Polish-US relations are based on solid foundations and nothing should disturb them in the years ahead, an aide to the Polish president said on Thursday. The top aide to Poland’s President Andrzej Duda, was speaking after Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th president of the United States a day earlier to succeed Donald Trump.

Asked in a media interview how Polish-American relations could change under the new administration in Washington, he said: „We have simply closed one chapter and opened another in these relations.” He further added that Poland’s Duda took office at a time when Barack Obama was US president.

The Polish city of Kraków will continue with its tradition of having an all-male team of buglers who sound a traditional trumpet call from one of the city’s church towers which dates back over seven centuries.

Three women were among the more than 30 candidates who wanted to try their hand at sounding the bugle from the top of the tower of the city’s St Mary’s Church. The best of the hopefuls have made it into the next stage of a recruitment process held by the Kraków fire brigade – none of them are women. A spokesperson for the Kraków fire brigade said, “We picked six candidates with the highest level of ability in playing the bugle”.

Portugal’s Paulo Sousa was on Thursday named as the new manager of the Polish national soccer team to replace Jerzy Brzęczek.

The announcement by the chief of the national governing body for the sport came after Brzęczek unexpectedly lost his job as Poland boss on Monday. Sousa, 50, is a Portuguese soccer manager and a former professional player who played as a defensive midfielder. His credits as a coach include Leicester City, Italian side Fiorentina and France’s Girondins Bordeaux. The head of the Polish Football Association has said that national team needed a new manager to put an end to „a sense of malaise” among players and ensure more quality ahead of the upcoming European championships and qualifiers for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

And finally, 30 scientists from around Poland have signed an open letter calling on Polish MPs to give their backing to an act to establish a Gdańsk-Gdynia-Sopot Metropolitan Area that is estimated would bring an additional PLN 200 million in extra tax revenue annually which would typically go to central government.

Signatories of the letter include experts, heads of renowned Polish research units for regional development, co-authors and consultants of the country development strategy, and rectors of Tri-City universities who appealed to MPs to support the Metropolitan Act for Pomerania. Some of the signatories of the letter include professors from Warsaw, Kraków, Poznań and Katowice. They made their appeal on the day of the beginning of the 25th session of the Sejm where deputies will decide whether they will start work on the bill passed almost unanimously in the Senate at the beginning of September 2020.

Weather

Today will be a cloudy day with sunny intervals and a moderate and temperatures reaching 6 degrees centigrade (43 degrees Fahrenheit) during the day, dropping to freezing point overnight. Tomorrow will be a wet day with rain likely throughout the day and temperatures of 6 degrees centigrade during the day and 1 degree overnight.

Martin Caren/ako