Author: Rick Cole

Kent Stermon, a Jacksonville-area businessman and member of the state university system’s Board of Governors, was found dead in an apparent suicide Thursday night, law enforcement officials confirmed on Friday. Stermon was found “deceased, alone in a locked vehicle” in the parking lot of a…

State Rep. Joe Harding resigned his House seat Thursday after being charged with fraudulently obtaining coronavirus-related business loans. Harding, R-Ocala, submitted his resignation a day after the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Florida announced a grand-jury indictment on charges of wire fraud,…

Last school year marked a more than 10-year low for Florida’s kindergarten and seventh-grade students completing all doses of required immunizations, according to a recent report from the state Department of Health. About 91.7 percent of kindergarten students in public and private schools statewide completed…

Citing a potential infringement of free-speech rights and other constitutional liberties, dozens of people gathered to challenge a rule proposed by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration that would restrict the way protests can be conducted in Florida’s Capitol Complex. The state Department of Management Service’s proposal,…

An attorney with decades of military experience is taking over as the state’s new pot czar at a time when the state’s medical-marijuana industry is poised to double in size. Florida Department of Health officials tapped Christopher Phillip Kimball to serve as director of the state…

Florida had 5,077 incidents of students being involuntarily committed under a mental-health law known as the Baker Act during the past school year, data presented Wednesday to a school-safety commission showed. The Baker Act is a roughly 50-year-old state law that allows courts, law enforcement…