Category Archives: Florida

Democrat Mary Peltola and Republican Dan Sullivan lead in Alaska primary for US Senate – US politics live

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Incumbent Sullivan is running for third term while Peltola is fighting to flip seat and aid Democrats retake control of Congress

Those unfamiliar with Alaska politics are likely raising an eyebrow at some repeated names.

No, we’re not talking about Dan S Sullivan and Dan J Sullivan, two Republicans with the same name running for US Senate – an issue that went to the state supreme court earlier this summer. We’re talking about the Begiches. Nick Begich III, a Republican, is currently leading the race to represent Alaska in the US House of Representatives for a second term while Tom Begich, a Democrat, is advancing to the general election for governor in November.

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Florida to carry out its 13th execution this year in US’s busiest death chamber

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US supreme court declined to halt execution of William Frances Silvia, and state has two executions next month

A Florida man convicted of fatally shooting his estranged wife and wounding his mother-in-law is set to be executed on Tuesday, continuing the state’s aggressive use of the death penalty in Republican governor Ron DeSantis’s final term.

William Frances Silvia, 61, would be the 13th prisoner put to death this year in Florida, which has two more executions scheduled in September and has carried out more than half the US’s 22 executions so far in 2026.

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Florida sets record for sea turtle nests but Trump move could stall recovery

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Loggerhead turtles abound this season but rollback of Endangered Species Act protections could threaten future

Wildlife groups in Florida are celebrating record numbers of sea turtle nests this season, but experts warn Donald Trump’s recent gutting of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) could reverse decades of their recovery from the edge of extinction.

With more than two months of the summer nesting season still to run, loggerhead turtles have already laid 13,770 nests, hundreds more than recorded in any previous year, along an 8.5-mile stretch of shoreline monitored by the Loggerhead Marinelife Center in Juno Beach, on Florida’s Atlantic coast.

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Florida paddleboarder rescues woman from alligator attack

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Mike Heard used his paddle to strike gator that had latched on to swimmer in Silver River after hearing yells of ‘Gator!’

A Florida paddleboarder rescued a woman from an alligator attack in Marion county over the weekend.

On Saturday, an alligator bit the woman on the arm while she was swimming in the Silver River, according to local reports citing Marion county authorities.

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Winner of Florida python hunting contest nabs 96 snakes: ‘I was on a mission’

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Burmese pythons are an invasive species in the Everglades, and the challenge is part of initiative to remove them

The winner of this year’s annual Florida Python Challenge hunted down and eliminated 96 invasive Burmese pythons from the Everglades national park, as part of an initiative to remove hundreds of the snakes from the area every year.

The challenge invites hunters to participate in 10 days of capturing and humanely euthanizing as many of the invasive snakes as possible across eight designated hunting locations, with the winner taking home a cash prize of $10,000. The event is hosted by Florida fish, wildlife and conservation (FWC), the south Florida water management district, the National Park Service and others.

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Winner of Florida python hunting contest nabs 96 snakes: ‘I was on a mission’

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Burmese pythons are an invasive species in the Everglades, and the challenge is part of initiative to remove them

The winner of this year’s annual Florida Python Challenge hunted down and eliminated 96 invasive Burmese pythons from the Everglades national park, as part of an initiative to remove hundreds of the snakes from the area every year.

The challenge invites hunters to participate in 10 days of capturing and humanely euthanizing as many of the invasive snakes as possible across eight designated hunting locations, with the winner taking home a cash prize of $10,000. The event is hosted by Florida fish, wildlife and conservation (FWC), the south Florida water management district, the National Park Service and others.

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US schools are struggling to keep the yellow bus running amid shortages and cuts

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Districts are reducing routes and exploring new ways to get students to class as transportation costs climb

Education officials across the United States are increasingly facing a fundamental challenge: how do they ensure that school students can actually get to their classrooms?

The bright yellow school bus might be a visual icon of US education famous around the world, but in reality it is becoming harder for districts to steer.

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Tropical Storm Bertha expected to weaken as it moves toward US

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Storm warnings stretch from Florida to Louisiana as Bertha brings heavy rain, flooding risk and possible tornadoes

Tropical Storm Bertha strengthened in the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday but was expected to weaken this week as it chugs closer to the US, potentially bringing coastal flooding and heavy rain from the Florida Panhandle to Louisiana.

Those areas along the northern Gulf coast were under a tropical storm warning through Wednesday and could see rain and flooding into Thursday morning, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center said. New Orleans also was under a tropical storm warning.

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Trump’s rebranding of Palm Beach airport hasn’t taken off as he planned

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Changes inside the Florida international airport are hardly evident as state and county hold back funds for full remodel

One of Donald Trump’s most grandiose vanity projects, a multimillion-dollar makeover of Florida’s Palm Beach international airport into a self-aggrandizing, gold-plated transportation hub, is running into turbulence, barely a week after the first plane’s wheels touched the runway.

At first glance, the rebranding of the airport less than 5 miles from his opulent Mar-a-Lago resort appears to be complete. Its website bears the name and oversized logo of the President Donald J Trump international airport, and state transportation workers were quick to erect highway signs leaving drivers in no doubt where they were heading.

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Outrage over ‘cruel’ Florida move to ban undocumented students from college

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Critics condemn decision by education board aligned with hard-right Ron DeSantis to block access to college system

Immigration advocates in Florida have decried a “cruel and harmful” new rule by education officials aligned with hard-right Republican governor Ron DeSantis to ban undocumented students from state colleges and universities.

The Florida board of education voted on Tuesday to bar access to its 28 state-funded institutions to anybody not a US citizen or “lawfully present” in the country. It follows Florida’s move last year to strip discounted in-state tuition rates for certain immigrant students.

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Florida college seized by DeSantis in ‘anti-woke’ push to triple in size

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New College of Florida to acquire USF Sarasota-Manatee in deal that leading Democratic lawmaker says ‘reeks of grift’

A liberal arts college seized by Florida’s hard-right governor, Ron DeSantis, and transformed into a model for conservative higher education is to triple in size after state Republicans engineered a hostile takeover of a rival university’s campus.

New College of Florida, which is controlled by DeSantis’s hand-picked board of trustees, will acquire the Sarasota-Manatee campus of the University of South Florida (USF) next month in a deal described by a leading Florida Democrat as “a grift”.

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Cuba hopes for World Cup respite from US sabre-rattling – but prepares for the worst

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With some matches being held in nearby Miami, a Cuban response to US military action could mar the tournament

As Cuba crumbles under a nearly five-month-long US oil blockade, many on the island hope that the World Cup might save the island from US attack – or at least offer a respite until the competition ends on 19 July.

“The beginning of the World Cup will make it more difficult for the United States to carry out a military action in Cuba,” said Carlos Alzugaray, Cuba’s former ambassador to the EU. “Cuba is very close to the US, and can hit many targets inside the US, especially in south Florida, with drones or other weapons.”

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Florida shaken by 6.1-magnitude earthquake off coast of Cuba

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Earthquake was region’s strongest tremor in nearly 150 years and was also felt in parts of Mexico including Cancún

An earthquake on Monday off the coast of Cuba, which was that region’s strongest tremor in nearly 150 years, could be felt in Florida and parts of Mexico.

The 6.1-magnitude earthquake, which struck in the afternoon, occurred approximately 65 miles (105km) north-west of Mantua, Cuba, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS). The USGS added that the earthquake had a depth of 16 miles.

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Animal welfare violations swarm Miami zoo owned by ex-drug kingpin in Tiger King

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Endangered snow leopard had leg amputated and capybara died at Mario Tabraue’s controversial roadside facility

An endangered clouded leopard had a leg amputated and a capybara died following botched breeding attempts at a controversial Miami roadside zoo owned by a convicted drug trafficker featured in the Netflix documentary Tiger King.

Federal wildlife inspectors found multiple other violations during a March inspection at Zoological Wildlife Foundation (ZWF), including dilapidated, insecure or unsafe housing conditions for wild animals, filthy cages, and water and food contaminated with algae and dead insects.

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US indicts former Cuban president Raúl Castro as it seeks to oust regime

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Charges filed in Miami against 94-year-old for allegedly shooting down exiles’ planes in 1996

The United States issued a federal criminal indictment against Raúl Castro, Cuba’s former president, and five others on Wednesday in a significant escalation of the Trump administration’s campaign to oust the country’s six-decades-old communist regime.

The 94-year-old political figurehead was charged in Miami, Florida, with conspiracy to kill US nationals, four counts of murder and two counts of destruction of aircraft.

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Florida crew recounts ‘miraculous’ Atlantic plane rescue with fuel low

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All 11 onboard survived after the plane made an emergency landing near the Bahamas

A military rescue crew in Florida has spoken of the “pretty miraculous” survival of all 11 people it saved from a plane crash in the Atlantic Ocean, and its own scramble to safety with five minutes of fuel left.

Members of the 920th rescue wing, based at Patrick Space Force base, not far from Cape Canaveral, raced on Tuesday to reach the passengers and crew in choppy seas. They had emerged from a small Beechcraft twin-propeller aircraft that ditched into the water about 80 miles east of Melbourne on Florida’s east coast.

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Four south Florida men convicted in Haitian president’s assassination

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Men were convicted in Miami federal court for plotting to kill Jovenel Moïse at his Port-au-Prince home in 2021

Four south Florida men were convicted on Friday of plotting to kill the Haitian president, Jovenel Moïse, in 2021 by hiring mercenaries to assassinate him at his Port-au-Prince home, court records show.

Prosecutors argued during the nine-week trial in a Miami federal court that the men assembled two dozen former Colombian soldiers and supplied them with money, guns, ammunition and tactical vests in a conspiracy to kill Moïse. The 53-year-old president was shot dead in July 2021 at his private residence in the hills above Port-au-Prince, a killing that left a gaping political vacuum in the Caribbean nation and emboldened powerful gangs.

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Rudy Giuliani hospitalised in ‘critical but stable’ condition

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Spokesperson calls former New York City mayor ‘a fighter’ but does not say cause of his hospitalization

Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York City, has been hospitalised and is in a “critical but stable condition”, his spokesperson said on Sunday evening.

Ted Goodman, the spokesperson, posted on social media: “Mayor Giuliani is a fighter who has faced every challenge in his life with unwavering strength, and he’s fighting with that same level of strength as we speak. We do ask that you join us in prayer for America’s Mayor Rudy Giuliani.”

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Florida approves US House map meant to boost Republicans in midterms

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Vote comes on same day the US supreme court rolls back a key provision of the Voting Rights Act

The Florida legislature approved a new congressional map intended to maximize Republicans’ advantage in the state as part of the national redistricting battle that Donald Trump launched before this year’s midterms.

The vote came just two days after the governor, Ron DeSantis, unveiled his proposal and the same day the US supreme court rolled back a key provision of the Voting Rights Act. The decision could make it harder for Democrats to challenge Republican efforts to redraw congressional districts in ways that limit the influence of voters of color.

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DNA links Florida man in Philippines to 1989 child abduction

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US suspect held in south-east Asia after genealogical DNA identified him in Tampa-area case involving 7-year-old girl

A man accused of kidnapping and sexually abusing a 7-year-old girl in Florida in 1989 was recently arrested in the Philippines, according to authorities.

Preserved DNA and genealogical research allowed investigators to identify Young Tom Talmadge, 69, as the suspect in the Tampa-area case, the Philippines’ government said in a statement.

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