Monroe County

Key West is this week celebrating the LGBTQ+ community “with a little bit more passion” — as it hosts its last Pride festival to be aided by public funding before a DEI ban kicks in.

Monroe County Mayor Michelle Lincoln sent a letter Friday to members of the Florida Legislature expressing deep concerns over the proposed bill, known as SJR 2-F, just ahead of the start of Monday's special legislative session in Tallahassee.

Registration is open for the 2026 Florida Python Challenge, a 10-day competition that offers participants a shot at $25,000 in prizes for removing invasive Burmese pythons from the Everglades. The event runs from July 10 through July 19.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said a looming El Niño weather pattern could help produce a below average season, but warned uncertainty about the forecast put the odds for a slow season at just 55%.

By mid-April the seaweed, which looks a lot like a watery sweet potato casserole with the brown, crusty topping, had spread across the entire Caribbean Sea, with substantial amounts pushing into the Gulf. Huge amounts washed up along many Caribbean shorelines in what USF researchers call "beaching events" in the bulletins issued at the end of every month.

“I am monitoring the situation, but I have not been contacted by any government agency and I don’t believe there is any reason to be concerned,” said the Monroe County sheriff in a statement.

Union leaders, citing local rents now averaging more than $3,100 per month, said the economic pressures facing South Florida families have reached a tipping point.

A group of Black divers recently visited the site where the British slave ship Henrietta Marie sank 326 years ago.

Vendors working for the controversial immigration detention facility in the Everglades were reportedly told that it would shut down next month, according to the New York Times and CBS News.

Coley Sohn and Linda Bagley-Sohn, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, say the city censored their protest against the city painting over its rainbow crosswalks.

Just days after the U.S. Supreme Court heard argument for restoring Temporary Protected Status for Haitian and Syrian immigrants, Democratic South Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz on Friday urged the nation's highest court to grant the extension of TPS.

The rally is in response to the latest reports that show the number of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE arrests of suspected undocumented immigrants has surged since President Donald Trump took office in January 2025.