Hurricane Lala, Shootings, and the 2028 Primary Shuffle

MayaMorning, everybody. Welcome back to The Morning Rundown. Good to be here. Big show today. We're opening heavy. Hurricane Lola brushed the Big Island overnight, and rescue crews are still digging through Indonesia after that earthquake. Plus the facts on two shootings this week: Virginia State and up in Michigan. Then David's got the politics. South Carolina jumping the primary line, and Trump's endorsement record taking some hits lately. And this Paramount Warner Bros lawsuit out of California. There's an angle nobody's talking about, who it actually hurts. Brightening up- Mm-hmm. Then we close it out light. SpaceX broke its own launch record, and Disney dumped a mountain of D23 news. Including Harrison Ford back as Indiana Jones. Wait, seriously? Yep, we'll get there. All right. Hawaii first. That storm got close. The urgency of Hurricane Lola skirting the Big Island without ever making landfall, and it still felt like a direct hit. Yeah, the wind and rain didn't get the memo. Right? AP News reported the eye passed right along the southern tip, sustained winds up to seventy-five miles an hour, so it got bumped to a Category One. Seventy-five's right at that line. And Governor Josh Green, this is per USA Today, told people to just stay home during the worst of it. Flooding's the real threat there, not the wind itself. Makes sense. All those ravines on the Big Island, water's got nowhere to go but down through the neighborhoods. Exactly. And USA Today flagged power outages and water systems as the things to watch over the next few days. So no landfall, but still a mess. Basically. The National Hurricane Center says it should weaken now, but the cleanup still takes time. Meanwhile, on the other side of the planet, Indonesia is dealing with something a lot worse. Tell me. BBC's Emma Rossiter reported at least fifty-one people killed after a powerful earthquake, and crews are still digging through rubble looking for survivors. Fifty-one confirmed? And hundreds of homes and public buildings are severely damaged. Wait, isn't that basically every year with them? It really is. Indonesia sits on the Ring of Fire, and a lot of the older construction just wasn't built for a quake this size. Right. And that's the tragedy. The fault line doesn't care how new the building code is. Right. Crews are working now, but with damage like that, the window for finding more survivors gets shorter by the hour. Switching gears, five people were wounded in a shooting at Virginia State University. And there's a wrinkle. Al Jazeera reported the suspect isn't actually a student there. Right, and four of the five people hurt weren't students either, according to police. Suspect's in custody now. That's really all we know at this point. No motive released. Right. And then there's Northern Michigan. Yeah. MLive reported the victims range from thirteen to fifty-three years old. That's the whole spread of a family, basically. It is. You know, whenever this happens, everyone talks about the shooter for about forty-eight hours, and then it's gone. Nobody follows up on the thirteen-year-old six months later. That's fair. I'm just saying, the news cycle moves on. The families don't. Yeah. Makes you wonder who actually gets held accountable for any of this, the storms, the quakes, the shootings, when everyone's suddenly consumed with who runs the country next. Yeah, and who's already maneuvering for that job is a whole story on its own. Okay, from earthquakes to a different kind of chaos: politics. Less deadly, more scheming. The DNC just locked in their twenty twenty-eight calendar, and South Carolina goes first. Wait, didn't Iowa always have that spot? For decades. The New York Times reported this week the DNC voted to put South Carolina ahead of everyone else, aiming at Black, Latino, and union voters. So that's a strategy, not an accident. Right. The party's deciding who voters matter first four years out. That's the people running the apparatus picking their preferred outcome before a candidate even announces. I mean, every party shuffles its own calendar a little. Sure, but when the ones setting the order also run the party, you're watching them stack the deck early. Meanwhile, Trump's side isn't cruising either. No. Politico reported yesterday he's heading into general election season with a string of primary losses, and his endorsement record's cooled off his past few weeks. Wait, really? I thought his endorsement was basically a golden ticket. It was. Politico says more tests are coming later this month too. So is his grip loosening, or is that just noise? Too soon to call a trend off one stretch. Worth watching the next few races, though. And then there's the Letitia James thing. Yeah. Fox News reported Trump's backing Saritha Komatireddy to challenge her in New York, calling James the worst attorney general in the country. That's tangled up with the mortgage fraud case against her already. It is, and I think that deserves to be taken seriously instead of waved off. If the allegations hold up, that's a real accountability question, not just theater. Fair. Politics either way, but the case stands on its own. Exactly. Now, this next one made me laugh out loud this morning. Uh-oh, what happened? California's attorney general is blocking Paramount Skydance's takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery. Eighty-one billion dollars. Wait, eighty-one billion? That's massive. Huge. And Charles Gasparino with The New York Post points out the irony. Blocking it could choke off a major source of entertainment money for California Democrats. So a Democratic AG might be cutting off Democratic donors. That's Gasparino's argument. Hollywood money leans pretty hard one direction, and stalling this deal slows that pipeline down. That's a strange own goal if it plays out that way. We'll see if it survives court. Odd spot to land in either way. Speaking of Hollywood and mergers, that whole Warner Bros. mess actually connects to something a lot more fun coming up. Oh, Disney's got plenty to say for itself this week too. Rockets and mouse ears next.

DavidShifting gears into space and Disney.

MayaFinally, something with a happy ending.

DavidSpaceX pulled off something wild this weekend. Spaceflight Now reported two Falcon 9 launches back-to-back for Globalstar and the US Space Force.

MayaHow back-to-back are we talking?

DavidThirty-eight and a half minutes apart, a record.

MayaThirty-eight minutes? It's basically a relay race with rockets.

DavidRight? And the real story isn't either payload. It's the turnaround speed.

MayaYeah.

DavidMm-hmm.

MayaProving you can flip the pad that fast is a manufacturing story as much as a rocket story.

DavidTotally, like an assembly line in the sky.

MayaIs Blue Origin even in that cadence conversation?

DavidNot even close right now from what's public. Speaking of catching up, Disney had their D23 event this weekend.

MayaOh, I saw the X-Men news.

DavidThe Los Angeles Times, through Tracy Brown, covered the cast reveal, and Deadline's Anthony D'Alessandro laid out the 2028 slate: Tangled, Lilo & Stitch 2, Ghost Rider, X-Men. Notice a pattern?

MayaEvery title on that list is something they already own. They also announced a Tomorrowland redesign for Disneyland, according to WDW News Today.

DavidTheir whole future runs on the back catalog. Today.

MayaTheir whole future runs on the back catalog. Says something about how expensive original ideas are right now.

DavidBut the part that got me, Harrison Ford is playing Indiana Jones again for a new ride at Animal Kingdom. WDW News Today broke that one.

MayaWait, how old is he now?

DavidEighty-three, and he's still cracking the whip.

MayaAt some point, that hat's doing more acting than he is.

DavidMaybe. Nobody's complaining, though.

MayaKeep an eye on the launch pad this week. SpaceX isn't slowing down.

DavidAnd the Disneyland construction crews probably. All right, that's the Rundown for today. Okay, so between earthquakes, Hurricanes, and the Primary calendar getting rewritten, that's a lot for one Morning.

MayaYeah, but the through line's simple. Watch who's deciding things for you before you get a say.

DavidWhether that's a State party or the weather. Speaking of which, Harrison Ford in a theme park ride?

MayaI'm still not over that one.

DavidAll right, that's the Rundown. If you liked it, subscribe and leave us a review. It actually helps.

MayaShare it with somebody who needs their Morning sorted out.

DavidBright E. We'll see you tomorrow.

MayaTake care of yourselves out there.