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Poland Marks 85th Anniversary of Nazi Germany’s Invasion at Start of World War II

People lay a wreath at the monument to the 1939 heroic defense of the Westerplatte peninsula outpost during solemn observances of the 85th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II, at Westerplatte, on the Baltic Sea, Poland, on Sunday, Sept. 1, 2024. (AP)
People lay a wreath at the monument to the 1939 heroic defense of the Westerplatte peninsula outpost during solemn observances of the 85th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II, at Westerplatte, on the Baltic Sea, Poland, on Sunday, Sept. 1, 2024. (AP)
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Poland Marks 85th Anniversary of Nazi Germany’s Invasion at Start of World War II

People lay a wreath at the monument to the 1939 heroic defense of the Westerplatte peninsula outpost during solemn observances of the 85th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II, at Westerplatte, on the Baltic Sea, Poland, on Sunday, Sept. 1, 2024. (AP)
People lay a wreath at the monument to the 1939 heroic defense of the Westerplatte peninsula outpost during solemn observances of the 85th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II, at Westerplatte, on the Baltic Sea, Poland, on Sunday, Sept. 1, 2024. (AP)

Poland's leaders stressed the need for a strong defense in the face of war in neighboring Ukraine and redress as they led solemn ceremonies early Sunday to mark the 85th anniversary of German Nazi forces invading and bombing Polish territory at the start of World War II.

Sirens wailed and a memorial bell tolled as President Andrzej Duda and deputy ambassador of Germany, Robert Rohde, attended an observance in the town of Wielun, the first civilian target of German bombing in the small hours of Sept. 1, 1939. Some 1,200 people were killed in the attack which witnesses say began at 4:40 a.m.

"We can say that we have forgiven even though we remember, even though the pain is persisting and even though there are still tens of thousands of those who have been directly hurt by the Germans," Duda said. He also called on Berlin to make amends.

Meanwhile, at a monument on the Baltic Sea's Westerplatte peninsula, where a military outpost was shelled by a German warship just minutes after Wielun was attacked, Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz laid wreaths and attended a memorial roll call for fallen soldiers. At the time, the outpost's outnumbered troops fought for seven days before surrendering to the Germans, becoming a symbol of heroism and patriotism.

Tusk said war was present again in the region as the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began in 2022, grinds on.

He said, in a clear reference to Germany, it wasn't enough to speak about "reconciliation" or to "bend your head in a sense of guilt," adding that the best sign of lessons learned from the past is "the readiness to organize the entire western world, Europe and NATO for the defense against aggression that we are witnessing today in the battlefields of Ukraine."

"Today we will not say ‘Neven Again.’ Today we must say ‘Never Again Alone’," the prime minister said.

Tusk also said Poland was building "the most modern army in Europe, one of the strongest in Europe" to actively contribute to the unity and strength of the NATO defense alliance and the European continent and "to defend our civilization" and "never again expose our homeland to any risks."

In more than five years of World War II and brutal German occupation, Poland lost 6 million citizens or a sixth of its population, of which 3 million were Jewish. The country also suffered huge losses to its infrastructure, industry and agriculture.

Poland's previous right-wing government demanded $1.3 trillion in damages from Germany. Tusk's current Cabinet has toned the demand down to some form of compensation that could serve to strengthen the ties between the two neighbors. Germany insists the matter is closed as it had paid damages to the Moscow-led East Bloc after the war. Warsaw says it did not get any share of it.

Addressing attendees at the Wielun observance, the Polish president said: "Forgiveness and the admission of guilt is one thing, but compensation for the damage caused is another thing. And this issue has not been settled yet."

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Snowstorm Paralyzes Vienna Airport

People wait at a tram stop after heavy snowfalls in Vienna, Austria, February 20, 2026. REUTERS/Elisabeth Mandl
People wait at a tram stop after heavy snowfalls in Vienna, Austria, February 20, 2026. REUTERS/Elisabeth Mandl
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Snowstorm Paralyzes Vienna Airport

People wait at a tram stop after heavy snowfalls in Vienna, Austria, February 20, 2026. REUTERS/Elisabeth Mandl
People wait at a tram stop after heavy snowfalls in Vienna, Austria, February 20, 2026. REUTERS/Elisabeth Mandl

Massive snowstorms caused power outages and transport chaos in Austria on Friday, forcing the Vienna airport to temporarily halt all flights.

Flights departing from the capital, a major European hub, were cancelled or delayed, and more than 230 arrivals were similarly disrupted or rerouted.

"Passengers whose flights have been delayed are asked not to come to the airport," the facility said in a statement.

The area received 20 centimeters (nearly eight inches) of snow, national news agency APA reported.

The main highway south of Vienna was closed for several hours, and other sections of highway were temporarily inaccessible because of snowdrift, stranded lorries or poor visibility, said the national automobile association, OAMTC.

According to AFP, electric companies reported power outages in several regions in the south and east, including Styria, where 30,000 homes lost electricity.

The weather was forecast to improve from around midday, but the risk of avalanches remained high.

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NASA Delivers Harsh Assessment of Botched Boeing Starliner Test Flight

NASA duo Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were stuck on the ISS for nine months. Handout / NASA TV/AFP/File
NASA duo Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were stuck on the ISS for nine months. Handout / NASA TV/AFP/File
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NASA Delivers Harsh Assessment of Botched Boeing Starliner Test Flight

NASA duo Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were stuck on the ISS for nine months. Handout / NASA TV/AFP/File
NASA duo Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were stuck on the ISS for nine months. Handout / NASA TV/AFP/File

NASA on Thursday blamed what it called engineering vulnerabilities in Boeing's Starliner spacecraft along with internal agency mistakes in a sharply critical report assessing a botched mission that left two astronauts stranded in space.

The US space agency labeled the 2024 test flight of the Starliner capsule a "Type A" mishap -- the same classification as the deadly Challenger and Columbia shuttle disasters -- a category that reflects the "potential for a significant mishap," it said.

The failures left a pair of NASA astronauts stranded aboard the International Space Station for nine months in a mission that captured global attention and became a political flashpoint.

"Starliner has design and engineering deficiencies that must be corrected, but the most troubling failure revealed by this investigation is not hardware. It's decision-making and leadership," said NASA administrator Jared Isaacman in a briefing.

"If left unchecked," he said, this mismanagement "could create a culture incompatible with human spaceflight."

The top space official said the investigation found that a concern for the reputation of Boeing's Starliner clouded an earlier internal probe into the incident.

"Programmatic advocacy exceeded reasonable bounds and place the mission, the crew and America's space program at risk in ways that were not fully understood at the time," Isaacman said.

He said Starliner currently "is less reliable for crew survival than other crewed vehicles" and that "NASA will not fly another crew on Starliner until technical causes are understood and corrected" and a problematic propulsion system is fixed.

But the administrator insisted that "NASA will continue to work with Boeing, as we do all of our partners that are undertaking test flights."

In a statement, Boeing said it has "made substantial progress on corrective actions for technical challenges we encountered and driven significant cultural changes across the team that directly align with the findings in the report."

- 'We failed them' -

Isaacman also had harsh words for internal conduct at NASA.

"We managed the contract. We accepted the vehicle, we launched the crew to space. We made decisions from docking through post-mission actions," he told journalists.

"A considerable portion of the responsibility and accountability rests here."

In June 2024 Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams embarked on what was meant to be an eight-to-14-day mission. But this turned into nine months after propulsion problems emerged in orbit and the Starliner spacecraft was deemed unfit to fly them back.

The ex-Navy pilots were reassigned to the NASA-SpaceX Crew-9 mission. A Dragon spacecraft flew to the ISS that September with a team of two, rather than the usual four, to make room for the stranded pair.

The duo, both now retired, were finally able to arrive home safely in March 2025.

"They have so much grace, and they're so competent, the two of them, and we failed them," NASA associate administrator Amit Kshatriya told Thursday's briefing.

"The agency failed them."

Kshatriya said the details of the report were "hard to hear" but that "transparency" was the only path forward.

"This is not about pointing fingers," he said. "It's about making sure that we are holding each other accountable."

Both Boeing and SpaceX were commissioned to handle missions to the ISS more than a decade ago.

Varieties

Abandoned Baby Monkey Finds Comfort in Stuffed Orangutan

A baby Japanese macaque named Punch sits next to a stuffed orangutan at Ichikawa City Zoo, in Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture, Japan, February 19, 2026. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon
A baby Japanese macaque named Punch sits next to a stuffed orangutan at Ichikawa City Zoo, in Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture, Japan, February 19, 2026. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon
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Abandoned Baby Monkey Finds Comfort in Stuffed Orangutan

A baby Japanese macaque named Punch sits next to a stuffed orangutan at Ichikawa City Zoo, in Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture, Japan, February 19, 2026. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon
A baby Japanese macaque named Punch sits next to a stuffed orangutan at Ichikawa City Zoo, in Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture, Japan, February 19, 2026. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

At a zoo outside Tokyo, the monkey enclosure has become a must-see attraction thanks to an inseparable pair: Punch, a baby Japanese macaque, and his stuffed orangutan companion.

Punch's mother abandoned the macaque when he was born seven months ago at the Ichikawa City Zoo and when an onlooker noticed and alerted zookeepers, they swung into action.

Japanese baby macaques typically cling to their mothers to build muscle strength and for a ‌sense of security, ‌so Punch needed a swift intervention, zookeeper ‌Kosuke ⁠Shikano said. The keepers ⁠experimented with substitutes including rolled-up towels and other stuffed animals before settling on the orange, bug-eyed orangutan, sold by Swedish furniture brand IKEA.

“This stuffed animal has relatively long hair and several easy places to hold," Shikano said. "We thought that its resemblance to a monkey might help ⁠Punch integrate back into the troop later ‌on, and that’s why ‌we chose it."

Punch has rarely been seen without it since, ‌dragging the cuddly toy everywhere even though it is ‌bigger than him, and delighting fans who have flocked to the zoo since videos of the two went viral, Reuters reported.

“Seeing Punch on social media, abandoned by his parents but still trying ‌so hard, really moved me," said 26-year-old nurse Miyu Igarashi. "So when I got the ⁠chance to ⁠meet up with a friend today, I suggested we go see Punch together.”

Shikano thinks Punch's mother abandoned him because of the extreme heat in July when she gave birth.

Punch has had some differences with the other monkeys as he has tried to communicate with them, but zookeepers say that is part of the learning process and he is steadily integrating with the troop.

"I think there will come a day when he no longer needs his stuffed toy," Shikano said.