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Under pressure: Austin seeks to soothe Ukraine, European allies after intel leak

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:04:55 GMT

RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin faces a daunting task this week as he heads to Germany to host a meeting of international defense chiefs supporting Ukraine: convince Kyiv that U.S. confidence is unbroken after its secret doubts spilled into the open.Austin arrived in Europe on Tuesday less than two weeks after the leak of a trove of highly classified military plans rocked the Pentagon. Many of the documents were printouts of top secret slides developed by the Joint Staff to brief senior leaders on the situation in Ukraine. Some included detailed information about the West’s plans to send weapons to Kyiv; others contained sensitive information about America’s efforts to spy on its partners.During Friday’s meeting at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, the defense secretary will need to show that the U.S. is confident in and committed to Ukraine, after the leaked documents appeared to show pessimistic assessments about Kyiv’s ability to win the war this year as wel...

Erdoğan’s rival hits a nerve with viral election video

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:04:55 GMT

The man seeking to dislodge Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as Turkey’s leader has shaken up next month’s presidential elections by declaring his identity as an Alevi — a member of the country’s main religious minority, which has often suffered discrimination.The statement by Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the joint presidential candidate backed by six opposition parties, came in a Twitter video viewed almost 20 million times in less than 24 hours. The tweet itself was viewed some 70 million times.While most Turks have long known that Kılıçdaroğlu hails from the Alevi minority, his decision to stress his identity is being widely viewed as a plea for pluralism and tolerance, and an attempt to strike a contrast with Erdoğan, who has based much of his political career on his mainstream Sunni identity. Erdoğan has been accused of playing on Kılıçdaroğlu’s Alevi background at political rallies on several occasions, and Kılıçdaroğlu uses the video to counter that kind of polar...

Insider job: Ukraine targets high-level double agents who helped Putin invade

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:04:55 GMT

KYIV — Ukraine is deepening a purge of double agents in its spy service, saying top-level traitors laid the ground for last year’s Russian invasion by helping enemy forces seize the southern city of Kherson and Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the north. Tetiana Sapian, spokesperson for the state investigations bureau of Ukraine, said Russia’s FSB intelligence operatives had infiltrated both Ukraine’s SBU security service and local government, undermining Ukraine from within with help from fugitive pro-Moscow Ukrainian officials, who fled the country after the Maidan uprising in 2014.Sapian suggested that revelations to date could prove to be only the tip of the iceberg.“The network is much wider and the investigation is engaged in finding out all the circumstances and actions of individual persons that caused the rapid capture of a part of the south by the troops of the aggressor from the territory of the annexed Crimea,” she said. At the beginning of ...

US Coast Guard search for 4 people reported missing, spot overturned boat near Cape Ann

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:04:55 GMT

Authorities are searching for four missing boaters after they set sail from New Hampshire on Wednesday morning, according to officials.The United States Coast Guard Northeast said multiple teams have been searching for Michael Sai and three other people who departed from Hampton, New Hampshire, with plans to head to a fishing spot near Jeffreys Ledge, some 50 miles offshore.Authorities shared an image of the boat the four individuals were believed to be in, described as a 17-ft white center console. Soon after sharing the image Thursday afternoon, officials said an “overturned vessel” was located by Coast Guard aircraft some seven miles northeast of Cape Ann. “No persons in the water were observed. Search continues for four people,” the official USCGNortheast Twitter account stated.https://twitter.com/USCGNortheast/status/1649088086046031873The USCG Northeast said on social media that an MH-60 helicopter and HC-144 airplane from Air Station Cape Cod were ...

‘The Diplomat’ review: Keri Russell stars in a series that captures the punch and wit of ‘The West Wing’

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:04:55 GMT

Nina Metz | Chicago Tribune“The Diplomat” on Netflix stars Keri Russell as a newly installed U.S. ambassador to the U.K. She may be great in a crisis zone, but she has no patience for dressing up or standing on ceremony. She’s a little like Sandra Bullock pre-makeover in “Miss Congeniality” — she’s not the obvious choice for the post but she’s sent to London anyway with instructions to nod solemnly and defuse a potential global conflict after a British aircraft carrier is bombed off the coast of Iran.Along for the ride is her husband (played by Rufus Sewell), a former ambassador himself whose jaunty self-assurance and constant back-channel maneuverings tend to have a way of gumming things up for his more serious-minded spouse. He can’t help inserting himself, despite her firm instructions that he not.To get a sense of the show’s tonal sensibility, it’s worth looking to creator Debora Cahn’s previous credits, namely “Homeland” and “The West Wing.” She takes the best from both and jet...

House approves trans athlete ban for girls and women’s teams

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:04:55 GMT

By KEVIN FREKING (Associated Press)WASHINGTON (AP) — Transgender athletes whose biological sex assigned at birth was male would be barred from competing on girls or women’s sports teams at federally supported schools and colleges under legislation pushed through Thursday by House Republicans checking off another high-profile item on their social agenda. The bill approved by a 219-203 party-line vote is unlikely to advance further because the Democratic-led Senate will not support it and the White House said President Joe Biden would veto it. Supporters said the legislation, which would put violators at risk of losing taxpayer dollars, is necessary to ensure competitive fairness. They framed the vote as supporting female athletes disadvantaged by having to compete against those whose gender identify does not match their sex assigned at birth. Opponents criticized the bill as ostracizing an already vulnerable group merely for political gain. The House action comes as at le...

Longtime Boston City Councilor Frank Baker will not seek re-election

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:04:55 GMT

Frank Baker, a conservative voice on a left-leaning City Council, won’t seek re-election, opening up a District 3 seat he’s held for more than a decade.Representing a district that includes most of Dorchester, and a portion of South Boston and the South End for six terms “has been one of the greatest honors of my life,” Baker said, adding that the decision to step down “did not come lightly.”“After lengthy deliberation, I am confident and certain this is my time to depart the Council and serve in a different capacity,” Baker said in a Thursday statement. “The privilege and responsibility of serving as a city councilor requires my round-the-clock dedication.“I cannot fulfill my obligation in any other way than 100% committed to the duty of this role. For an assortment of reasons, now is the right time for me to move on to the next chapter of my life, with my family.”Though Baker didn’t elaborate on these reasons, he’s been involved in contentious exchanges with his fellow councilors ...

How to prepare financially to leave an abusive relationship

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:04:55 GMT

Leaving an abusive relationship isn’t just difficult — it can be dangerous. One major complication is how frequently abusers control access to money, leaving their victims less likely to be able to afford legal assistance, new housing, therapy and other resources. This makes victims of abuse more likely to stay, no matter how emotionally ready they are to get out.“We often talk about the emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse,” says Katie Ray-Jones, CEO of the National Domestic Violence Hotline. “We don’t talk about how money is being used in the home.” According to Ray-Jones, financial abuse is present almost 98% of the time in abusive relationships.Financial abuse can be sneaky, but here are some signs and behaviors to look for:Your access to money is limited. This can start with your partner’s seemingly benevolent offer to manage the household finances because they’re good with money, but it can quickly escalate. They may deny you access to shared bank accounts, even if yo...

TTC rejects Bell’s proposal for joint-build wireless cellphone network

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:04:55 GMT

TORONTO — The agency that operates Toronto’s subway system has rejected a proposal by Bell Canada to revamp its wireless cell service model in a way to prevent Rogers from charging its rivals a fee for their customers to access the network, calling it “a non-starter.”The TTC will not consider Bell’s request to require a joint-build model, in which all carriers would own a stake in the network infrastructure, spokesperson Stuart Green said in a statement.On Wednesday evening, Industry Ministry François-Philippe Champagne called on Canada’s major telecom companies to reach a deal that would allow any company to access the TTC network after Rogers Communications Inc.’s purchase of the existing operations. Rogers has said it is open to other providers signing on.Bell president and CEO Mirko Bibic responded to the minister that his company would only take part in the network if it has a chance to help build it with the other carriers.“The ‘neutral host...

Part party, part call to action: A look at pot holiday 4/20

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:04:55 GMT

SEATTLE (AP) — Thursday marks marijuana culture’s high holiday, 4/20, when cannabis fans gather in clouds of smoke at music festivals, celebrate with all-you-can-deals on chicken wings and other munchies, and take advantage of pot-shop discounts in legal weed states.This year’s edition provides an occasion for activists to reflect on how far their movement has come, with recreational pot now allowed in 21 states and the nation’s capital, as well as a national political climate that hasn’t moved as quickly on legalization as many expected.Here’s a look at the holiday’s history. ___ WHY 4/20?The origins of the date, and the term “420” generally, were long murky. Some claimed it referred to a police code for marijuana possession or that it arose from Bob Dylan’s “Rainy Day Women No. 12 & 35,” with its refrain of “Everybody must get stoned” — 420 being the product of 12 times 35.But a consensus has emerged that it started with a group of bell-bottomed buddies from San Rafael H...