Florida

MIAMI (AP) — The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration quietly ousted its former top official in Mexico last year over improper contact with lawyers for narcotraffickers, an embarrassing end to a brief tenure marked by deteriorating cooperation between the countries and a record flow of cocaine, heroin and fentanyl across the border.

MIAMI (AP) — Venezuela’s government has released a former spy chief for the late president, Hugo Chávez, and who spent nearly five years in prison for spearheading a movement of disgruntled loyalists that defied the rule of the leftist firebrand’s handpicked succesor, Nicolás Maduro.

FORT PIERCE, Fla. (AP) — Police in Florida said eight people were shot during an Martin Luther King Jr. Day event, with one of the victims listed in critical condition.

The St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office confirmed all the victims in the Monday shooting in Fort Pierce were adults, WPBF-TV reported.

The shooting occurred at Ilous Ellis Park at 5:20 p.m. during an MLK Car Show and Family Fun Day, which the sheriff’s office said was attended by more than 1,000 people, the TV station reported.

MIAMI, Dec 30 (Reuters) - Norwegian Cruise Line (NCLH.N) must pay $110 million in damages for use of a port that Cuba's government confiscated in 1960, a U.S. judge ruled on Friday, a milestone for Cuban-Americans seeking compensation for Cold-War era asset seizures.

The decision by U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom in Miami follows her March ruling that the use of the Havana Cruise Port Terminal constituted trafficking in confiscated property owned by the plaintiff, Delaware-registered Havana Docks Corp.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A Tokyo company aimed for the moon with its own private lander Sunday, blasting off atop a SpaceX rocket with the United Arab Emirates’ first lunar rover and a toylike robot from Japan that’s designed to roll around up there in the gray dust.

It will take nearly five months for the lander and its experiments to reach the moon.

MIAMI (AP) — Republicans had placed hopes on a roster of Latina candidates around the country as they looked to make gains with Latino voters in a midterm election that some had predicted would yield sweeping GOP victories.

The verdict was mixed.

While Republican House candidates made modest inroads among Latino voters in 2022 compared with 2018, several GOP Latina candidates in high-profile races lost.

PALM BEACH, Fla., Nov 15 (Reuters) - Donald Trump, who has mounted relentless attacks on the integrity of U.S. voting since his 2020 election defeat, on Tuesday launched a bid to regain the presidency in 2024, aiming to pre-empt potential Republican rivals.

Seeking a potential rematch with Democratic President Joe Biden, Trump made his announcement at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida a week after midterm elections in which Republicans failed to win as many seats in Congress as they had hoped.

PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday launched his third campaign for the White House just one week after a disappointing midterm showing for Republicans, forcing the party to again decide whether to embrace a candidate whose refusal to accept defeat in 2020 sparked an insurrection and pushed American democracy to the brink.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA’s new moon rocket blasted off on its debut flight with three test dummies aboard early Wednesday, bringing the U.S. a big step closer to putting astronauts back on the lunar surface for the first time since the end of the Apollo program 50 years ago.

If all goes well during the three-week, make-or-break shakedown flight, the rocket will propel an empty crew capsule into a wide orbit around the moon, and then the capsule will return to Earth with a splashdown in the Pacific in December.

PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Former President Donald Trump is preparing to launch his third campaign for the White House on Tuesday, looking to move on from disappointing midterm defeats and defy history amid signs that his grip on the Republican Party is waning.