Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 54
BELLEAIR BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Florida's storm-battered Gulf Coast raced against a Category 5 hurricane Monday as workers sprinted to pick up heaps of appliances and other street debris left over from Helene two weeks ago and highways were clogged with people fleeing ahead of the storm. The center of Hurricane Milton could come ashore Wednesday in the Tampa Bay region, which has not endured a direct hit by a major hurricane in more than a century. Scientists expect the system to weaken slightly before landfall, though it could retain hurricane s...
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — The Orlando Police Department has closed its investigation into the former owners of the Pulse nightclub without filing any charges. Victims' families and survivors of the killing of 49 patrons at the LGBTQ-friendly club had asked law enforcement to investigate them for possible criminal culpability. No charges will be filed against former owners Barbara and Rosario Poma because probable cause didn't exist for involuntary manslaughter by culpable negligence, the Orlando police said this week in an emailed statement. About t...
OCALA, Fla. (AP) — The Florida Highway Patrol has arrested the driver of a pickup truck that crashed into a farmworker bus early Tuesday, killing eight, on charges of driving under the influence-manslaughter. Bryan Maclean Howard, 41, faces eight counts of DUI-Manslaughter, the FHP said in a statement. No further details were released, including what substance allegedly left Howard impaired. Troopers said he was driving the 2001 Ford Ranger when it crossed into the center line on State Road 40, a straight but somewhat hilly two-lane road that p...
OCALA, Fla. (AP) — The Florida Highway Patrol has arrested the driver of a pickup truck that crashed into a farmworker bus early Tuesday, killing eight, on charges of driving under the influence-manslaughter. Bryan Maclean Howard faces eight counts of DUI-Manslaughter, the FHP said in a statement. No further details were released. Troopers say Howard was driving the 2001 Ford Ranger that crossed into the center line, sideswiping the bus and causing it to veer off the road at about 6:40 a.m. It crashed through a fence and into a tree before o...
OCALA, Fla. (AP) — A man with a long record of dangerous driving told investigators he smoked marijuana oil and took prescription drugs hours before he sideswiped a bus, killing eight Mexican farmworkers and injuring dozens more, according to an arrest report unsealed Wednesday. Bryan Maclean Howard, 41, pleaded not guilty to driving under the influence-manslaughter and remained jailed without bond for Tuesday's crash. The Florida Highway Patrol says he drove his 2001 Ford pickup into the center line on a two-lane road and struck the bus, c...
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Allies of Gov. Ron DeSantis and Disney reached a settlement agreement Wednesday in a state court fight over how Walt Disney World is developed in the future following the takeover of the theme park resort's government by the Florida governor. In a meeting, the DeSantis-appointed members of the board of the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District approved the settlement agreement, ending almost two years of litigation that was sparked by DeSantis' takeover of the district from Disney supporters following the company's o...
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Students and teachers will be able to speak freely about sexual orientation and gender identity in Florida classrooms, provided it's not part of instruction, under a settlement reached Monday between Florida education officials and civil rights attorneys who had challenged a state law which critics dubbed "Don't Say Gay." The settlement clarifies what is allowed in Florida classrooms following passage two years ago of the law prohibiting instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in early grades. Opponents said t...
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — A federal judge on Wednesday dismissed Disney's free speech lawsuit against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, leaving the company's remaining hopes of regaining control of the district that governs Walt Disney World to a separate state court challenge. U.S. District Judge Allen Winsor in Tallahassee said in his decision that Disney lacked standing in its First Amendment lawsuit against the Republican governor, the secretary of the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity and DeSantis' appointees to the Disney World governing dis...
Almost half of all voters in the 2022 midterm elections cast their ballots before Election Day either by mail or through early voting, with Asian and Hispanic voters leading the way, according to new data the U.S. Census Bureau released Tuesday. The heavy use of both early voting and voting by mail occurred even as Republican-led states have tightened rules on both voting methods over the last two years, and it marked a steep rise from the two previous midterm elections in 2018 and 2014. Only the 2020 presidential election, during the worst...
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Days after Disney sued Florida's governor in federal court for what it described as retaliation for opposing the state's so-called "Don't Say Gay" bill, Disney World's governing board — made up of Gov. Ron DeSantis appointees — filed a lawsuit Monday against the entertainment giant. The Central Florida Tourism Oversight District sued Disney in state court in Orlando and voted to defend itself in federal court in Tallahassee where the entertainment company filed its lawsuit last Wednesday. The Disney lawsuit against the g...
Ben Ferencz, the last living prosecutor from the Nuremberg trials, who tried Nazis for genocidal war crimes and was among the first outside witnesses to document the atrocities of Nazi labor and concentration camps, has died. He had just turned 103 in March. Ferencz died Friday evening in Boynton Beach, Florida, according to St. John's University law professor John Barrett, who runs a blog about the Nuremberg trials. The death also was confirmed by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. "Today the world lost a leader in the...
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — A high school along Florida's Atlantic Coast has removed a graphic novel based on the diary of Anne Frank after a leader of a conservative advocacy group challenged it, claiming it minimized the Holocaust. "Anne Frank's Diary: The Graphic Adaptation" was removed from a library at Vero Beach High School after a leader of Moms for Liberty in Indian River County raised an objection. The school's principal agreed with the objection, and the book was removed last month. The book at one point shows the protagonist walking in a p...
WILBUR-BY-THE-SEA, Fla. (AP) — Tropical Storm Nicole sent Florida homes toppling into the Atlantic Ocean on Thursday and threatened a row of high-rise condominiums in places where Hurricane Ian washed away the beach and destroyed seawalls only weeks ago. The storm, which caused at least two deaths, was the first November hurricane to make landfall in Florida in 37 years and only the third on record. It delivered another devastating blow just weeks after Ian came ashore on the Gulf Coast, killing more than 130 people and destroying thousands o...
For Allyson Jacobs, life in her 20s and 30s was about focusing on her career in health care and enjoying the social scene in New York City. It wasn't until she turned 40 that she and her husband started trying to have children. They had a son when she was 42. Over the past three decades, that has become increasingly common in the U.S., as birthrates have declined for women in their 20s and jumped for women in their late 30s and early 40s, according to a new report from the U.S. Census Bureau. The trend has pushed the median age of U.S. women...
When officials in Chester, Georgia, heard that the 2020 census had pegged their small town at 525 people, their jaws dropped. They believed the town was almost triple that size and feared an inaccurate number could force them to make budget cuts. "I said, 'Whoa, that's not right,'" City Clerk Melanie McCook said. "The first thing I thought is, 'This is going to affect our revenues greatly.'" Chester and two other small, rural municipalities in Georgia are the first communities in the U.S. to challenge the accuracy of their numbers from the...
Contrary to popular belief, there has been no great migration in the U.S. during the pandemic. New figures released Wednesday by the U.S. Census Bureau show that the proportion of people who moved over the past year fell to its lowest level in the 73 years that it has been tracked, in contradiction to popular anecdotes that people left cities en masse to escape COVID-19 restrictions or in search of more bucolic lifestyles. "Millennials living in New York City do not make up the world," joked Thomas Cooke, a demographic consultant in...
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — The University of Florida is prohibiting three professors from providing expert testimony in a lawsuit challenging a new law that critics claim restricts voting rights, saying it goes against the school's interest by conflicting with the administration of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Though the decision is being criticized as threat to academic freedom and free speech, the university said in a statement Saturday that allowing professors Dan Smith, Michael McDonald and Sharon Austin to serve as paid experts for plaintiffs chal...
Almost 120 years ago, African American domestic workers settled in the Como neighborhood of Fort Worth, Texas, where they held Fourth of July parades, patronized shops on Horne Street and lived for several generations in what seemed like a small town within the big city. But many young families started moving away at the end of the last century, leaving behind small frame houses ready for renovation. An economic boom in Fort Worth helped make that possible. Hispanics who came from Mexico and Central America to work in construction,...
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Florida reported 21,683 new cases of COVID-19, the state's highest one-day total since the start of the pandemic, according to federal health data released Saturday, as its theme park resorts again started asking visitors to wear masks indoors. The state has become the new national epicenter for the virus, accounting for around a fifth of all new cases in the U.S. Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has resisted mandatory mask mandates and vaccine requirements, and along with the state Legislature, has limited local o...
By Associated Press Garima Vyas always wanted to live in a big city. She thought about New York, long the destination for 20-something strivers, but was wary of the cost and complicated subway lines. So Vyas picked another metropolis that's increasingly become young people's next-best option — Houston. Now 34, Vyas, a tech worker, has lived in Houston since 2013. "I knew I didn't like New York, so this was the next best thing," Vyas said. "There are a lot of things you want to try when you are younger -- you want to try new things. Houston give...
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. population growth has slowed to the lowest rate since the Great Depression, the Census Bureau said Monday, as Americans continued their march to the South and West and one-time engines of growth, New York and California, lost political influence. Altogether, the U.S. population rose to 331,449,281 last year, the Census Bureau said, a 7.4% increase that was the second-slowest ever. Experts say that paltry pace reflects the combination of an aging population, slowing immigration and the scars of the Great Recession more t...
A federal judge on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit filed by the state of Ohio that tried to get the U.S. Census Bureau to provide data used for drawing congressional and legislative districts ahead of its planned release. U.S. District Judge Thomas Rose in Dayton, Ohio, rejected the state's request for a preliminary injunction that would have forced the Census Bureau to release the redistricting data by March 31. Ohio filed its lawsuit last month after the Census Bureau said the redistricting data wouldn't be available until September, months...
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — The rate of households homeschooling their children doubled from the start of the pandemic last spring to the start of the new school year last September, according to a new U.S. Census Bureau report released this week. Last spring, about 5.4% of all U.S. households with school-aged children were homeschooling them, but that figure rose to 11% by last fall, according to the bureau's Household Pulse Survey. The survey purposefully asked the question in a way to clarify that it was inquiring about genuine homeschooling and n...
The human loss from the coronavirus will not be reflected in the 2020 census because of a matter of timing, which could save a congressional seat for New York but cost Alabama one. Because the start of the pandemic in the U.S. and the April 1 reference date used for the census fell so close to each other last year, the deaths that began in mid-March will not show up in the state population figures that determine political representation in Congress. The timing will paper over the losses from the virus, which has killed around 44,000 people in N...
The U.S. Census Bureau is aiming to deliver the long-delayed numbers used for divvying up congressional seats by the end of April, but a holdup on redistricting data could disrupt several states' abilities to redraw their own legislative maps ahead of upcoming elections, an agency official said Wednesday. The new goal for finishing data processing for the apportionment numbers used for congressional seats is now April 30. But a separate set of data used for redrawing districts for states and local governments won't be ready until after July in...
