Florida....? oh yeah, Florida.

[Cooked Crack]

Rip

[stoshuaj]

Florida women arrested after July 4 fight in which woman's ear was bitten off

Two women were arrested in connection with a July 4 fight that resulted in one of them biting part of the other's ear off, Florida authorities said.

Dixie Stiles, 18, was charged with battery – touch or strike – and Macy Regan, 23, has been charged with felony battery causing bodily harm, the Bay County Sheriff's Office said Thursday

 

 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/florida-women-arrested-july-4-214528859.html

 

**Macy and Dixie, meow

Edited July 28, 2023 by stoshuaj

[China]

Creatures are piling on beaches for awkward reason, Florida cops say. ‘Don’t call us’

 

Mounds of writhing sea creatures are piling up on Florida beaches, and authorities are warning concerned beachgoers to avoid the embarrassment of calling 911.

 

It’s likely a herd of manatees, and they are engaging in very public group sex, experts say.

 

 

“Don’t call us. .... We can assure you they are more than fine,” the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office wrote in a Facebook post.

 

“Manatees actually mate in herds like these and often they are near the shore. They mate all throughout the year, but generally mating herds like these are seen in the summer months. So if you see this, there’s no need to call.”

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Captain Wiggles]

[LD0506]

Will no-one think of the children? 

[The Evil Genius]

If it's a group of manatees, are Floridians allowed to talk about it under the State's don't say gay rules? 🤔

Edited August 2, 2023 by The Evil Genius

[Bang]

It's practically the same as the Villages, from what I've heard.

 

~Bang

Edited August 2, 2023 by Bang

[skinsmarydu]

Ewww...

[tshile]

Hahahahahahhahahahahahahahahaha that’s awesome 

[EmirOfShmo]

This asshole killed a man then realized it wasn't his car that was hit. Lock him up & throw away the key...Ah, yes, the Villages.

 

Florida golfer arrested for punching 87-year-old man to death over car dispute: police

 

A Florida suspect was recently arrested for manslaughter after allegedly beating up an man on a golf course in June.

Robert Edward Moore Jr., 76, was charged with one count of aggravated manslaughter on an elderly person on July 27. The victim, 87-year-old Dean William Zook, died weeks after the confrontation due to the injuries he incurred.

According to an arrest affidavit obtained by FOX 35 Orlando, the incident began at the Glenview County Club in The Villages on June 28. The victim accidentally hit a car that Moore believed was his, prompting a confrontation.

"At the time, an unknown white male subject approached the scene of the minor accident and exclaimed, ‘What the hell, you hit my car!’" the affidavit read. "The victim admitted to hitting the vehicle with his vehicle and asked to exchange insurance information. The unknown subject then struck the 87-year-old victim in the jaw with a closed fist, pushing him backwards."

Zook attempted to protect himself with his hands, but he was unable to. Moore left after realizing that the car did not belong to him.

During an interview with deputies, Zook began to slur and became unsteady. He was transported to a local hospital, where doctors discovered that his brain was bleeding.

Zook passed away on July 16 – a day before his 88th birthday. Authorities were able to arrest Moore after they discovered an article about him scoring a hole-in-one in November 2022 – he was wearing the same shorts, shoes and sunglasses as he was during the incident.

 

https://news.yahoo.com/florida-golfer-arrested-punching-87-224742469.html

[EmirOfShmo]

A Sunday 2-fer...

 

How Florida let a top insurer abandon homeowners in their time of greatest need

 

NORTH PORT, Fla. - Every week or so, Edward Raggie walks through his front door and enters a painful, infuriating time warp.

Everything looks exactly the way it did that day in December, when he and his wife, Joanne Ragge, hastily packed up their Hurricane Ian battered home after learning that dangerous mold had spread behind their white ceilings and bright blue walls. Their roof still leaks, its protective tarp peeling from the hot sun. Inside, brown insulation from the gaping hole in their ceiling pools on their swollen, lifted floors. Boxes of their family photos and belongings, stacked haphazardly, are still waiting to be moved out of the living room's dank, musty air.

The couple, in their late 60s, are frozen in this "hell," Ed says, because their insurance company, United Property and Casualty, ignored their claims for months after the hurricane and then severely underpaid them, before going insolvent earlier this year.

"UPC abandoned me," said Ed, a recently retired tortilla distributor who paid as much as $1,930 a year to UPC for insurance. "I never missed a payment. I expected them to do what they said in my contract: return my house to what it was the day before hurricane hit. I never even got an inkling of that from these people and now I know why: They were going to go out of business."

UPC, the ninth property insurer in Florida to go insolvent since 2021, and the largest to do so in 15 years, left many of its Florida customers in a similar nightmare, facing what is predicted to be a powerful hurricane season with still unfixed, hazardous homes, drained life savings and, in some cases, no insurance to protect them.

Suddenly losing their carrier while still in the thick of recovery was shocking to the Raggies, as well as other homeowners. But UPC's collapse was long in the making - and is one of the most glaring examples of how, in the age of climate change, Florida's insurance system has been failing to protect residents after they endure a major disaster.

UPC hemorrhaged money over the past six years, in large part because of costly claims from a series of major hurricanes. During this time, the company began to cut insurance adjusters' damage estimates, and underpay and ignore increasingly desperate policyholders, according to a Washington Post investigation based on interviews with nearly two dozen people, including those who worked for UPC, policyholders, insurance experts and a review of hundreds of documents from regulators, adjusters, court cases financial filings and other sources.

The company also underestimated how much it would have to spend to cover claims, but still paid shareholders, including top executives who owned a significant percentage of the company, millions of dollars in dividends, data showed.

State officials, who said failing to reserve enough money was one of the primary reasons UPC went insolvent, struggled to respond as the situation worsened. People in the industry flagged evidence of alleged wrongdoing to regulators, but said their concerns were not seriously reviewed. And even though officials initiated monthly check-ins with UPC as its finances deteriorated, they mistakenly believed UPC could cover homeowners' claims up until just shortly before the insolvency.

 

https://news.yahoo.com/florida-let-top-insurer-abandon-210701872.html

 

Governor's response:

 

 

Edited August 6, 2023 by EmirOfShmo

[skinsmarydu]

^^^  Proof that who you vote for down ballot really matters. 

Insurance and Agriculture are really important positions. 

[Cooked Crack]

Quote

When Maks was told officers were going to take her DNA, she requested a drink and was provided a Diet Mountain Dew. 

 

Police say Maks poured the soda all over her body and hair "in attempt to interfere with the possible evidence on [her body]," an affidavit reads.

 

[China]

Thieves suspected of stealing Florida horses for human consumption

 

A Florida non-profit is offering a $25,000 reward after two pet horses were stolen and believed to be sold on the black market for human consumption.

 

The Animal Recovery Mission (ARM) said the pet horses, Canela (a 6-month filly) and Venus (a 2-year-old filly) were stolen from a private property in the Rolling Oaks area of Southwest Ranches on Friday, Aug. 11.

 

The non-profit said the stolen horses were led through a deconstructed fence at the back of the property between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m.

 

“There is a grave concern that the fillies were preyed upon and have become the victims of the black-market horse meat trade,” ARM said. “This illegal activity promotes violent butchering of horses to sell their meat for human consumption – an industry that has plagued the State of Florida for decades.”

 

Click on the link for the full article

[stoshuaj]

Brawl at Florida chicken wing restaurant triggered after women clogged toilet
 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/florida-brawl-chicken-wing-restaurant-193054873.html

[China]

Monkey business: Multiple wild monkey sightings in central Florida prompt police warning

 

Police in central Florida have been dealing with quite a bit of monkey business as of late — a literal monkey is on the loose in Orange County.

 

Orange City police said they started getting calls Friday, totaling a half dozen or more monkey sightings in different areas of the city within a three-mile range or so.

 

 

One sighting happened at a fast food restaurant Wednesday, WESH reported.

 

“I'm like this cannot be possible, and I'm like I'm telling everybody, 'listen, there's a monkey-- a monkey,'” said Kim Bialobos, shift manager at an Orange City Popeye's.

 

While making preparations at the drive-thru window, something caught Bialobos' eye.

 

She shared pictures she took as the very cheeky monkey cruised around before finally hopping over the fence separating the restaurant from a wooded area.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Venomous stingray impales Apollo Beach woman wading in water: ‘I was certain I was going to die’

 

A sunny day at the beach turned into a week-long hospital stay for an Apollo Beach woman after she was punctured in the back on Tuesday by a stingray's venomous spine. 

 

Kristie O'Brien was visiting Ruskin's Bahia Beach with her husband when she decided to cool off and waded into the water, only about knee-deep. 

 

 

"As soon as I hit the water, I felt like I had been stung by something," O'Brien said.

 

When she leaned forward to get out of the water, her husband, back on the beach, was horrified by what he saw: a live stingray hanging by its tail from O'Brien's back, its venomous spine puncturing her skin to the center of her right shoulder. 

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Two dead after Florida rescue helicopter crashes into apartment building

 

Two people were killed and others were injured after a medical rescue helicopter crashed on Monday into an apartment building near Fort Lauderdale, Florida, authorities said.

 

The Broward country sheriff’s office said one of its fire-rescue helicopters crashed near the Pompano Beach airpark shortly before 9am. One person aboard died, and one person on the ground was killed as the helicopter crashed into a three-unit apartment complex, National Transportation Safety Board officials said.

 

Meanwhile, officials had reported earlier that two of the three people aboard the helicopter were taken to a hospital to receive emergency medical treatment. Two others on the ground at the time of the crash were also reportedly taken to the hospital.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Florida Man Charged Over Failed Attempt to Cross Atlantic in Giant ‘Hamster Wheel’

 

A Florida marathoner is facing federal charges after the U.S. Coast Guard spotted him 70 nautical miles off Tybee Island, Georgia on Aug. 26, in a homemade Hydro Pod, as Hurricane Franklin bore down on the Eastern Seaboard. Reza Baluchi claimed he was headed to London in the human-powered vessel, a hamster wheel-like contraption which a newly filed criminal complaint describes as being “afloat as a result of wiring and buoys.” When Coast Guard officers told Baluchi they were cutting short his “manifestly unsafe” voyage, Baluchi threatened to kill himself with a 12-inch knife if anyone tried to apprehend him, and claimed to have a bomb aboard, which turned out to be fake, according to the complaint. Three days later, Baluchi—who authorities have intercepted in his Hydro Pod at least three times previously—finally surrendered, the complaint states.

 

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Some workers who rebuild homes after hurricanes are afraid to go to Florida. They blame a law DeSantis championed

Immigrant workers from across the US raced to Florida to help rebuild after Hurricane Ian devastated the region.

 

But now, nearly a year later and days after another major hurricane hit, some of those workers say this time they’re staying home.

 

Saket Soni, whose nonprofit Resilience Force advocates for thousands of disaster response workers, says there’s one clear reason behind the shift: Florida’s new immigration law, which Gov. Ron DeSantis has championed.

 

In a survey Resilience Force conducted over several months this summer, Soni says more than half of the nonprofit organization’s roughly 2,000 members said they would not travel to Florida to help with hurricane recovery efforts because of the law. And in the aftermath of Hurricane Idalia, he says, many remain concerned.

 

“They felt very fearful,” says Soni, the organization’s executive director. “No amount of money would be worth it if it meant they would be incarcerated or deported.”

 

Normally, Soni says Resilience Force workers wouldn’t think twice before heading to a disaster zone.

 

The group is made up largely of immigrants, many of whom are undocumented, Soni says. And much like migrant workers who follow harvest seasons and travel from farm to farm, they crisscross the US to help clean up and rebuild when disaster strikes. Soni says many of them see the skills they’ve honed over years of responding to major storms as a calling, in addition to a means of supporting their families.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Trust Index: Gov. DeSantis says Florida’s crime rate is at a 50-year low. Is it true?

 

While speaking in Jacksonville on Thursday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis repeated a claim that Florida’s crime rate is at a 50-year low — but is it true?

 

Data experts told News4JAX it’s a statistic that doesn’t paint the full picture.

 

DeSantis made the claim while responding to a Black Air Force veteran who blamed a recent racially motivated shooting on the governor’s policies. DeSantis has also been making the same statement on the national stage.

 

“Our crime rate in Florida is at a 50-year low,” DeSantis said at one point during the intense exchange at a restaurant on the Southside.

 

The statement caused the crowd to applaud, but data analysts with the Marshall Project said DeSantis isn’t telling the full story about Florida’s crime statistics.

 

The Marshall Project Data Reporter Weihua Li said data shows that about half of the agencies that police more than 40% of the state’s population are missing in the 2021 report. She said it is due to a recent change in the way the FBI and state agencies collect crime data.

 

“Obviously, this patchiness of data creates huge issues in trying to hold politicians accountable,” Li said.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

DeSantis’ affordable housing director placed on leave — again

 

Gov. Ron DeSantis’ affordable housing director was placed on administrative leave for a second time after an investigation determined he created a hostile work environment and violated other policies.

 

During a Friday meeting, the board of the Florida Housing Finance Corporation voted to place its executive director, Mike DiNapoli, on paid leave for the second time in two months.

 

The decision was made to appease board member Meredith Ivey, a former DeSantis spokesperson who is now a deputy secretary of the Department of Commerce. Ivey said she needed more time to read the report, but blasted its contents and voiced support for DiNapoli.

 

“I personally do not have a high opinion at all of the inspector general report,” Ivey said. “It seems very sloppy, one-sided, read more like a media hit piece.”

 

The board also voted Friday to prohibit employees who spoke to the inspector general from being fired without cause. Ivey voted against it.

 

On Thursday, the corporation’s inspector general revealed the contents of a two-month investigation into DiNapoli, whose appointment by DeSantis in February has roiled the close-knit organization. The corporation is effectively a multibillion-dollar bank for the state, distributing hundreds of millions of affordable housing dollars each year and issuing bonds.

 

Employees of the corporation told investigators that DiNapoli screamed at staff, made sexist comments, talked about their weight and threatened their jobs.

 

“The conduct is severe and pervasive enough to create a work environment that a reasonable person would consider intimidating, hostile or abusive,” said the inspector general, Chris Hirst, on Thursday.

 

Since DiNapoli was appointed by DeSantis in February, 15 people — 10% of the corporation’s workforce — have quit or been fired by DiNapoli. Board members said they were concerned with so many people leaving, especially after the Legislature this year assigned a record $711 million to address the state’s affordable housing crisis.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Cooked Crack]

 

[China]

Florida mom abandons child in running car to go swimming, wanted to ‘meet sharks’: report

 

A Florida woman reportedly abandoned her child in a running car while she swam in the water, according to the Lee County Sheriff’s Office.

 

The department responded to a call around 10:30 a.m. Monday at Capt’n Cons Fish House in Lee County.

 

According to a witness, 41-year-old Allison Sarah Daugherty parked her car near a local pier, turned up the radio volume, jumped into the water, and swam for 20 minutes all while her child was in the car. Daugherty had also left the air conditioning on in the car.

 

NBC affiliate WBBH reported that people were shouting at Daugherty as she swam and that there were fishing hooks and sharks in the water.

 

She yelled back that she didn’t care and “wanted to get hooked” and “would want to meet sharks.”

 

When deputies arrived, they said the woman swam away from the coast with no intention of stopping. A local marine unit had to bring her back.

 

A staff member at Capt’n Cons Fish House said they saw the woman and her son three times that week at the restaurant and that she was acting odd.

 

Daugherty was taken to the Lee County Jail where she is being charged with one count of child neglect for leaving the boy unattended in a car for over 15 minutes.

 

Click on the link for the full article and video

[China]

These two stunning lizards are gaining ground in South Florida: One runs on water, the other is a flamboyant redhead

 

You might have noticed a few new reptiles on the block. One’s a flamboyant redhead who very well may have hitchhiked its way into town, the other can walk on water. And though they’re not total newcomers, they’re on the rise in South Florida and popping their scaly heads up in areas where they’ve never been seen before.

 

As evidenced by Burmese pythons and ubiquitous iguanas, there’s a motley roster of nonnative reptile species surviving in Florida — three times the amount of indigenous species — but there are two in particular that are on the rise.

 

“[Brown] basilisks and Peters’s rock agama are hot on my radar,” says Ken Gioeli, a University of Florida natural resources extension agent who studies nonnative species. He’s seen both of these lizards stake out more territory in Broward and Palm Beach County in recent years.

 

 

Click on the link for the full article