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Military ‘touch and go’ landing exercise planned for National Mall

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 19:15:46 GMT

Early risers and joggers in D.C. could see a military aircraft land at the National Mall Thursday morning.It’s part of a routine specialty aircraft training by the Joint Task Force-National Capital Region taking place from 5 to 7 a.m.More Local NewsMore DC NewsMilitary aircraft will do a “touch and go” landing designed to familiarize crew with restricted airspace procedures, a news release from the department said.The department did not specify the exact location of the landing.The training is being done in coordination with the U.S. Park Police and the Federal Aviation Administration.The Joint Task Force-National Capital Region, based at Fort Lesley J. McNair in D.C., said Thursday morning’s activity is a regularly scheduled training exercise that has been carefully planned and will be closely controlled. No ordinance will be employed during the exercise, and the schedule could be adjusted depending on the weather.Source

Nets beat Pistons 123-108, close in on playoff berth

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 19:15:46 GMT

DETROIT (AP) — Mikal Bridges scored 26 points and the Brooklyn Nets moved to the verge of a playoff spot by beating the Detroit Pistons 123-108 on Wednesday night.Former Pistons guard Spencer Dinwiddie shot 1 for 10 from the floor but matched his career high with 16 assists for the Nets (44-36), who won for the fourth time in five games. They need one more victory or loss by Miami (42-37) to clinch the No. 6 seed in the Eastern Conference.Joe Harris had 18 points on six 3-pointers, all in Brooklyn’s 47-point first quarter. R.J. Hampton had a career-high 27 points for Detroit, which has lost 22 of its last 23 games. Jaden Ivey had 23 points and 10 assists.The Pistons trailed by as many as 19 points, but Hampton had 18 points in the third quarter to help them pull within 96-90. Hampton started the second half at small forward after an injury to Eugene Omoruyi.However, Brooklyn was able to take advantage of Detroit’s biggest weakness, getting enough offensive rebounds to prevent ...

Implementarán carril reversible durante construcción en George Washington Parkway

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 19:15:46 GMT

Un gran proyecto de construcción en la sección del norte de George Washington Parkway pronto cambiará el flujo vehicular y creará un carril reversible.El cambio comenzará el sábado, 15 de abril y afectará la vía entre el Capital Beltway (I-495) y la Ruta 123.Todo el tráfico se cambiará del lado sur al lado norte. Los carriles hacia el sur estarán cerrados durante el proyecto.Durante las horas pico de la mañana, entre 5:30 a.m. y las 9:30 a.m., harán dos carriles para tráfico en dirección sur hacia DC y un carril para el tráfico en dirección norte hacia Maryland y Virginia. Durante las horas pico de la tarde entre semana de 2:45 p.m. a 7:15 p.m., habrá dos carriles para el tráfico en dirección norte y un carril para el tráfico en dirección sur.En otros horarios, incluidos los fines de semana, habrá solo un carril en cada dirección.Los funcionarios del Servicio de Parques Nacionales piden a los conductores que presten atención.“Cuando ingreses en uno de esos carriles, vas a tener...

Votes still being counted in Denver municipal election

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 19:15:46 GMT

DENVER (KDVR) — If you thought the Denver mayoral race was over, think again. The Clerk and Recorder's office is still counting ballots and some candidates are telling city residents not to count them out.As of 5 p.m. Wednesday, Mike Johnston and Kelly Brough are still leading in votes.Johnston is holding steady with around 25% of the votes, but Brough's numbers are shrinking a bit. What’s next for the Park Hill golf course? The developers weigh in At one point on election night, Brough had about 23% of the votes. Wednesday, that number is a little under 21%. Gaining in percentages as votes continue to be counted is Dr. Lisa Calderón, moving up from about 15% Tuesday night to over 17% Wednesday evening. There are also several city council races with candidates leading by razor-thin margins.55,000 ballots came in the last two hoursAn important note: the Clerk's Office still has more than 20,000 ballots to count.Calderón put out a statement on Twitter Wednesday saying she's confide...

What's the weather forecast for the Rockies home opener?

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 19:15:46 GMT

DENVER (KDVR) -- Compared to the last few years, this Rockies home opener will be on the chilly side. The last three April home-opener games in Denver were what some would call perfect baseball weather, with sunny and dry conditions and temperatures in the 60s and 70s. What time is the Rockies home opener? In the last few years, 2018 was a memorable opening day as far as the weather goes. At first pitch, temperatures were at 27 degrees with mostly cloudy skies. It was the coldest home opener on record for the Rockies. This year, temperatures will be in the low 50s by first pitch. Denver will stay sunny and dry throughout the game. Winds will also be fairly light on Thursday out of the northeast around 5 to 15 mph.

Who was behind the St. Petersburg bombing?

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 19:15:46 GMT

The Kremlin didn’t waste time blaming Ukraine for orchestrating the weekend bombing of a café in St. Petersburg, leaving what they claimed was 40 injured and high-profile ultra-nationalist military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky dead.And Ukrainian officials were no less firm batting away the charge.They blamed an “internal political fight” for the blast just a mile from where Vladimir Putin’s ex-wife lives in the historic heart of the Russian president’s hometown.“Spiders are eating each other in a jar,” tweeted Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak.Who should one believe?“Every day in Russia, it’s a thriller series,” noted Ksenia Sobchak on her Telegram channel. The former Russian presidential candidate and self-exiled daughter of Putin’s onetime patron, Anatoly Sobchak, St. Petersburg’s first post-Soviet mayor, understands better than most that things are seldom as they seem in Putin’s Russia — if ever.As in any good thriller, the assassination of Tatarsky boasts a cast...

It’s premature to start worrying about a President Le Pen

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 19:15:46 GMT

Mujtaba Rahman is the head of Eurasia Group’s Europe practice and a columnist for POLITICO Europe. He tweets at @Mij_Europe.The violent standoff over pension reform between President Emmanuel Macron and the people of France has raised fears that the country may come to vote for a President Marine Le Pen — the leader of the far-right National Rally — at the fourth time of asking in 2027. The speculation is premature.Both internationally and in France, commentators have suggested that Macron’s plunging popularity and the chaos on the streets offer a wide boulevard for Le Pen to win the office in four years’ time.  But the fundamentals that thwarted her in the past — the two-round system, her incoherent economic program and her past ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin — remain largely unchanged. That Macron is constitutionally barred from running again will also make her task harder, opening the 2027 field up to unexpected contenders — much like Macron was in 2017 — and ...

Corruption probe looms over Europe’s conservatives as election season begins

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 19:15:46 GMT

European conservatives are facing a potential political headache as the 2024 European Parliament election campaign gets underway.The man that European People’s Party chief Manfred Weber hired to run his digital campaign for the 2019 European election is now at the center of a pan-European corruption probe.A monthslong investigation spread from the central German state of Thuringia to the EPP’s headquarters on Rue du Commerce in Brussels on Tuesday, when Belgian police joined their German counterparts in a raid.They were on the hunt for information about Mario Voigt, 46, who leads the center-right Christian Democratic Union in Thuringia’s parliament. The public prosecutor’s office in Erfurt is investigating Voigt over suspicion of corruption in business dealings, according to media reports.The metastasizing probe comes just months after the EPP went after the Socialists and Democrats group — its main political rival in the upcoming European Parliament elections — ove...

Putin’s chekists are at the height of their power

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 19:15:46 GMT

Jamie Dettmer is opinion editor at POLITICO Europe. There’s almost a 20-year difference between them — the Russian teenager dumped in an orphanage because she and her father publicly criticized the war on Ukraine, and the Wall Street Journal reporter held in Moscow’s infamous Lefortovo Prison.Twenty years is also roughly the time it’s taken Russian President Vladimir Putin and his fellow chekists to turn the clock back to an era in which accredited Western journalists are arrested on bogus espionage charges, and children can be deemed enemies of the state and separated from their families.The detention of 13-year-old Masha Moskalyov, the imprisonment of her father Alexey, and the arrest of 32-year-old Evan Gershkovich are all of a piece. They are all victims of Russia’s return to the dark past — and they’re unlikely to be the last.Today’s echoes of Soviet times are haunting, and with his resurrection of the police state, Putin has demonstrated that while history may never exact...

Punch-ups at the polling booths! England goes to war over voter ID

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 19:15:46 GMT

LONDON — Canada, Italy, Norway, Israel and Hungary already demand it. France does too, but — naturellement — will let you use your hunting permit.But Brits have never had to show photo ID in order to vote — until now.Over the last 10 days, doormats across England have thudded to the arrival of 27.5 million polling letters, familiar missives alerting voters to annual local elections at the start of May. This year’s letters, however, are twice the normal size — the extra space filled with instructions for voters to bring one of 22 listed forms of identification to their polling station, or be refused a ballot.What sounds like a simple security step is proving hotly contentious in Westminster — and has left some election officials fearing mutiny, and even violence, at polling booths on May 4.“Will it get a bit nasty? Hopefully not so nasty that punches are traded and police are called, but who’s to say?” said a concerned returning officer — the senior official running a local ele...