Florida News

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist's fundraising take makes him clear frontrunner in Senate race.

Share + Jul 7, 2009 6:13 pm US/Eastern ORLANDO, Fla. A 19-year-old woman from Pennsylvania became the sixth person with swine flu to die in Florida, health officials said Tuesday.

A lawsuit claims that Miami-Dade's sex-offender ordinance is creating a public safety crisis. A multipronged legal battle erupted Thursday over the growing colony of sex offenders forced to live under the Julia Tuttle Causeway. The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida sued Miami-Dade County, arguing that the state's rule that sex offenders must live at least 1,000 feet from where children congregate supersedes the county's stricter 2,500-foot ordinance. Then the city of Miami prepared to sue the state for placing the offenders -- whose legal addresses are under the causeway -- too close to a barrier island that it considers a park. Though no one has proposed a solution, the ACLU and the city say they simply want to clean up the shantytown that is spilling out from under the bridge, and find those living there a respectable and safe place to live. Under the 2,500-foot law, convicted sex offenders have no other place to live in the county that does not violate the rule. The vagrants -- many of them homeless felons -- live in shacks in a no-man's land that has generated national debate over the consequences of residency laws for sex offenders. The local laws aim to drive out the colony, which has surged to as many as 140 people and has earned Miami some unflattering attention for two years. The ACLU's lawsuit names two people who live under the bridge as plaintiffs. It asserts that the county ordinance is also a threat to public safety because it forces sex offenders into homelessness, makes them abscond and impedes law enforcement from keeping track of them. In an e-mail, David Raymond, executive director of Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust, said he was not aware of the lawsuit and could not comment. Calls to Assistant County Attorney Thomas Logue and county Commissioner Jose ''Pepe'' Diaz, a sponsor of the ordinance, weren't returned Thursday. Posted on Friday, 07.10.09

Roughly one million customers of the Citizens Property Insurance Corp. will see a 10 percent increase on their premiums on Jan.

OUR OPINION: Attack on West Kendall mosque speaks to deeper problem Two young men not old enough to vote have been charged with vandalizing the Islamic School of Miami in West Kendall. The charges include criminal mischief and evidencing prejudice while committing a crime. But this type of misbehavior goes much deeper than slashing tires and smashing windows at the mosque, which has been defaced, shot at and vandalized at least six times since 2005. It's a sign of how much more this community needs to do to respect religious freedom and to not stereotype an entire group of people based on religious creed, race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation or any other distinction. Police say Juan Carlos Gonzalez-Vaca, one of the 17-year-olds accused in the vandalism, told officers: ''All Muslims are terrorists.'' He and the other accused perpetrator, Michael Derek Lobo, confessed to the June 26 crime, according to law enforcement. The judicial system will determine guilt or innocence. What cannot be ignored are the escalating number of hate crimes faced by a wide array of people because they are deemed ``different.'' The Southern Poverty Law Center, for instance, has documented a staggering 926 hate groups operating in the United states. That's more than a 50 percent increase since 2000. Hate crimes against Muslims and Arabs predictably spiked after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, but they are not the only group victimized. The FBI's hate crime statistics for 2007, the last year figures are available, noted 1,477 hate crimes motivated by religious bias.

Former Florida Democratic Party Chairman Scott Maddox is getting back into politics and plans to enter the race for agriculture commissioner.

Lindsay Lohan 's getting burnt by alleged theft rumors yet again. The troubled starlet who was recently involved in a flap over some stolen jewelry that drew the attention of Scotland Yard now stands accused of stealing the formula to her fake tan spray, Sevin Nyne.

With 180 cases so far, Orange County announced it's first confirmed Swine Flu death Tuesday, the third so far in Central Florida.

More than 40 children shocked with stun guns while visiting prisons in April may not have been the first ones zapped, according to a report released Tuesday.

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford is returning to work after spending a long holiday weekend in Florida with his wife and four boys.

Like a rock band touring to promote a CD, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra is planning a movable release party in Florida next February to launch its forthcoming CD of Rachmaninoff's Second Symphony.

A Florida toddler was strangled on Wednesday by a 12-foot albino Burmese python that escaped from a holding tank in the girl's home, authorities said.

Published: Monday, July 6, 2009 at 12:01 a.m. Last Modified: Tuesday, July 7, 2009 at 1:19 a.m. Law enforcement officials are searching for the driver of a boat that slammed into two divers in South Florida waters.

Launching a business in the midst of a recession is akin to lifting anchor amid a gale.

More lives are being saved and fewer traffic crashes are occurring throughout Florida.

It left millions without power for weeks, triggered long gas lines, took out traffic lights and trashed the region with debris.

When Donna Stark saw the medium-sized beetle one evening in 2007, she wasn't sure what it was.

Floridians overwhelmingly approved eight-year term limits for Florida lawmakers in 1992, but they have unwittingly created a revolving door that leaves the Senate rich in experience and the House filled with aspiring senators.

Florida continues to see a rapid rise in fatal overdoses caused by prescription-drug abuse - a trend fueled by a cottage industry of cash-only pain clinics - while deaths from illegal drugs wane, according to a report from the state's medical examiners released Tuesday.

A woman who was hit in the head by a portion of a Fourth of July parade float has been airlifted to hospital in southwest Florida.