Charlotte County, Punta Gorda | featured news

NORTH PORT — It didn’t take long for the Community Christian School boys golf team to make a statement this season.
The Mustangs set a school record with a 147 in winning a tri-match with host North Port and Palmetto on Tuesday at Heron Creek Golf and Cou...

ENGLEWOOD — Bishop Verot handed the Lemon Bay High School girls golf team a loss in the season opener for both teams Tuesday at Lemon Bay Golf Club.
Julianna Veloz carded a 40 to lead the Manta Rays, but the Vikings got 39s from a trio of players who sh...

PORT CHARLOTTE — Courtney Robertson wants to continue her volleyball career in college next season and the Port Charlotte High School senior showed it Tuesday night during a 3-0 (25-16, 25-13, 25-18) sweep of visiting Southeast.
“I felt good early tonight...

WASHINGTON — Americans’ confidence in the economy inched closer to a 5 ½-year high on growing optimism that hiring and wages could pick up in coming months.
The Conference Board, a New York-based private research group, said Tuesday that its consumer conf...

NEW YORK (AP) — Fears of an escalating conflict in Syria rippled across financial markets on Tuesday, sinking stocks, lifting gold and pushing the price of oil to the highest in a year and a half. The increasing possibility of U.S. military strikes raised...

GROVELAND, Calif. — Unnaturally long intervals between wildfires and years of drought primed the Sierra Nevada for the explosive conflagration chewing up the rugged landscape on the edge of Yosemite National Park, forestry experts say.
The fire had ravag...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Government agents in 74 countries demanded information on about 38,000 Facebook users in the first half of this year, with about half the orders coming from authorities in the United States, the company said Tuesday.
The social-networkin...

CAIRO (AP) — In every corner of the Egyptian capital, a bustling city of 18 million that rarely sleeps, people are locked up in their homes at night under a military-imposed curfew that has driven people up the walls, sometimes literally.
To kill time, on...

DAMASCUS, Syria — Momentum appeared to build Tuesday for Western military action against Syria, with the U.S. and France saying they are in position for a strike, while the government in Damascus vowed to use all possible measures to repel it.
The prospec...

WASHINGTON — Questions are already swirling about the endgame as the Obama administration prepares for a likely strike against Syria as punishment for an alleged chemical weapons attack in its civil war.
National security experts and some U.S. officials q...