Fort Lauderdale

There are nearly two million gun licenses in Florida but figuring out exactly how many guns are in the state is a more challenging figure to extract. Florida, like most states, does not require gun owners to register their weapons. 

On May 19, Fort Lauderdale police officers and city workers showed up without notice at Stranahan Park with dozens of blue trash bins, a front-end loader and a dump truck. They ordered all the homeless living there to put their stuff in the bins; the rest of the stuff was scooped up by the loader and thrown in the dump truck.

Monday is the 25th anniversary of Fort Lauderdale’s Sun Trolley system, and the celebration promises to be a multi-sensory experience.

The eye-catching red-and-yellow trolleys run on eight routes through Fort Lauderdale, taking riders to the beach, shopping and work. By the end of the month, they'll have a new app and website to make seeing routes and tracking transit easier.

The man accused of killing five people and wounding six more in a shooting at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport earlier this month told FBI agents he had been communicating with people involved with or inspired by the Islamic State in online chat rooms.

FBI Special Agent Michael Ferlazzo took the stand at Esteban Santiago’s detention hearing Tuesday morning in federal court in Fort Lauderdale. Ferlazzo said Santiago told him in an interview at around 10:30 pm on the day of the shooting that he had been communicating with Islamic State supporters on the dark web.

The City of Fort Lauderdale may get a new outdoor concert venue along its riverfront. Levitt Pavilions, a national nonprofit organization, recently selected the city to receive seed funding and technical support to develop a public performing arts space in Esplanade Park.

  This week on the Florida Roundup, we discuss the week's news with the area's top journalists.

LEGISLATIVE SESSION

About 100 LGBT couples from around the world married at the W Hotel in Fort Lauderdale Thursday morning. It was a group wedding in honor of Florida’s ruling allowing same-sex marriage in January. The Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention and Visitors Bureau partnered with a few companies to host the event. 

  Efforts to regulate homeless activities and services in Fort Lauderdale have come under a microscope over the last couple months as advocate Arnold Abbott fights new city regulations on how and where food can be distributed to the homeless.

He is now battling that law in court after receiving three citations for continuing his food services illegally. A Broward County judge has since suspended the ordinance until early February.

If you were to pick the most likely city for a gay marriage celebration, it might very well be Fort Lauderdale, which has been attracting lesbian and gay tourism for decades.