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A man who vandalized a Central Florida mosque by smashing windows and lights with a machete and leaving bacon at the scene pleaded guilty to criminal mischief to a place of worship. The state attorney's office serving Brevard and Seminole counties said Michael Wolfe was sentenced to 15 years in prison followed by 15 years of probation after he pleaded guilty Tuesday. The sentence had a hate crime enhancement.

BARTOW — Davenport Mayor Darlene Bradley was arrested Tuesday on allegations she used dead people’s handicapped placards to park in designated spaces at City Hall. Bradley, 60, faces felony charges of using a deceased person’s identification and possessing an altered or counterfeit decal on a handicapped placard, both of which carry a prison term up to five years if she’s convicted. She also was arrested for unlawful use of a handicapped placard, which is a misdemeanor. “The governor has the right to suspend her until she is acquitted,” he said, “but that request will have to come from the commission....

Three hunters caught a 17-foot, 132-pound Burmese python in the Florida Everglades in southern Miami-Dade, a record for the program aimed at curbing the proliferation of the non-native species, according to media reports. The giant snake was caught Friday at Big Cypress National Preserve, according to NBC 6 Miami. “That snake could pretty much kill any full-grown man,” said one of the hunters who caught the python, Jason Leon, to NBC 6. “If that snake was alive right now, it would probably take like three of us to be able to control that snake.” It’s so far the largest snake...

One of the first police officers to respond to the Pulse nightclub massacre is losing his job with only months to go before he’s entitled to full pension benefits. He called on Florida lawmakers to do more to support first responders who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. The Eatonville Town Council agreed unanimously Tuesday night to pay Cpl. Omar Delgado some $1,200 in accrued sick time when his job ends at year’s end, the Orlando Sentinel reported. Delgado was lauded as a hero for saving nightclub shooting victim Angel Colon during the June 2016 shooting, which killed 49 people. He...

Attorneys for a prominent Florida eye doctor used a statistician to challenge the government's assertion that he stole $100 million from the federal Medicaid program. The amount Dr. Salomon Melgen stole will help determine the length of his sentence. The government said its estimate is based on a random sample of 310 patients. But University of North Florida math professor Donna Mohr testified Wednesday the sample wasn't random, making the extrapolation faulty. U.S. District Judge Kenneth Marra didn't say whether he will accept Mohr's testimony. Marra had been expected to sentence Melgen on Thursday after both sides make arguments, but...

NASA has confirmed dozens of eyewitness accounts in the Tampa Bay area of a fireball streaking across the sky on Tuesday evening. Amateur video filmed by local residents shows the fireball dramatically appearing to drop out of the sky and then exploding behind cloud cover. The national space agency said that it had received over 60 reports of the fireball from bay area residents, according to WFTS-TV.

As immigrant advocacy groups rallied outside Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s and Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart’s offices in Doral Monday, protesters say a U.S. Customs and Border Protection truck circled around the group. “@ICEgov just sent a truck to intimidate the dreamers fasting outside of the offices of Senator @marcorubio and Congressman @MarioDB. #CleanDreamAct #DreamActNow,” posted Florida Immigrant Coalition’s Tomas Kennedy. The protest was organized to demand the protection for Dreamers, those who were brought by their families to the United States as children even though they were undocumented immigrants. Many of those participating— some elderly — launched a week-long hunger strike...

A skydiving Santa looking to make a grand entrance while taking an Elf on the Shelf to a 9-year-old girl crashed into a tree and light pole before hitting a Florida beach and breaking his leg. News outlets say George Krokus was dressed as Santa Claus during a Saturday skydive to deliver toys to the Tampa Bay Beach Bums Operation Santa Charity Volleyball Tournament. Madison Spiers saw the crash and later found a note from the "elf" named Kristoff who visits her house during the holidays. It said, "As we were about to land this big tree jumped right out...

The Pembroke Pines Police Department is searching for a burglar who stole an assault rifle, a Taser and a vest from a police cruiser. The suspect – described by the PPPD as a "black or Hispanic light-skinned male with a distinctive tattoo on his right arm" – also took ammunition in the theft. "We believe this suspect was involved in numerous burglaries – in the same time frame where at least another weapon was taken," PPPD Capt. Al Xiques said. Anyone with information on these crimes is urged to call Broward Crime Stoppers at 954-493-TIPS.

Florida lawmakers demonstrated wisdom, foresight and fiscal responsibility in 2014 when they combined county expressway authorities in Central Florida into a single, regional agency. Roads don’t stop at county lines, and it’s inefficient and expensive to maintain multiple bureaucracies to control separate stretches of pavement. It’s also a problem when neighboring toll-road agencies have conflicting policies and plans for the future. Yet the rationale behind that 2014 law hasn’t been completely realized yet. It’s time for lawmakers to step in again. Dueling road agencies The Central Florida Expressway Authority now owns and operates 118 miles of toll roads in Metro...

TALLAHASSEE Support is building across Florida for a stronger law banning texting while driving, but some black legislators say they’ll fight the idea, claiming that it could invite more abuses by police. A broad coalition of groups representing police, sheriffs, parents, retirees, doctors, businesses and others is mobilizing to pass a bill to elevate texting from a secondary to a primary offense, meaning police could ticket drivers who text, without needing another reason to stop them. “It’s time to strengthen the law,” argues the FL DNT TXT N DRV Coalition. “Drivers who choose to text and drive are a danger...

I didn't realize that hurricane refugee Puerto Ricans could vote in Florida? Is this something to be concerned about?

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - Former U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown will spend five years in federal prison for her role in a federal corruption conspiracy that involved stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from a fake education charity for needy children.

Being a human in 2017 means that every single fact about you likely exists somewhere on the internet, and if you’ve ever done something tasteless or reprehensible that you’ve tried to hide, evidence of that offense could surface at any time. Joy Reid is currently reckoning with this truth, as a Twitter user dug up internet archives of the MSNBC host’s blog, unearthing crass homophobic jokes. Mediaite reports that the posts come from her now-defunct blog, the Reid Report, which she ran while simultaneously writing for the Miami Herald. According to Twitter user @Jamie_Maz, who accessed the blog using internet...

GOP strategist Mike Murphy appeared on Meet The Press today to discuss the current state of Donald Trump's presidency and the issue of trust. The self-described "infuriated," "TV blabbermouth" slammed President Trump for fomenting "chaos." The panel breaks down whether distrust is becoming the norm in the Trump era - "We are living through the first screwball presidency in American history," @murphymike says on #MTP“We’re living through the first screwball presidency in American history, where there’s careening from one side to another, you don’t really know who is in charge, the internal politics are crazy," said Murphy. "The Republicans I’ve...

Florida Senator Marco Rubio admits that the Republican tax cut plan to aid corporations and the wealthy will require cuts to Social Security and Medicare to pay for it. Rubio told reporters this week that in order to address the federal deficit, which will grow by at least $1 trillion if the tax plan passes, Congress will need to cut entitlement programs such as Social Security. Advocates for the elderly and the poor have warned that entitlement programs would be on the chopping block, but this is the first time a prominent Republican has backed their claims. “We have to...

Sub-headline: Florida’s Republican tries to blow up the Senate tax reform. The GOP is pushing forward on tax reform, though a receiving line of Republican holdouts are slow-rolling progress. One who deserves special mention is Marco Rubio, who contributed nothing to ObamaCare repeal and now aspires to dilute the tax bill.On Wednesday Mr. Rubio and his political sidecar, Mike Lee of Utah, announced that they’ll file an amendment to the tax bill to change the $2,000 child tax credit. They want to make the credit refundable up to a person’s payroll tax liability, among other expensive tweaks. To pay for...

The White House said last week that President Donald Trump had no plans to visit Alabama ahead of the state's Dec. 12 election for a U.S. Senate seat. But it didn't say Trump wouldn't visit Pensacola, Fla., about an hour's drive from Mobile -- Alabama's fourth-largest city. The president plans to be in Pensacola on Friday, just four days before Alabama voters decide between Republican Roy Moore and Democrat Doug Jones for the seat once occupied by U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions. And it appears the president has enlisted his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump -- wife of Eric Trump -- to...

President Trump’s re-election campaign announced Friday that he will host a rally in Pensacola, Florida, at the end of next week. Michael Glassner, executive director of Trump's re-election campaign, announced the event hours after former national security adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about Trump transition team contacts with Russia. Glasser said, however, that the timing “could not be better,” as Congress nears passage of tax cut legislation. “As the President’s historic tax reform plan, which he has said will be like rocket fuel in our economy, gets closer to passage, the timing for our campaign...

Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-FL) was denied membership into the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Is it a shocker? No. It has all-Democratic members, but former Rep. Allen West (R-FL) was able to become a member of the Congressional Black Caucus. Also, Curbelo could have joined the Republican alternative, the Congressional Hispanic Conference. Whatever the reasons, there’s another that we also probably should have known as to why he was rejected: The all-Democratic Congressional Hispanic Caucus says they use their meetings to strategize against Trump (via Business Insider): . . .