Fort Lauderdale

Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis emphasized the need for people to stay at home during a tele-town hall via conference call with residents on Friday night. 

The new coronavirus disease widened its attack on Florida’s most vulnerable population this week, with the announcement Wednesday that new cases were suspected or confirmed at 19 long-term care facilities.

The state would not identify the facilities or say where they were located. But one Fort Lauderdale facility may account for some of them.

A fourth person who could have been exposed to coronavirus at an assisted-living facility in Fort Lauderdale has now been hospitalized, a fire official says.

Three seniors who were residents at Atria Willow Wood have died amid the coronavirus pandemic, sparking fears that more deaths might be coming.

A 15-story apartment tower planned for downtown would have become home to the region’s lowest-income residents. But last fall, city officials blocked the project from moving forward on grounds it was not allowed.

Now, the developer has filed lawsuits in both federal and state courts accusing Fort Lauderdale of “explicitly discriminatory” policies and practices. Both lawsuits were filed Friday.

While the state was urging social distancing in an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus, spring break crowds descended on parts of South Florida over the weekend.

The St. Patrick’s Day celebration at Rick’s Bar in Key West was in full force Saturday night, for example.

This story has been updated with new information on court hearings at 6 p.m. on Friday March 13.

Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis declared a local state of emergency in the city Friday afternoon, as a measure to try to slow the spread of Coronavirus, or COVID-19. 

The city that’s made a series of missteps over the years in attempting to corral the homeless has come up with a new way to protect its youngest residents from seeing things that their parents might not want them to see.

Homeless people would not be able to set up camp within 1,000 feet of a school or child care facility under a new law being considered by Fort Lauderdale.

The ordinance, which is up for a commission vote Tuesday, defines camping as dwelling temporarily on a sidewalk, alley or other public space while eating, sleeping or storing personal possessions.

The building boom in full swing in Fort Lauderdale might just hit a wall as city leaders struggle to contain a never-ending series of sewer pipe breaks.

Critics of the city’s ongoing development spurt have been calling for a moratorium for years. Developers have been just as outspoken in opposing what they call a drastic measure that would have dire effects on the city’s tax base.

Electric scooter rentals are likely to stay in Florida — even though some companies have started pulling their business out of other parts of the country.

The e-scooters, which grew popular on U.S. streets in 2018, have helped thousands of tourists, residents and even well-tailored businesspeople quickly get around the streets. But they’ve also drawn public safety concerns as the number of accidents kept mounting. And cities such as Fort Lauderdale, one of the first Florida cities to allow them, still are refining their rules for the two-wheeled devices, focused on safety.

Crews in Fort Lauderdale are working to repair a pipe break for the seventh time in the last month — but at least this time it isn’t sewage flooding the streets.

A contractor working in the area of Northeast Fourth Street and Seventh Avenue struck a 12-inch water main on Wednesday afternoon, which sent water flooding the streets of Victoria Park.

The City of Fort Lauderdale issued a precautionary boil water notice effective immediately to the properties in Northeast Second Street to Northeast Fifth Street between Northeast Seventh Avenue and Northeast Ninth Avenue.

Fort Lauderdale is soaked in waste after six sewage spills from decaying pipes dumped more than 126 million gallons of raw sewage directly into nearby rivers and canals over the last few weeks. That’s about the volume of 191 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

But something important has been lost in the stinking mess: Most of it isn’t actually poop or other flushed stuff. More than half of the volume flowing through the city’s crumbling sewage infrastructure is actually groundwater seeping in through the many, many cracks and holes in the aging system.