News

In a wide-ranging interview back in February, Florida Power & Light President Eric Silagy addressed a number of issues facing the state's largest utility.

The responses prompted a slew of feedback on topics ranging from storm preparedness and climate change to renewable energy sources.

Nuclear Power

Mary Jane Saunders has quit.

The president of Florida Atlantic University says bad publicity splashed across national headlines was too much.

Next month would have been Saunders’ three-year anniversary as president.

While the university is showcasing her string of accomplishments, there was no way to get around a spate of missteps in recent months.

If the city of Santa Clara has its way, the International Swimming Hall of Fame in Fort Lauderdale may move to California.

That's right, Santa Clara, the city that just built a new stadium for the San Francisco 49ers and is neck-n-neck with South Florida in a bid for Super Bowl L.

Santa Clara says it plans to raise $2 million for an endowment to support the swimming hall as well as $10 million to move it to the West Coast.

The hall has also received inquiries from England and China.

The roseate spoonbill -- often mistaken by confused tourists for the non-native flamingo -- is one of Florida's great iconic species. Dubbed "one of the most breathtaking of the world's weirdest birds" by naturalist Roger Tory Peterson, the gangly creatures are an increasingly rare sight in South Florida. 

According to a feature in the May-June issue of Audubon Magazine, spoonbills have been vacating South Florida in droves, heading north to more hospitable (read: often less developed) lands.

Journalist Tim Padgett spent nearly a quarter of a century covering Latin America and the Caribbean for TIME and Newsweek magazines.

But he's always been envious of the way foreign correspondents deliver the news for NPR.

"They're giving listeners a richer sense of the sounds and the colors than perhaps I'm able to do as a print reporter," he says.

The late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez had an impact on more than his own country. Now it remains to be some what his successor, Nicolas Maduro, will do or not to maintain those ties. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos patched up fractured relations with Venezuela before Chavez died.

The history between Haiti and Venezuela dates all the way back to liberator Simon Bolivar and is a big reason why Haiti's second-largest airport was just named for the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Florida has a big problem with invasive species, and the idea of chowing down on the pests has been gaining in popularity. So far, there’s a cookbook dedicated to lionfish, an invasive species cooking contest and even an invasive species sampler tent at The Grassroots Festival on Virginia Key this past February. 

As Lanette Sobel with the Fertile Earth Foundation said, “If you can’t beat ‘em, eat ‘em.”

Unfortunately, that tactic, however appetizing, is probably not enough to outpace the invaders wreaking havoc on Florida’s ecosystem.

Chances are you have a friend who forces you to make excuses for him. He’s just not good in big crowds. Or he’s like that because of the tough boss he has at work. He’s late all the time, but then, he’s just from Miami.

Living in Fort Lauderdale is like having one of those friends. It’s a city that’s often the punch line of a joke in a state that just can’t seem to stay out of late-night monologues.

Miami is notorious for its bad drivers.

We know that it would be futile to try and teach you (yes, you) about things like the "speed limit" and that there is a difference between a yellow light and a freshly turned green light, but we figured someone should at least give you a--holes a bit of a refresher course.

Perhaps you've merely forgotten some things since you took your driver's license test (assuming you ever did take one), so here, have a quick refresher course.

The recently-wrapped 2013 Florida Legislative session was an active one for those who track environmental issues in the Sunshine State.

Sixteen-year-old Webster Jean is driving around on city streets, left hand on the wheel, right hand holding a smartphone.  As he reads and responds to his text messages, he repeatedly veers across the double-yellow lines.

And then --  wham.

"I crashed,"  says Jean with a chuckle.

Jean tee-bones another car – but he’s fine.  The teenager is just taking a spin in a texting-while-driving simulator brought to Park Vista High School by wireless carrier AT&T.