Charlotte County | featured news

Family members of a 12-year-old boy who was infected by a rare and deadly amoeba say he’s on a ventilator.
Zachary Reyna has fought the brain infection for weeks. Family members say he was infected while kneeboarding with friends in a ditch near his famil...

LAKE BUTLER, Fla. (AP) — A longtime employee of a Florida trucking company was once very close with his former boss, even described as his right-hand man. But police say Hubert Allen Jr. drove around Saturday and shot former co-workers and his onetime bos...

PUNTA GORDA — Four years ago, when Don Lee successfully ran for his fourth term as Charlotte County Airport Authority commissioner, Punta Gorda Airport had just passed the 200,000-passenger plateau. Today, as Lee looks to further extend his tenure, the ai...

Kay McNeil of Port Charlotte, who grew up in Boston and graduated from high school in 1941, went to work in a defense plant as an 18-year-old rivet-maker for “Rosie the Riveter.”
Her second defense plant job was working for Bendix Corp. making airplane p...

I had no idea that giant, furry, rodent-like critters once roamed the area, dwarfing the newer Florida creatures known as Goofy, Albert or Stoney.
Maybe it’s common knowledge that the giant ground sloth ate plants and stood up to 17 feet tall. Maybe I wa...

PUNTA GORDA — Don’t be fooled by the lack of activity at Punta Gorda Airport in preparation for the arrival of Cheney Brothers. The giant food distribution plant is on schedule and actually getting bigger as the project gets closer to fruition.
For months...

MURDOCK — Bikers in the Peace River chapter of ABATE, a motorcycle advocacy group, know that they have an uphill battle to fight in terms of image. According to member Darrell Lacourse, the popular depiction of motorcyclists as gritty outlaws is inaccurat...

JERUSALEM (AP) — Jerusalem pushed forward Sunday with plans to construct 1,500 apartments in east Jerusalem in a move that could undermine recently renewed Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
City spokeswoman Brachie Sprung said city officials had approved p...

LAKE BUTLER, Fla. (AP) — After a shooting spree that left a well-known man in the community, one of his employees and the gunman dead, the small Florida town of Lake Butler is in mourning.
Officials say Hubert Allen Jr., 72, drove to several locations aro...

WASHINGTON (AP) — There is “very little doubt” that a chemical weapon was used by Syria against civilians in an incident that killed at least 100 people last week, but the president has not yet decided how to respond, a senior administration official said...