Category Archives: Florida

Judge denies Trump’s request to access secret filing in Mar-a-Lago case

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US district judge Aileen Cannon rejects Trump’s motion to review special counsel filing on redacting classified information

A federal judge on Tuesday rejected an attempt by Donald Trump to review a sensitive court filing submitted by special counsel prosecutors that detailed their reasons for wanting to redact some of the classified documents that would be turned over to the former president in discovery.

The attempt by Trump to access the filing was a brazen move that would have defeated the purpose of rules to protect national security in Espionage Act prosecutions and potentially thrown into disarray the scope and viability of continuing the case against Trump.

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Girl dies after sand hole at Florida beach collapses on her

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Five-year-old Sloan Mattingly of Indiana was buried in a rare but deadly event unknown to many Americans

The collapse of sand holes, like the one that killed a five-year-old Indiana girl who was digging with her brother on a Florida beach, is an under-recognized danger that kills and injures several children a year around the country.

Sloan Mattingly died Tuesday afternoon at Lauderdale-by-the-Sea’s beach when a 4-5ft-deep (1-1.5-metre) hole collapsed on her and her seven-year-old brother, Maddox. The boy was buried up to his chest, but the girl was fully covered. Video taken by a bystander shows about 20 adults trying to dig her out using their hands and plastic pails, but the hole kept collapsing on itself.

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University of Florida student senate passes ‘green new deal’

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In a rebuke to Governor Ron DeSantis’s denialism, the student body calls for campus-wide measures to tackle the climate crisis

The University of Florida student senate voted in favour of a “green new deal” late on Tuesday, becoming the first public university to adopt such a resolution through student government.

The mandate – which was unanimously passed – calls for sweeping campus-wide measures to tackle the climate crisis that include just transition, total divestment from fossil fuels, disclosure of the university’s financial ties within the private sector and a ban on receiving research funding from the fossil fuel industry.

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US officer fired at handcuffed man in SUV after mistaking acorn for gunshot

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Florida deputy Jesse Hernandez resigned after opening fire when he thought sound of acorn hitting police cruiser was shot from gun

A Florida sheriff’s deputy mistook the sound of an acorn hitting his patrol cruiser for a gunshot and fired multiple times at the SUV where a handcuffed Black man was sitting in the backseat, officials said.

The man, who was being questioned about stealing his girlfriend’s car, was not injured during the 12 November shooting. He was taken into custody but released without being charged. The officer who initiated the shooting resigned.

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Trump attends court hearing for classified documents trial

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Ex-president’s presence could raise stakes for judge as she decides if prosecutors are allowed to withhold some classified documents

Donald Trump attended on Monday a critical court hearing where his lawyers presented their defense theories to the federal judge presiding in the criminal case over his retention of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago club and obstruction of justice.

The presence of the former president in the courtroom could raise the stakes for the US district judge, Aileen Cannon, as she decides whether prosecutors in the office of special counsel Jack Smith should be permitted to withhold or redact certain classified documents that will be turned over in discovery.

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Trump gets access to sealed documents on witness threats in Mar-a-Lago case

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Prosecutors allegedly turn over exhibit on threats made against potential witness to Trump’s lawyers after judge ordered them to

Special counsel prosecutors have produced to Donald Trump a sealed exhibit about threats to a potential trial witness after the federal judge overseeing his prosecution for retaining classified documents ordered the exhibit turned over despite the prosecutors’ objections, people familiar with the matter said.

The exhibit was a point of contention because it detailed a series of threats made against a witness who could testify against the former president at trial, and the matter is the subject of a criminal investigation by a US attorney’s office. Prosecutors had wanted to withhold it from Trump’s lawyers.

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Two people killed after small private jet plane crash-lands on Florida highway

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Bombardier Challenger 600, carrying five people, ‘pulverized’ a car and slammed into a wall, scattering pieces of it across interstate

Two people have died after a small private jet plane attempted to make an emergency landing on Interstate 75 in south-west Florida on Friday afternoon, colliding with two vehicles and bringing traffic to a halt as a plume of black smoke rose into the air.

The crash landing happened near the Pine Ridge Road exit in Collier county, just north of where the interstate heads east toward Fort Lauderdale along what is known as Alligator Alley.

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Ex-DEA informant sentenced to life in prison for 2021 killing of Haiti president

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Haitian American Joseph Vincent, who admitted to helping plot assassination of Jovenel Moïse, is among 11 people accused

Joseph Vincent, a former informant for the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), was handed a life sentence by a US court on Friday for his role in the 2021 assassination of Haiti’s president.

A Haitian American national, Vincent admitted to helping plot to kill the Haitian president Jovenel Moïse in his home in Port-au-Prince, including advice about the political landscape and meetings with key community leaders.

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Florida schoolkids may have to study ‘threat of communism in the US’

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Republican bills likely to reach Governor Ron DeSantis, who has railed against indoctrination of students by ‘liberal elites’

Kindergartners in Florida might soon be compelled to balance learning their ABCs with lectures on the history of communism, if a Republican proposal moving through the state’s legislature becomes law.

House bill 1349 would also create a “history of communism taskforce”, hand-picked by the Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, to recommend how the subject is presented in classrooms from elementary to high school starting in 2026.

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Florida bank robber fatally shot by sheriff’s sniper after taking hostages

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Police tried to defuse the situation at a Bank of America branch, but the suspect took two hostages and held a knife at one’s throat

A robber at a Florida bank took hostages after law enforcement arrived and was killed by a sheriff’s sniper as he held a woman in a headlock with a knife to her throat, authorities said.

Negotiators tried to defuse the situation on Tuesday at a Bank of America branch in Fort Myers, but the suspect instead took two hostages in the building, Carmine Marceno, the Lee county sheriff, said.

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Florida’s new anti-gay bill aims to limit and punish protected free speech

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SB 1780 would make it defamation to accuse someone of homophobia, transphobia, racism or sexism and punishable by fine

By day two of Florida’s legislative session, which started last month, lawmakers had introduced nearly 20 anti-gay or anti-trans bills. One such bill, SB 1780, would make accusing someone of being homophobic, transphobic, racist or sexist, even if the accusation is true, equivalent to defamation, and punishable by a fine of at least $35,000. If passed, the bill would severely limit and punish constitutionally protected free speech in the state.

Though SB 1780 is not likely to survive past higher courts, its introduction is indicative of a wider conservative strategy to stifle criticism of racist, sexist and homophobic behavior. The bill, critics argue, is being introduced to test the waters and see how far, legally, lawmakers can go until they are able to silence detractors.

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Convicted serial killer confesses to 1980 Florida spring break murder, police say

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Police in Jacksonville draw confession from Billy Mansfield, sentenced to life in prison for five other murders decades ago

After confessing to the murder of an Ohio high schooler on her spring break outside Jacksonville, Florida, in 1980, a jailed serial killer is continuing to talk to detectives investigating other homicides whose clue trails have gone cold, according to authorities.

Billy Mansfield’s confession of the killing of 18-year-old Carol Ann Barrett of Zanesville, Ohio, means officials have now confirmed that he has committed at least six murders. He had previously been handed life sentences in five of the killings, four of which were in California and one of which was in Florida, though officials investigating Barrett’s death made clear in a statement on Thursday that those numbers could grow.

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Florida woman’s family sues retirement home after an 11ft-alligator killed her

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Gloria Serge, 85, died in February 2023 after the animal sprang from a retention pond and dragged her back into the water

The family of an elderly woman killed by an alligator as she walked her dog near her Florida home is suing the retirement community where she lived for wrongful death.

Gloria Serge, 85, died in February 2023 after the 11ft alligator, known to residents as Henry, sprang from a retention pond at Spanish Lakes Fairways in Fort Pierce and dragged her back into the water.

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Ron DeSantis put nearly all his eggs in the basket of a ‘war on woke’

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The Florida governor, once billed as Trump without the baggage, ended up making a series of bad gambles

It began in a glitch-filled disaster on Twitter. It ended with a misattributed quotation on X. Just like Elon Musk’s social media platform, efforts to rebrand Ron DeSantis’s US presidential election campaign could not mask its fundamental flaws.

When in May the Florida governor announced his run during a chat with Musk on Twitter Spaces, the platform’s audio streaming feature, there were technical breakdowns that drew comparisons with one of Musk’s space rockets blowing up on the launchpad.

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Ron DeSantis drops out of Republican presidential race

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Hard-right Florida governor at one point thought to be future of party ends campaign to be GOP nominee

Ron DeSantis, the hard-right governor of Florida, has ended his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination and endorsed Donald Trump.

“It’s clear to me that a majority of Republican primary voters want to give Donald Trump another chance,” he said in a statement posted on X. “He has my endorsement because we can’t go back to the old Republican guard of yesteryear, a repackaged form of warmed over corporatism that Nikki Haley represents.”

Adam Gabbatt contributed reporting from New Hampshire

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Gravesites from former Black cemetery discovered at Florida air force base

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Officials say search will continue after as many as 121 unmarked graves were located at MacDill air force base in Tampa

As many as 121 unmarked graves in a former Black cemetery have been discovered at a US air force base in Florida, military officials confirmed.

A nonintrusive archaeological survey performed over the past two years at the MacDill air force base in Tampa identified 58 probable graves and 63 possible graves, base officials said on Thursday, WFTS-TV reported.

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‘Black snow’: sugarcane burning makes our lives hell, Florida locals say

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Fire and ash from burning cane fields has worsened health near Lake Okeechobee, US’s largest sugar-growing region

Pastor Steve Messam was driving to a service on Christmas morning when he looked to the sky and watched the first flakes starting to fall. Lighter at first, then thicker and more frequent, not quite a blizzard, but enough to leave a coating on the porch and parking lot of his First Church of God in South Bay, Florida.

This was, however, no picturesque winter holiday scene – just a regular day during harvesting season in the nation’s largest sugar-growing region. The “black snow”, as locals call it, is ash from burning sugarcane fields. Studies have blamed the smoke generated by the fires, sometimes dozens a day, for respiratory problems and increased mortality among the poor, mostly immigrant population of the rural area south of Lake Okeechobee known as the Glades.

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Florida senator Rick Scott’s house ‘swatted’ by police

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Prank call to police claimed a shooting occurred at Scott’s Naples home, prompting a Swat team to deploy before standing down

The Republican Florida senator Rick Scott has said that his home was “swatted” on Wednesday night.

While he was dining with his wife, Ann, local Naples authorities responded to what was revealed to be a prank call intentionally made to lure resources like a Swat team to a location to respond to a false threat of danger, otherwise known as a “swatting call”.

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States to award anti-abortion centers roughly $250m in post-Roe surge

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At least 16 states will fund largely unregulated facilities that try to convince people to continue their pregnancies

In the months since the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, at least 16 states have agreed to funnel more than $250m in taxpayer dollars towards anti-abortion facilities and programs that try to convince people to continue their pregnancies.

Much of that money is set to go to anti-abortion counseling centers, or crisis pregnancy centers, according to data provided by the Guttmacher Institute and Equity Forward, organizations that support abortion rights. It has been paid out throughout 2023 and will stretch into 2025.

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Florida teen allegedly shoots and kills sister over Christmas gift spat

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The 14-year-old was then allegedly shot and wounded by his 15-year-old brother in retaliation; both are now in custody

A Florida woman holding her 11-month-old son in a baby carrier was fatally shot by her 14-year-old brother while trying to defuse an argument over Christmas gifts he was having with a 15-year-old brother who also was armed, authorities said.

The 15-year-old brother then shot his 14-year-old brother, though not fatally, for killing their sister on Sunday in Largo, Florida, which is located in the Tampa metro area, the Pinellas county sheriff’s office said in a news release.

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