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Antioch city councilmember calls for increased police staff

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:30:30 GMT

ANTIOCH, Calif. (KRON) – An Antioch city councilmember says the city needs to do something about the staffing issues within the police department. He says there are not enough officers to keep the city safe.Mike Barbanica says he has been monitoring the staffing level within the police department for the past 4-5 months, and now the number of officers has gotten so low, he feels the council needs to intervene. Redwood City Hazmat incident exposes 21 people A sideshow in the Antioch marina parking lot – just about a block from the police department – sent one car into a river, damaged a water main, and smashed a fire hydrant. City councilmember Mike Barbanica says there is a void in the police department that is resulting in incidents like this one.“I’m told right now we have approximately 31 officers, including supervisors, to cover seven beats on a 24-7-365 operation and it is of my opinion that that is not enough officers for coverage,” Barbanica said.Barbanica used to be a poli...

Thousands still in the dark Tuesday after week starts off wet

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:30:30 GMT

Listen live to WTOP for the latest on storm damage and outages.Someone is enjoying the higher water table after the storm which put some new branches within reach. @WTOP pic.twitter.com/AGvFuToDsM— Mike Murillo (@MikeMurilloWTOP) August 7, 2023After storms pummeled the D.C. region Monday, that wet weather doesn’t seem to be sticking around the area on Tuesday. Here’s what you need to know:A Flash Flood Warning is in effect for D.C., northern Prince George’s County, Maryland, and Arlington and Fairfax counties in Virginia, until 2:45 a.m. Tuesday.A Coastal Flood Advisory is in effect in the District of Columbia until 4 a.m., with up to half a foot of water above ground level in low lying areas due to tidal flooding.A storm rolled through the D.C. region on Monday evening, bringing strong winds, hail and even tornado warnings.WTOP meteorologist Mike Stinneford said the threat level given for Monday’s Tornado Watch, which ranked four out of 5, was “unusual...

Reportan casi 90 incendios forestales en EE.UU. en 12 estados, más de 10.000 bomberos trabajan en su extinción

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:30:30 GMT

(CNN) — Estados Unidos continúa viendo un número creciente de incendios forestales que queman cientos de miles de hectáreas en varios estados.Se reporta que 87 incendios grandes ya han quemado 207.537 hectáreas en al menos 12 estados, según el Centro Nacional Interagencial de Bomberos (NIFC).“Se informaron ocho nuevos incendios grandes, dos en Texas y uno en Arizona, California, Idaho, Oregón, Utah y Washington. Hasta la fecha, 31.382 incendios forestales han quemado 508.847 hectáreas”, dijo NIFC en su informe de este lunes.Mueren tres personas en choque de helicópteros que combatían un incendio en el sur de California, dicen las autoridadesNumerosos bomberos han sido enviados para combatir los incendios.Según NIFC, “más de 10.000 bomberos forestales y personal de apoyo están asignados a incidentes en todo el país. Esto incluye 16 equipos de gestión de incidentes, casi 200 tripulaciones, más de 460 motores y 92 helicópteros”.Estados que actualmente reportan grandes incendios (...

China’s exports sink 14.5% in July from a year ago, adding to pressure to shore up flagging economy

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:30:30 GMT

BEIJING (AP) — China’s exports plunged 14.5% in July compared with a year ago, adding to pressure on the ruling Communist Party to reverse an economic slump.Exports fell to $281.8 billion as the decline widened from June’s 12.4% fall, customs data showed Tuesday. Imports fell 12.4% to $201.2 billion in a sign of weak domestic demand, widening from the previous month’s 6.8% loss.The country’s global trade surplus narrowed by 20.4% from a record high a year ago to $80.6 billion.Chinese leaders are under pressure to shore up business and consumer activity after the world’s second-largest economy grew by only 0.8% in the second quarter of 2023 from the previous three-month period.The ruling party has promised measures to support entrepreneurs and to encourage home purchases and consumer spending but hasn’t announced large-scale stimulus spending or tax cuts.Source

Customs data show China’s exports fell 14.5% in July from a year ago, adding to pressure to shore up flagging economy

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:30:30 GMT

BEIJING (AP) — Customs data show China’s exports fell 14.5% in July from a year ago, adding to pressure to shore up flagging economy.Source

Japanese political leader Taro Aso calls for peace in the Taiwan Strait as Tokyo expands defense

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:30:30 GMT

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — A senior Japanese politician advocated Tuesday for increasing his country’s deterrence ability to ensure peace in the region, and called for that message to be clearly conveyed globally — particularly in China. “The most important thing for us now is that there should be no war in the region, including the Taiwan Strait,” the vice president of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, Taro Aso, said Tuesday in Taipei at the Ketagalan Forum hosted by Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “Japan, as a very close neighbor to Taiwan, I think we should be the first to express our attitude and also to make that message clear in the international community including China,” he said.Taiwan and China split in 1949 after a civil war. The island never has been part of the People’s Republic of China, but the mainland’s ruling Communist Party says it is obligated to unite with China, by force if necessary.In December, Japan announced a historic break with its pac...

Powerful storm kills 2 people and leaves 1.1 million without power in eastern US

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:30:30 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — At least two people died, thousands of U.S. flights were canceled or delayed, and more than 1.1 million homes and businesses lost power Monday as severe storms, including hail and lightning, moved through the eastern U.S.The National Weather Service issued a tornado watch for the greater D.C. area, lasting until 9 p.m. A special Weather Service statement warned, “There is a significant threat for damaging and locally destructive hurricane-force winds, along with the potential for large hail and tornadoes, even strong tornadoes.”The storms’ spread was massive, with tornado watches and warnings posted across 10 states from Tennessee to New York. The National Weather Service said more than 29.5 million people were under a tornado watch Monday afternoon. In Anderson, South Carolina, a 15-year-old boy who arrived at his grandparent’s house during the storm was struck and killed when a tree fell on him as he got out of a car, according to the Anderson County Office...

Bursting ice dam in Alaska highlights risks of glacial flooding around the globe

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:30:30 GMT

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — The gray, two-story home with white trim toppled and slid, crashing into the river below as rushing waters carried off a bobbing chunk of its roof. Next door, a condo building teetered on the edge of the bank, its foundation already having fallen away as erosion undercut it. The destruction came over the weekend as a glacial dam burst in Alaska’s capital, swelling the levels of the Mendenhall River to an unprecedented degree. The bursting of such snow-and-ice dams is a phenomenon called a jökuhlaup, and while it’s relatively little-known in the U.S., researchers say such glacial floods could threaten about 15 million people around the world.“We sat down there and were just watching it, and all of a sudden trees started to fall in,” Amanda Arra, whose house continued hanging precariously over the river bank Monday, told the Juneau Empire. “And that’s when I started to get concerned. Tree after tree after tree.”The flooding in Juneau came from a side basin ...

Environmental protection services: €69 billion invested

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:30:30 GMT

Eurostat estimates that in 2022, EU countries invested about €69 billion into assets essential to provide environmental protection (EP) services. These services included wastewater treatment plants, vehicles to transport waste, acquisitions of land to create a natural reserve, or cleaner equipment for producing with less polluting emissions. The information comes from data on environmental protection expenditure accounts published by Eurostat as a result of the 2022 mandatory data collection according to the requirements established in the Commission delegated regulation 2022/125. This article presents a few findings from the more detailed Statistics Explained article on environmental protection expenditure accounts.About €44 billion (65% of total environmental protection investments) was spent by corporations, both the specialist providers of environmental protection services (e.g. private companies dealing with waste collection and processing and with sewerage) and corporations ot...

Russia's illegal war of aggression against Ukraine: EU agrees to extend the scope of sanctions on Belarus to fight circumvention

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:30:30 GMT

The European Commission welcomes the adoption by the Council of further targeted restrictive measures arising from Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine, and in response to Belarus's involvement in the aggression.In particular, the new measures create a closer alignment of EU sanctions targeting Russia and Belarus and will help to ensure that Russian sanctions cannot be circumvented through Belarus.The measures expand the ban on exports to Belarus to a number of highly sensitive goods and technologies which contribute to Belarus's military and technological enhancement. The Council also imposes an additional export ban on firearms and ammunition, and on goods and technology suited for use in aviation and the space industry. The changes also align the Belarus sanctions with the Russia sanctions regime.These restrictive measures are fast-tracked in view of the urgency linked to the fight against circumvention regarding certain highly sensitive goods and technologies. They are without p...