Florida

Registered Democrats will take a lead among a crucial demographic for the first time this week: Hispanic Floridians. The GOP has lost ground in its traditional stronghold for the last 2 years, and its slide might give the Democrats a shot at the critical state and its 27 electoral votes in November, Politico reports. National Dems had largely been ready to cede, but now, "They absolutely need to be in Florida," says the state chair. More »

Florida has been dumping sewage into the ocean for over 60 years, but is moving towards cleaning up its act, Reuters reports. Florida’s Senate recently passed a bill that would replace the system, which pumps 300 million gallons of partially treated waste into the Atlantic daily. Passage in the House is expected, but the state's EPA says it will take 16 years and $3 billion to close them all down. More »

A 69-year-old Florida woman called 911 after finding an 8-foot gator in her kitchen. The beast apparently crawled in through a porch screen door and an open sliding door, making its way through the living room and down a hall, reports the St. Petersburg Times . Authorities called a trapper, and the gator was caught without incident—except for being hurt slightly by a falling plate. More »

Florida lawmakers have passed a law that prohibits most businesses from banning employees keeping guns in their cars on company property, Reuters reports. Backers hail the measure as a victory for Second Amendment rights. Business groups, fearing an increase in workplace shootings, are urging the governor to veto the so-called "take your gun to work" bill. More »

Two Miami residents won a record $253 million lawsuit against Cuba yesterday after Florida jurors approved a wrongful death claim on behalf of their father. The case involved the death of Rafael del Pino, a naturalized US citizen and ex-Castro ally who was imprisoned after turning against the Cuban dictator, the Miami Herald reports. Del Pino’s relatives said the government tortured him, and he died after 18 years in prison at age 51. More »

A flying spy drone may soon join the ranks of Miami's finest, pending FAA approval of the 14-pound bot. "Our intentions are to use it only in tactical situations as an extra set of eyes," says a department spokesman. The US military has been using spy drones for years, reports Reuters, and police departments around the country are interested in pressing them into service. More »

Part of a construction crane crashed into a building next to a Miami construction site this afternoon, killing two and injuring at least four, the Miami Herald reports. Workers on an unfinished 46-story luxury condo were raising an extension to connect it with the crane when the extension came loose and fell into a nearby house being used as a construction company office. More »

Dead rats are stinking up a portion of Orlando International Airport, and the smell has workers crying foul. Construction crews renovating gates earlier this month scared the rodents into the airport, the Orlando Sentinel reports; exterminators followed, and after rats died in walls and ceilings the stench sent workers and passengers home sick and shut down a customs checkpoint. More »

Seven Cuban soccer players defected from the national team over the last two days—five on Tuesday and two last night—slipping from their Tampa hotel after a game to seek asylum in the US, the Miami Herald reports. The first five have contacted a lawyer and are in discussions with a second-tier soccer team, Miami FC; they may start training as soon as today, Reuters reports. The loss of seven players could be the team’s downfall in Olympic trials. More »

Michigan and Florida senators appeared closer today to approving mail-in re-votes for their disqualified primaries, the Swamp blog reports. DNC chair Howard Dean said he also supported the mail-ins if state leaders can agree with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama on how to run them. “I have to run these rules so that the losing side feels it’s been treated fairly,” he said on “This Week with George Stephanopolous.” More »

Floridians will get a chance to vote again in the Democratic primary, this time by mail, if Florida Sen. Bill Nelson and Gov. Charlie Crist have their way. Nelson tells Newsweek that plans are all but set for a re-vote, this time paid for by soft money donations. But hurdles remain, including what Nelson’s spokesman calls a “tiny” Florida law against mail-in voting. More »

Miami's role as an international city—the "financial hub of Latin America," as one businessman calls it—is threatened by its residents' declining Spanish skills, the Miami Herald reports. Many descendants of the Cuban entrepreneurs and businessmen who flooded South Florida in the '60s and '70s speak only "kitchen Spanish"—good enough to talk to grandma, but not for business transactions. More »

One engineer's blunder shut off the power in Florida Tuesday, the Miami Herald reports. Florida Light & Power says a field engineer diagnosing a faulty switch disabled two levels of safety backups—against company policy—as he worked. In a bit of extremely unfortunate timing, a fault then occurred that knocked out dozens of transmission lines and substations, including one that served the Turkey Point nuclear reactor. More »

A blackout that cut off millions of Florida residents today is ending, authorities say, but they disagree on the cause. Florida Power & Light blames a substation west of Miami for sparking the outage, and a state emergency office says a station south of Miami suffered a mechanical failure that triggered two nuclear plants to go offline, the St. Petersburg Times reports. More »

Power outages concentrated in the Miami area struck across Florida just after 1 this afternoon, the Miami Herald reports. The lights started coming back on within 2 hours, but the cause of the blackout still wasn't known. Both nuclear reactors at the Turkey Point plant south of Miami automatically shut down, blacking out hundreds of thousands of customers, "but we do not know why at this point," said an NRC spokesman. More »

Teachers in Florida's public schools must for the first time teach evolution, but they must present it as a "scientific theory" rather than a fact, the Tallahassee Democrat reports. The state's Board of Education approved the new curriculum standards today. The old ones made no mention of evolution. Religious leaders and conservative lawmakers fought for the last-minute amendment to teach it as a theory. More »

Few South Florida Cubans bothered to celebrate Fidel Castro's retirement today, the Miami Herald reports. Exile leaders dismissed the power shift to Castro's brother Raul as politics as usual for the island nation. "Just because he has given up a title, doesn't mean he has given up power,'' lawmaker Mario Diaz-Balart said. More »

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 »

High Key West housing costs are sparking an exodus of residents and leaving the island's tourists with too few people to serve them, the Los Angeles Times reports. Some 2,000 workers have fled in the past 7 years, a crushing blow to a county that houses 75,000 residents but serves 2.25 million overnight tourists each year. 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 »