FLORIDA KEYS

New York had its hot dog eating contest to celebrate Independence Day.

The NAACP over the weekend issued a travel advisory for Florida, joining two other civil rights groups in warning potential tourists that recent laws championed by Gov_ Ron DeSantis and Florida lawmakers are “openly hostile toward African Americans, people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals.”.

It took seven people to help get the fish off of the boat.

A Canadian woman and a pediatric cardiologist from Georgia are winners in Key West’s annual Conch Shell Blowing Contest.

The Southernmost Point marker in Key West, Florida, a landmark delineating the continental United States’ southernmost spot of land, became a memorial to Queen Elizabeth II when city workers installed a British flag and royal purple banner at the much-photographed site beside the Atlantic Ocean.

Haitian migrants are reaching Florida’s shores in repeated suspected human smuggling operations, outpacing last year’s migration waves.

Federal officials say a wooden boat carrying hundreds of Haitian migrants in a suspected human smuggling operation ran aground just off Key Largo, Florida.

Forecasters say tropical depression Fred is slowly strengthening and could regain tropical storm status on Saturday.

Tropical depression Fred is heading for a drenching of Cuba and the Bahamas on a forecast track that would carry it toward South Florida as a tropical storm by Saturday.

Tropical Storm Elsa has since carved a destructive path up the East Coast after killing one person in Florida and injuring several others in Georgia.

Tropical Storm Elsa has swept across a mostly rural section of western Cuba with strong rain and winds, and it is now over the Florida Straits for a possible close brush with the lower Florida Keys and the Dry Tortugas on Tuesday.

The Governor’s Office said Foster is fully vaccinated and was safe to travel under both CDC and MDHHS guidelines, but the photos do come just days after Whitmer cautioned about traveling to Florida over spring break.

A couple walks along the beach during a downpour, Sunday, Nov. 8, 2020, on Miami Beach, Florida's famed South Beach. A strengthening Tropical Storm Eta cut across Cuba on Sunday, and forecasters say it's likely to be a hurricane before hitting the Florida Keys Sunday night or Monday. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)

A strengthening Tropical Storm Eta cut across Cuba on Sunday, and forecasters say it's likely to be a hurricane before hitting the Florida Keys Sunday night or Monday. Eta made landfall in the Florida Keys and posed a serious threat across South Florida, which was already drenched from more than 14 inches (35 centimeters) of rain last month. “Never seen this, never, not this deep,” said Anthony Lyas, who has lived in his now-waterlogged Fort Lauderdale neighborhood since 1996. Eta was not done yet with Cuba, just 90 miles (140 kilometers) south of Florida, where the storm continued to swell rivers and flood coastal zones. ___Associated Press writers Cody Jackson in Fort Lauderdale, Tamara Lush in St. Petersburg, and Haleluya Hadero in Atlanta contributed to this report.

A strengthening Tropical Storm Eta cut across Cuba on Sunday, and forecasters say it's likely to be a hurricane before hitting the Florida Keys Sunday night or Monday. The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami declared hurricane and storm surge warnings for the Keys from Ocean Reef to the Dry Tortugas, including Florida Bay. Several shelters also opened in Miami and the Florida Keys for residents in mobile homes and low lying areas. On Sunday night, authorities in Lauderhill, Florida, responded to a report of a car that had driven into a canal. South Florida started emptying ports and a small number of shelters opened in Miami and the Florida Keys for residents in mobile homes and low-lying areas.

Members of search and recovery teams search for survivors in the debris of a massive, rain-fueled landslide in the village of Queja, in Guatemala, Saturday, Nov. 7, 2020, in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Eta. The storm was expected to hit Cuba by early Sunday, and approach the Florida Keys and south Florida late Sunday or Monday. Tropical storm warnings were issued for central Cuba, southern Florida and the Florida Keys. South Florida started emptying ports and a small number of shelters opened in Miami and the Florida Keys for residents in mobile homes and low lying areas. The storms’ threat comes as many streets across South Florida have been inundated by heavy rains and unusual King Tides.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. Sometime next year, genetically modified mosquitoes will be released in the Florida Keys in an effort to combat persistent insect-borne diseases such as Dengue fever and the Zika virus. The plan approved this week by the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District calls for a pilot project in 2021 involving the striped-legged Aedes aegypti mosquito, which is not native to Florida. At a meeting Tuesday of the Florida Keys mosquito control board, several people questioned the wisdom of the project. You have no idea what that will do, Barry Wray, director of the Florida Keys Environmental Coalition, told the board. Whether or not the modified mosquitoes can efficiently crash the population of these mosquitoes in Florida remains an open question, some experts say.

Simply known as the Labor Day Storm, the 1935 hurricane was the strongest Atlantic hurricane to ever make landfall and the first designated Category 5 hurricane to ever touch the United States. The storm hit the Florida Keys on September 2KEY WEST, Fla. - We don't know yet what will happen as Hurricane Dorian approaches Florida's east coast this weekend, but its timing coincides with another Labor Day hurricane that rocked south Florida in 1935. Simply known as the Labor Day Storm, the 1935 hurricane was the strongest Atlantic hurricane to ever make landfall and the first designated Category 5 hurricane to ever touch the United States. The storm hit the Florida Keys on September 2 with peak winds of 200 mph. Dorian is expected to strengthen to at least a Category 1 storm over Labor Day weekend and could possibly reach Category 3 strength before all is said and done.