logo
US General Alexus Grynkewich to take top NATO command

US General Alexus Grynkewich to take top NATO command

Yahoo06-06-2025
Air Force General Alexus Grynkewich has been nominated as NATO's new supreme allied commander in Europe (SACEUR), the US announced on Thursday.
Grynkewich will take over the top alliance role from US Army General Christopher Cavoli in a ceremony in Mons, Belgium, later in the year.
The role will make Grynkewich primarily responsible for planning and executing military measures to defend the alliance. He also commands US forces during any conflict in Europe.
Currently the Joint Staff's director for operations, Grynkewich is the principal military advisor to US President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.
He has also served as an instructor pilot, weapons officer and operational test pilot.
NATO's first SACEUR was Dwight Eisenhower, appointed in 1950, before he became US president.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Starmer says former Tory ministers have 'serious questions to answer' over Afghan data breach
Starmer says former Tory ministers have 'serious questions to answer' over Afghan data breach

Yahoo

time27 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

Starmer says former Tory ministers have 'serious questions to answer' over Afghan data breach

Sir Keir Starmer has said former Tory ministers have "serious questions to answer" about how the names of Afghans who worked with UK forces were exposed. after their names were accidentally sent in an email in February 2022, when Boris Johnson was prime minister, but the leak was only discovered by the British military in August 2023, when Rishi Sunak was PM. A super-injunction, preventing the reporting of the mistake, was imposed that year in an attempt to prevent the Taliban from finding out about the leak. The Conservative government at the time then started transporting thousands of Afghans to the UK in secret as they were in danger. On Tuesday, the injunction was lifted. Politics latest: Kicking off Prime Minister's Questions, Sir Keir said: "Ministers who served under the party opposite have serious questions to answer about how this was ever allowed to happen. "The chair of the defence committee has indicated that he intends to hold further inquiries. "I welcome that and hope that those who are in office at the time will welcome that scrutiny." The data breach saw a defence official accidentally release details of almost 19,000 people seeking to flee Afghanistan after the return of the Taliban. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch avoided mentioning the data breach, but Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey said it was "shocking" how it had been kept secret for three years. Sir Ed said the prime minister will have the Lib Dems' support if he decides to pursue a public inquiry. Mr Healey's Tory predecessor, Sir Ben Wallace, said he makes "no apology" for applying for the initial four-month injunction and insisted it was "not a cover-up". The scheme, which had been kept under wraps until yesterday, has so far cost hundreds of millions of pounds. However, the total cost to the taxpayer of existing schemes to assist Afghans who are deemed eligible for British support, as well as the additional cost from the breach, will come to at least £6bn. Earlier, he is "deeply uncomfortable" with the government using a super-injunction to keep the massive data breach hidden. He said: "I'm really deeply uncomfortable with the idea that a government applies for a super-injunction. "If there are any [other] super-injunctions in place, I just have to tell you - I don't know about them. I haven't been read into them. "The important thing here now is that we've closed the scheme." Mr Healey was informed of the breach while in opposition, and earlier this year he commissioned a review that led to the injunction being lifted. He said "accountability starts now" and added Labour had to deal with the risks, court papers, intelligence assessments and different schemes when they came to power last summer before they could lift the injunction.

Democratic state Sen. Nathan Johnson announces run for Texas attorney general
Democratic state Sen. Nathan Johnson announces run for Texas attorney general

Yahoo

time27 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

Democratic state Sen. Nathan Johnson announces run for Texas attorney general

State Sen. Nathan Johnson is running for Texas attorney general, the three-term Dallas Democrat announced Tuesday. He told The Texas Tribune that, if elected, he would look to restore 'faith and confidence' in an agency he believes has been stained by scandal and spectacle. 'It's been so long since people, broadly speaking, thought of the attorney general's office as a place where they have an attorney, an elected official on their side,' he said. 'And that's wrong.' Johnson, a business litigator at Thompson Coburn in Dallas, is the first major Democrat to enter the race. Two other state senators, Joan Huffman of Houston and Mayes Middleton of Galveston, are running in the Republican primary, alongside former Department of Justice lawyer Aaron Reitz. The position is open for the first time in more than a decade after Attorney General Ken Paxton decided to challenge U.S. Sen. John Cornyn in next year's GOP primary. Johnson faces strong headwinds: No Democrat has won statewide office in Texas since 1994, and whoever wins the Democratic nomination will likely face a formidable GOP opponent. Middleton is well-funded, Huffman has a long legislative record and Reitz has already garnered significant backing from allies in conservative legal circles. But Johnson has experience winning tough races. As a political newcomer in 2018, he unseated Republican incumbent Don Huffines, becoming the first Democrat to win the North Dallas district in three decades. That was also a midterm year, where discontent over President Donald Trump's policies pushed Democrats to turn out at the polls and made mainstream Democrats like Johnson seem more palatable to independents and moderate Republicans. Johnson is hopeful that a similar midterm environment — and a campaign focused on fundamental shifts to the rule of law, weakening of the separation of powers and undermining of Texas' independence by the federal government — will lead some right-leaning voters to consider a Democrat. 'I'm not going to use the office to do what the Biden administration says or what the Trump administration says,' Johnson said in an interview. 'I'm going to use the office to do what it's supposed to do, which is to make sure that everybody knows the rules and that everybody follows the rules, and then if you don't follow the rules, there's consequences.' Over the last 20 years, the Texas Office of the Attorney General has led the charge among red states to aggressively litigate against Democratic presidents' agendas. Paxton's predecessor, now-Gov. Greg Abbott, started this trend, famously saying, 'I go into the office, I sue the federal government and I go home.' Paxton went even further, bragging about suing the Biden administration more than 100 times in four years. Johnson criticized Paxton for not bringing similar lawsuits against Trump, even when it might benefit Texas. He pointed to the 24 states that recently sued to release close to $7 billion in education funding. 'Why didn't we join that suit? Because [Paxton] doesn't want to challenge the Trump administration,' Johnson said. 'And that goes to the independence I think this office needs.' He also hopes to win over voters by promising a scandal-free tenure. During his time as Texas' top lawyer, Paxton was indicted for fraud, investigated by the FBI and impeached by the GOP-controlled state House. The Senate acquitted him; Johnson, along with every other Democrat in the chamber and two Republicans, was part of the outnumbered minority that voted to convict Paxton. Virtually all of those legal woes have been resolved in recent months, but the allegations — and Paxton's personal life — have been a cloud over the agency. Johnson said, among other priorities, he would focus on restoring some of the agency's less flashy obligations, like investigating Medicaid fraud and enforcing consumer protection laws. 'There's always good people there doing some good work, but the priorities have not always been good,' he said. 'I think we are talking about a fundamental shift in priorities in that office, that much is for sure.' Johnson has worked closely with Middleton and Huffman in the 31-member Senate and said he respected them personally. But he said voters could expect to get 'essentially a fourth-term Ken Paxton' if they elect any of the Republican candidates. 'The office is going to be used for political ends and not directed to the benefit of the people,' he said. 'Paxton has stained the office and I don't think the other people running are the right people to clean it up.' This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: Democratic state Sen. Nathan Johnson to run for Texas attorney general

Prevent programme should continue referrals for no ideology
Prevent programme should continue referrals for no ideology

Yahoo

time27 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

Prevent programme should continue referrals for no ideology

Prevent, the Government's counter-terror programme, could work better as part of a violence prevention strategy in the long term and should apply to those fascinated by extreme violence, a watchdog has said. Independent Prevent Commissioner David Anderson KC has recommended the deradicalisation initiative should remain open to those with no fixed ideology in his report published on Wednesday. The review, looking at lessons learned from the cases of MP Sir David Amess's murderer Ali Harbi Ali and Southport murderer Axel Rudakubana, said 'intensive' efforts have been made to improve processes, but the 'jury is out' on some of the changes. Lord Anderson said: 'A huge amount of effort has already gone into making Prevent a stronger programme than the one which failed to deal in 2014 with the future killer of Sir David Amess. 'A blizzard of further initiatives has followed the Southport murders of last summer. Though it is too early for all of these to be fully evaluated, taken together they will reduce the chances of such failings being repeated. 'But more needs to be done. It has to be clear that people with a fascination with extreme violence can be suitable subjects for Prevent, even when they have no discernible ideology.' He added: 'In the longer term, I believe that Prevent could work better as part of a comprehensive violence prevention and safeguarding strategy.' The report recommended for a Cabinet Office task force to be set up to explore the possibility of formally connecting Prevent to a broader violence prevention and safeguarding system. It comes as the commissioner for the Commission for Countering Extremism, Robin Simcox, told the Commons' Home Affairs Committee that if Prevent shifted its focus towards taking on more cases of those with interests in extreme violence, it would mean the system 'isn't really a counter-terrorism programme any more'. He told MPs on Tuesday it would be a 'pretty fundamental shift in what Prevent is', adding: 'Prevent better brace itself for an awful lot of referrals.' Meanwhile, the interim Prevent commissioner's report also called for the body to 'up its game in the online world, where most radicalisation takes place'. Lord Anderson's report said that approaches to understanding organised terrorist activity from the last two decades are 'insufficient' for understanding digital movements of self-radicalised extremists, whose online behaviours are 'increasingly difficult to detect and interpret'. Speaking at the Home Affairs select committee on Tuesday, Lord Anderson said the average age of a person referred to Prevent is now 16 years old, and 40% are aged 11-15 so they are 'dealing here with digital natives'. The report concluded: 'Wider decisions loom on how Prevent can be better tailored to the online world inhabited by so many of its subjects; how best to deal with those whose ideology amounts to little more than a fascination with extreme violence; and whether Prevent should ultimately be embedded in a more general violence reduction strategy.' Lord Anderson detailed that he heard evidence from across the country of a large increase in Prevent referrals in the first quarter of this year following the publicity of Rudakubana's case. He added that reactions to popular Netflix series Adolescence on the theme of 'incels' may have also encouraged more referrals. Latest figures on Prevent referrals for 2023-2024 included in the report show 36% of 6,921 cases were made up of concerns of vulnerability but no ideology or counter-terror risk, followed by 19% extreme right wing and 18% for conflicted ideology. The report follows Prevent Learning Reviews published into the two cases. A review assessing Rudakubana's closed referrals to the programme years before he went on to murder three girls, and attempted to kill eight others and two adults, found too much focus was placed on the absence of a distinct ideology. Harbi Ali's case was also deemed to be closed too early after 'problematic' assessments, before he went on to kill veteran MP Sir David seven years later. Reacting to the Prevent commissioner's report on Wednesday, Radd Seiger, the adviser and spokesperson for the family of Sir David, said the family are 'deeply upset' and 'frankly offended' by the way Lord Anderson's report has been handled by the Home Office. He said the family were given 'next to no notice' of the timing or advance sight of the report, adding media leaks were a further insult to the family. Mr Seiger said they also received a 'dismissive' letter from the Home Secretary, which he said was designed to 'protect the Government following its failings' and not support them. The review on Prevent also comes after the terror watchdog recommended for a new offence to address the gap for lone individuals planning mass killings. In March, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, Jonathan Hall, said the terrorism definition should not be changed in the wake of the Southport murders, but instead the law could be changed to create an offence to prevent mass casualty attacks before they happen, similar to terrorism offences applying to an offender preparing for an attack.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store