Cuba evacuated 70,000 people in its southern region on Sunday, amid fears that Tropical Storm Elsa could unleash heavy flooding after battering several Caribbean islands and killing at least three people.
Related: Miami condo collapse: death toll at 24 as search pauses for demolition
Continue reading...Documents obtained by media show concern and frustration after engineer warned of structural damage
New reports have detailed long debate among condo board members at Champlain Towers South in Surfside, Florida, over extensive and costly repairs the building was expected to undergo before it collapsed on 24 June.
Related: Miami condo death toll rises to 24 amid plans to demolish remaining structure
Continue reading...Storm kills one person in St Lucia and a 15-year-old boy and a 75-year-old woman in the Dominican Republic
Cuba prepared to evacuate people along the island’s southern region on Sunday amid fears that Tropical Storm Elsa could unleash heavy flooding after battering several Caribbean islands, killing at least three people.
The government on Sunday opened shelters and moved to protect sugarcane and cocoa crops ahead of the storm, whose next target was Florida, where governor Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency in 15 counties, including in Miami-Dade County where the high-rise condominium building collapsed last week.
Continue reading...Two bodies recovered overnight, including the young girl, with 128 still unaccounted for
The seven-year-old daughter of a Miami firefighter was found dead in the rubble of a collapsed condominium, officials said on Friday as they announced the official death toll in Miami had risen to 20 people.
The Miami-Dade county mayor, Daniella Levine Cava, said the rescue mission overnight was difficult as operations stretched into their ninth day.
Continue reading...Joe Biden spoke of his admiration for grieving relatives at the site of last week’s deadly Miami condo collapse, as many continue to wait for news of their loved ones.
'What amazed me about this group of people was their resilience, their absolute commitment and willingness to do whatever it took to find the answer. I walked away amazed by their strength,' the president said after the three-hour meeting with the relatives at the St Regis Bal Harbor hotel, about a mile from the site of the collapse
Family and friends of the 150 people still missing after a Florida condominium collapsed last week faced a sixth wrenching day of waiting on Tuesday, as search and rescue crews continued to sift through the mangled remains of Champlain Towers South.
Related: Miami calls for inspections of older buildings over six stories after collapse
Continue reading...The death toll from a building collapse in the Miami suburb of Surfside rose to 11 on Monday, as rescue operations continued into a fifth day.
Officials urged people to maintain hope survivors might be found in the wreckage of the collapsed condo building. A further 150 people who may have been in the building remained unaccounted for, the mayor of Miami-Dade, Daniella Levine Cava, said on Monday evening.
Continue reading...Crews make progress against flames while questions asked about 2018 report on structural damage
Officials in Florida insisted on Sunday there was still hope of finding survivors in the rubble of a collapsed oceanfront condominium building, as firefighters finally controlled a large blaze inside the wreckage that hampered three days of rescue efforts.
Related: Engineer reportedly warned in 2018 of ‘major damage’ at Miami condo complex
Continue reading...Rescue crews digging into unstable rubble have been hampered by storms and fires in the mound of debris
Death came swiftly to residents of Champlain Towers South. Grandparents, parents and children were sleeping in their beds when their 12-storey condominium building collapsed into a heap of smouldering rubble.
Survivors described a sound like thunder, followed by complete destruction of dozens of apartments in the oceanside south Florida block. The collapse took barely 10 seconds but was captured on grim security camera footage from a neighboring building that quickly began streaming on news websites across the world.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...
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
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