The death toll in a Miami building collapse rose to four on Friday morning a day and 159 were unaccounted for after a 12-storey condominium slumped into rubble on the south Florida Atlantic coast.
Related: ‘There’s just too much at risk’: Arizona closes parks to prevent extreme wildfires
Continue reading...The talk in the carpeted corridors of the Road to Majority conference suggests the ex-president’s big lie has firmly taken root
Young alligators swam in the water or lazed on artificial rocks as a waterfall cascaded nearby. “Alligators are found primarily in freshwater and swamps and marches,” noted a nearby sign. “... Alligators are opportunistic feeders.”
Related: Conservative Christians jeer ‘traitor’ Pence for refusing to overturn election
Continue reading...Wildlife manager discovers nearly 20 packages at Florida space force station
The mystery of more than 20 unidentified floating objects that washed up on the beach at Florida’s Cape Canaveral space force station was solved when the contents turned out to be more than 60lb of cocaine, apparently lost from a passing trafficker’s boat.
The discovery was made by a wildlife manager who was surveying turtle nests and spotted one of the square packages, bound tightly in plastic wrapping, lying on the sand.
Continue reading...Sightings of black bear continue but state wildlife officials unsuccessful in attempts to trap and relocate it
In a summer’s tale to enthrall inhabitants of the south-western Florida city of Naples, a black bear seen wandering around downtown eluded wildlife officials – even as sightings of the animal continued.
Police said the bear was first spotted in the city on Friday, near 12th Avenue South and 6th Street South. Several unsuccessful attempts were made to trap the bear in hopes of relocating it, the Naples Daily News reported.
Continue reading...At least two people were killed and more than 20 injured in Miami early on Sunday as attackers opened fire on concertgoers outside a banquet hall. It was the city’s second deadly mass shooting in little more than 24 hours.
A police spokesman said the shooting happened in the Hialeah area. Three people got out of a white SUV and began firing on a line outside the El Mula banquet hall. The attackers used assault rifles and a handgun, authorities said.
Continue reading...Records obtained by Washington Post show agency paid $396.15 every night since 20 January until at least 30 April
Donald Trump has billed the Secret Service more than $40,000 for a room for his own security detail, which has been guarding him at his Mar-a-Lago resort since he left office in January.
Related: Trump family members got ‘inappropriately close’ to Secret Service agents, book claims
Continue reading...An 11-year-old girl in Florida fought off an attempted kidnapper and smeared the blue slime she had been playing with on his arms so police could identify him. Security camera video shows Alyssa Bonal, of Pensacola, waiting for the school bus when a white van passes her. The van returned a minute later and stopped before the driver jumped out and ran at the girl, dragging her back toward the van. When police later arrested a suspect, his arms were still streaked with blue dye
Continue reading...Joel Greenberg, a longtime associate of the Republican Florida congressman Matt Gaetz, pleaded guilty on Monday to six federal criminal counts, including sex trafficking of a 17-year-old girl.
Related: ‘Naughty favours’: Matt Gaetz seeks to ridicule allegations he paid underaged girl for sex
Continue reading...Embattled Republican congressman compares allegations of sexual misconduct involving a minor to congressional earmarks
The embattled Florida congressman Matt Gaetz has compared allegations of sexual misconduct involving a minor to earmarks, a congressional process by which spending measures beneficial to representatives’ districts are attached to legislation.
“I’m being falsely accused of exchanging money for naughty favors,” he said, speaking to Republicans in Ohio on Saturday.
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Mike Jordan reports for the Guardian:
Idaho’s governor, Brad Little, has a bill signed into law that aims to restrict critical race theory from being taught as a subject in schools and universities.
The bill, H377, prevents teachers from “indoctrinating” students into belief systems that claim that members of any race, sex, religion, ethnicity or national origin are inferior or superior to other groups. Signed into law last week, H377 also makes it illegal to make students “affirm, adopt or adhere to” beliefs that members of these groups are today responsible for past actions of the groups to which they claim to belong.
Related: Idaho governor signs bill to ban critical race theory from being taught in schools
Continue reading...From Key West’s high-summer Hemingway Days, in which bearded hopefuls vie for the title of best Papa lookalike, to the annual hunt for the elusive (and imaginary) skunk ape, Florida is renowned for its calendar of curiosities.
Related: Toilet-invading iguanas among invasive species now banned in Florida
Continue reading...A leak at an abandoned fertilizer plant is just the latest development at a site that has polluted the area since it was built
It’s been a week since a significant leak at a long-abandoned fertilizer plant in the Tampa Bay area threatened the surrounding groundwater, soil, and local water supplies.
Last weekend, officials ordered more than 300 families living near the 676-acre Piney Point plant site in Manatee county to evacuate. The sheriff even emptied out his jail’s first floor of inmates in case a “20-foot wall of water” came rolling their way.
Continue reading...Work crews were pumping millions of gallons of contaminated wastewater into an ecologically sensitive Florida bay on Sunday, as they tried to prevent the “imminent” collapse of a storage reservoir at an old phosphate mine.
Officials in Manatee county extended an evacuation zone overnight and warned that up to 340m gallons could engulf the area in “a 20ft wall of water” if they could not repair the breach at the Piney Point reservoir in the Tampa Bay area, north of Bradenton.
Continue reading...North Atlantic right whales gave birth over the winter in greater numbers than scientists have seen since 2015, an encouraging sign for researchers who became alarmed three years ago when the critically endangered species produced no known offspring at all.
Related: The new humpback? Calf sighting sparks hope for imperilled right whale
Continue reading...Republican congressman reportedly under investigation over alleged cash and gifts given to women contacted online
One of Donald Trump’s loudest cheerleaders in the US Congress is under federal investigation over allegations that he paid for sex with women recruited online, according to a media report.
Matt Gaetz, a Republican congressman from Florida, is one of the former president’s most ardent supporters and frequently appeared on TV to promote his lies about a stolen election.
Continue reading...Miami Beach officials have extended a curfew and state of emergency into April, in response to large spring-break crowds of partygoers defying coronavirus restrictions.
Police used pellets and teargas to disperse the revellers
Continue reading...Miami Beach officials have extended a curfew and state of emergency into April, in response to large spring-break crowds of partygoers who have celebrated in the area’s bars and beaches despite the coronavirus.
Related: Relaxing US Covid rules could cause 'another avoidable surge', warns CDC director – live
Continue reading...Miami Beach officials have warned that the unruly spring break crowd gathering by the thousands, fighting in the streets, destroying restaurant property and refusing to wear masks has become a serious threat to public safety, after 1,000 arrests were made.
At a last-minute meeting, city officials voted to extend a highly unusual 8pm curfew for another week along famed South Beach, with the possibility of extending it well into April if needed, and stressed this wasn’t the typical spring break crowd. They said it’s not college students, but adults looking to let loose in one of the few states fully open during the pandemic.
Continue reading...Donald Trump’s Palm Beach club, Mar-a-Lago, has been partially closed because of a Covid outbreak.
Several people familiar with the situation, including a club member who received a phone call about the closure on Friday, confirmed the partial closure to the Associated Press.
Continue reading...A combination of students who feel they are at little risk and a governor who has lifted restrictions has experts worried, leading some schools to cancel spring break altogether
Covid-19 and spring break have never mixed well. Last March one young, shirtless man in Miami wearing a backwards-facing green cap went “viral” in the pre-pandemic sense when he told a reporter: “If I get corona, I get corona,” he said. “I’m not going to let it stop me from partying.”
A year later, even after Covid has killed over 500,000 Americans, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended against all travel, similar pictures and videos of spring breakers – no masks or social distancing in sight – are being seen again this year.
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