The best thing you can say about Darline Graham is that she’s an imbecile. But it’s a lot worse than that…)
• The Kennedy Center Has a Problem That Courts Can’t Fix (“A board of Trump loyalists keeps dragging out a legal fight over the center’s future.”)
• The democratic socialist in line to lead D.C. knows people are pinning their hopes on her

VIRGINIA NEWS (Cardboard Kiggans; Right Wingers Exploit Fairfax County Murders by Immigrants for Political Gain – Even as Violent Crime Is Overwhelmingly Committed by Native-Born Americans; etc.)

• Mark Warner presses Polymarket, Kalshi on election disinformation efforts
• Video, Photos: Cardboard Jen Kiggans (R-VA02) Town Hall in Virginia Beach (Kiggans “has not held a public, in-person town hall where constituents can come together and ask questions about her record. So tonight, we brought the town hall to her”)
• Right Wingers Exploit Fairfax County Murders by Immigrants for Political Gain – Even as Violent Crime Is Overwhelmingly Committed by Native-Born Americans (In fact, Fairfax has “100,000 undocumented migrants – NOT committing murders or other crimes, just doing their jobs…”)
• Williams: Reading is fundamental. So is safe air in school.
• Chesterfield has data center money coming. How should it spend it?
• World War II hero’s family objects to talk of Navy stripping his name from Newport News aircraft carrier
• Fairfax County daycare teacher accused of hitting toddler, shoving another at McLean facility
• DC-area forecast: Somewhat hotter today ahead of a sizzling week