Stories related to: Florida

A Florida sheriff’s deputy turned herself in today after dumping a quadriplegic from his wheelchair during a jailhouse booking last month, MSNBC reports. Deputy Charlette Marshall-Jones was promptly released on $3,500 bail and will face a charge of felony abuse of a disabled person. She was already a known suspect: A videotape of her toppling Brian Sterner, 32, from his wheelchair had made headlines and received thousands of hits online. More »

Hillary Clinton’s nomination bid suddenly resembles the plan that failed Rudy Giuliani: Like Hizzoner’s Florida firewall, Clinton must hope voters in Texas and Ohio are unaffected by a month of good news for Barack Obama. Clinton still leads polls in the big states that vote March 4, and her move is to downplay a string of Democratic victories for Obama. More »

Four Florida deputies have been suspended after one was taped dumping a quadriplegic man from his wheelchair and searching him on a jailhouse floor, Tampa Bay’s 10 News reports. The footage is silent, but Brian Sterner says deputy Charlette Marshall-Jones was irritated he refused to stand up. “It didn’t register that she was asking me to do something I can’t do.” More »

A woman driving drunk on a Florida highway had safely buckled up a case of Busch beer for a Super Bowl party—but not the year-old baby riding in the back of her car, according to police. The woman was pulled over after she ran a red light and was seen driving erratically near St. Augustine, reports First Coast News . More »

The Hispanic vote clinched the Florida victories of both John McCain and Hillary Clinton, the Miami Herald reports. McCain's POW experience especially resonated with Cuban-Americans, and Hispanic voters' fondness for Bill Clinton boosted Hillary, who won among Hispanics by a 2-1 margin over Obama. The strong presence of retirees also bolstered both McCain and Clinton. More »

Hillary Clinton took half the Democratic vote in Florida's primary but the numbers should still give her as much to worry about as to celebrate, writes the Nation . She took only a quarter of the black vote and came behind John Edwards in some rural counties—an ominous sign ahead of Super Tuesday, when many states with large numbers of rural Democrats will vote. More »

A poor showing in today's Florida primary could scuttle Rudy Giuliani’s campaign, his chairman admitted yesterday. "If he is second or first, he certainly has momentum. But if he finishes third, it's going to be hard to get momentum,” Houston lawyer Pat Oxford told the Dallas Morning News . Giuliani is touting himself as an odds-defying guy, but he's far behind John McCain and Mitt Romney in polls. More »

John McCain has leaped ahead of GOP rival Mitt Romney in California, according to the latest CNN/OpinionResearch Corp. McCain has the support of 39% of likely California Republican voters, up 19% from just two weeks ago, and well ahead of Romney, with 26%. Rudy Giuliani and Mike Huckabee bring up the rear, with 13% and 11%, respectively. More »

After enduring tepid holiday sales, retailers are happily awaiting $8 billion from shoppers with unused gift cards—because only then can sellers claim the added revenue, BusinessWeek reports. But some US states say that their unclaimed-property laws enable them to extract a piece of the left-over card pie. What's really up for grabs is revenue from millions of cards that are lost or forgotten and go unspent. More »

Florida's popular governor endorsed John McCain tonight, giving a major boost to the Arizona senator as his tight race with Mitt Romney took a nasty turn. Gov. Charlie Crist called McCain a "true American hero" three days ahead of the state's primary, the Miami Herald reports. The endorsement came as McCain and Romney dropped the polite act and traded serious barbs over Iraq, the Washington Post notes. More »

Five young men were killed on a joyride in Florida last night when their speeding car careened off a private airstrip, flew 200 feet in the air, hit a large tree, and split in two. Three were thrown from the car and two were partly ejected, but all were pronounced dead on the scene, the Ocla Star-Banner reports. More »

The Dems punished Michigan and Florida for slating their primaries early, but yesterday Hillary Clinton said she wants their delegates to count after all, Reuters reports. As the only Dem on last week's Michigan ballot and the front-runner in Tuesday's Florida's primary, she would reap nearly all 350 delegates at stake. More »

The GOP debate in Florida remained a largely civil affair last night, with the leading candidates agreeing that the economy needs aggressive tax cuts and that Hillary Clinton has no business returning to the White House, the AP reports. In one of the few bits of drama, Mitt Romney took John McCain to task for voting against Bush's first tax cuts. McCain responded that it was the right move at the time and said he was "very proud" of his record as a fiscal conservative. More »

Like Cubans fleeing Castro, Venezuelans leery of their country's future under socialist President Hugo Chavez are hightailing it to the US—mainly Florida. Venezuelan expats are raising kids, investing money, and opening businesses in South Florida, the New York Times reports. Asked about returning to Venezuela, “I won’t consider it, as long as there’s that guy there," replies one new Floridian. More »

A Texas man got a shock after realizing he'd brought home the wrong suitcase from the airport—and found a cat in it. "I was going to close it, and a kitten jumped out and ran under the bed. I screamed like a little girl," the surprised traveler told the Dallas Morning News . Meanwhile, in Florida, kitty Gracie Mae's owner was frantically checking her missing cat's favorite hiding places. More »

Mike Huckabee is starting to hedge his bets in Florida. He's no longer making travel arrangements for journalists and may leave the state before Tuesday's primary to focus on his best Super Duper Tuesday prospects. “I don’t want to abandon Florida yet,” he said last night, but he won’t air any ads in the state and is campaigning in Atlanta today, the AP reports. More »

The crime wave besetting American beauty pageants continued this weekend as Miss South Florida Fair had to overcome some skullduggery before claiming her crown, the Palm Beach Post reports. Cops were called after contestant Jessica Wittenbrink  found her ruined dress backstage, vandalized with four red lipstick streaks. Police quizzed her 13 rivals but couldn't come up with a suspect. More »

Rudy Giuliani has put every penny toward victory in Florida, hoping to build a dam that rising waters can’t breach. Come Jan. 29, says his campaign chairman, “we'll be the smartest guys in America or the dumbest guys in America.” Giuliani’s been to Florida nearly 30 times and doesn't plan to let up before the big day, the Orlando Sentinel reports. More »

With Stepha Henry missing for months after a trip to south Florida, New York police yesterday arrested a suspect whose abandoned car held so much of Henry's blood that police, declaring "no one could survive with that loss of blood," charged the man with second-degree murder, the Miami Herald reports. Henry, 22, went missing from a Florida nightclub last spring. More »

Rudy Giuliani's campaign is urgently requesting funds, the New York Daily News reports, seemingly contradicting the camp’s denials of financial hardship. While staffers are going without paychecks this month—voluntarily, they say—Giuliani’s campaign manager emailed a plea to prospective donors yesterday. “I am asking you to dig a little deeper," he wrote. "Will you help us one more time?" More »