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Big, brawny and flush with cash: Poland’s military gets strong backing from incoming government

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:46:00 GMT

WARSAW — Poland is set to change governments following the October 15 election, but the incoming administration isn’t planning any major revolution in procurement, defense spending or military posture. “We’re not going to cancel any contracts. We don’t want our allies to view Poland as unpredictable,” Tomasz Siemoniak, who served as defense minister from 2011 to 2015 and is seen as a potential candidate to return to the post, told POLITICO.He is a senior member of the Civic Coalition grouping led by Donald Tusk, the candidate to be prime minister of three opposition parties that together have a majority in the new parliament. Tusk, for now, has been silent on defense issues.However, Siemoniak’s views are shared by other parts of the future ruling coalition.“We voted to increase spending on armaments and we said during the campaign that we would maintain all the armaments contracts we had started,” Stefan Krajewski, an MP with the Third Way grouping, told Poli...

Chula Vista councilmember faces fraud charges

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:46:00 GMT

SAN DIEGO – Chula Vista Councilmember Andrea Cardenas and her brother Jesus Cardenas, former chief of staff to San Diego councilmember Stephen Whitburn, are charged with multiple felonies related to federal COVID relief funds.  “The indictments did not come as a surprise to me, or in fact, many people in the city of Chula Vista,” John Moot said. Moot is a current attorney, former Chula Vista councilmember and longtime Chula Vista resident who points out Andrea had been questioned and even had a formal complaint launched about her campaign spending in the past.  A six-page criminal complaint filed by the San Diego County District Attorney’s office accuses the pair of fraudulently obtaining a roughly $176,000 PPP loan, meant to keep employees paid during the pandemic.  According to prosecutors, the siblings got the loan for their political consulting firm Grassroots Resources by listing employee and business information from a San Diego marijuana dispensary, Harbor Collective. &n...

EU boosts humanitarian aid to displaced Karabakh Armenians with almost €1.7 million

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:46:00 GMT

The Commission is increasing its humanitarian funding in Armenia with almost €1.7 million in response to the mass influx of people from Nagorno Karabakh.The new funding will aim to further strengthen the existing EU humanitarian response to the displaced people by providing cash assistance, shelter, food security and livelihoods assistance, protection, and healthcare. This funding comes in addition to the €10.45m already announced by the Commission in response to the crisis, bringing total humanitarian funding to more than €12m in 2023.Crisis Management Commissioner Janez Lenarčič said: “Karabakh Armenians will not be forgotten. As the winter sets in, the displaced people in Armenia will face additional challenges. The EU is boosting its humanitarian funding to be prepared for the winter. We continue working together with our humanitarian partners on the ground to provide assistance to the most vulnerable.”With more than 100,000 people having fled their homes, often taking minimal b...

USC student allegedly raped by Lyft driver after WeHo Carnaval

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:46:00 GMT

A female University of Southern California student was allegedly raped by her Lyft driver after returning home from the West Hollywood Carnaval, the university's Department of Public Safety said in a crime alert.  The incident reportedly happened in the 3600 block of South Grand Avenue at around 3 a.m. Wednesday morning, the alert stated.  Officials said the victim used a Lyft to return to her apartment near the University Park Campus and when they arrived, the driver raped her in his car.  The suspect was described as a Black male, approximately 25-35 years old with black hair, a thin build and a black colored beard.  Anyone with information about the alleged sexual assault is urged to contact the university’s Department of Public Safety at 213-740-6000.  

Video captures obscene act in downtown Long Beach; businesses, residents outraged

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:46:00 GMT

In response to a recent sexual assault and new video of lewd behavior, residents and business owners in downtown Long Beach say the area is deteriorating due to the number of mentally ill and drug dependent people living on the street.  “It’s daily, it’s daily. It’s scary. You don’t not feel safe walking the streets here,” Zoe Garcia who works in the area told KTLA’s John Fenoglio.  Garcia is referring to another disturbing video out of downtown Long Beach where a man exposes and touches himself sexually in front the windows at Salon 500 on East Broadway in broad daylight Wednesday afternoon.  Witnessing the incident from her shop across the street, Garcia called the police.  “They took two hours to arrive,” she said. “Most times, they don’t even come out.”  Video captured a man exposing and touching himself outside the window of a salon in downtown Long Beach on Nov. 1, 2023. (Salon 500)Rebekah Pederson was sexually assaulted just last week as she left the same ...

Democracy in decline worldwide, new report says

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:46:00 GMT

The bedrock of democracy is trembling amid a surge of authoritarianism around the world, according to a report published Thursday. Hard-line rule by current and former leaders, including Viktor Orbán in Hungary, Donald Trump in the U.S. and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey, has contributed to the downturn observed in the past few years, the Global State of Democracy 2023 report by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) has said. “In Hungary, Poland, Turkey, Slovakia, Israel, and the United States, just to name the most familiar examples, the erosion of democratic norms has been engineered by leaders claiming to speak in the name of, and with the authority of, the people,” the new report warned.The six-year decline is the longest consecutive period of deterioration — in which countries with net declines outnumbered those with net advances across a range of metrics — since records started being kept in 1975, Seema Shah, the head of IDE...

North Korea outpacing the EU on shell deliveries

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:46:00 GMT

Presented by ASD By JOSHUA POSANER with LAURA KAYALI, CALEB LARSON, PAUL MCLEARY, VERONIKA MELKOZEROVA and JOE GOULD PRESENTED BY View in your browser or listen to audioSNEAK PEEK— Intelligence reports indicate that North Korea has delivered a million artillery rounds to Russia — easily beating the EU’s aim to dispatch the same number to Ukraine.— The Indian government has reportedly reached out to the French government with a request to buy 26 Dassault-made Rafale fighter jets.— Five European countries will work on a Spanish-led project worth €100 million to define what a joint interceptor would look like.Good morning and welcome to Morning Defense. Tips to [email protected], [email protected] and [email protected] or follow us at @joshposaner,@LauKaya and @calebmlarson.DRIVING THE DAYPYONGYANG BEATS BRUSSELS: North Korea has delivered more than a million artillery s...

Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant starts 3rd release of treated radioactive wastewater into the sea

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:46:00 GMT

TOKYO (AP) — The tsunami-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant began its third release of treated and diluted radioactive wastewater into the sea Thursday after Japanese officials said the two earlier releases ended smoothly.The plant operator discharged 7,800 tons of treated water in each of the first two batches and plans to release the same amount in the current batch through Nov. 20.Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings said its workers activated the first of the two pumps to dilute the treated water with large amounts of seawater, gradually sending the mixture into the Pacific Ocean through an undersea tunnel for an offshore release.The plant began the first wastewater release in August and will continue to do so for decades. About 1.34 million tons of radioactive wastewater is stored in about 1,000 tanks at the plant. It has accumulated since the plant was crippled by the massive earthquake and tsunami that struck northeastern Japan in 2011.TEPCO and the government say...

Executions in Iran are up 30%, a new United Nations report says

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:46:00 GMT

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Iran is carrying out executions “at an alarming rate,” putting to death at least 419 people in the first seven months of the year, the United Nations chief said in a new report. That’s a 30% increase from the same period in 2022.Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in the report to the U.N. General Assembly on the human rights situation in Iran that seven men were executed in relation to or for participating in nationwide protests, sparked by the September 2022 death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was picked up by the morality police for her allegedly loose headscarf in violation of Iran’s Islamic dress code.In all seven cases, information received by the U.N. human rights office “consistently indicated that the judicial proceedings did not fulfil the requirements for due process and a fair trial under international human rights law,” Guterres said. “Access to adequate and timely legal representation was frequently denied, with reports of coerced conf...

Ohio amendment serves as testing ground for statewide abortion fights expected in 2024

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:46:00 GMT

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Abortion access is expected to play a central role in the 2024 elections. The preview comes next week, when Ohio voters decide whether to enshrine reproductive rights in their state Constitution.The amendment is the only abortion question on any state’s ballot this year, a spotlight that has generated intense attention from national groups and made Ohio a testing ground for fresh campaign messaging — some of it misleading. The amendment has drawn more than $60 million in combined spending so far.Mini Timmaraju, president and CEO of Reproductive Freedom for All, said Ohio offers a vital proving ground heading into next year’s presidential election, when Democrats hope the abortion issue can energize supporters in contests up and down the ballot. Initiatives seeking to protect access could be on the ballot across the country, including in the presidential swing states of Arizona, Nevada and Pennsylvania.“When we’re able to see how our messaging ...