Christian missionaries who ran a faith-based organization allegedly used federal funds to buy a multi-million-dollar home
A Florida pastor and his son have been arrested for allegedly fraudulently obtaining more than $8m in federal Covid relief funds.
Evan and Joshua Edwards of Orlando were arrested on Wednesday, alleged to have used such funds for luxury expenses including a multi-million-dollar house near Walt Disney World.
Continue reading...More than 15 million people under winter advisory while several areas in midwest and Great Plains face intense snowstorms
More than 15 million people are under a winter advisory as of Tuesday, as several areas in the midwest and Great Plains face intense snowstorms, Axios reported.
Storm warnings are in effect across a dozen states, including parts of Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, Montana and South Dakota.
Continue reading...Army veteran Steven Pringle turned his life around with bike shop where he fixed bikes, sold new ones and gave many away
A Michigan army veteran who turned his life around with a bike shop died in a crash while delivering free bikes to children in Florida affected by Hurricane Ian, his family said.
Steven Pringle, 57, was killed in Punta Gorda, Florida, on 23 November, a few weeks after a profile in the Detroit Free Press described how his passion for fixing bikes had touched many people in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
Continue reading...Federal grand jury also charged Republican lawmaker Joe Harding with ‘fraudulently obtaining’ $150,000 in Covid relief funds
A federal grand jury has indicted Florida state representative Joe Harding, the Republican lawmaker who authored the “don’t say gay” bill, for Covid business relief fraud and money laundering, the justice department announced on Wednesday.
Between December 2020 and March 2021, Harding, 35, committed wire fraud when he took part in a “scheme to defraud” the Small Business Administration and obtained Covid-related relief funds for small businesses under false pretenses, according to a federal indictment.
Continue reading...Storms uncover what appears to be wooden ship dating from 1800s poking from sand at Dayton Beach Shores
Severe beach erosion from two late-season hurricanes has helped uncover what appears to be a wooden ship dating from the 1800s which had been buried under the sand on Florida’s east coast for up to two centuries, impervious to cars that drove daily on the beach or sand castles built by generations of tourists.
Beachgoers and lifeguards discovered the wooden structure, between 80ft and 100ft (24-31 meters), poking out of the sand over Thanksgiving weekend in front of homes which collapsed into rubble on Daytona Beach Shores last month from Hurricane Nicole.
Continue reading...Florida back-up quarterback Jalen Kitna was released from jail on an $80,000 bond on Thursday, a day after he was arrested on five charges involving child abuse images.
Judge Meshon Rawls set the bond and as conditions for Kitna’s release ordered him not to have any unsupervised contact with minors and not to have any internet access.
Continue reading...Eric Salata faced investigation over claims he assaulted two women at his clinic after incapacitating them
A doctor in Florida who was accused of drugging and raping his patients has been found dead, according to local authorities.
Investigators could not immediately determine how Eric Salata, 54, died when his body was discovered in woodland on Monday. But they said he had a gunshot wound to the head, was lying next to a pistol, and that they did not suspect he had been the victim of a crime.
Continue reading...Florida governor expected to challenge Trump for Republican nod in 2024 will publish The Courage to Be Free in February
In the clearest signal yet that Ron DeSantis is preparing a run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, it was announced on Wednesday that the rightwing governor of Florida will publish a campaign-style book, mixing memoir with policy proposals.
The Courage to Be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Renewal, will be published by Broadside Books, a conservative imprint of HarperCollins, on 28 February.
Continue reading...Mammals were downgraded from endangered to threatened in 2017, even as pollution and habitat loss drive starvation
The deaths of almost 2,000 manatees in Florida’s coastal and inland waterways over the last two years has provoked an alliance of environmental groups to demand an urgent reclassification of the species to officially endangered.
The advocates, led by the non-profit Center for Biological Diversity, insist the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) made a critical error in 2017 by prematurely downgrading the status of the giant aquatic mammals from endangered to merely threatened.
Continue reading...After the party came up short in another election, Ron DeSantis may be poised to become its new leader
Sitting at the head table in a white and gold ballroom, beneath glistening chandeliers and an ornately corniced ceiling, Donald Trump looked sullen as midterm election results flashed up on a giant TV screen.
Across Florida, 200 miles from his opulent Mar-a-Lago estate, the mood was quite different. In Tampa, Governor Ron DeSantis was celebrating his landslide re-election by repurposing lines from Winston Churchill.
Continue reading...Barring technical issues and Florida’s weather, Artemis 1 will launch after midnight Wednesday on a 15-day, 1.3m-mile journey
Fifty years ago this month, mission managers at the US space agency Nasa gave the final go-ahead for what would turn out to be humanity’s most recent odyssey to the moon. Few realized at the time it would be more than half a century before Nasa would be ready to return, not least Apollo 17 commander Eugene Cernan, whose belief as he stepped back into the lunar module in December 1972 was that it would be “not too long into the future” that astronauts were there again.
Four minutes after midnight Wednesday, late technical issues and Florida’s weather gods notwithstanding, Artemis 1, the most powerful rocket ship in history, will attempt to close that decades-long gap.
Continue reading...Former president, who is still expected to announce candidacy, posts diatribe against possible White House contender and others
Donald Trump has lashed out at other high-profile Republicans after the failure of the predicted “red wave” in the US midterm elections, which has chilled enthusiasm for his promotion of extremist candidates and a possible new run at the White House.
At Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday night, as Democrats had a better election than expected, the former US president was seen to be in a mood ranging from subdued to exasperated, but later in the week he became angry, attacking fellow Republicans including two popular governors.
Continue reading...This live blog is now closed. You can find all our US midterms coverage here
Sheera Frenkel and Steven Lee Myers report for the New York Times that researchers who study election disinformation said most efforts to stoke doubt about the results of the midterms had failed to spread widely. They write:
The major social media platforms all struggled to combat misinformation and disinformation online as the results were tabulated, but researchers who study the problem said efforts to stoke doubt about the outcome of the American democratic process had — at least so far — failed to take root. Some saw it as a hopeful sign of the political system’s resilience, though few declared victory in the fight against misinformation.
According to a New York Times analysis, more than half of 370 candidates who in some way had cast doubt on President Biden’s victory had won their races as of midday on Wednesday. They included 170 members of the House, where Republicans appeared to be closing in on reclaiming a majority. Although the party fell short of the “red wave” that many had anticipated, its successes may have tempered some of the conspiracy theories that emerged early Tuesday.
“There is a lot of anger and noise on the mainstream platforms like Twitter and Facebook, but the most aggressive statements on the day of the midterms, including calls to violence, are found on the alt platforms including Gab, Parler and Telegram,” said Alex Stamos, the director of the Stanford Internet Observatory, which tracked election disinformation online as part of the Elections Integrity Partnership. Users in some cases called for storming polling stations or using violence, though no significant attacks unfolded on election day.
Continue reading...Storm is forecast to head into Georgia and the Carolinas later Thursday and Friday, dumping heavy rain across the region
A weakening Tropical Storm Nicole doused large areas of Florida with heavy rain on Thursday, after battering the east coast overnight as a rare November hurricane.
The late-season cyclone made landfall close to Vero Beach at about 3am, delivering 75mph winds and a damaging storm surge that collapsed buildings and swept away roads as far north as Daytona Beach.
Continue reading...Two deputies face suspension without pay after stopping James Hodges, 61, in Lake City last month
Two Florida deputies faced suspension without pay after arresting a 61-year-old legally blind man who was carrying a cane they mistook for a gun.
Jayme Gohde and her supervisor, Randy Harrison, were also reprimanded. Harrison will be denied raises or promotions for two years and both will be required to take remedial training about civil rights.
Continue reading...Latest updates and results as millions across the US cast votes in what is largely seen as a referendum on Biden’s presidency
The Republican candidate for governor in Arizona, Kari Lake, told reporters earlier she will be their “worst fricking nightmare for eight years” if she defeats the Democrat Katie Hobbs.
Lake has been talked up as a running mate for Donald Trump in his widely expected run for the Republican presidential nomination.
Continue reading...Nicole expected to strengthen and make landfall on Thursday as state of emergency is declared in 34 counties
A rare late-season hurricane is expected to hit Florida, after the Sunshine state dealt with the impact of Hurricane Ian a month ago.
Tropical Storm Nicole is expected to make landfall in eastern Florida this week. As the storm continues to strengthen, it is expected to make landfall as a category 1 hurricane on Thursday morning, reported CNN citing the National Hurricane Center (NHC).
Continue reading...Nikolas Cruz gets 17 life terms for the 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school that left 17 dead
Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz formally received a sentence of life without parole on Wednesday after families of his 17 slain victims spent two days berating him as evil, a coward, a monster and a subhuman.
Cruz, shackled and in a red jail jumpsuit, watched intently as Judge Elizabeth Scherer sentenced him to 17 life terms for the 14 February 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school in suburban Fort Lauderdale and an additional 17 for the attempted murders of those he wounded.
Continue reading...1,000 people participated in the annual challenge, which removed 231 unwanted pythons from the wild
A 19-year-old south Florida man captured 28 Burmese pythons in a 10-day competition created to increase awareness about the threat the invasive snakes pose to state ecology.
Matthew Concepcion was among the 1,000 people from 32 states, Canada and Latvia who participated in the annual challenge, which removed 231 of the unwanted pythons, the Florida fish and wildlife conservation commission said.
Continue reading...Charlie Crist, former Republican who switched parties, puts governor on defensive during Florida’s sole gubernatorial debate
In the sole debate of the Florida governor’s race, the Republican incumbent, Ron DeSantis, was put on the defensive by his Democratic challenger, Charlie Crist, on subjects including abortion and DeSantis’s presidential ambitions.
Crist called Florida’s 15-week abortion ban, which does not include exceptions for rape or incest, “callous and barbaric”.
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