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Garbage truck wake-up call at 5 a.m.

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:20:40 GMT

At 5 a.m., you are sound asleep. At 5:01, a garbage truck is emptying a dumpster, jarring you awake, not once or twice, but for years. And across South Florida, when people couldn’t get the trucks to arrive later, they did the best thing: called Help Me Howard with Patrick Fraser. One thing everyone has in common is the need for a nice quiet night’s rest.Instead, Brian and Andrea get this. Brian Zamorski: “You can hear it hit the trash can, the boom. While that’s happening, you’re hearing the metal slamming and slamming.”And it happens way before Brian wants to wake up.Brian Zamorski: “They all come at 4 in the morning. They’ve been here at 3:47 a.m., to be exact, in the morning.”It’s a commercial garbage truck picking up the trash from Walgreens, which sits behind their house.Brian Zamorski: “So our bedroom backs up to our wall, and you can hear the vibration on the window when they drop the trash can.Andrea estimate...

US Navy sub spotted off Fort Lauderdale

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:20:40 GMT

A U.S. Navy submarine was spotted just off shore.7 Skyforce captured the sight off Fort Lauderdale, late Wednesday morning.It’s not known where it came from or where it was headed, but we can tell you there is a navy undersea training range just off the coast, on the south side of Port Everglades inlet.That site has housed an active navy operation for more than 50 years, specializing in shallow and deep water electromagnetic research.

Fight between 2 girls inside bathroom at Miami Jackson Sr. High caught on camera

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:20:40 GMT

A brutal beatdown in a high school bathroom captured on camera shows a girl getting punched repeatedly and thrown around.According to City of Miami Police, the pair agreed to meet up for the scuffle at Miami Jackson Senior High School. Wednesday night, they were both learning a lesson in the law.District officials have a message: they will not tolerate this kind of behavior, as both of those students will face consequences.While the video looks like one student is attacking another, Miami-Dade County Public Schools officials both the girls involved are in trouble.They released a statement that read: “The incident was captured on video and depicts unsafe behavior that is specifically prohibited by the Code of Student Conduct. The matter was immediately addressed by the school’s administration and by Miami Dade Schools Police.”Officials called the fight, a “pre-arranged physical altercation.” The two students, officials said, have been arrested and will b...

Florida lawmakers clash on 6-week abortion ban, bill nixing concealed gun permits

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:20:40 GMT

Florida lawmakers battled over several controversial bills and measures on the second day of the legislative session at the State Capitol.The Republican supermajorities and their Democratic opponents got to work on Wednesday.“We are doing the people’s work. We’re doing it in a bipartisan manner,” said Florida State Rep. Danny Perez.Meanwhile, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis hit the road a day after his State of the State speech.“Why aren’t we talking about things that really matter?” he said during a stop.Back at the Capitol, there is plenty of contention.At issue is a six-week abortion ban with an exception for rape and incest. The patient would have to produce it with a police report or court order.Perez, a Miami-Dade County Republican, said this is reasonable.“In order to have those exceptions, it’s something that they’re going to have to abide by in order to go through that very tough decision,” he said. “You have...

The US to Europe: It’s about you, but it’s also about China

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:20:40 GMT

The U.S. is trying to charm and cajole Europe into linking arms to confront China. But Europe has other priorities in mind.Ahead of President Joe Biden’s meeting with European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen in Washington on Friday, U.S. officials have been offering Europe both urgent warnings about Beijing and pledges to smooth over trade disputes.On the warning side, the U.S. government has been sharing intelligence with Europe suggesting China is considering arming Russia in its war on Ukraine — overtures that Europe has met with a mix of caution and toughness. Some European leaders — like German Chancellor Olaf Scholz — have issued stern warnings to China against doing so, while others — including von der Leyen — have been more careful about broadcasting the U.S. claims.On the pledges side, U.S. officials are assuring Europeans their companies will get access to some tax credits and subsidies from a landmark U.S. climate bill passed last year.But Europe’s re...

Turkey’s ‘Gandhi’ sets his sights on strongman Erdoğan

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:20:40 GMT

Gönül Tol is the founding director of the Middle East Institute’s Turkey program. She is the author of “Erdoğan’s War: A Strongman’s Struggle at Home and in Syria.”Turkey’s main opposition party leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu is everything President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan isn’t.Nicknamed “Gandhi Kemal,” the soft-spoken and calm demeanor of the leader of the People’s Republican Party (CHP) stands in sharp contrast to Erdoğan’s bombast and brashness — a style that earned the sitting president the title of reis, or chief, among his admirers.Beyond their contrasting personalities, the two men also have radically different visions for the country.Over his years in office, Erdoğan has centralized power in his own hands and built a personalist autocracy and encouraging a cult of personality. Kılıçdaroğlu wants to diffuse power and resuscitate Turkish democracy — a task the country’s opposition coalition officially gave him this week, naming him their presidential candidate...

5 times Tory prime ministers talked up quitting the ECHR — and then didn’t

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:20:40 GMT

5 times Tory prime ministers talked up quitting the ECHR — and then didn’tUK Conservatives just love talking about leaving the European Convention on Human Rights.Conservative leaders have been talking up quitting the ECHR for years, without ever doing anything about it | WPA pool photo by Toby Melville/Getty ImagesLONDON — Three things are certain in life: death, taxes, and U.K. Tory leaders flirting with leaving the European Convention on Human Rights.U.K. membership of the ECHR is back in the headlines this week after Rishi Sunak’s government unveiled a new asylum bill it acknowledged may clash with a convention which Britain itself helped to draft in 1951.Tory MPs and commentators from a certain wing of the party are already agitating for Britain to pull out if the asylum plan comes a cropper in the Strasbourg courts. Sunak’s position is somewhat nuanced. “We don’t believe it is necessary to leave the ECHR,” he insisted at a press conference Tuesday eveni...

Putin-style ‘foreign agent’ bill in Georgia threatens civil society

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:20:40 GMT

Manana Kochladze is chairwoman of Green Alternative, an environmental organization in Georgia, and a strategic area leader in democratization and human rights at the Bankwatch Network. Mariam Patsatsia is a community support coordinator at Green Alternative and Bankwatch.Endorsed by the ruling Georgian Dream party, a bill similar to Russia’s law on “foreign agents” is currently being rushed through Georgia’s parliament.If the bill becomes law, it will compel nonprofits and media outlets that receive at least 20 percent of their funding from abroad to register as “agents of foreign influence.” And refusing registration, or not complying with the burdensome reporting requirements, will lead to considerable fines.To make matters worse, in an even more dystopian twist, members of the ruling parliamentary majority — the sponsors of the bill — have now introduced a second version of this draft law as well, and it makes the original seem soft by comparison. The revised legislation expands ...

Sunak and Macron prepare show of unity in Paris as Vladimir Putin looks on

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:20:40 GMT

LONDON — Britain and France will aim to bury the hatchet Friday after seven years of feuding and send a message of Western unity to Vladimir Putin.U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and French President Emmanuel Macron will meet in Paris for the first Anglo-French summit since 2018, with both leaders hoping to secure small-scale policy wins they can sell to domestic audiences.But beyond the need for agreements on migration, energy and mobility for young people, greater forces are driving the squabbling neighbors toward a closer relationship after the bitterness sparked by the U.K.’s 2016 Brexit vote. Sunak and Macron lead Western Europe’s two great military powers, and are painfully aware of the need to show Russia that the West remains unified in the face of its brutal war in Ukraine. Defense cooperation will be central to Friday’s discussions.“There’s a war in Europe, we face a common threat, and it’s a test for our two countries which have the biggest armies in Europe and ...

Money laundering in Milan? Qatargate shifts to Italy

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:20:40 GMT

MILAN — Reporters took turns knocking at the prosecutor’s door on Wednesday.Their question: Have the documents arrived yet from Belgium?The papers are moving locations along with the public’s attention this week, as the sprawling corruption probe engulfing the European Parliament shifts suddenly from Brussels to Milan.Italian officials have launched their own probe into whether a Milan firm, Equality Consultancy, helped launder Qatar’s bribes for EU lawmakers, a person familiar with the investigation confirmed. And on Thursday, three Milan judges will have to decide whether to extradite the firm’s founder, Monica Bellini, to Belgium.  But first, local officials want to see the latest evidence from Belgium.Belgian prosecutors have had both Equality and Bellini in their sights for weeks. Bellini served as an accountant for the former Italian MEP Pier Antonio Panzeri, the alleged mastermind of a cash-for-influence network at the Parliament working on behalf of Morocco an...