Charlotte County, Punta Gorda | featured news

WASHINGTON (AP) — As Congress wrestles with immigration legislation, a central question is whether the 11 million immigrants already in the United States illegally should get a path to citizenship.
The answer from a small but growing number of House Repub...

NEW YORK (AP) — American fast-food workers often earn about $7.25 an hour to make the $3 chicken sandwiches and 99-cent tacos that generate billions of dollars in profit each year for McDonald’s and other chains.
Thousands of the nation’s many millions of...

(AP) — Sarasota police say a mother shot her 1-year-old daughter and then turned the gun on herself.
Police say they responded to the murder-suicide Sunday morning. Spokeswoman Genevieve Judge says 35-year-old Sarah Harnish died at the scene. Josephine Bo...

MARIANNA (AP) — On the second day of an excavation project, University of South Florida researchers worked Sunday on two graves at a former reform school in the Florida Panhandle where students say they were abused decades ago.
The researchers continued t...

CLEARWATER (AP) — An 8-year-old boy from England flew to Florida for the rare opportunity to swim with Winter, a dolphin at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium that uses a prosthetic tail.
Cieran Kelso could relate. As a double amputee, he also uses custom-mad...

KEY WEST (AP) — U.S. endurance swimmer Diana Nyad’s representatives say she’s making good progress on the second day of her Cuba to Florida swim.
Her team posted on Facebook Sunday afternoon that she had “swum farther north than the farthest end point of...

NAPLES (AP) — Collier County residents who protested outside the beachfront home of Florida Gov. Rick Scott said they were waiting for a response from him on a proposed oil rig that would stand 14 stories high.
About 100 residents marched along the beach...

GAINESVILLE — Most dogs probably don’t like going to the doctor any more than most people do.
But Louie Clark, a 6-year-old mixed breed, was lapping it up recently at the University of Florida’s small animal hospital. He got belly rubs, treats and playtim...

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Nearly 100 food trucks gathered in Tampa for what organizers say was a world record.
Ninety-nine food trucks rolled into the Florida State Fairgrounds on Saturday in an effort to break the previous world record of 62 trucks gathered in ...

ORLANDO (AP) — Nearly two years after a drum major’s hazing death silenced the music at Florida A&M football games, the famed Marching 100 band returned to the field Sunday with its familiar booms, drum rattles and other tones for the school’s season-open...