Florida, Punta Gorda | featured news

PORT CHARLOTTE — A day after Charlotte’s rally in the ninth inning was cut short by a triple play, Jeff Malm gave the Stone Crabs something to smile about in the 10th.
Malm, pinch hitting for Jake DePew, had a walk-off single that scored Kes Carter as Cha...

In the past Cindi Keaser and her children weren’t active in organized sports activities.
They are now.
The Englewood resident, her 20-year-old son and 19-year-old daughter regularly participate in statewide adventure and obstacle runs.
Keaser said she st...

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — An animal welfare group intent on sending a message in support of veganism hid until closing time then poured red paint over the Iowa State Fair’s butter cow. But the damage was quickly scraped away and visitors never knew the icon...

CAIRO (AP) — Egyptian authorities on Monday postponed plans to disperse two Cairo protest camps demanding the return of ousted President Mohammed Morsi after thousands of his supporters reinforced the sit-ins when news leaked to the press, military and se...

CHICAGO (AP) — The biggest study of its kind suggests autism might be linked with inducing and speeding up labor, preliminary findings that need investigating since labor is induced in increasing numbers of U.S. women, the authors and other autism experts...

NEW YORK — The nation’s largest police department illegally and systematically singled out large numbers of blacks and Hispanics under its controversial stop-and-frisk policy, a federal judge ruled Monday while appointing an independent monitor to oversee...

WASHINGTON — With the U.S. facing massive overcrowding in its prisons, Attorney General Eric Holder called Monday for major changes to the nation’s criminal justice system that would scale back the use of harsh sentences for certain drug-related crimes.
I...

BOSTON — James “Whitey” Bulger, the feared Boston mob boss who became one of the nation’s most-wanted fugitives, was convicted Monday in a string of 11 killings and dozens of other gangland crimes, many of them committed while he was said to be an FBI inf...

CLERMONT — It sounded like a thunderstorm as windows broke and the ground shook, but vacationers who were awakened from their rooms at a villa near Orlando, Fla., soon realized that the building was starting to collapse — parts of it swallowed by a 100-fo...

Charlotte County’s law enforcement community suffered another loss Saturday.
Ted Silva, 58, of Punta Gorda — a volunteer for the Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office and a reserve officer with the Lake Placid, Fla., Police Department — passed away Saturday a...