Charlotte County, Punta Gorda | featured news

Brian Haynes is happy to be healthy entering his final cross country season.
The Charlotte High School graduate has been injured the past two years. The most serious — a stress fracture in his foot — limited him to three meets for Saint Leo University las...

The Englewood Panthers opened their season by beating Estero 16-0.
“It was a total team effort, a team win” said coach Steven Vito. “We clicked in all facets of the game: offense, defense and special Teams.”
Fullback Bradley Vito rushed for two touchdow...

PALM COAST (AP) — A Central Florida man is facing an assault charge after allegedly threatening to kill his wife over dirty cat litter.
The Daytona Beach News-Journal reports that police arrested Avelino Urbano Garon after an argument with his wife turned...

JENSEN BEACH (AP) — Health officials have issued an alert for mosquito-borne illness in a Central Florida community.
The Palm Beach Post reports that seven cases of dengue fever have been confirmed in Martin and St. Lucie counties.
While widespread in the...

GROVELAND, Calif. (AP) — For 30 years, Ike Bunney has run a dude ranch amid the tall pines and steep canyons along the North Fork of the Tuolumne River in California’s Sierra Nevada. Now his 15 horses are safe in distant pastures as wildfire on the northe...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Secretary of State Colin Powell called the jury verdict that cleared the killer of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin “questionable” and urged President Barack Obama to speak more on issues of race during an interview that aired Sund...

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The mother of a 10-year-old Pennsylvania girl recovering from two double lung transplants says the girl has been taken off oxygen and is doing well.
Janet Murnaghan tells The Associated Press on Sunday that her daughter Sarah was taken...

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — As a lobbyist in New York’s statehouse, Stephen Acquario is doing pretty well. He pulls down $204,000 a year, more than the governor makes, gets a Ford Explorer as his company car and is afforded another special perk:
Even though he’s ...

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Syria agreed Sunday to a U.N. investigation into last week’s alleged chemical weapons attack outside Damascus — a deal a senior White House official dismissed as “too late to be credible,” saying the United States has “very little d...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The giant panda cub at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo appears to be in excellent health, zookeepers reported after a 10-minute physical exam Sunday morning.
The panda, born Friday afternoon, weighs 4.8 ounces, is pink with white fur and ...