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Raducanu, Stephens, Murray lose in 1st round at Miami Open

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:35:50 GMT

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — Former U.S. Open champions Emma Raducanu and Sloane Stephens were knocked out of the Miami Open on Wednesday, hours after No. 1-ranked and defending champion Iga Swiatek pulled out of the tournament because of a rib injury.Bianca Andreescu — the 2019 U.S. Open champ — defeated Raducanu 6-3, 3-6, 6-2. Andreescu improved to 2-0 lifetime against Raducanu, the 2021 winner at Flushing Meadows.“Miami has a special place in my heart,” Andreescu said. “I’ve been coming here since I was I think 12 years old, whether it’s for vacation or training or, yeah, Orange Bowl. I love that tournament very much. Yeah, coming back here, I think it’s just good vibes overall.” Andreescu moves on to face 10th-ranked Maria Sakkari, who had a first-round bye.Shelby Rogers beat Stephens 6-4, 3-6, 6-2. Stephens has six hard-court titles, including the U.S. Open in 2017 and Miami in 2018.Rogers will face Australian Open champion and world No. 2 Aryna Sabalenka, who beat Rogers in the ...

Video shows defacing of tombstone, decorations at Miami gravesite of 2 killed in 2021 crash

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:35:50 GMT

Newly surfaced cellphone video captured an act of vandalism at a Miami cemetery concerning the gravesite of two of four people who were killed in a New Year’s Day crash in West Miami-Dade back in 2021.The video shows someone defacing a gravestone with black spray paint. Moments later, the vandal is seen spray-painting the flowers and a memorial honoring the victims. The subject then kicking everything placed over the grave repeatedly.7News has learned this latest incident happened at the Caballero Rivero Woodlawn North Cemetery in Miami.Authorities said Yuhlia Barzaga, Christian Mohip, Andres Zacarias and Jenser Salazar lost their lives when they were struck by a man driving under the influence in the area of West Flagler Street and 79th Avenue.The vandalism caught on video comes nearly two years after another similar incident aimed at the crash victims.Previous cellphone videos posted to social media showed someone damaging the West Miami-Dade memorial the families had set up...

Special needs dog in need of new home after owner no longer able to provide care

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:35:50 GMT

A special needs dog is in desperate need of a new home, two years after he was found in poor shape in Hollywood.Speaking with 7News on Wednesday, Susan Jorquera Perez, who is with Suzie Q Rescue, is hoping a responsible and committed person opens up their home to 7-year-old Tucker.“We really are hoping we can find a foster, or better yet, a loving home,” she said.Tucker was found severely emaciated nearly two years ago in a Hollywood neighborhood.Those who cared for the canine believe that he was used as a bait dog, an innocent dog used in the illegal business of dog fighting to train dogs to attack.The folks at Suzie Q Rescue took Tucker in and nursed him back to health so that he could be fostered.“As anybody, we always try to figure out what to do and take the few steps to find a home or get them the help they need,” said Jorquera Perez.They did just that. Shortly after his recovery, the rescue team was able to find Tucker a loving home.“The person who agr...

Republicans split on Iraq war repeal

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:35:50 GMT

It’s not just Russia’s war in Ukraine dividing the GOP: Republicans are openly split over whether to cut off approval for the Iraq war, two decades after it began.As party lawmakers debate the authorization for a conflict whose combat operations started winding down two administrations ago, they’re also hashing out bigger questions about the Republican identity heading into the 2024 presidential primary. A GOP that looked uniformly hawkish when George W. Bush first won Congress’ approval to go to war in Iraq is now routinely split on major foreign policy matters.And a new breed of non-interventionist Republicans says they’re winning the battle of ideas.“Voters are tired of wars that don’t have any justification or basis,” said Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who has supported advancing the repeal of 1991 and 2002 authorizations for war in Iraq. “The Iraq thing, that was not justifiable … And that’s hard for my party to admit. Because they pushed it, they carried the water f...

The end of Boris Johnson

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:35:50 GMT

Tanya Gold is a freelance journalist.Boris Johnson’s political career ended on Wednesday, with stuttering and fake politesse. Seated before a U.K. House of Commons committee poised to rule on whether he lied to parliament about Partygate, Johnson was far from his element. Beneath the ghost of his famous bonhomie and the half-conceived rhetoric, I saw anger segueing to bafflement: A man who has been forgiven all his life, now unforgiven. He should rewatch the original “House of Cards”: nothing lasts forever.If Johnson once coasted on the times, now he is cursed by them. Britain has a new seriousness and a new PM: In politics, a bookie is followed by a bishop, to borrow the journalist Malcolm Muggeridge’s famous phrase. (I’m not including Liz Truss, who is owed a special category of her own.) Johnson may be suspended from parliament if the committee finds against him, and he may then lose his seat. The classicist in him will understand: He is most in danger from his ...

Defense lobbyists send their big guns to Brussels

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:35:50 GMT

BRUSSELS — For a peace project, the European Union is building a pretty generous war chest — and lobbyists are gearing up to pry it open.With EU leaders set to give their final sign-off this week on a plan to lock arms and buy arms together, the bloc is speeding toward a new stage of defense integration. In the leadup, weapons-makers from both sides of the Atlantic have been clamoring for facetime with key commissioners and EU lawmakers, while lobbying firms are drafting military experts for their Brussels office.“In 20 years in public affairs, I’ve never seen so much development on a policy area as on defense in the last five years,” said Benoît Chaucheprat, a co-founder of C&V Consulting, a three-year-old boutique firm that’s unique in Brussels for its focus on defense policy.It would be a mistake, however, to solely credit Vladimir Putin’s war on the EU’s border for the bloc’s shifting perspective. “We can’t say that the invasion of Ukraine is a g...

Ammo for Ukraine? EU might not be up to the task

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:35:50 GMT

Paul Taylor is a contributing editor at POLITICO.PARIS — The European Union is breaking new ground with an ambitious plan to jointly procure urgently needed ammunition for Ukraine and to ramp up European defense industries for a new era of confrontation with Russia.This has become a crucial test for the credibility of common European defense efforts — but it’s a daunting challenge for an organization that was born as an economic peace project without a military bone in its body.And some EU members aren’t sure Brussels is up to the job.With Ukraine burning munitions faster than the entire Western world’s arms factories can churn them out, expanding manufacturing capacity that’s shrunk for 30 years is now the bloc’s top priority. Thus, the EU has agreed to spend €1 billion to transfer more of its members’ existing munitions stocks to Kyiv, and another billion to jointly order the most frequently used 155-millimeter NATO standard artillery shells from European industry. Eighteen c...

Live blog: European Council summit

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:35:50 GMT

And we’re back. Roughly six weeks after EU leaders last gathered in Brussels, they’re returning for more.This time, the guests may be a little lower wattage — Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s February visit brought out hordes of onlookers. And the topics may be a little less contentious — migration kept leaders up all night. But that’s not to say there won’t be drama. Germany’s fractious coalition government is feuding with the EU over its attempts to phase out traditional, combustion engine cars. And French President Emmanuel Macron’s government is teetering amid strikes and no-confidence votes over his push to raise the retirement age. That’s all before getting to the official agenda. During the two-day session, EU leaders are expected to approve a deal to send Ukraine 1 million rounds of ammunition over the next 12 months and discuss their attempts to keep clean tech investments from fleeing for the U.S. and its enticing subsidies.They’l...

How Charles Michel lost the room

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:35:50 GMT

Growing criticism won’t stop the European Council president from looking for his next job. Photo-illustration by Anthony Gerace for POLITICOBRUSSELS — Her patience finally exhausted, the Danish prime minister rounded on Charles Michel.Mette Frederiksen had expected a certain amount of disorder. Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit that day to Brussels had upended the usual business of the European Council summit she was attending, along with the European Union’s 26 other national leaders.But with evening falling, the Ukrainian president gone and the EU Quarter emptying out, the conversation in the room — on migration and the economy — was still flitting from topic to topic. Some leaders took advantage of the disorder to re-up proposals that had been dismissed during negotiations among ambassadors ahead of the February gathering.And so, in a rare interjection, the Danish prime minister took to the mic to voice her displeasure. But the target of her ire wasn’t the subject of the debate; ...

Germany and France steal the show — again

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:35:50 GMT

Germany’s coalition government can’t stop bickering. France is a country in revolt. And the EU’s two biggest countries are bringing their baggage to Brussels. EU leaders had hoped to focus on the economy and foreign affairs when they gather in Brussels on Thursday for a two-day summit. But Germany and France have already hijacked the occasion. Berlin is mounting a last-minute attempt to stop an already-settled plan — phasing out traditional, combustion engine cars by 2035. And Paris is miffed that the EU omitted the nuclear industry from a legislative package meant to keep clean tech investors in Europe and away from the U.S. and its alluring subsidies.Then there are France’s domestic woes. The country will grind to a halt on Thursday as trade unions call for workers to down their tools and protest President Emmanuel Macron’s deeply unpopular push to raise the retirement age. Public transport, schools, waste collection and train services are expected to be disrupted. ...