Category Archives: Florida

Female migrant in Florida subjected to ‘horrific’ treatment, complaint alleges

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Detainee, identified as Ana, mocked and leered at by male guards after they strapped her almost naked to a chair

A female migrant in mental distress was kept in solitary confinement for a month at a Florida detention center, then mocked and leered at by male guards after they strapped her almost naked to a restraint chair, a federal civil rights complaint alleges.

The reported sexual and mental abuse of the detainee, identified solely as Ana, took place at the Baker county detention facility, a rural camp 30 miles west of Jacksonville with a long history of allegations of mistreatment, harassment, retaliation and cruelty to detainees.

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Florida liberal arts college reinstates ‘wokeness’ course amid furore

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Course set to be taught by controversial British ‘anti-woke’ media commentator Andrew Doyle

New College of Florida reinstated a course on “wokeness” taught by controversial British media personality and culture warrior Andrew Doyle to its catalog, after appearing to remove it from an earlier version, amid an ongoing furore over the university’s transformation into a more conservative institution.

The course was also restored to an internal enrollment system but without Doyle’s name attached, according to students with access to the system. The moves followed criticism of the course online and local media reports on Tuesday night.

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Florida threatened by another major late-season tropical storm

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Meteorologists track disturbance in Caribbean Sea predicted to become storm named Sara

Florida is at risk of being hit by yet another major tropical storm only weeks after Hurricanes Helene and Milton devastated towns across the state.

Meteorologists are currently tracking a new disturbance predicted to evolve into a storm in the Caribbean Sea. The storm, to be named Sara, will form in the western Caribbean later this week and may make a turn towards south Florida as a powerful hurricane next week if wind patterns change, according to the Hurricane Tracker App.

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Airlines halt flights to Haiti after plane hit by gunfire

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Spirit Airlines flight heading from Florida to Port-au-Prince diverted to Dominican Republic after flight attendant was grazed by bullet, amid broader violence in Haiti’s capital

Haiti’s international airport shut down on Monday after gangs opened fire at a commercial flight landing in Port-Au-Prince, prompting some airlines to suspend operations as the country swore in a new interim prime minister who promised to restore peace.

The Spirit Airlines flight headed from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to Port-Au-Prince was just hundreds of feet from landing in Haiti’s capital when gangs shot at the plane, striking a flight attendant who suffered minor injuries, according to the airline, the US embassy and flight tracking data.

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Trump names campaign manager Susie Wiles as his White House chief of staff

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Wiles, who the president-elect often publicly praised for her leadership, will be first woman to hold influential role

President-elect Donald Trump has named Susie Wiles, the manager of his victorious campaign, as his White House chief of staff, the first woman to hold the influential role.

Wiles is widely credited within and outside Trump’s inner circle for running what was, by far, his most disciplined and well-executed campaign, and was seen as the leading contender for the position. She largely avoided the spotlight, even refusing to take the mic to speak as Trump celebrated his victory early on Wednesday morning.

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Tropical Storm Rafael gains intensity in Caribbean as it nears Cuba

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Storm expected to reach hurricane status but should weaken before it hits the US Gulf coast

Tropical Storm Rafael has grown more powerful in the Caribbean Sea and is poised to reach hurricane strength on Wednesday, carrying the risk of damaging wind and rainfall. But it should weaken as it approaches the US Gulf coast, where several states have not been hit by a hurricane in November, according to records maintained since the early months of the US civil war.

Portions of the Florida Keys could see tropical storm conditions starting on Wednesday night, according to the National Hurricane Center.

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Florida woman found guilty of murder after zipping boyfriend in suitcase

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Sarah Boone was accused of leaving Jorge Torres to die at their home in Winter Park in 2020

A woman accused of leaving her boyfriend to die after he was zipped into a suitcase in their home was found guilty of second-degree murder by a jury in central Florida.

Four years after Sarah Boone was arrested over the death of Jorge Torres, jurors handed down the verdict against her on Friday evening after deliberating for about 90 minutes. Boone had pleaded not guilty.

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‘We can win Florida’: Harris’s husband Doug Emhoff rallies for VP in red state

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Second gentleman campaigns in Florida, attacking Donald Trump and Project 2025, despite state being reliably red

In terms of presidential elections at least, Florida has fallen a long way since its heady days as the ultimate swing state. Seven cycles on from the 537-vote cliffhanger in 2000 that was finally resolved when the US supreme court placed George Bush in the White House, Florida is so reliably red, and Donald Trump so confident of picking up its 30 electoral college votes, that he has barely campaigned here.

For the same reason, the Sunshine state has not featured on Kamala Harris’s schedule either. So some eyebrows were raised when second gentleman Doug Emhoff, the vice-president’s husband, rolled up on Wednesday to rally Democrats in Fort Lauderdale and Miami, on a break from stumping in the battleground states of the north-east.

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Husband allegedly killed by ex-ballerina had ‘angry side’, say fellow ballerinas

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Podcast episode talks about conviction of Ashley Benefield, who says she was defending herself from domestic violence

Two of Ashley Benefield’s fellow ballerinas have opened up about seeing her husband Douglas’s “angry side” in a new podcast that the creators believe could support her claims of later having shot him to death to defend herself from domestic violence at his hands.

Ashley Benefield – who co-founded a ballet company in 2017 alongside her husband, Douglas Benefield – was convicted of manslaughter in July after shooting him to death in 2020 despite claiming that she was defending herself from domestic violence at his hands.

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‘Vengeful’ Trump withheld disaster aid and will do so again, ex-officials warn

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Former administration officials say Trump deliberately denied funds to states he deemed politically hostile

Donald Trump deliberately withheld disaster aid to states he deemed politically hostile to him as US president and will do so again unimpeded if he returns to the White House, several former Trump administration officials have warned.

As Hurricane Helene and then Hurricane Milton have ravaged much of the south-eastern US in the past two weeks, Trump has sought to pin blame upon Joe Biden’s administration for a ponderous response to the disasters, even suggesting that this was deliberate due to the number of Republican voters affected by the storms.

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Florida begins long road to recovery after double hurricane strike

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The twin blow from Milton and Helene has left the state reeling – and the act of rebuilding will be lengthy and costly

More than just clouds were swirling when a tropical disturbance that would become Hurricane Milton formed in the south-western Gulf of Mexico, beginning its inexorable march towards a midweek strike on Florida’s west coast.

As its winds picked up, so did familiar feelings of anxiety and dread across a state still reeling from the impact of another monster storm, Hurricane Helene, barely a week earlier. Ultimately, the densely populated cities of Tampa and St Petersburg were spared the apocalyptic scenario some had forecast. But places elsewhere along the Gulf coast saw unprecedented levels of destruction and devastation.

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Insurance is failing hurricane survivors: ‘People thought they were covered’

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Flooding is separate from typical US home insurance and many homeowners are not adequately covered

As millions of US residents begin working to file insurance claims on their homes in the aftermath of Hurricanes Helene and Milton, many could be denied, particularly if their homes were damaged by flooding.

A quirk in the US home insurance market is that flood insurance is separate from typical home insurance, which usually covers wind damage from hurricanes but not flooding. Homeowners must purchase flood insurance separately if they want their homes protected against flooding.

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Hurricane Milton live updates: Joe Biden to travel to Florida; more than 1,600 people rescued from floods and rubble

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US president to visit areas hit by hurricane on Sunday; more than 140 pets also rescued, says Florida governor Ron DeSantis in latest update

Hurricane Milton made landfall as a category 3 hurricane on Wednesday night at around 8.30pm near Siesta Key in Florida. For about eight hours, the storm brought intense rainfall, flooding, tornadoes, storm surge and strong winds before moving off over the ocean just north of Cape Canaveral as a category 1 hurricane.

Our visual team have put together this visual guide to the damage caused:

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Biden says Hurricane Milton caused staggering $50bn in estimated damage

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Sixteen people killed by storm but state spared ‘worst-case scenario’ as accusations fly between political candidates

Joe Biden said on Friday that experts estimate that Hurricane Milton caused a staggering $50bn in damage. The US president is scheduled to travel to Florida on Sunday to visit areas where the huge storm roared across the state after making landfall late on Wednesday.

Authorities were urgently assessing the aftermath of the deadly storm, which spawned tornadoes before slamming into central Florida and then tearing about 175 miles (280km) across land, from the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean, killing people, destroying homes and blocking streets with downed power lines, fallen trees and debris.

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‘A nightmare scenario’: man rescued 48km off Florida coast clinging to ice box after Hurricane Milton

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A US Coast Guard helicopter rescued the man in the Gulf of Mexico, taking him to Tampa general hospital

A US Coast Guard helicopter crew rescued a man who was left clinging to an ice box in the Gulf of Mexico after his boat was stranded overnight in waters roiled by Hurricane Milton.

The man was aboard a fishing vessel that became disabled on Wednesday off Madeira Beach, Florida, hours before the hurricane made landfall, said coast guard press officer Nicole Groll. The man, who was not identified, was able to radio the coast guard station in nearby St Petersburg before contact was lost about 6.45pm.

But on Thursday searchers located the man about 30 miles (48km) off Longboat Key, Florida, clinging to an open cooler chest, a video clip provided by the coast guard shows. In the video, a coast guard diver was lowered from a helicopter and swam to the man to pick him up.

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Tornadoes, mass outages and deaths: what to know about Hurricane Milton’s impact

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Storm brought up to 10ft of storm surge and left millions at risk from flooding after hitting Florida on Wednesday

Hurricane Milton has killed at least nine people and left extensive property damage across Florida, hitting some areas previously affected by Hurricane Helene last month.

Here are the key takeaways from what we know about its impact and what experts are saying about a hurricane that it had been feared could be one of the worst in the state’s history.

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Deaths expected to rise as Florida begins to assess Hurricane Milton destruction

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State battered by category 3 storm overnight, leaving more than 3.4m homes and businesses without power

The death toll from Hurricane Milton rose to at least nine on Thursday as Florida began to assess the damage from the category 3 storm that caused extensive property damage across the state and left more than 3.4m homes and businesses without power.

Authorities said four fatalities were in a senior community in St Lucie county that was struck by a tornado formed in Milton’s outer bands. The tornado happened before the hurricane made landfall near Sarasota on Florida’s western coast on Wednesday evening.

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Russia shares AI images of Hurricane Milton as disinformation abounds in US

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Far-right trolls spout baseless theory that storm is a ‘simulation’ as Republicans jump on conspiracy train

As Hurricane Milton ripped across Florida, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake, trolls and politicians alike spawned misinformation about the storm, questioning government preparations and calling it a “simulation” designed to hurt the Republican state.

But after it made landfall and exited into the Atlantic Ocean, there’s a new propaganda target among conspiracists: Walt Disney World in Orlando.

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Hurricane Milton: Biden says ‘outright lies’ risk lives as Florida deals with aftermath of storm – as it happened

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This blog is now closed. Find the full report on Hurricane Milton here

Footage coming in from the Tampa area as Hurricane Milton makes landfall shows the devastating consequences of what Joe Biden has called the “storm of the century”.

Reporters with NewsNation have captured video from Tampa Bay, where the storm sucked water back from the coast. At the mouth of Tampa Bay, a weather station has recorded a wind gust of 100mph, according to the National Hurricane Center.

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Hurricane Milton makes landfall in Florida as category 3 storm

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Powerful cyclone slams into coast, bringing deadly storm surge to Sarasota, Tampa, St Petersburg and Fort Myers

A weakening but still tremendously powerful Hurricane Milton slammed into Florida’s west coast on Wednesday night as a category 3, pushing ahead of it a massive and potentially deadly wall of water from the Gulf of Mexico, as well as “catastrophic” winds likely to cause significant property damage.

The cyclone, described earlier in the day by Joe Biden as “the storm of the century”, made landfall near Sarasota, Florida, just after 8:30pm ET, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami said. The storm was bringing deadly storm surge to much of Florida’s Gulf coast, including densely populated areas such as Tampa, St Petersburg, Sarasota and Fort Myers.

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