In a press conference, Ron DeSantis said food, water and other supplies are being distributed to those who did not evacuate
26 states have provided support to Florida amid the damages that Hurricane Ian has left across the state.
“It’s going to be put to use,” DeSantis said on Thursday morning.
Continue reading...Biden says storm could ‘be deadliest in state’s history’ as authorities express fears of a growing death toll
The “catastrophic” scale of damage wreaked by Hurricane Ian’s 150mph deadly rampage across Florida gradually became clearer on Thursday as emergency crews rescued trapped residents from flooded homes, and authorities expressed fears of a growing death toll.
Search and rescue crews conducted hundreds of missions in areas of south-west Florida that were submerged by a storm surge of up to 18ft after one of the most powerful storms ever to strike the US swept ashore on Wednesday.
Continue reading...Search and rescue effort under way after vessel sank in Stock Island, in the Florida Keys, hours before hurricane made landfall
Eighteen people are missing after a boat carrying Cuban migrants sank off Florida due to Hurricane Ian, further underlining the human cost of the storm.
US border patrol said on Wednesday that it responded to a migrant landing in Stock Island, in the lower Florida Keys, Reuters said.
Continue reading...Charlotte and Lee counties hardest hit after storm makes landfall along the south-western coast with winds close to 150mph
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has laid out the predicted path of Hurricane Ian as it is expected to hit land this afternoon.
Hurricane preparations have been underway at the Big Cat Rescue, the animal sanctuary in Tampa featured on Netflix’s Tiger King TV series.
Continue reading...‘Major, major’ storm, estimated to be 140 miles wide, sweeps inland after causing huge flooding on coast, with millions of residents in its path
Hurricane Ian, one of the most powerful storms ever to strike the US mainland, has battered south-west Florida with high winds, rain and storm surges as it weakened and moved inland.
More than 2m homes and businesses were left without power as the storm swept ashore in south-west Florida on Wednesday afternoon, bringing “catastrophic” 150mph (240km/h) winds and a deadly storm surge of up to 18ft. Hours later, the storm – estimated to be about 140 miles (225km) wide – was downgraded from a category 4 to a category 1 storm as it moved slowly north-east, causing major flooding.
Continue reading...Electricity grid collapses in Cuba after hurricane passes through, as 2.5 million people in Florida ordered to evacuate
Cuba’s electricity grid has collapsed, leaving the entire country without power in the wake of Hurricane Ian, as residents in Florida braced for the arrival of what is expected to be a catastrophic Category 4 storm.
The western end of Cuba was hit by violent winds and flooding on Tuesday, affecting infrastructure, state-run media reported, while some of the country’s most important tobacco farms were devastated.
Continue reading...Thousands evacuated in Pinar del Río, as Floridians are warned storm may strengthen to category 4
Hurricane Ian has torn into western Cuba with nothing to stop it from intensifying into a catastrophic category 4 hurricane before its expected landfall in Florida on Wednesday.
Tampa and St Petersburg in Florida could get their first direct hit by a major hurricane since 1921.
Continue reading...Third delay in the past month for test flight as technical issues and weather hamper US effort to return to the moon after five decades
Nasa is skipping Tuesday’s launch attempt of its new moon rocket over concerns about a tropical storm headed to Florida that could become a major hurricane.
It’s the third delay in the past month for the lunar-orbiting test flight featuring mannequins but no astronauts, a follow-up to Nasa’s Apollo moon-landing program of a half-century ago.
Continue reading...Cayman Islands and Jamaica brace while Florida governor declares emergency, with storm headed to state by midweek
Florida residents on Saturday were bracing for a heavy tropical storm system that weather experts warn could become a major hurricane.
Ian – upgraded to a hurricane from a tropical storm Sunday – was poised to intensify steadily after forming on Friday over the southern Caribbean. The storm could cross over into parts of Cuba before heading to Florida by the middle of next week, according to forecasts.
Continue reading...Vertol Systems Inc also has connections to a Florida official in charge of its current immigration policy
The transportation service company that the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, used to arrange flights for migrants to Martha’s Vineyard has contributed money to the governor’s top allies and has connections to a Florida official in charge of its immigration policy.
Vertol Systems Inc, an Oregon-based aviation company that DeSantis used to fly asylum seekers to the affluent, liberal-leaning Massachusetts island, has connections to DeSantis’s political allies and has donated money to various campaigns, NBC News reported.
Continue reading...Suit says Venezuelans were ‘used as political pawns’ in a ‘fraudulent and discriminatory’ scheme
Attorneys representing the Venezuelan migrants and refugees allegedly duped into flying to the wealthy island of Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts have filed a class-action civil rights lawsuit against the Florida governor and other state officials.
Lawyers for Civil Rights (LCR), a Boston-based legal advocacy group, filed the lawsuit on Tuesday challenging what it called the “fraudulent and discriminatory” scheme to charter private planes to transport almost 50 vulnerable people, including children as young as two, from San Antonio, Texas, via Florida, to Martha’s Vineyard last week without liaising to arrange shelter and other resources.
Continue reading...City commissioner proposes paying per reptile to ramp up efforts to curb numbers of non-native species
A city commissioner in Miami Beach is proposing a novel solution to tackle an invasion of non-native iguanas overwhelming the popular tourist city: paying a bounty for the head of each reptile brought in dead or alive.
Commissioners have agreed to look into the iguana problem and the suggestion by council member Kristen Rosen Gonzalez to offer payments to hunters, which she says would offer an incentive for locals to take an active role.
Continue reading...About 50 mainly Venezuelan migrants including a baby deposited unannounced at Naval Observatory in Washington
About 50 migrants, including a one-month-old baby, have been sent in a bus from Texas to the Washington DC residence of Vice-President Kamala Harris, in the latest move by Republican-led states to transfer migrants unannounced across the country.
The bus let off the migrants, who are believed to be mostly Venezuelan, outside the Naval Observatory, the traditional home of US vice-presidents, on Saturday morning.
Continue reading...Thomas ‘Mykel’ Gordon praised as ‘one incredible individual’ after fighting off assailant outside Florida restaurant
An employee of a Chick-fil-A restaurant in Florida is being praised as a hero after he fought off a man trying to steal a car from a woman getting her infant out of the vehicle in a harrowing parking lot confrontation captured on video.
Incredibly, it wasn’t even the first time that 26-year-old Thomas “Mykel” Gordon rushed to save someone in distress near his workplace. Four years earlier, he had reportedly helped rescue two girls after a construction crane fell on their car.
Continue reading...Judge Cannon appointed Judge Raymond Dearie to vet documents and denied the DoJ’s plea to continue reviewing the seized records
A federal judge has named Raymond Dearie, a senior US district judge with experience handling US national security matters, as an independent arbiter to vet records seized by the FBI from Donald Trump’s Florida estate in an ongoing criminal investigation.
Florida-based US district judge Aileen Cannon on Thursday appointed Dearie to serve as a special master in the legal fight between Trump and the Department of Justice over government documents the former president kept at his Florida resort.
Continue reading...Head of US space agency suggests maiden test flight will probably be delayed until the middle of October
Nasa called off its latest attempt to launch the groundbreaking Artemis 1 moon rocket on Saturday after failing to stem a fuel leak discovered during tanking. It was the second time in five days that technical issues had kept the spacecraft on the launchpad.
Mission managers at Kennedy Space Center waited until late in the countdown to scrub the liftoff after the failure of several workarounds to try to plug the leak of liquid hydrogen as it was being pumped into the core stage of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket.
Continue reading...Fuel leak comes after Nasa fixed an engine issue that postponed the original launch attempt five days earlier
Nasa’s pioneering moon rocket sprang a hazardous fuel leak Saturday, throwing into doubt chances of a successful launch on a test flight that must go well before astronauts climb aboard.
The Artemis 1 was poised to make a second attempt to fly on Saturday afternoon after the US space agency declared it had identified and fixed an engine issue that caused the postponement of the original launch attempt five days earlier.
Continue reading...Byron Smith registered to vote after a key amendment, but didn’t know he was ineligible – now he faces up to five years in prison
Byron Smith was standing outside his house when the Tampa police officer put the handcuffs around his wrists. “What’s this about?” Smith asked, flustered, standing in the early afternoon Florida summer heat.
Minutes later he was sitting in the back of a police cruiser, still trying to figure out why he was being placed under arrest, body camera footage obtained by the Guardian shows. “Did you vote?” the officer asked him. “Not this time, no,” Smith, 65, replied. “They took that right away from me.” The officer then told him a $1,000 bond had been set for him. “What’s the charge?” Smith asked. “It was for something about false voting and something else,” the officer said.
Continue reading...Court filing alleges files were found despite Trump lawyers saying all documents had been returned
The FBI searched Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida after it obtained evidence there was probably an effort to conceal classified documents in defiance of a grand jury subpoena and despite Trump’s lawyers suggesting otherwise, the Department of Justice said in a court filing late on Tuesday night.
The filing, opposing Trump’s request for an independent review of materials seized, amounted to the most detailed picture of potential obstruction of justice yet outlined by the DoJ.
Continue reading...An engine problem foiled Monday’s efforts but mission managers said a change in fueling procedures would help
Nasa will make a second attempt at launching its Space Launch System moon rocket this Saturday, the agency has said, five days after technical issues foiled an initial attempt.
The US space agency made the decision on Monday to delay its first attempt to launch a rocket capable of putting astronauts on the moon in 50 years due to engine issues.
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