Orlando

Staff ReportsJune 12, 2017

Clearwater-based Trulieve is opening its seventh medical cannabis dispensary starting Tuesday with a new location at The Villages. The Villages Trulieve will be at 13940 US Highway 441, #601 in the Oakland Hills Professional Center. “We’re excited to have a location in The Villages. Many of our patients are seniors, which makes this location key,” […]

Scott PowersJune 12, 2017

As Orange County once again unfurled a piece of the Sea-to-Sea Rainbow Flag in downtown Orlando, city and county leaders insisted its values of acceptance, understanding, diversity and inclusion shall forever define Orlando. The anniversary of the catastrophic mass murder at Orlando’s popular gay nightclub Pulse on Latino night, June 12, 2016, began largely in […]

Bill RuftyJune 12, 2017

Sunday’s landslide vote in Puerto Rico to determine statehood and perhaps add the 51st star to the American flag, was almost ignored by news media, until the last minute, because of all the political controversies emanating from Washington. But some officials like U.S. Rep. Darren Soto, an Orlando Democrat representing the 9th Congressional District had […]

Scott PowersJune 11, 2017

The shock, horror, and a community’s pain have not eased in the year since Orlando’s Pulse massacre and people still come, still in total disbelief, asking, “Why?” The trauma of the nation’s worst-ever mass shooting, on Latino night at Orlando’s popular gay nightclub, is blood-deep among the survivors, and the families and friends of the […]

Associated PressJune 11, 2017

Life seems more precious these days to Dr. Chadwick Smith, an Orlando Regional Medical Center trauma surgeon who was on call that night a year ago when a gunman opened fire at the Pulse nightclub. Smith is used to confronting human suffering head-on in the operating room. But the sheer number of victims that night – […]

Scott PowersJune 9, 2017

Gov. Rick Scott has proclaimed next Monday, June 12, to be “Pulse Remembrance Day” in Florida, calling for flags to fly at half staff and for a moment of silence at 9 a.m. In doing so, Scott also acknowledged the blows to the Hispanic and LGBTQ communities, and does not explicitly describe the attack, which […]

Scott PowersJune 8, 2017

The Florida Supreme Court has remanded another murder case death penalty from Orlando, that of Bessman Okafor, and Gov. Rick Scott quickly reassigned it away from Orlando’s State Attorney Aramis Ayala. The move came with swift intervention from state Rep. Bob Cortes of Altamonte Springs, who asked the governor to keep the case from going […]

Scott PowersJune 8, 2017

Winter Park’s U.S. Rep. Stephanie Murphy has won the endorsement of the Congressional Blue Dog Democrats’ Caucus for her bill clamping down on administration officials’ sharing classified information with America’s enemies. Murphy introduced her Prevention and Oversight of Intelligence Sharing with Enemies Act last month after reports that President Donald Trump had shared classified information with Russian […]

Scott PowersJune 8, 2017

Another Central Florida medical marijuana shop is opening, this one operated by the licensed marijuana medicines producer Trulieve in Edgewater in Volusia County. The dispensary, at 103 Boston Rd., will be the first in the Space Coast area, providing both low-THC and high-THC products through capsules, vaporizers and tinctures, for patients who are registered as […]

Scott PowersJune 7, 2017

Republican Bobby Olszewski has become the first qualified candidate for the special elections set for later this year to fill the vacant seat for House District 44 in western Orange County. Olszewski’s campaign said it collected more than 400 petition signatures and on Wednesday the Orange County Supervisor of Elections certified 370, enough to put […]

Orlando

Trulieve opens The Villages dispensary

Teresa Jacobs, Buddy Dyer, Patty Sheehan: Rainbow flag symbolizes Orlando’s values

Darren Soto cautiously eyeing Puerto Rico statehood effort

A year later, Orlando looks at Pulse and people still ask ‘Why?’

Orlando trauma surgeon: the Pulse attack ‘changed me’

Rick Scott proclaims June 12 ‘Pulse Remembrance Day’

Supreme Court sends Bessman Okafor sentence back, Rick Scott reassigns it from Aramis Ayala

Congressional ‘Blue Dog Democrats’ caucus endorses Stephanie Murphy’s secrets bill

Medical marijuana shop opening in Edgewater

Bobby Olszewski qualifies by petition for HD 44 special election