Charlotte County, Punta Gorda | featured news

LONDON (AP) — Call them ’60s relics or hippy home accessories, lava lamps have been casting their dim but groovy light on interiors for half a century, having hit British shelves 50 years ago on Tuesday.
A British company began marketing their original c...

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistani police opened a new investigation Monday into former President Pervez Musharraf’s role in the death of a radical cleric killed during a raid of a mosque in downtown Islamabad, police said.
Police are investigating Musharraf’s ro...

HAGEN, Germany (AP) — Germany put a 92-year-old former member of the Nazi Waffen SS on trial Monday on charges that he killed a Dutch resistance fighter in 1944.
Dutch-born Siert Bruins, who is now German, entered the Hagen state courtroom using a walker...

JERUSALEM (AP) — Behind an official wall of silence, Israel is signaling it wants the U.S. to strike Syria sooner rather than later, fearing that continued inaction could hurt American credibility in the region.
Yet at the same time, Israel appears to ha...

CHICAGO (AP) — When city students arrived for the first day of school under the blazing temperatures of a Midwest heat wave, staff greeted them with some unusual school supplies: water bottles, fans and wet towels to drape around their necks.
What they co...

NEW YORK (AP) — Verizon will own its wireless business outright after agreeing to a $130 billion deal to buy the 45 percent stake of Verizon Wireless owned by British cellphone carrier Vodafone.
The buyout, the second-largest acquisition deal on record, w...

NEW YORK (AP) — Police investigating the death of a 1-year-old boy who was shot in his stroller during a walk on a city street believe his father was the intended target, Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Monday.
Authorities have some leads in the killing ...

WEST PALM BEACH (AP) — A year after launching an online site for Florida panther sightings, state wildlife officials are finding the data useful, even if the occasional report turns out to be a fox — or even a monkey.
Yes, a monkey.
Wildlife biologists a...

KEY WEST (AP) — Key West might be one of Florida’s party capitals but don’t get too drunk.
The Miami Herald is reporting that Key West cabbies might soon start charging passengers who vomit in their cars a $50 cleanup fee.
According to the city’s larges...

ST. PETERSBURG (AP) — St. Petersburg police officers have fatally shot a man they say pulled a gun on them.
Police officials say 23-year-old Ronald Sexton had gone to a neighbor’s home early Monday with a pit bull dog and was yelling at the neighbor’s pit...