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His dog was supposed to be in protective custody, but the county adopted it to someone else. Now he’s suing to get it back

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:00:59 GMT

A man’s dog was taken to Broward County Animal Care for safekeeping after he was brutally attacked. But the shelter adopted the dog out while he was still in the hospital, and now he’s suing. Here’s Karen Hensel with tonight’s 7 Investigates.This is Bear. Timothy Sweat adopted him when he was just a puppy.Timothy Sweat: “He is a very sweet little boy. He is a Yorkie-poo, spoiled. He’s 3 years old, and we have never been apart.”But that changed on July 19, when Timothy took Bear for an evening walk near Federal Highway and Northeast First Street in Dania Beach.Timothy Sweat: “I was approached by a young man who seemed very interested in my dog, and then he attempted to take my dog. And when I stopped him, he assaulted me.”Timothy was so badly beaten, he suffered a brain injury and had to be hospitalized for nearly two weeks.Broward Sheriff’s Office deputies took Bear to Broward County Animal Care.Timothy Sweat: “He was...

Meet Robert Peston — ITV’s political editor on friendship, loss and being the face of a crisis

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:00:59 GMT

Listen on Spotify Apple Music Google Play EN_Google_Podcasts_Badge Created with Sketch. Acast This week host Aggie Chambre sits down with her old boss Robert Peston, the TV journalist who shot to fame during the last financial crash. Almost two decades on, ITV’s political editor remains one of the best-known faces in U.K. politics. He’s also joined a celebrity band with his pal Ed Balls, launched a high-profile podcast, ...

State of the European Union — the big annual speech and MEPs debate

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:00:59 GMT

Listen on Spotify Apple Music Google Play EN_Google_Podcasts_Badge Created with Sketch. Acast In this bumper episode, we bring you the main takeaways from European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s annual State of the European Union address, as well as reactions from members of the European Parliament.  The Commission president needed over an hour to highlight her key achievements and lay out plans for the coming mon...

Robert Peston: We treat grief like a dirty secret 

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:00:59 GMT

LONDON — Broadcaster Robert Peston says Britain treats grief like a “dirty secret” and that we do not talk about the impact of death enough. The ITV political editor, whose wife Siân Busby died in September 2012 of lung cancer aged 51, said he was “traumatized for years” afterwards. Speaking on a new episode of Westminster Insider, the broadcaster discussed the effect the loss of his wife had on him, and described the way Brits process death as “unhealthy.” Opening up about the impact of Busby’s death, he said: “Grief is … it’s a sort of dirty secret. Nobody wants to talk about it because nobody wants to talk about death either. “We can’t run away from these things, they’re always there, but we try to run away from them. It’s definitely not healthy.” He added: “The further away I am from it, the more clearly I can see how traumatized I was for years.”A familiar face around Westminster as the BBC’s economics editor before j...

Make-or-break moment looms for Northern Ireland’s failed government

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:00:59 GMT

BELFAST — Jeffrey Donaldson is a man under pressure.The choice the Democratic Unionist Party’s leader makes in the coming weeks will determine whether Northern Ireland regains the cross-community government at the heart of its peace process — or falls deeper into a Brexit-fueled crisis that may last another year or more.Senior figures in the British government and all five of Northern Ireland’s main political parties have told POLITICO that October looms as the make-or-break month for reviving power-sharing at Stormont, the Greek classical parliament building that overlooks Belfast.The introduction of long-awaited post-Brexit trade measures next month offers what may be the final political opportunity for Donaldson to break the deadlock before the election cycles of 2024 kick in.“When you get into the new year you are heading towards a general election,” warned Chris Heaton-Harris, the U.K. government’s Northern Ireland secretary, speaking at an investment conference in ...

When in doubt, Europe scuttles back to euro-acronyms

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:00:59 GMT

Nathalie Tocci is director of the Istituto Affari Internazionali and a part-time professor at the European University Institute. Her latest book, “A Green and Global Europe,” is out with Polity.When European foreign and defense ministers met in Toledo a few weeks ago, they had cause for both celebration and despair.Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, European foreign and security policy has been turbocharged: Eleven packages of unprecedented sanctions, the weaning off Russian gas, the revival of enlargement, a €75 billion annual rise in military spending, military assistance to a third state fighting for survival, and the joint procurement of ammunition. For the European Union, it’s a feat — totally unthinkable until now.But beyond a pat on the back and the bitter realization that it took a devastating war to do what has been needed for years, where exactly does Europe stand? Because while these actions are commendable, they also highlight old maladies that need to be addressed.Firs...

The beginning of the end? Catalan amnesty stirs up a political storm in Spain

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:00:59 GMT

MADRID — For the first time in nearly half a century, a Spanish government is considering the introduction of a sweeping, politically motivated amnesty.If approved, it could ensure the formation of a new left-wing government. Critics warn it would open the door to political and territorial instability and could undermine the country’s democratic foundations.The amnesty is the main condition proposed by the pro-independence Junts party in exchange for its support for the acting prime minister, Socialist Pedro Sánchez, in a parliamentary investiture vote.Junts, whose most visible figure is the self-exiled former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, is calling for a legislative measure that would annul pending legal action and sanctions against pro-independence leaders over their involvement in a failed bid to secede in 2017.The Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) and its leftist allies, Sumar, are studying the feasibility of such legislation and have begun tentative talks on the matter.Th...

Can you protect us from Russia? Finns have one question for their next president 

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:00:59 GMT

HELSINKI — As five months of campaigning for Finland’s presidential election get underway, one key question looks set to dominate: Whom do Finns trust to deal with Russia?Finland’s president has a big say over foreign policy, and when the Nordic state decided to join NATO last year, it was head of state Sauli Niinistö who led the diplomacy in capitals from Washington to Ankara. Now, with Niniistö heading for the exit after serving the maximum two six-year terms in office, voters must decide who should succeed him at a time when relations with Russia are as frosty as they have been in decades. On the streets of Helsinki on a recent weekday, voters focused on the international nature of the presidential role and the need for a safe pair of hands, with Russia’s assault on Ukraine raging and Finland still finding its feet as a NATO member after its April accession.“The president is the face of the country,” said Tommi Vaurio, a 37-year-old nurse ...

50 shades of gray: Truss, Sarkozy and the art of the political memoir.

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:00:59 GMT

Welcome to Declassified, a weekly humor column.Everyone loves a good political memoir. At least they would if the overwhelming majority of them were not utter horseshit. Dishonest and not wanting to annoy the big-money paymasters they now have at a think tank, it’s rare to find a post-politics book that’s a real page-turner.The journalist Walter Bagehot once asked readers about former British Prime Minister Robert Peel: “Was there ever such a dull man? Can any one, without horror, foresee the reading of his memoirs?” (Peel did indeed write his memoirs, in three parts, with the clickbait title “Memoirs by the Right Honourable Sir Robert Peel.”)But that could be about to change with the news that Liz Truss is bringing out a book next year. Readers with a particularly good memory will recall that Truss was British prime minister for just 44 days (and it might have been shorter had the queen not inconveniently died just after she took office). Truss’ book —...

Alex Murdaugh associate sentenced to 20 years for helping disgraced attorney steal from clients

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:00:59 GMT

(CNN) — A former South Carolina attorney and longtime friend of Alex Murdaugh was sentenced Thursday to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to state charges related to helping the convicted murderer steal millions of dollars from his clients.Cory Fleming, 54, was sentenced in a Beaufort County courtroom after pleading guilty to the charges last month over his involvement in scheming with Murdaugh to steal from two clients Murdaugh referred to him.Most of the stolen funds were from an insurance settlement Fleming helped secure for the estate of Gloria Satterfield, the Murdaugh family housekeeper who died after a “trip-and-fall” accident at the Murdaugh home in 2018. An investigation into her death has been reopened.Fleming is also charged with stealing from the family of Hakeem Pinckney, who was severely injured in a car crash in 2009 and died in 2011. Prosecutors have said the settlement money that was supposed to go to the Pinckney and Satterfield fami...