Herald-Tribune
New College to use $2.5M in dorm fund for baseball field
At a time when New College of Florida faces a longstanding housing shortage for students, the school is planning to shift $2.5 million in its housing fund to instead build a baseball field. The move stems from a landmark National Collegiate Athletic...
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U.S. fighter jets crash in Kuwait
The Trump administration’s conflict with Iran will not be “endless,” Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said on March 2, as the United States and Israel’s joint air strikes against Iran expand, MORE INSIDE Some of President Trump’s most loyal followers...
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Clinton grilling shows a change among Dems
WASHINGTON – In late February 2016, Hillary Clinton cruised to an overwhelming victory in the South Carolina Democratic presidential primary – an unambiguous statement of the former first lady and secretary of state’s dominance over her party as she...
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Judge denies legal challenge against Siesta Key land deal
A judge recently rejected a last-ditch effort to unwind a controversial Siesta Key land deal, clearing the way for a home to be built on property the county once bought to preserve. The legal challenge, filed in December by Lourdes Ramirez, of the...
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Sarasota Performing Arts Center plans get an update
It has been just under a year since members of the Sarasota Performing Arts Foundation brought their plan for a new performing arts center within The Bay Park to the Sarasota City Commission, hoping to move the public/private partnership forward toward...
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AI COMPANIES GEAR UP TO SELL ADS
Eighteen months ago, it was plausible that artificial intelligence might take a different path than social media. Back then, AI’s development hadn’t consolidated under a small number of big tech firms. Nor had it capitalized on consumer attention,...
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County to buy property on waterfront for $18M
Sarasota County will buy waterfront property that was home to a once-popular restaurant near Siesta Key for $18.1 million, with plans to turn it into a public park and potentially a new waterfront dining destination. The property in question is called...
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Civil rights icon ‘kept the dream alive’
The Rev. Jesse Jackson, a towering civil rights icon who battled alongside the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., negotiated global hostage releases and shamed corporations for their lack of diversity and failure to support voting rights, died on Feb. 17. He...
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States help, hinder immigration effort
State lawmakers across the country are ramping up efforts to either support or block the Trump administration’s mass-deportation efforts, wading deeper into a policy arena that’s long been the province of the federal government. While immigration...
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Police: Suspect waited in home
Sarasota investigators say new evidence shows 51-year-old Russell Kot killed two people, then stayed inside the home in Sarasota waiting for the homeowners to return before fatally shooting them. Kot killed two people in Fort Lauderdale before driving...
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Legend Forever
To this day, watching the replay, you expect him to get out of the car with mixed emotions. Angry with whomever he felt started the whole crash, but thrilled that two cars he owned had finished 1-2 in the Great American Race. But knowing what we knew...
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Mass shooting rocks a quiet neighborhood
Aside from the Sarasota County Sheriff ’s Office detectives investigating a mass shooting, life was somewhat normal inside the gated community of Amberlea on Wednesday afternoon, Feb. 11. A couple of people walked their dogs. Workers installed rain...
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Slain shooting victims, suspected gunman ID’d
Authorities have released the names of four victims and the suspected gunman in a deadly shooting on Tuesday afternoon at a home in Sarasota’s Amberlea neighborhood. Investigators say the shooting is connected to a separate double homicide in Fort...
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Multiple victims shot, killed in Sarasota home
The Sarasota County Sheriff ’s Office is investigating after multiple people were found shot to death inside a Sarasota home on Tuesday afternoon. Deputies responded to a home at 4822 Fallcrest Circle at 12:29 p.m., where multiple shooting victims...
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Fla. freeze destroyed crops; Will grocery prices spike?
BELLE GLADE — Belle Glade grower Stewart Stein’s sweet corn pushes up from rich black dirt in the lee of the Herbert Hoover Dike, generally sheltered from cold fronts by northwest breezes that spill over the levee warmed by Lake Okeechobee water. The...
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Little consensus seen after ‘Gulf of America’ renaming
From the bridge of their charter boat High Class Hooker, Susanna Pope and her husband can look out at the sparkling 65-degree saltwater off Key West and envision customers fishing for marlin, wahoo and mahi-mahi. Which fish will be biting? Will the...
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Fresh food initiative launches in Newtown
In Newtown, a historic Black neighborhood in Sarasota, residents have long traveled beyond their neighborhood streets to find fresh food. A new community market aims to change that this spring. ● All Faiths Food Bank announced that Margie’s Market will...
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BEAUTY, BOUNTY AND BIRTHDAY
From the start, America has been a journey, not a destination. The journey has been a literal one, from Paul Revere’s ride to the Underground Railroad to the Oregon Trail. A country founded as 13 Colonies clustered along the Atlantic Coast has become...
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Trump actions worry free-speech advocates
The FBI search of a Washington Post reporter’s home on Jan. 14 was a rare and intimidating move by an administration focused on repressing criticism and dissent. In its story about the search at Hannah Natanson’s home, at which FBI agents said they...
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GUILTY
In a span of roughly five minutes, trial evidence showed, Brennan Wakey went from reclining on a bed to exiting the Hyatt Place hotel, leaving Colton Wright lying on the hotel floor with a gunshot wound to his face. ● The central question: Did Wakey...
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Thinning ranks
As Michael Heald was driving toward Pensacola on Interstate 10 in August 2023, the sky began to blacken and cascades of rain and lightning fell around his hybrid sedan. • He and his wife barely could see the road ahead of them when they heard a...
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Manatee coastal area could see snow flurries
People living along the coast near Longboat Key and Anna Maria Island have a 10% chance of seeing snow flurries Saturday night and early Sunday. Gusty winds from the next cold front create the potential for dangerous wind chills for the Sarasota area...
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Using threat of shutdown, Dems demand DHS changes
Less than three months after a record-breaking government shutdown, the country stood on the brink of a partial shutdown as lawmakers wrestled over a massive spending package that must pass by Jan. 30. Just the week before, the six-measure bill...
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Buchanan to retire after 20 years
Congressman Vern Buchanan (RManatee County) has announced his retirement from Congress after 20 years in office. Buchanan, 74, was first elected in 2006 and has represented Florida’s 13th and 16th Congressional Districts, which have weaved through...
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Death toll climbs amid frigid cold, power outages
The death toll from the weekend’s winter storm climbed to at least 43 people as extreme cold temperatures persisted across the central and eastern United States on Jan. 27. Tens of millions of Americans were under alerts for severe cold as a blast of...
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Bitter cold grips nation after winter storm blast
Extremely cold weather isn’t going away for a large swath of the United States as impacts linger from a deadly winter storm that resulted in at least 14 deaths. The monster storm dumped sleet, freezing rain and snow over much of the country,...
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‘They understand what works and what doesn’t’
CAPE MAY, NJ – It was Megan O’Rourke’s dream job. As a top climate scientist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, she oversaw grants for research projects aimed at making food production healthier and more sustainable. But when President Donald...
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A BROKEN SYSTEM
At the Mary Jennings Group Home – where the devil is not welcome, but pedophiles, drug addicts and schizophrenic killers seem to be - there has been an overdose death in the bathroom, a suicide attempt in the laundry room, and mentally ill people have...
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Minnesotans start strike to protest surge by ICE
MINNEAPOLIS – Scores of businesses across Minnesota were closing up for the day on Jan. 23 in what religious leaders and labor unions described as a general strike to protest President Donald Trump’s deployment of thousands of immigration enforcement...
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Trump’s latest health care pitch leaves many questions
President Donald Trump’s plan to put the government’s cold, hard cash in Americans’ hands for health care would appear a boon to hundreds of thousands of Floridians dropping off the government-supported health insurance marketplace as plan premiums...
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Florida AG refuses to back race-based programs
In a 3-2 vote, Sarasota School Board members approved a mostly symbolic resolution on Tuesday proposed by board chair Bridget Ziegler for the school district and its police to pledge their support for officers from U.S. Immigration and Customs...
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Bill pushing UTC special district sparks concerns
A new bill in the Florida House would turn the University Town Center into a special government district and give one of the region’s most influential developers the power to set specific rules and levy new taxes. House Bill 4091, introduced last week...
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Lido Beach set for $12M renourishment project
One of Sarasota’s premier destinations will receive a $12 million facelift as the city and federal authorities begin a renourishment effort at Lido Beach on Tuesday, Jan. 20. The beach will be open throughout the project, but some sections will be...
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King was supporter of universal basic income
Each year on the holiday that bears his name, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. is remembered for his immense contributions to the struggle for racial equality. What is less often remembered but equally important is that King saw the fight for racial...
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Tanenbaum nominated for state Supreme Court spot
Gov. Ron DeSantis now has named six of the state’s current high court justices with his Jan. 14 appointment of appellate judge Adam Tanenbaum – a staunch conservative who the governor said will “bat a thousand” as a jurist. Tanenbaum, a judge on the...
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Convicted tycoon’s property for sale
The half-century-old Fishermen’s Village is for sale after the Punta Gorda waterfront attraction was foreclosed on by a lender following legal difficulties for the property’s convicted tycoon owner. The more than 97,000 square feet of commercial space...
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Furor at ICE shootings spurs demonstrations
Tensions remained high Jan. 9 as shootings involving immigration agents in Minneapolis and in Portland, Oregon, drew protesters to the streets and deepened fractures between federal and state officials. In Portland, a U.S. Border Patrol officer shot...
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Maduro opponent vows to return
WASHINGTON – Venezuela’s main opposition leader Maria Corina Machado has vowed to return home quickly, praising President Donald Trump for toppling President Nicolás Maduro and declaring her movement ready to win a free election. Trump appears,...
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Sarasota, Manatee housing sales mixed
Sarasota and Manatee counties’ November real estate market lacked consistency across housing segments year over year, with some areas showing notable growth while others declined, according to the most recent industry report. The Realtor Association...
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Regenerative farming making a comeback
At Troon Vineyard, in southern Oregon’s Applegate Valley, Garett Long has turned composting into an art form, using it to support soil microbes and eliminate the need for petroleum-based fertilizers. • When Andrea Malmberg and her husband, Tony, bought...
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EVE SAMPLES,
“Once you immerse yourself in Big Cypress or other parts of the Everglades, it’s really a serene place. You feel protected under the cypress dome.”
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Challengers to Florida law defend drag as protected art
A federal appeals court has revived the debate over drag performances. That’s prompting First Amendment experts to warn that a renewed review of a controversial Florida law could have broad implications for free expression both within the state and...
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‘The freedom to be unkind’
Alley Mills Bean approached the podium at a Los Angeles City Council meeting alongside council member Traci Park on a June day in 2024, Emmy in hand. She’d won it the previous year for her role as the hook-wielding serial killer Heather Webber on...
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AI to review Medicare claims in pilot program
A new Medicare program that uses artificial intelligence to review medical claims is set to launch in six states. Critics worry it will lead to patients being denied necessary care and more red tape for providers. The controversial new six-year pilot...
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Luxury condos rise on Sarasota Bay
Barbecue, raffle prizes, custom shirts and a DJ were all part of an effort to thank hundreds of construction workers for their work on the Ritz-Carlton Residences, Sarasota Bay in downtown Sarasota. Those working on the building recently celebrated its...
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Sarasota County gets start on flood prevention project
Sarasota County has begun a major flood prevention project at Phillippi Creek, after months of advocacy by local residents. The operation comes months after flood victims of Hurricane Debby told the Herald-Tribune they were anxious for a major project...
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Workshop lays out plans for ‘ugly’ admin building
The locally based Benderson Development Company and engineering consulting firm Kimley-Horn held a community workshop recently to discuss the future of the Sarasota County administration building, located at 1660 Ringling Blvd. in downtown, adjacent to...
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Nick Fuentes hot topic at AmericaFest
On the first night of Turning Point’s sold-out AmericaFest conference in Phoenix, Nicky Rudd stood in a packed ballroom and asked Ben Shapiro about something that happened 58 years ago. The 23-year-old Baylor University student was talking about the...
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Federal agents pull back in San Francisco
SAN FRANCISCO – President Donald Trump vowed this year to flood San Francisco with federal agents – and even soldiers – to crack down on crime. Instead, his administration has quietly taken law enforcement away, leaving the city with less help to fight...
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‘FORMIDABLE CHALLENGE’
LONDON – The West’s push to build a homegrown magnets supply chain to reduce its reliance on China – led by massive U.S. backing for Nevada-based MP Materials – is running into a critical problem: the scarcity of so-called heavy rare earth...
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PROTECTING SARASOTA'S PRIDE
Acentury-old swing bridge, a home of one of Sarasota’s first aldermen and a fountain dating back to Mable Ringling highlight the Six to Save list from the Sarasota Alliance for Historic Preservation (SAHP). • “The list this year includes a...
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States take up conservation goals terminated by Trump
WASHINGTON – With a snappy title and a laudable goal, “30 by 30” was a landmark plan hatched to help save at least 30% of the planet’s land and oceans by 2030. Alongside this multinational push, the United States had its own trailblazing version of...
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Restaurant targets return to Circle
Shore, a popular St. Armands restaurant and retail spot, is trying to come back to the Circle after closing its doors in December 2024 following extensive flood damage from hurricanes Helene and Milton. The redevelopment team submitted preapplication...
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‘SEEING PEOPLE AS PEOPLE’
When Elizabeth Dalzell’s daughter Liesl complained of severe pain in her left shoulder in June by using sign language, it began a nearly monthlong odyssey through New Jersey’s health care system before the young woman with multiple disabilities...
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Is Sarasota tourism rebounding?
Despite a rebound in tourism in October 2025, Sarasota County tourism was down for fiscal year 2025, which included the aftermath of Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton’s landfall, compared to tourism data from fiscal year 2024. Downs & St. Germain...
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Five years later, vaccine skepticism a lasting COVID-19 legacy.
It was touted as a watershed, a game-changer, a model and a transformational moment for the development of diseasefighting, health-improving vaccines. Five years later, however, the legacy of the coronavirus vaccine is way more complicated. To be...
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UNCERTAIN FUTURE
Cathleen Nardi is part of a group of people who walk Blackburn Point Road and Casey Key Road daily, enjoying the scenery, as well as the historic Blackburn Point Road Swing Bridge. Cell phone in hand, Nardi frequently takes pictures of scenes that...
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Beloved local business celebrates 50 years
Over the past 50 years, millions of sea creatures have passed through Seascape Aquarium & Pet Center, the beloved Gulf Gate shop that has become one of Sarasota’s most enduring family-run businesses. The once-small fish and marine supply store will...
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Delivery drivers face different conditions
American households have become dependent on Amazon. The numbers say it all: In 2024, 83% of U.S. households received deliveries from Amazon, representing over 1 million packages delivered each day and 9 billion individual items delivered same-day or...
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AI could worsen school inequalities
Today’s teachers find themselves thrust into a difficult position with generative AI. New tools are coming online at a blistering pace and being adopted just as quickly, whether they’re personalized tutors and study buddies for students or lesson plan...
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Inhumane treatment of detainees alleged
A global human rights organization is alleging inhumane treatment of detainees at Alligator Alcatraz, claiming some are subject to what they say is “torture.” A report by Amnesty International claims detainees are being mistreated at the a state-run...
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DREAM DENIED
BOCA RATON – Fatima and Fatheha were going to cross the graduation stage at Florida Atlantic University in December, set to be the first persons in their families to earn college diplomas. Instead, Fatheha just transferred to a private university and...
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Protests, no testimony for redistricting panel
More than 150 people traveled across Florida to voice their opposition to the state House’s initial hearing on congressional redistricting – a rare, off-cycle redraw sought by President Trump to increase Republican chances of retaining control of...
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Centuries-old seashells tell history of habitats
During a day at the beach, it’s common to see people walking up and down the shore collecting seashells. As a paleontologist and marine ecologist, we look at shells a bit differently than the average beachcomber. Most people dig up shells in the sand...
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Kirk death fuels ‘revival’ in some U.S. churches
The assassination of Charlie Kirk changed Danika Meyerson in a way that, at first, made her deeply uncomfortable. She wanted to develop a relationship with God. She couldn’t stop thinking about it. But Meyerson, a 45-year-old mom of two boys, wasn’t a...
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Winter storm to bring snow to East Coast
The first winter storm of the season hit New England and the Mid-Atlantic regions on Dec. 2, with “heavy snow and impactful icing” threatening road conditions, forecasters said. A total of more than 45 million Americans were under winter weather...
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‘I wish this country supported artists’
Being an artist is not viewed as a real job. It’s a sentiment I’ve heard time and again, one that echoes across studios, rehearsal halls and kitchen tables – a quiet frustration that the labor of making art rarely earns the legitimacy or security...
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A HURRICANE SEASON THAT BROKE REALITY
Reality: In 2025, it was not very realistic. In a year when AI images of ALF dunking a basketball through Saturn’s rings overtook podcasts rating hot sauce as the most valuable economic sector, perhaps it was inevitable that the weather would follow...
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OLD FLORIDA. NO ROADS. DADE COUNTY PINE. NO CARS. RICH VEGETATION.
OLD FLORIDA. NO ROADS. DADE COUNTY PINE. NO CARS. RICH VEGETATION.
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