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As President Trump continues to press Europe to contribute more to its own defense, NATO announced two Joint Force Commands would transition from U.S. leadership to European in the coming years.

The move "is part of a shift to more fairly sharing responsibility within NATO, with European allies taking on greater leadership roles in NATO's command structure," NATO said in a statement ahead of a meeting of defense ministers this week. The statement also noted that the U.S. would continue to maintain the role of supreme allied commander Europe, or SACEUR, as part of "making clear the U.S. commitment to NATO command and control."

Last month, the Trump administration released its National Defense Strategy, which emphasized that NATO allies should take the primary responsibility for Europe's defense as the U.S. focuses more on defending the homeland anddeterring China.

Thelead author of that strategy,Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby, is expected to attend the NATO Defense Ministerial this week, instead of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. This is the first NATO defense ministerial Hegseth has skipped since taking office.

The transition in leadership of the two commands is expected to take place gradually over the next few years.

A Pentagon official said the decision to transfer commands was "made jointly among all allies."

"The decision strengthens the alliance by showing European leadership in European defense and enhancing European defense capabilities," the official said in a statement.

The command in Norfolk, Virginia, has facilities on a larger installation that will remain under the control of the U.S. Navy when a U.K. officer assumes command. According to its website, it is NATO's newest operational command and focuses on protecting the Atlantic and the Arctic.

Italy will take over Joint Force Command Naples, while Germany and Poland will on a rotational basis share command of Joint Force Command Brunssum, currently led by Germany. Once the changes are made, all three Joint Force Commands that lead operations in crisis will be under European leadership.

The U.S. will take leadership of the Allied Maritime Command, which is currently led by a U.K. vice admiral. This means the U.S. will lead the three functional commands, Allied Maritime Command, Allied Land Command and Allied Air Command.

The SACEUR, commander of all NATO forces, is a position that has always been held by an American officer. Air Force Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich, who leads the 80,000 U.S. service members currently in U.S. European Command, is the current supreme allied commander.

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One year before he was charged with sex trafficking, Jeffrey Epstein was planning a major renovation of his private islands,Little St. Jamesand Great St. James, documents newly released by theDepartment of Justicereveal.

• Jeffrey Epstein had planned an extensive renovation to his two private islands before his 2019 arrest.

• Designs in the newly released Epstein files include plans for a "ladies' residence" and an "isolated" master suite.

• Epstein fired the architect after seven months, and seemingly never began construction.

Hundreds of pages of emails, contracts, and renderings in the Epstein files give insight into his plans for the islands, one of which has become notorious for the sexual abuse that prosecutors allege occurred there, as well as an inside look into his exacting nature.

Over the course of eight months, Epstein paid at least $150,000 to Florida-based design firm Radyca for architectural and interior plans.

The remit: "My employer owns 2 islands in the Caribbean off of St. Thomas that he would like completely redone," one of Epstein's assistants wrote the firm in November 2017.

The work was supposed to begin in January 2019 and take two years, according to a December 2017 agreement. Epstein fired the firm in June 2018, emails show.

Ramon Alonso, the president of Radyca and Epstein's main point of contact for the work, declined to comment on the project or the island. He visited the island at least twice, according to emails and travel information included in the files.

A 'ladies' residence' and 'isolated' master bedroom

Various schematics, proposals, and designs — as well as the correspondence about them — reveal how Epstein imagined the properties.

The plans for the two islands included a "ladies' residence" and master retreat in proximity, as well as a cinema, a "funhouse point," and various other guest pavilions and outbuildings.

The ladies' residence was of particular interest to Epstein and the subject of dozens of emails between Epstein and Alonso, who discussed the appropriate structure for "the girls."

Epstein also gave several notes on the 7,700-square-foot master retreat. In one email, Alonso wrote that "we completely isolated the bedroom from any noise or daylight as requested." In another, Epstein said he didn't want guests above his bedroom and that his bedroom windows didn't need to open any more than to "air out the place."

The designs were inspired by luxury hotels, including the Soori Hotel in Bali and theAmanera in the Dominican Republic.

Throughout the process, tensions arose between the disgraced financier and his design team.

"i might add that the cost incurred to date. are mine. with virutally nothing to show for it," Epstein wrote in a May 2018 email, with his usual idiosyncratic punctuation.

In other emails, he called the designs "silly," said he was "shocked and disappointed," and told Alonso that the firm had created "nothing at all . of any use. ZERO."

By June 2018, relations appeared to reach a tipping point.

"Please understand that I don't mind changing direction as many times as it's needed to your full satisfaction and I also really like you and working with you but I don't appreciate when you diminish our work," Alonso wrote in an email to Epstein.

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Two weeks later, Alonso was fired.

"this is silly sorry i have no more time for this," Epstein wrote on June 30, 2018. "I wish you well."

It was the last correspondence between the pair in the files. About one year later, Epstein was arrested, and the FBI raided the island. Photos taken at the time show the redesign never occurred.

Little St. Jeff's: A notorious island

Little St. James was central to the disgraced financier'ssex-trafficking operation, according to witness testimony included in the US's 2019 case accusing Epstein of sexual abuse and trafficking of underage girls. Epstein pleaded not guilty and died by suicide in jail that year while awaiting trial.

The US Virgin Islands, where the properties are located, suedEpstein's estatefollowing his death, accusing him of sex trafficking and abusing underage girls on the islands. They reached a settlement in 2022, with the estate agreeing to pay the government of the Virgin Islands $105 million in cash, half the proceeds of a planned sale of Little St. James, and other damages. The settlement did not include any admission of guilt.

Epstein purchased the 72-acre Little St. James in 1998 for $7.95 million. In 2016, he added the 162-acre Great St. James to his portfolio for $22.5 million, according to deeds included in the Epstein files.Epstein's islandssold in 2023 for $60 million — less than half of the initial $125 million asking price. The buyer, billionaire Stephen Deckoff, has said he plans to transform them into a luxury resort.

Throughout his decades on the Little St. James — often referred to as Little St. Jeff's —Epstein hosted famousand powerful figures.

LinkedIn cofounderReid Hoffman, Google cofounder Sergey Brin, and Howard Lutnick had plans to visit Little St. James, according to emails in the latest batch of Epstein files.

The island had a reputation for parties and, in Epstein's words, "a ratio" of men to women that could make women "uncomfortable."

"What day/night will be the wildest party on your island?"Musk asked Epsteinin 2012 about the possibility of a visit that Musk said never occurred.

Over the years, Epstein embarked on several redesign projects, documents and emails included in the Epstein files show, hiring architects, surveyors, and decorators.

The renovations and redecoration of the islands were also a subject of the 2021 testimony of Ghislaine Maxwell's former executive assistant, Cimberly Espinosa, with one detail so unexpected that the judge had to follow up

"We even shipped in sand and palm trees and all kinds of things to get the island to what he wanted it to be," she said, answering the judge's questions about the scope of her work on the island.

"To be clear," the judge said, "you shipped in sand to a tropical island, why was that?"

"He wanted more sand on the beach," the former assistant said.

Jacob Shamsian contributed reporting to this story.

Read the original article onBusiness Insider

MOSCOW (AP) — Moscow will observe the limits of the lastnuclear arms pactwith the United States that expired last week as long as it sees that Washington is doing the same, Russia's top diplomat said Wednesday.

Russia US Nuclear Treaty

The New START treaty expired Feb. 5, leaving no restrictions on the two largest atomic arsenals for the first time in more than a half-century and fueling fears of anunconstrained nuclear arms race.

Russian President Vladimir Putin last year declared his readiness to stick to thetreaty's limits for another yearif Washington followed suit, but U.S. President Donald Trump has argued that he wants China to be a part of a new pact — something Beijing has rejected.

Remarks to Russian lawmakers

Speaking Wednesday to the parliament's lower house, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that even though the U.S. hasn't responded to Putin's offer, Russia will respect New START's caps for as long as it sees that the U.S. observes them too.

"The moratorium declared by the president will remain as long as the U.S. doesn't exceed these limits," Lavrov told lawmakers. "We will act in a responsible and balanced way on the basis of analysis of the U.S. military policies."

He added that "we have reason to believe that the United States is in no hurry to abandon these limits and that they will be observed for the foreseeable future."

"We will closely monitor how things are actually unfolding," Lavrov said. "If our American colleagues' intention to maintain some kind of cooperation on this is confirmed, we will work actively on a new agreement and consider the issues that have remained outside strategic stability agreements."

US-Russia talks in Abu Dhabi

Lavrov's statement followed a report by Axios claiming Russian and U.S. negotiators discussed a possible informal deal to observe the pact's limits for at least six months during talks last week in Abu Dhabi. Asked to comment on the report, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday that any such extension could only be formal, adding that "it's hard to imagine any informal extension in this sphere."

At the same time, Peskov confirmed that Russian and U.S. negotiators discussed future nuclear arms control in Abu Dhabi where delegations from Moscow, Kyiv and Washington held two days of talks on a peace settlement in Ukraine.

"There is an understanding, and they talked about it in Abu Dhabi, that both parties will take responsible positions and both parties realize the need to start talks on the issue as soon as possible," Peskov said.

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The limits of the New START treaty

New START, signed in 2010 by then-President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, was the last of a long series of agreements between Moscow and Washington to limit their nuclear arsenals, starting with SALT I in 1972.

New START restricted each side to no more than 1,550 nuclear warheads on no more than 700 missiles and bombers deployed and ready for use. It was originally set to expire in 2021 but was extended for five years.

The pact envisioned sweeping on-site inspections to verify compliance, although they stopped in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic and never resumed.

In February 2023, Putin suspended Moscow's participation, saying Russia couldn't allow U.S. inspections of its nuclear sites at a time when Washington and its NATO allies openly declared they wanted Moscow's defeat in Ukraine. But the Kremlin also emphasized it wasn't withdrawing from the pact altogether, pledging to respect its caps on nuclear weapons.

In September, Putin offered to keep the New START's limits for another year to buy time for both sides to negotiate a successor agreement.

Even as New START expired, the U.S. and Russiaagreed on Feb. 5to reestablish high-level, military-to-military dialogue following a meeting between senior officials from both sides in Abu Dhabi, the U.S. military command in Europe said. The link was suspended in 2021 as relations grew increasingly strained before Russia sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022.

The Associated Press receives support for nuclear security coverage from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and Outrider Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Additional AP coverage:https://apnews.com/projects/the-new-nuclear-landscape/

LIVIGNO, Italy (AP) — Chinese snowboarder Liu Jiayu took a scary fall in Olympic halfpipe qualifying Wednesday and had to be carried off on a stretcher after coming down hard on her left arms and shoulder, then bending backward and somersaulting through the bottom of the pipe.

There was no immediate word from the Chinese team on Liu's status. The fall, which came after the 33-year-old Liu caught an edge while landing her final jump, stopped action on the halfpipe for about 10 minutes while medical personnel attended to her.

America's Chloe Kim finished first in qualifying and will move on to Thursday night's final.

AP Winter Olympics:https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — The son of Tiger Woods is staying in state to pursue college golf. Charlie Woods made a verbal commitment Tuesday to play for Florida State.

Woods, a junior at The Benjamin School in North Palm Beach, is No. 21 in the American Junior Golf Association ranking.

His lone AJGA victory came at the Team TaylorMade Invitational last May, and he tied for ninth in the Junior PGA Championship last summer to boost his ranking and draw interest from top college golf programs.

Woods will join Miles Russell, the No. 1 player in junior golf who also committed to the Seminoles.

Tiger Woods also chose to stay in state when he left high school in Southern California, playing two years at Stanford. His daughter, Sam, currently attends Stanford.

Major champions who played at Florida State include Brooks Koepka, Paul Azinger and Jeff Sluman.

AP golf:https://apnews.com/hub/golf