Punta Gorda | featured news

Since its inception, Medicaid — a federal program that allows states to provide medical coverage for low-income families, the blind, seniors, and pregnant women — has undergone numerous face-lifts over the years.
Each state administers its own criteria to...

At 10 a.m., the video visitation center at the Charlotte County Jail on Airport Road in Punta Gorda — open seven days a week — is quiet. The 28 call stations have faceless screens and silent phones.
The peace is deceiving.
When the center opens at 12:30 ...

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli and Palestinian officials say a planned meeting between lawmakers and the Palestinian president has been postponed.
The Israeli lawmakers had planned on traveling to President Mahmoud Abbas’ West Bank headquarters on Tuesday. The ...

MARIANNA, Fla. (AP) — Researchers are working on two graves at a former Florida reform school where students say they were abused.
On Sunday, the University of South Florida researchers continued for a second day attempts to unearth remains and later iden...

SARASOTA, Fla. (AP) — Sarasota police are investigating a shooting that has left a mother dead and her 10-month-old in the hospital.
Police responded to the scene Sunday morning.
Police spokeswoman Genevieve Judge says the unidentified mother was 35 years...

HAVANA (AP) — U.S. endurance swimmer Diana Nyad’s team says she made it through her first night in the Straits of Florida with almost no sightings of poisonous jellyfish.
A post on Nyad’s blog says she’s doing well and the crew is upbeat, though she expre...

NAPLES, Fla. (AP) — Collier County residents who protested outside the beachfront home of Florida Gov. Rick Scott say they are waiting for a response from him on a proposed oil well.
About 100 residents concerned with the proposed oil well in Golden Gate ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State John Kerry is asserting the United States now has evidence of sarin gas use in Syria and says the “case is building” for a military attack.
A day after President Barack Obama stepped back from his threat to launch an a...

LONDON (AP) — Veteran broadcaster David Frost, who won fame around the world for his interview with former President Richard Nixon, has died, his family told the BBC. He was 74.
Frost died of a heart attack on Saturday night aboard the Queen Elizabeth cru...

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South Africa’s president says Nelson Mandela has been discharged from the hospital in the capital, Pretoria.
President Jacob Zuma said in a statement Sunday that former President Mandela remains in critical condition and was sent to hi...