Florida

Man who was 74 was one of three older prisoners scheduled for execution within the span of a monthFlorida put to death one of its oldest prisoners in its state history on Tuesday, a 74-year-old convicted murderer who was one of three older prisoners scheduled for execution within the span of a month in the nation’s busiest death penalty state.Dennis Sochor was pronounced dead at 6.16pm after a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. He was convicted of killing Patricia Gifford on 1 January 1982, just hours after meeting the 18-year-old woman at a New Year’s Eve party. Continue reading...

Death of unidentified 28-year-old man marks third immigration enforcement-related death in one weekA person died during an encounter with federal immigration officials on Tuesday morning in Florida, a state highway patrol spokesperson confirmed, marking the third death in one week linked to immigration enforcement operations.Officials with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), which is a component of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), had an “encounter” with four men in a vehicle in the parking lot of a convenience store along a busy road in St Augustine, Florida, the highway patrol spokesperson said. As the four men fled from the agents, one of them ran into the busy road and was struck by a semi truck. The person died at the scene. Continue reading...

Ron DeSantis’s Stop Woke Act suffers another legal setback, with the state accused of ‘puppeteering’Sign up for the Breaking News US newsletter emailA federal appeals panel struck down a significant chunk of Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s so-called Stop Woke Act on Tuesday, delivering another rebuff to the Republican’s efforts to stifle free speech in higher education.In a scathing order, judges of the 11th circuit court of appeal said by a 2-1 majority that the higher education component of the law – which prevented college and university professors teaching or sharing thoughts on concepts of race and gender – breached the free expression rights guaranteed under the US constitution’s first amendment. Continue reading...

‘Haiti is a failed state’, says Carlos Giménez, congressman and Miami Cuban exile, after controversial court rulingCarlos Giménez, a Republican congressman from Florida, broke with the Trump administration on Sunday, calling on the White House to reconsider its push to eliminate temporary protected status (TPS) for Haitian migrants.Returning some 350,000 Haitians to their chaotic, dangerous homeland following the US supreme court’s ruling that the Trump administration can cut off temporary legal protections, would be a grave error, Giménez said. Continue reading...

• A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket successfully launched 29 Amazon Leo broadband satellites from Florida on Thursday, July 2. • The launch took place at 12:30 a.m. ET, marking a significant step in the deployment of Amazon's satellite internet constellation. • This mission is critical for expanding global high-speed internet access, positioning Amazon as a major competitor in the low Earth orbit (LEO) broadband market.

Critics condemn decision by education board aligned with hard-right Ron DeSantis to block access to college systemImmigration advocates in Florida have decried a “cruel and harmful” new rule by education officials aligned to hard-right Republican governor Ron DeSantis to ban undocumented students from state colleges and universities.The Florida board of education voted on Tuesday to bar access to its 28 state-funded institutions to anybody not a US citizen or “lawfully present” in the country. It follows Florida’s move last year to strip discounted in-state tuition rates for certain immigrant students. Continue reading...

Officials say 31-year-old woman’s arm was severed in attack at a river in Seminole county’s Little Big Econ forestA woman swimming in a Florida river was killed recently in a rare alligator attack that severed one of her arms, state officials said.The deadly attack took place at Seminole county’s Little Big Econ state forest, about 25 miles north-east of Orlando, on Sunday as the 31-year-old victim was in the Econlockhatchee River. Continue reading...

• SpaceX successfully launched a 15,000-pound SiriusXM radio satellite into orbit from Florida's Space Coast on June 28. • The mission utilized a Falcon 9 rocket, marking the company's 76th launch of the current year. • This deployment is critical for maintaining and expanding the satellite radio infrastructure used by SiriusXM subscribers.

• NASA's Roman Space Telescope arrived in Florida between June 20 and June 26, 2026, marking a key milestone in its deployment process. • Researchers have developed a new non-surgical treatment for knee osteoarthritis, offering a potential alternative to invasive procedures for pain relief. • Archaeologists discovered a cave in the Rising Star system containing skeletons that appear exclusively female, suggesting the Dinaledi Chamber may be the first known sex-specific burial site created by a non-modern human species.

• Sports fans are increasingly treating global sports tournaments as opportunities to engage more strategically with sportsbooks. • The shift is driven by the unprecedented availability of extensive statistics, player data, and historical records from diverse digital sources. • This trend transforms the fan experience from passive viewing to active research, with supporters analyzing team performances and comparing data before events.

Environmentalists and immigrant-rights advocates demand accounting of damage done by notorious Everglades facilityWhile they welcome the recent closure of the controversial Alligator Alcatraz migrant detention center, leading environmental groups and their allies say they want an independent investigation into the environmental damage the facility inflicted on the surrounding wilderness during its 12 months of operations.Those groups made that demand alongside immigrant-rights advocates and members of Florida’s Miccosukee Tribe at a news conference on Friday outside the entrance to the shuttered detention center, where the Friends of the Everglades (FOE) executive director, Eve Samples, condemned the camp as a “failure, an obscene waste of taxpayer dollars and an abuse of the Everglades”. Continue reading...

• NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope has arrived at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for final pre-launch preparations. • The observatory is scheduled to launch this summer aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket to join other major orbital telescopes like Hubble and Webb. • This mission represents a significant leap in astronomical capabilities, designed to study dark energy and exoplanets with a wider field of view than its predecessors.

Building had been vulnerable before it collapsed in the middle of the night, killing 98 people in 2021The deadly destruction of a Florida beachfront condominium actually started weeks before it collapsed into a pile of rubble in the middle of the night, killing 98 people in 2021 – but the building had been vulnerable from the start, federal investigators found in a final report issued on Monday.The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) said in the report that two connections between garage columns and the pool deck started to fail around early June. The combination of a structure design that did not meet building codes and alterations made to it over its 40 years meant that the other parts of the pool deck weren’t strong enough to withstand the extra load, leading to the type of slow-motion collapse. Continue reading...

New College of Florida to acquire USF Sarasota-Manatee in deal that leading Democratic lawmaker says ‘reeks of grift’A liberal arts college seized by Florida’s hard-right governor, Ron DeSantis, and transformed into a model for conservative higher education is to triple in size after state Republicans engineered a hostile takeover of a rival university’s campus.New College of Florida, which is controlled by DeSantis’s hand-picked board of trustees, will acquire the Sarasota-Manatee campus of the University of South Florida (USF) next month in a deal described by a leading Florida Democrat as “a grift”. Continue reading...

Groups cite detainee maltreatment and degradation of surrounding land as reasons to close facility permanentlySign up for the Breaking News US newsletter emailAn alliance of environmental groups has welcomed reports that detainees have been moved from Florida’s notorious “Alligator Alcatraz” immigration jail, but have promised to press ahead with legal action to ensure its permanent closure and the restoration of the fragile Everglades wetlands where it is located.The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a statement late on Tuesday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and authorities in Florida “have moved illegal aliens from the soft sided facility [and] transferred them to other facilities” for their safety, citing this month’s beginning of the Atlantic hurricane season. Continue reading...

Steven Mills and Tiffany Score reached an agreement with the biological parents of their child after fertility clinic’s mix-upA Florida couple who learned they had been given the wrong embryo after their newborn, Shea, appeared to be of a different race, will retain permanent custody of the child.Steven Mills and Tiffany Score reached a custody agreement with Shea’s biological parents – identified anonymously as Patient 004 – in a court filing last week from their lawsuit against the Florida clinic allegedly responsible for the embryo snafu. Continue reading...

State’s attorney general alleges TikTok exposed children to harmful sexual content and addictive featuresFlorida became the latest state to sue TikTok on Monday after the attorney general accused the company of violating a state law that limits social media access for teenagers.In a press conference, Republican James Uthmeier said TikTok exposed children to harmful sexual content and addictive features, such as unlimited scrolling and push notifications. “It’s designed to keep kids stuck on those screens for hours,” Uthemeier said at a press conference. “Our evidence suggests that so many kids are on TikTok for upwards of six, seven, eight or more hours a day. We are going to get our kids their lives back.” Continue reading...

Robert Dillon was arrested at home in Florida despite living 300 miles away, and charges were later droppedSign up for the Breaking News US newsletter emailA Florida man is suing several law enforcement agencies for his arrest and prosecution for allegedly luring a child after he was wrongly identified using faulty AI facial recognition software.According to the Jacksonville Beach police department, an algorithm returned a 93% probability that Robert Dillon was the man caught on security cameras at a McDonald’s in the town attempting to persuade the unaccompanied girl, aged younger than 12, to leave with him. Continue reading...

Earthquake was region’s strongest tremor in nearly 150 years and was also felt in parts of Mexico including CancúnAn earthquake on Monday off the coast of Cuba, which was that region’s strongest tremor in nearly 150 years, could be felt in Florida and parts of Mexico.The 6.1-magnitude earthquake, which struck in the afternoon, occurred approximately 65 miles (105km) north-west of Mantua, Cuba, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS). The USGS added that the earthquake had a depth of 16 miles. Continue reading...

• NASA's $4 billion Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is transporting to Florida for a scheduled launch in September. • The telescope is designed to survey 100 times more of the sky than the Hubble Space Telescope, focusing on previously unexplored regions of the Milky Way. • Scientists expect the mission to identify approximately 100,000 new planets, a massive increase over the 6,300 exoplanets discovered to date.

State sues maker of ChatGPT and CEO Sam Altman, alleging company ‘allowed a dangerous product to reach millions’Florida filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, and its CEO, Sam Altman, on Monday alleging that the company concealed serious safety risks with its chatbot. Florida is the first state in the US to sue the artificial intelligence company.The 83-page suit was brought by Florida’s attorney general, James Uthmeier, and alleges that OpenAI “aggressively marketed” ChatGPT to the public while ignoring safety warnings and possible dangers of the product. Continue reading...

US health secretary gets nip from one of two serpents he grabbed at home of fellow Trump official Dr OzHealth secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr on Tuesday added to his lengthening catalog of bizarre wild animal encounters by posting to social media a video of himself in Florida wrestling with two snakes.Kennedy, who has previously admitted dumping the carcass of a bear cub in New York’s Central Park, and is also alleged to have cut the penis of a road-kill raccoon, is seen grabbing the pair of serpents with his bare hands. Continue reading...

Move follows upsetting viral video of ray being manhandled into unmarked boat in Florida waters last yearWildlife officials in Florida will continue to allow threatened giant manta rays to be taken from the ocean, but have tightened their policies after a viral video showed a captured ray in severe distress, and a bipartisan group of politicians called for an end to the controversial practice.Members of the Florida fish and wildlife conservation commission (FWC) voted on Wednesday to adopt an amended final rule reserving the right to say when and where rays can be captured for “responsible exhibition” in the US. Continue reading...

All 11 aboard survived after the plane made an emergency landing near the BahamasSign up for the Breaking News US newsletter emailA military rescue crew in Florida has spoken of the “pretty miraculous” survival of all 11 people it saved from a plane crash in the Atlantic Ocean, and its own scramble to safety with five minutes of fuel left.Members of the 920th rescue wing, based at Patrick Space Force base, not far from Cape Canaveral, raced on Tuesday to reach the passengers and crew in choppy seas. They had emerged from a small Beechcraft twin-propeller aircraft that ditched into the water about 80 miles east of Melbourne on Florida’s east coast. Continue reading...

Real estate executive got an unexpected earful when she spoke of ‘living in a time of profound change’Though college graduations usually consist of a speaker giving advice to students, one recent ceremony featured students giving the speaker their opinions – loudly.The University of Central Florida’s 2026 graduating class booed as a real estate development executive spoke about how “the rise of artificial intelligence is the next Industrial Revolution” and about “living in a time of profound change”. Continue reading...

Survivors to return to ‘scene of the crime’ for shadow congressional hearing into abuses committed by EpsteinSurvivors of r Jeffrey Epstein will return to the “scene of the crime” in Palm Beach, Florida, on Tuesday for a shadow congressional hearing into abuses committed by the late sex offender.Several members of the Democratic House oversight caucus are scheduled to join the victims and several expert witnesses at the hearing close to Epstein’s former waterfront mansion where he procured girls as young as 14 to perform sexual services for wealthy guests. Continue reading...

Federal lawsuit against OpenAI says alleged gunman had extensive conversations with chatbot over monthsThe family of one of two people killed in an April 2025 shooting at Florida State University (FSU) has filed a federal lawsuit against the ChatGPT creator, OpenAI, alleging that the suspected gunman carried out the attack “with input and information provided to him during conversations with ChatGPT over a period of months, and specifically in the days leading up to the shooting”.The lawsuit, first reported by NBC News, was filed on Sunday in Florida’s northern federal district court by Vandana Joshi, the widow of Tiru Chabba. Chabba was killed alongside the university dining director, Robert Morales, in the mass shooting on 17 April 2025 that also wounded five others. Continue reading...

Thomas Shaknovsky botched the surgery of William Bryan, 70, who died on the operating tableA Florida surgeon who is facing criminal charges after allegedly removing a patient’s liver instead of his spleen has said he is “forever traumatized” by that person’s death.In a deposition from November that was recently obtained by NBC, 44-year-old Thomas Shaknovsky described the death of 70-year-old William Bryan as an “incredibly unfortunate event that I regret deeply”. Continue reading...