Florida Politics - Campaigns & Elections. Lobbying & Government.

Scott PowersJune 12, 2017

With tens of thousands of people packing Lake Eola Park and countless more watching remotely, Orlando gathered Monday night for a somber remembrance the 49 people murdered at Pulse one year ago, and a celebration of love and unity emerged. This was largely Orlando’s LGBTQ community’s opportunity to come together in a mass remembrance and […]

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 […]

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 […]

Scott PowersJune 6, 2017

Attorneys for Orlando’s State Attorney Aramis Ayala and Gov. Rick Scott will give their oral arguments on June 28 in the legal battle over the death penalty in Florida’s 9th Congressional District. Each side is being given 20 minutes that day in oral arguments in the case that both sides and multiple friends of the […]

Staff ReportsJune 5, 2017

A disgruntled former employee opened fire inside a Florida awning manufacturer on Monday, killing five workers there and then killing himself, officials said. The gunman was armed with a knife and a gun but did not stab anyone, Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings said during a news conference. Demings said the shooter — who had […]

Scott PowersJune 5, 2017

Five people plus the apparent shooter are dead in an early morning mass killing at the Fiamma company in east Orange County Monday morning. Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings said a man he described as an apparent disgruntled former employee killed four men and a woman Monday morning and then killed himself, in a camper […]

Scott PowersJune 5, 2017

Accused cop-killer Markeith Loyd has been cited for two more offenses; but unlike the murder charges he faces, if he challenges the new charges he likely would beat them: red light running tickets. The tickets, issued because of evidence gathered by red-light cameras in Orlando, were both for dates when Loyd already was in jail, […]

Scott PowersJune 2, 2017

For the third-straight year, Orlando has been denied local anti-terrorism money for not being a significant enough target under federal guidelines, exasperating Democratic U.S. Rep. Val Demings who has pushed federal officials to reconsider their decision-making process. Demings, as have other current and former members of Congress from Orlando, has been pushing U.S. Homeland Security […]

Scott PowersMay 30, 2017

Winter Garden-based Knox Medical is set to open Orlando’s first medical marijuana dispensary Friday in a location near Florida Hospital’s downtown campus. Knox is one of nine companies statewide licensed to produce and sell medicines derived from cannabis. Knox has been in operation for several months, relying primarily on delivery service, and earlier this month […]

Jenna Buzzacco-FoersterMay 19, 2017

Florida’s unemployment rate dipped to its lowest rate in nearly a decade in April, state officials announced Friday. The state Department of Economic Opportunity announced the unemployment rate dipped to 4.5 percent in April, down from 4.8 percent one month earlier. The drop marks one of the lowest rates since September 2007, and is only […]

Tag: Orlando

Orlando Love: In a community-wide painful remembrance, celebration breaks out

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

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

Supreme Court sets oral arguments in Aramis Ayala-Rick Scott case

Florida leaders react to the shooting in Orlando

Five dead plus shooter at Orange County shooting scene

Markeith Loyd hit with two red-light running tickets while he was in jail

Orlando denied federal anti-terrorism money again; Val Demings says ‘we are baffled’

Knox to open Orlando’s first medical marijuana dispensary Friday

State’s unemployment rate drops to 4.5%