Category Archives: Florida

Crisis, what crisis? Florida Republicans deny Omicron is straining hospitals

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State becomes focal point of politicized debate over whether Omicron is dangerous enough to overwhelm hospital systems

While Florida has experienced a record number of Covid-19 cases and sharp increase in hospitalizations in recent weeks, there is disagreement between Republicans and Democrats over whether the Omicron surge has actually overwhelmed the state’s healthcare system.

For example, Florida Republican senator Marco Rubio posted on Twitter that there “is no Omicron hospital ‘surge’ in Florida. People admitted for non-Covid reasons get tested. If they test positive they get counted as a ‘Covid patient.’”

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‘A lot of abuse for little pay’: how US farming profits from exploitation and brutality

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Two dozen conspirators forced workers to pay fees for travel and housing while forcing them to work for little to no pay

In June, a farm worker from Mexico, who requested to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, was transported through a trafficking network from Monterey to work on farms in Georgia.

They paid the traffickers 20,000 pesos, about $950, loaned from their mother, taking frequent trips back and forth to Monterey, before being told it was safe to leave. Then they were finally transported across the border.

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British estate agent shot dead ‘by evicted tenant’ in Florida

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Sara Trost, from Southend, Essex, fatally wounded as she waited to show property in Coral Springs

A British woman who worked as an estate agent in Florida has been shot dead while preparing to show a property, allegedly by an evicted tenant.

Sara Trost, 40, from Southend, Essex, was shot on Thursday while sitting in her Jeep outside a house in Coral Springs, 40 miles north of Miami, at about 12.33pm.

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Rod Stewart and his son plead guilty to battery in 2019 Florida altercation case

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The singer entered the plea to ‘avoid the inconvenience’ of a high profile court trial. Neither will do jail time or pay any fines

British rock icon Rod Stewart and his son have pleaded guilty to battery in an assault case stemming from a New Year’s Eve 2019 altercation with a security guard at an exclusive Florida hotel.

Court records released on Friday show that the singer and his son, Sean Stewart, 41, entered guilty pleas to misdemeanor charges of simple battery.

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Brian Laundrie died by suicide, autopsy report reveals

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23-year-old Florida man’s disappearance sparked a nationwide hunt after the disappearance and death of Gabby Petito

Brian Laundrie, whose disappearance sparked a nationwide manhunt in September after his fiancee, Gabby Petito, went missing and was later found murdered, killed himself, an autopsy report released on Tuesday revealed.

Laundrie’s remains were found in a Florida nature preserve last month, one month after Petito, 22, was found strangled to death on the edge of Wyoming’s Grand Teton national park, where the couple had been travelling together in a van.

In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is at 800-273-8255 and online chat is also available. You can also text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis text line counselor. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org

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Winter, celebrity dolphin given prosthetic tail, died of twisted intestines

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Clearwater Marine Aquarium mourns dolphin whose recovery after losing tail was chronicled in the film Dolphin Tale

Florida’s most famous dolphin, Winter, beloved by fans around the world and star of the movie Dolphin Tale, died of twisted intestines, according to necropsy results released by an aquarium on Saturday.

The dolphin’s intestines were in an area impossible to reach through surgery.

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Human remains found in search for Gabby Petito fiance Brian Laundrie

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  • FBI says remains and personal items found in Florida reserve
  • Remains have not been identified as officials continue search

Partial human remains were found on Wednesday in a Florida wilderness area where authorities were searching for Brian Laundrie, the fiance of Gabby Petito, a young woman who disappeared on a road trip with Laundrie, the FBI said on Wednesday.

They also found items believed to belong to Laundrie after his parents, Chris and Roberta Laundrie, took part in the search with the FBI and police, more than a month after Laundrie was reported missing after heading to the vast Carlton Reserve park.

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Parkland shooter pleads guilty to 17 counts of murder

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Defense attorneys turn their focus to saving Nikolas Cruz from a death sentence for 2018 shooting massacre at Florida high school

Nikolas Cruz has pleaded guilty to 17 counts of murder for the 2018 shooting massacre at a Florida high school, leaving a jury to decide whether he will be executed for one of the deadliest school shootings in US history.

Relatives of the victims who sat in the courtroom and watched the hearing via Zoom shook their heads or broke down in tears as Cruz entered his pleas and later apologized for his crimes.

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Nasa’s Lucy rockets into the sky with diamonds to explore asteroids

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Spacecraft with name inspired by a skeleton and the Beatles, and with lab-grown gems, starts 12-year quest

A Nasa spacecraft named Lucy has rocketed into the sky with diamonds on a 12-year quest to explore eight asteroids.

Seven of the mysterious space rocks are among swarms of asteroids sharing Jupiter’s orbit, thought to be the pristine leftovers of planetary formation.

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Parkland shooting suspect to plead guilty to 17 counts of murder

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  • Nikolas Cruz, 23, to enter guilty pleas over 2018 school shooting
  • Florida attack sparked nationwide movement for gun control

The gunman who killed 14 students and three staff members at a Parkland, Florida, high school will plead guilty to their murders, his attorneys said Friday, bringing some closure to a south Florida community more than three years after an attack that sparked a nationwide movement for gun control.

The guilty plea would set up a penalty phase where Nikolas Cruz, 23, would be fighting against the death penalty and hoping for life without parole.

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Florida city sued over mural that depicted Black female firefighter as white

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  • Latosha Clemons accuses Boynton Beach of defamation
  • Mural removed a day after it was unveiled in June last year

Officials in a south Florida city will meet this week to discuss a lawsuit filed by the city’s first Black female firefighter, after her image was replaced with a white face in a mural meant to honor local history.

Latosha Clemons, a former deputy fire chief of Boynton Beach, filed the lawsuit in April, accusing the city of defamation and negligence.

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This fourth grader just wants to go to school. Florida’s risky Covid policies force her to stay home

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Governor DeSantis’s ‘soft-on-Covid approach’ makes the classroom too dangerous for immuno-compromised children

The only place nine-year-old Reefy Kinder wants to be is in school with her friends. She has missed so many lessons in six years battling a long-term gastro-intestinal condition, including more than 30 surgeries during many months as an inpatient at Orlando’s Arnold Palmer children’s hospital, that she figures she has a lot to catch up on.

Standing in her way, according to Reefy and her mother, Jamie, are Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, and his handpicked new state surgeon general Joseph Ladapo, an opponent of mask mandates who believes vaccines are no more effective than eating healthily and losing weight in the fight against Covid-19.

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Gabby Petito: mourners gather in Long Island as search for fiance goes on

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Mourners attended a Long Island funeral home on Sunday for a viewing for Gabby Petito, the 22-year-old woman whose death on a cross-country trip sparked a manhunt for her fiance.

Related: Gabby Petito’s death is tragic. But I wish missing women of color got this much attention | Akin Olla

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‘They treated us like animals’: Haitians angry and in despair at being deported from US

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Haitian deportees arriving from Texas say they were ‘rounded up like cattle and shackled like criminals’

When Evens Delva waded across the Rio Grande with his wife and two daughters, he had dreams of starting a new life in Florida. But less than a week later, he and his family stepped on to the tarmac in Port-au-Prince, the sweltering and chaotic capital of Haiti, with nothing except traumatic memories and a feeling of bubbling anger.

Delva, along with nearly 2,000 other Haitians, was deported from southern Texas this week to Haiti, despite having lived in Chile for the past six years and having few remaining connections to his home country. His younger daughter, who is four, does not hold Haitian citizenship, having been born in Chile, and speaks more Spanish than Haitian Creole.

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Controversial Arizona ‘audit’ shows Trump lost by even more votes – live updates

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An extraordinary confrontation outside the Capitol today, between the Michigan Democrat Debbie Dingell and Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far right Republican from Georgia.

As reported by Ben Siegel of ABC News, the confrontation developed as Democrats prepared to host a press conference on the Capitol steps about abortion rights, after voting to protect them in the face of concerted assault from Republican-run states.

Greene and Rep. Dingell are now shouting at each other.

“You should practice the basic thing you’re taught in church: respect your neighbor!”

Greene: “Church?! Are you kidding me? Try being a Christian!”

Dingell: “You try being a Christian and treat your colleagues decently.” pic.twitter.com/5aXtaU1dNK

Related: House Democrats vote to establish federal right to abortion

Here’s where the day stands so far:

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Gabby Petito case: Brian Laundrie charged with illegal bank card use

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An arrest warrant shows unauthorized charges worth more than $1,000 were made during the time his girlfriend was missing

The boyfriend of Gabby Petito has been charged on Thursday with unauthorized use of a debit card as the search for him continued in a Florida swampland.

An arrest warrant has been issued for Brian Laundrie, who was indicted by a federal grand jury on Wednesday for allegedly using a Capital One Bank card and someone’s personal identification number to make unauthorized withdrawals or charges worth more than $1,000 during the period in which Petito went missing. The indictment does not say who the card belonged to and the nature of the charges have not been disclosed.

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Ron DeSantis appoints anti-mask and anti-vax doctor as Florida’s surgeon general

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Dr Joseph Ladapo attacked concern over the pandemic as ‘Covid mania’

A medical professor who is opposed to mask and vaccine mandates, attacked concern over the pandemic as “Covid mania” and likened the eating of fruit and vegetables to the benefits of vaccination has been named as Florida’s new surgeon general.

Dr Joseph Ladapo has been appointed to the role by Ron DeSantis, Florida’s Republican governor who has railed against restrictions placed upon day-to-day life to dampen the Covid-19 pandemic and has sought to block funding for schools in the state that have attempted to make students wear masks to stop the spread of the virus that has killed more than 675,000 people in the US since the pandemic began.

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Gabby Petito: autopsy to be conducted as search continues for fiance

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Autopsy to identify the remains and determine cause of death as police resume searching swampy reserve for Brian Laundrie

Medical examiners in North Port, Florida, were scheduled to conduct an autopsy on Tuesday on a body found in Wyoming, seeking to determine if it is Gabby Petito, the 22-year-old “van life” traveler who disappeared.

Related: Gabby Petito: Florida police search home of fiance after remains found

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Blow to DeSantis as judge rules Florida cannot enforce mask mandate ban

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Judge rules against governor while appeals court decides whether ban on public schools mandating masks is ultimately legal

A Florida judge ruled on Wednesday that the state cannot enforce a ban on public schools mandating the use of masks against the coronavirus while an appeals court sorts out whether the ban is ultimately legal.

Related: Three Vermont state troopers accused of creating fake Covid-19 vaccination cards

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Republicans in six states rush to mimic Texas anti-abortion law

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North Dakota, South Dakota, Mississippi, Indiana, Arkansas and Florida eye similar measures to new Texas ban after six weeks

Republican leaders in as many as six US states are rushing to follow the lead of Texas in adopting an extreme abortion ban that critics, including Joe Biden, have slammed as unconstitutional and built to encourage vigilantism among the public.

Abortion rights advocates are bracing to resist a flurry of initiatives from Florida to North Dakota in the wake of the new Texas law, the most extreme in the US, which the conservative majority on the supreme court refused to block.

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