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The first commercial passenger flight from Key West to Cuba in more than 50 years has landed in Havana. The nine-passenger flight departed Monday morning, more than two years after U.S. Customs and Border Protection gave Key West the green light to resume flights to and from the island country. …

Festival porn star kicked off plane But she gets to club in time for the show BY ADAM LINHARDT Citizen Staffalinhardt@keysnews.com Adult film star Mary Carey's antics at the Miami airport Wednesday may be the climax of this year's Fantasy Fest, so to speak. Miami-Dade Police refused to allow the porn star to board a connecting flight from Miami International Airport to Key West Wednesday morning after she got drunk and had sex with another man on her flight from Los Angeles, said Key West promoter Jose Collazo, also known as Louie C. Rock. Carey only made it to Key...

Key West Florida rings in the New Year by dropping a drag queen, who rides down in a high heeled shoe. "Sushi," as she calls herself, has been doing this for 16 years.

A Monroe County deputy who is the subject of an Internal Affairs investigation following the theft of weapons and other law enforcement equipment from his vehicle -- for the second time in three years -- was fired from the Key West Police Department 14 years ago after accumulating a personnel file full of complaints, according to city and county officials. City of Key West records indicate Monroe County sheriff's Deputy Sgt. Ken Fricke was fired from the Key West Police Department 14 years ago for a litany of complaints that included sleeping on duty, misusing city equipment and falsifying information...

CHIEF LEE ESCORTS AN INTOXICATED GUEST TO HIS CAR AND TELLS HIM TO DRIVE HOME. SO THE YOUNG MAN CLIMBS INTO HIS MUSTANG, STARTS THE CAR, SLAMS IT INTO REVERSE AND ACCELERATES— SMASHING INTO A NEIGHBOR’S FENCETHEN THE KID AND THE CHIEF HAVE A FIGHT IN THE FRONT YARD. WITNESS: THEY WERE TUMBLING ON THE GROUND. WHEN THE COPS SHOW UP, THEY ARREST THE YOUNG MAN It was almost 3am on Monday morning, last May 28. Police Chief Donie Lee had an overnight house guest— 22- year-old Omar Antonio Garcia Barrera. But things were not working out as they might...

KEY WEST, Fla.-- Residents of Key West, Fla., who live in their vehicles are objecting to officials seeking to ban "lodging" in vehicles. The Key West City Commission approved the new rules June 5, but the law must still pass a second public hearing and approval before it takes effect, KeysNet.com reported Thursday. The ordinance, which was proposed by Mayor Craig Cates, states "lodging" in vehicles "constitutes a hazard to the health and safety of the residents (and) visitors to the city" and has "a significant negative impact that creates an adverse effect on tourism and the environment." Kurt Wagner,...

To Key West Housing Authority officials it was seen as a necessary task, the chopping down of banana trees Richard "Diver" Overman nurtured daily with his fingerless hands, outside the windows of his public housing apartment on Amelia Street. To Overman it was a massacre. "They were just nubs when I planted them," the 67-year-old retired lobster diver said. "Now I am so disappointed. That was my pastime -- the only pastime I've got. Now they took them away and I feel like nothin'." Housing Authority Director Manuel Castillo said he and his staff tried to work with Overman, but...

BP lawsuit will be heard in Key West CITIZEN STAFF A class-action lawsuit filed in federal court in the wake of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico will be heard in Key West. More than 300 people and businesses are named as plaintiffs in the lawsuit against British Petroleum. The plaintiffs are seeking a cut of the $20 billion the oil company set aside to cover damage claims related to the spill. The 328 plaintiffs in the 69-page complaint filed on Feb. 25 include many Monroe County companies, including, but not limited to: Banner Tire...

They called it "Flagler's Folly," the wondrous work of concrete, steel and wood stretching 128 miles from the Florida mainland to Key West, in a place where nature never intended for a railroad to run. But exactly 100 years ago Sunday at 10:43 a.m., a 110-ton Schenectady-built locomotive, powered by steam heated by oil, rolled over the last length of track on a dusty and stark Key West, bearing the ailing man dubbed the island's savior, oil baron Henry Flagler. He was greeted by applause, cheers, band music and choirs of schoolchildren, this man whose final dream was realized by...

A dog that reportedly bit a policeman during a domestic battery investigation last year was shot dead Wednesday night by a detective during a drug raid at the same house, according to Key West police reports. Buddie, a 5-year-old pit bull terrier mix, was shot in the head by Detective Michael Chaustit, who reportedly fired one bullet from his .45-caliber service handgun while the dog's mouth was clamped down on his left hand -- requiring three stitches at Lower Keys Medical Center. A veterinarian euthanized the dog at the scene about an hour laterreports say. During a 9 p.m. raid...

There are many who argue that President Obama has (repeatedly) broken his promise to bring transparency and openness to the White House. In literal terms, however, Obama may not have actually broken that specific promise ,.. it’s just that people may not have understood what Obama meant by transparency and openness. ..Here’s a case in point: First Dot: Several months ago, the union world was shocked when Andy Stern, the ignominious president of the Service Employees International Union abruptly “quit” as leader of the Purple Hand. Surprise and speculation swelled. Was it the Blago Trial? Is he sick?Second Dot: Then,...

Energy Policy: Deep-water drilling will resume in the Florida Strait when a giant, semi-submersible oil rig en route from Singapore arrives later this fall. The bad news is it will not be American. While U.S. oil and energy prices "necessarily skyrocket," as President Obama once said they would under energy policies that have imposed a de facto ban on offshore drilling, a massive Chinese-built semi-submersible oil rig is on its way from Singapore to a drilling position off northwest Cuba perhaps as little as 50 miles from Key West, Fla. The long-predicted move could come as early as November, as...

I mentioned on Twitter yesterday that I was astonished with the speed and completeness of response to a pair of requests I filed recently under the Texas Public Information Act, which has been a pleasant surprise in covering Texas Gov. Rick Perry. The tweet drew a quick response from several reporters and activists in Texas, who noted that the speed may have something to do with what Perry's government destroys: every email more than a week old. The office says they print out and save emails that they're required to preserve, but there's no way to check.

The remains of a sunken warship recently found in the Mediterranean Sea may confirm the site of a major ancient battle in which Rome trounced Carthage. The year was 241 B.C. and the players were the ascending Roman republic and the declining Carthaginian Empire, which was centered on the northernmost tip of Africa. The two powers were fighting for dominance in the Mediterranean in a series of conflicts called the Punic Wars. Archaeologists think the newly discovered remnants of the warship date from the final battle of the first Punic War, which allowed Rome to expand farther into the Western...

<p>"I've had kidney stones. This was worse. I never want to have it again," says Richard Branch, a Navy Lieutenant stationed in Key West. He ended up having to be hospitalized in Miami after a mosquito carrying the Dengue virus got him.</p>

Interview unravels Key West lore New documentary corrects some Bettie Page myths Bettie Page, the iconic 1950s pinup girl known around the world for her bondage photos and fetish films, moved to Key West in 1957 and married a Conch named Armon Walterson. On a dark New Year's Eve night a few months later, the world-famous vixen found God when she stopped to listen to a preacher in a White Street church that has long disappeared. Cited as a pivotal moment in the life of a woman who had a big heart but a less-than-savory past, the events of her...

More than two dozen cases of locally-acquired dengue fever have hit the resort town of Key West , Fla., in the past nine months, officials from the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

KEY WEST, Fla. (AP) -- A sixth-generation Key West resident, who first blew a conch shell as a child, has won the island's 48th annual Conch Shell Blowing Contest in Florida. Thirty-six-year-old Clinton Curry followed his two-toned toot Saturday with a portion of composer Aram Khachaturian's "Sabre Dance" on a single shell, earning applause from several hundred spectators. Blowing the fluted, pink-lined conch shell has been a Key West tradition since the early 1800s, when seafaring settlers used it as a signaling device.

Inmates at a South Florida jail were masters at picking Uncle Sam's pocket, filing for more than $1 million in bogus tax refunds. Now the feds are fighting back.(snip)Detainees turned the IRS into their own private ATM, filing for about $1 million in fraudulent refunds. Before the scam was uncovered, they hauled in as much as $100,000 for themselves, their friends and relatives, say past and present law-enforcement officials. It was easy money. ``I was shocked that inmates could steal from the IRS that easily and that blatantly and not be prosecuted. Even when the case was handed to them...

.CLIMATE... THE LOW TEMPERATURE AT KEY WEST AIRPORT HAS ALREADY DROPPED TO 42 DEGREES AS OF 5 AM. THIS SMASHES THE PREVIOUS DAILY RECORD LOW OF 48 DEGREES WHICH WAS SET IN 1970. ONLY TWO LOWER TEMPERATURES HAVE EVER BEEN RECORDED IN KEY WEST...WHICH ARE THE ALL-TIME RECORD LOWS OF 41 DEGREES ON JANUARY 13 1981 AND JANUARY 12 1886. TEMPERATURE RECORDS IN KEY WEST DATE BACK TO 1873. WITH A COUPLE OF HOURS YET TO GO BEFORE SUNRISE...THERE IS STILL A WINDOW FOR FURTHER COOLING TO OCCUR...AND WILL CONTINUE TO MONITOR TEMPS VERY CLOSELY. ALSO OF NOTE IS THAT...