Jury orders Florida to pay $15 million to Volusia girl tortured by parents

Written by Fort Lauderdale Mortgage Syndicated User on December 9, 2023. Posted in Florida News, Fort Lauderdale Mortgage, Fort Lauderdale Mortgage Rates, Local News, News.

The Florida Department of Children and Families must pay $15 million to a Volusia County girl for failing to protect her from horrific abuse at the hands of her mother and stepfather, a jury decided late Friday in a stunning rebuke of the state agency. The department failed to investigate complaints that the mother was using drugs and endangering the girl, who was younger than 2 at the time and suffered “catastrophic” permanent injuries from severe abuse and neglect, according to a suit filed in Volusia County court. Now 8, the child is “completely dependent on others for all aspects of her...

Second arrest made in Halloween weekend shooting in Tampa that killed 2, injured 16 others

Written by Fort Lauderdale Mortgage Syndicated User on November 17, 2023. Posted in Crime and Public Safety, Florida News, Fort Lauderdale Mortgage, Fort Lauderdale Mortgage Rates, Latest Headlines, News.

TAMPA — A second person was arrested Thursday in a Tampa mass shooting that erupted during Halloween festivities, leaving two dead and 16 injured, police said. A 14-year-old boy was arrested in Palm Beach County and was waiting to be transported back to Tampa, police said in a news release. He faces felony charges of being a minor in possession of a firearm while wearing a mask and carrying a concealed firearm. “There is no reasonable explanation for a 14-year-old to be in possession of a firearm,” Tampa Police Chief Lee Bercaw said in a statement. An argument between two groups led to the...

Day of the Dead celebration in Ft. Lauderdale | PHOTOS

Written by Fort Lauderdale Mortgage Syndicated User on November 5, 2023. Posted in Arts, Entertainment, Florida News, Fort Lauderdale Mortgage, Fort Lauderdale Mortgage Rates, Local News, News, Photos and Videos, Things To Do.

The Day of the Dead celebration continues in Ft. Lauderdale on Saturday, November 4, 2023. (Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun Sentinel)The Day of the Dead parade proceeds along SW 2nd Street in Ft. Laude4rdale from Esplanade Park on Saturday, November 4, 2023. Since 2010 during this sacred time of year, the gate between Florida and Mictlán, the mythological Aztec “Land of the Dead”, opens as thousands of participants costumed like playful skeletons honor their ancestors. (Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun Sentinel)The Day of the Dead celebration continues in Ft. Lauderdale on Saturday, November...

Fantasy Fest kicks off in Key West with 10 days of masquerades, parties and costume competitions

Written by Fort Lauderdale Mortgage Syndicated User on October 21, 2023. Posted in Florida News, Fort Lauderdale Mortgage, Fort Lauderdale Mortgage Rates, Latest Headlines, News, Things To Do, Travel.

KEY WEST, Fla. (AP) — Key West’s Fantasy Fest began Friday, launching a 10-day schedule of masquerades, elaborate parties and costume competitions. The masking and costuming festival is themed “Uniforms & Unicorns: 200 Years Of Sailing Into Fantasy” to salute the Florida Keys’ 2023 bicentennial and that of the U.S. Navy’s presence in Key West. The Fantasy Fest schedule features nearly 100 events including Sunday’s Zombie Bike Ride, the Pet Masquerade for costumed pets and their people, the flamboyant Headdress Ball and the Masquerade March that draws several thousand costumed...

Philippe to become Category 1 hurricane this week; Rina downgraded

Written by Fort Lauderdale Mortgage Syndicated User on October 2, 2023. Posted in Florida News, Fort Lauderdale Mortgage, Fort Lauderdale Mortgage Rates, Hurricane forecast, Hurricane Tracks, Latest Headlines, News, Storms & Hurricanes, Weather.

Tropical Storm Philippe is expected to become a Category 1 hurricane later this week with top winds of 85 mph, while a weakening Rina was downgraded to a tropical depression on Sunday. The two neighboring tropical systems had interacted last week in an uncommon phenomenon in the Atlantic. The Fujiwhara Effect is a binary interaction where two tropical cyclones within 345 miles to about 860 miles of each other start to spin around a common point, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The bigger of the two sometimes absorbs the smaller storm, or the smaller storm...

DeSantis’ move to pull Sagemont scholarships: Concern about Communist China ties or a political stunt?

Written by Fort Lauderdale Mortgage Syndicated User on September 26, 2023. Posted in Business, Education, Election, Florida News, Fort Lauderdale Mortgage, Fort Lauderdale Mortgage Rates, Latest Headlines, Local News, National News, News, Politics, Ron DeSantis.

Florida’s move to cut off a high-end private school in Weston from state subsidies to parents has raised political and policy questions: Were the schools really an “imminent threat to the health, safety, and welfare” of the students and the public? Or was the state’s move a political stunt to bolster Gov. Ron DeSantis’ struggling presidential campaign? At least 229 students were receiving taxpayer-funded scholarships at the two Sagemont Preparatory School campuses in Weston that were targeted late Friday by DeSantis for alleged ties to the Chinese Communist Party. His office on Monday...

Prosecutors seek narrow gag order on Trump in federal election case after ‘inflammatory’ comments

Written by Fort Lauderdale Mortgage Syndicated User on September 16, 2023. Posted in Crime and Public Safety, Florida News, Fort Lauderdale Mortgage, Fort Lauderdale Mortgage Rates, Latest Headlines, National News, News, Politics.

By ERIC TUCKER (Associated Press) WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal prosecutors are seeking an order that would prevent Donald Trump from making “inflammatory” and “intimidating” comments about witnesses, lawyers and other people involved in the criminal case charging the former president with scheming to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Special counsel Jack Smith’s team said in a motion filed Friday that such a “narrow, well-defined” order was necessary to preserve the integrity of the case and to avoid prejudicing potential jurors. Prosecutors had foreshadowed for weeks their concerns...

Proud Boys’ Enrique Tarrio gets record 22 years in prison for Jan. 6 seditious conspiracy

Written by Fort Lauderdale Mortgage Syndicated User on September 6, 2023. Posted in Florida News, Fort Lauderdale Mortgage, Fort Lauderdale Mortgage Rates, Latest Headlines, National News, News.

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN, LINDSAY WHITEHURST and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER (Associated Press) WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio was sentenced Tuesday to 22 years in prison for orchestrating a failed plot to keep Donald Trump in power after the Republican lost the 2020 election, capping the case with the stiffest punishment that has been handed down yet for the U.S. Capitol attack. Tarrio, 39, pleaded for leniency before the judge imposed the prison term topping the 18-year sentences given to Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and one-time Proud Boys leader Ethan Nordean for...

Remembering the tropical zen of Jimmy Buffett in South Florida

Written by Fort Lauderdale Mortgage Syndicated User on September 3, 2023. Posted in Florida News, Fort Lauderdale Mortgage, Fort Lauderdale Mortgage Rates, Latest Headlines, Local News, Music and Concerts, News, Obituaries, Things To Do.

If you want to trace the end of COVID as a life-altering menace in South Florida to a single moment, it would be shortly after 8 p.m. on May 13, 2021, when Jimmy Buffett strode onstage at Old School Square in downtown Delray Beach. Looking relaxed and tanned, in the unofficial uniform of South Florida — tropical shirt and khaki shorts — Buffett’s arrival induced an immediate standing ovation from a wildly expectant crowd of folks from across the country sequestered in pod seating on that early summer evening. It was the first of four Buffett concerts and the first locally by any superstar...

Canada issues US travel advisory warning LGBTQ+ community about laws that may affect them

Written by Fort Lauderdale Mortgage Syndicated User on September 1, 2023. Posted in Florida News, Fort Lauderdale Mortgage, Fort Lauderdale Mortgage Rates, Latest Headlines, National News, News, World News.

By ROB GILLIES (Associated Press) TORONTO (AP) — Canada this week updated its travel advisory to the U.S., warning members of the LGBTQ+ community that some American states have enacted laws that may affect them. The country’s Global Affairs department did not specify which states, but is advising travelers to check the local laws for their destination before traveling. “Since the beginning of 2023, certain states in the U.S. have passed laws banning drag shows and restricting the transgender community from access to gender-affirming care and from participation in sporting events,” Global...

Category: Florida News