The Florida sinkhole that swallowed two homes last week isn’t getting any deeper, but it’s getting wider, officials said Wednesday — and one resident who’s back home after being evacuated is vowing to stay unless the hole consumes her house. “I’m apprehensive, a little nervous,” said Patty Camunas, 57, whose family lives near the sinkhole.
There’s an upswing in monkey business in and around a state park in Florida, where bands of non-native rhesus macaques live along a river that’s popular with kayakers and tourists. Officials have closed two walking areas at Silver Springs State Park because of unwanted monkey interactions with park guests. An observation deck and a boardwalk are off-limits because the primates have essentially taken over.
The sand on Siesta Beach on Florida’s Gulf Coast is as fine as powdered sugar, a pure, sparkling white and soft as a kitten’s fur – all because it’s comprised of 99 percent pure crushed quartz. For that reason, and many others, it was selected this year as the best beach in America by a professor who’s made a career ranking and studying beaches around the United States. “The sand is outstanding,” said Stephen Leatherman, aka Dr. Beach, a professor…
There’s a moment at the outset of the new Marvel Universe Live! Age of Heroes show when Spider-Man enters from backstage and zigzags around the theater. It still takes the director’s breath away, conveying Spider-Man’s superpower strength. “It’s an incredible entrance for Spider-Man, similar to the film. The guy who plays Spider-Man says it’s one of the scariest things he’s ever done and one of the most fun things he’s ever done,” said James Hadley, now preparing for the July…
A “body farm” where researchers can study how corpses decompose will open next week in the Tampa Bay area with the burial of four donated bodies. Officials broke ground Friday on the Adam Kennedy Forensics Field, a five-acre patch of land north of Tampa. It’s the seventh such facility in the nation and the first in Florida’s subtropical environment. The oldest and most famous body farm in the U.S. is at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. Officials in Florida…
It took about three minutes for the majority of the crowd at Florida Congressman Tom Rooney‘s town hall meeting Monday to start booing about everything from the environment to health care. “You are supporting an appropriations bill to help clean up the Everglades. You recently voted to repeal a rule that allows coal companies to dump toxic ash in waterways throughout the whole country. Would you care to explain?” one man asked. “We don’t live in a perfect world,” said…
Reaction to news that the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus was closing after 146 years – from saddened celebrities to elated animal rights advocates – flew as fast as a flying trapeze. Feld Entertainment, owner of the iconic circus, broke the news to circus employees Saturday night that the show would close permanently in May. The reasons cited for the closure were falling ticket sales, high operating costs, changing public tastes in entertainment – and prolonged battles with…
