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☆ Having more pythons in Florida is actually increasing the rat population because they're killing the other predators, scientists warn
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-08 | by ( Jessica Orwig | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

It may be good news for the cotton rats, but it could spell serious danger for humans. But one thing they don't seem to have a taste for is cotton rats. So much so, scientists warn that cotton rats "now dominate the community" in parts of the Florida Everglades where pythons are prevalent, wildlife ecologist Robert McCleery told LiveScience. They found that death rates for cotton rats were about the same in both regions. Let's say a mosquito bites an infected cotton rat and then later feasts on your blood — you could become infected.

Persons: —, Robert McCleery, LiveScience, McCleery, Rhona Wise, It's Organizations: Service, Getty, Geological Survey Locations: Florida, Fort Lauderdale , Florida, they're, Asia

☆ I paid $200 for a 2-hour ferry ride from Florida to the Bahamas. I spent 9 hours there, and it wasn't enough time.
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-05 | by ( India Amos | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

First, I drove to Port Everglades to board. Port Everglades is in Hollywood, Florida. India AmosI left from Miami, and it took me nearly 40 minutes to drive to Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale from Dade City. Around 7:00 a.m., I pulled into the Palm Parking Garage, which is right next to the terminal Baleària regularly uses. Within 20 minutes, I'd shown my passport, passed through security and the ticket gate, and was ready to board.

Persons: India Amos I, Baleària, I'd Locations: Hollywood , Florida, India, Miami, Port, Fort Lauderdale, Dade City, Freeport

☆ How to win a grand prize of $10,000 for hunting pythons in Florida
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-29 | by ( Jacob Zinkula | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The top prize of $10,000 will go to the participant who removes the most Burmese pythons. The participant that removes the most pythons will win a grand prize of $10,000 prize. There's also a $7,500 prize for the Grand Prize Runner Up, sponsored by the Bergeron Everglades Foundation, per Space Coast Daily. Invasive Burmese pythons are damaging Florida's natural ecosystems. Per the challenge's website, the training teaches competitors how to identify Burmese pythons, in addition to "humane killing methods."

☆ How the F-16 pilot nominated to be the US military's top officer earned the callsign 'Swamp Thing'
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-25 | by ( Jake Epstein | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

His escape from a burning jet earned him the callsign "Swamp Thing." Gen. Charles "CQ" Brown, Jr., the current Air Force chief of staff and former F-16 Fighting Falcon pilot, is a distinguished four-star general. He has also logged more than 3,000 flying hours — including 130 in combat, yet his callsign is, perhaps unexpectedly, "Swamp Thing." Well I tell you what — he was back in the cockpit the next week with a new callsign: Swamp Thing." "While General Brown is a proud, butt-kicking American airman, first and always, he's always been an operational leader of the Joint Force," Biden said during Thursday's announcement.

☆ Old trailer parks are being torn down, driving up homelessness as one of the last options for low-income renters fades away
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-21 | by ( Anita Snow | Associated Press | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Residents of mobile home parks in Arizona are being asked to leave, so student housing can be built. Mobile homes, not always mobile, are hard to repair so they're being razed. "We are in the deepest affordable housing crisis we've ever experienced," said Joanna Carr, acting head of the Arizona Housing Coalition. Efforts under way to revitalize old mobile homes have limits. Many park residents are Spanish-speaking immigrants earning minimum wage as landscapers or restaurant workers.

☆ Panic buying causes widespread gas station closures in South Florida
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-19 | by ( Chris Isidore | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

New York CNN —More than half of gas stations in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area were without gasoline Wednesday after flooding from last week’s massive storm caused a wave of panic buying by drivers topping off their gas tanks. “I would estimate that 80% of [station closings] are due to panic buying,” said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis for GasBuddy, which tracks station closings and gas prices. Data from GasBuddy showed that 59% of stations in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale market were closed Wednesday, up from about 20% on Sunday. But the even better news is that with full tanks, drivers will not need to fill up in the coming days as they normally might have, and the panic buying is likely to subside. He expected most of the closed stations to be reopened by the weekend.

☆ Supreme Court declined to block $6 billion student loan settlement. Here's who qualifies for forgiveness
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-17 | by ( Annie Nova | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

The Supreme Court last week declined to block the settlement of a class-action lawsuit brought by student loan borrowers who say they've been defrauded by their schools. Now, the U.S. Department of Education will be able to continue delivering on the $6 billion loan forgiveness settlement. More than 150 schools, mostly for-profit institutions, were involved in the settlement. Three of those institutions — Lincoln Educational Services Corp., American National University and Everglades College Inc. — had petitioned the highest court. They've argued that they were denied due process with the settlement and that it harms their reputation.

☆ There's another legal route Biden can use to cancel student debt, and the Supreme Court's latest move shows the justices could be open to it
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-16 | by ( Ayelet Sheffey | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

The Supreme Court rejected an appeal to halt debt relief for borrowers who say they were defrauded. The Higher Education Act has been floated as another way for Biden to pursue his debt-relief plan. The Supreme Court is already considering whether Biden's plan to cancel up to $20,000 in student debt for federal borrowers is legal. Activists and students protest in front of the Supreme Court during a rally for student-debt cancellation in Washington, DC, on February 28. Still, along with the lawsuits against broad debt relief, the payment pause is also being challenged — leaving millions of borrowers in financial limbo.

☆ U.S. Supreme Court won't halt $6 billion student debt settlement
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-13 | by ( John Kruzel | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Around 3,500 borrowers entitled to automatic loan discharge under the settlement attended one of the three schools. The decision was separate from a case pending before the high court over the legality of President Joe Biden's plan to cancel $430 billion in student debt for about 40 million borrowers. The message is clear: the rights of student borrowers will not falter, even in the face of well-funded, overblown political attacks masquerading as legal argument," Connor told Reuters. Twenty conservative-leaning U.S. states, led by Ohio, had asked the Supreme Court to grant the request by the schools to pause further loan discharges under the settlement. Around 78,000 borrowers had already received loan discharges by April 11, the Biden administration told the justices in a court filing.

☆ Thousands of student-loan borrowers are facing 'obvious harm' if the Supreme Court agrees to halt the debt relief they already won in court, Biden's Education Department says
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-12 | by ( Ayelet Sheffey | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

The Education Department pushed back on a lawsuit to halt student-debt relief for borrowers who said they were defrauded. A federal judge signed off on a settlement that would give those borrowers $6 billion in debt relief. The Education Department agreed to the settlement last summer, and in November, a federal judge signed off on $6 billion in debt relief for 200,000 borrowers. On Wednesday, the Education Department responded to the schools' appeal, and as expected, it told the Supreme Court that staying the relief will cause "obvious harm" for impacted borrowers and the department itself. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case aiming to block that broader relief in February.

☆ 20 GOP-led states are asking the Supreme Court to halt Biden's latest student-debt cancellation for 200,000 borrowers, backing a request from 3 schools accused of defrauding their students
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-11 | by ( Ayelet Sheffey | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

A federal judge ruled that 200,000 borrowers can move forward with relief in a borrower defense settlement. Last month, three schools mentioned in the settlement appealed the decision to the Supreme Court. 20 GOP-led states filed an amicus brief supporting the schools, arguing Biden doesn't have authority to carry out this relief. Unlawful delay of debt relief results in clear monetary harm." The Education Department has until Wednesday to file a response to the three schools' lawsuit, which currently sits with Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan.

☆ Colleges ask Supreme Court to halt $6B student loan debt settlement
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-05 | by ( Lawrence Hurley | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

People rally in support of the Biden administration's student debt relief plan in front of the the U.S. Supreme Court on February 28, 2023 in Washington, DC. Colleges challenging a class-action settlement that could lead to student loans being canceled for hundreds of thousands of borrowers on Wednesday asked the Supreme Court to put the case on hold. The application at the Supreme Court was filed by Everglades College, Lincoln Educational Services Corporation and American National University. They asked the Supreme Court to put Alsup's ruling on hold and consider hearing the case on an accelerated basis. In the separates cases involving Biden's debt relief plan, the Supreme Court in February appeared skeptical that it was lawful.

☆ $6 billion in student-loan forgiveness for 200,000 borrowers just cleared another hurdle — and all members involved in the years-long lawsuit can now get relief
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-05 | by ( Ayelet Sheffey | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

An appeals court rejected three companies' request to pause relief for borrowers in the Sweet vs. Cardona lawsuit. Last year, a federal judge signed off on a settlement in the case that would give 200,000 borrowers $6 billion in debt relief. Those borrowers filed a lawsuit in 2019 over stalled borrower defense claims against the schools they attended. Cardona agreed to a settlement last summer in the case that would give 200,000 impacted borrowers $6 billion in debt relief. Borrowers who filed a claim against a school not included on that list will receive relief based on the following timeline:

☆ A federal judge just ruled $6 billion in student-debt cancellation can move forward for 200,000 defrauded borrowers, saying the decision will 'allow them to not only to move on, but also to move up, e
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-27 | by ( Ayelet Sheffey | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

A federal judge ruled that $6 billion in student-debt relief for 200,000 borrowers can move forward. Since the lawsuit wasn't resolved under Trump, President Joe Biden took it on and agreed to a settlement to give borrowers relief. And it gives plaintiffs, who have languished in borrower-defense application limbo, their long-awaited relief," Alsup wrote in his decision. "They have already waited years for the resolution of their borrower defense ('BD') applications, some of which have been pending since 2015," the filing said. Along with automatic relief for 200,000 borrowers, the settlement also allows for a streamlined review of another 64,000 borrower defense applications.

☆ 200,000 student-loan borrowers will be 'severely harmed' if a judge rules in favor of 3 companies who want to block them from getting $6 billion in debt relief, a new legal filing says
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-02 | by ( Ayelet Sheffey | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

A federal judge signed off on a settlement giving 200,000 student-loan borrowers $6 billion in debt relief last year. In January, three companies requested a stay on the relief, citing reputational harm the settlement brought them. Borrowers in the case recently filed a motion opposing the stay due to the harm postponing the relief would bring. Some of the borrowers who were set to see debt forgiveness attended colleges run by those companies, which were among many named in the November settlement. One hundred and forty-four borrowers have submitted declarations attesting to the harm a stay would cause them."

☆ 2 for-profit companies want to stop $6 billion in student-loan forgiveness from reaching 200,000 borrowers in an already-approved settlement
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-17 | by ( Ayelet Sheffey | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

A judge signed off on a settlement last year giving 200,000 defrauded borrowers $6 billion in student-debt relief. A group of companies last week filed an appeals notice to stop the relief from going through. They argued their reputations will be harmed, and they were not given "due process" after being included in the settlement. In November, federal Judge William Alsup granted final approval of a lawsuit — Sweet v. Cardona — that would give over $6 billion in student-debt relief to 200,000 borrowers who were defrauded by a school they attended. Prior to his final ruling, Alsup gave schools the chance to intervene, but he ultimately rejected their arguments.

☆ DeSantis considers banning 'hostile nation' China from buying Florida real estate, polishing tough-on-China foreign policy stance amid 2024 speculation
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-10 | by ( Kimberly Leonard | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

DeSantis is considering asking the Florida legislature to ban China from real estate investments. Ron DeSantis is poised to ask state lawmakers to ban China from buying farmland and residences in Florida, the governor confirmed Tuesday. While foreign policy generally tends to be a small part of a governor's role, such actions on China could add to DeSantis' foreign policy portfolio. Before becoming governor, DeSantis representing Florida in the US House, where he served on the Foreign Affairs Committee and chaired the Subcommittee on National Security. Santa Claus may need to not do Chinese toys."

REUTERS/Marco BelloWASHINGTON, Dec 16 (Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland instructed federal prosecutors on Friday to end disparities in the way they charge offenses involving crack cocaine and powder cocaine. Mandatory minimum sentences for crack-related offenses are currently 18 times lengthier than those for powder cocaine. In the memos, Garland instructs prosecutors to treat "crack cocaine defendants no differently than for defendants in powder cocaine cases" when they are charging defendants and making sentencing recommendations. In 1986, Congress passed a law to establish mandatory minimum sentences for drug trafficking offenses, which treated crack and powder cocaine offenses using a 100-to-1 ratio. Under that formula, a person convicted for selling 5 grams of crack cocaine was treated the same as someone who sold 500 grams of powder cocaine.

☆ A 41-year-old Missouri man built an off-grid cabin in the mountains that brings in $4,000 a month on Airbnb. Take a look at how he did it.
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-07 | by ( Dan Latu | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Michael Loftis built a solar-powered, off-grid cabin on the Missouri farm he grew up on. The property brings in about $4,000 each month, attracting visitors who want to unplug from daily life. Top editors give you the stories you want — delivered right to your inbox each weekday. Loading Something is loading. Loftis said he wants his guests to be able to "disconnect" while they're staying at his Airbnb and enjoy the nature surrounding them.

☆ This graphic shows how many more stars you can see under truly dark skies vs. city, suburban, and rural areas
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-05 | by ( Paola Rosa-Aquino | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Astronomers classify night skies from dark to bright using the Bortle Scale, ranked from one to nine. Light pollution is when artificial light washes out the night sky and makes it hard to see stars. While it might not be as potentially harmful as other kinds of pollution, light pollution can affect human health. Level four classifies the transition from suburban to rural areas, where you can see the Milky Way. The night sky is brimming with stars, making it harder to parse out faint constellations.

☆ Video shows a 5-foot alligator being cut out of a python after the snake swallowed it whole
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-14 | by ( Kelsey Vlamis | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Scientists in Florida cut open a Burmese python to find a largely intact alligator inside. She shared a video in which the alligator was pulled out of the 18-foot-long python's digestive tract. A post shared by Rosie Moore (@rosiekmoore)The python was found and killed by employees at Everglades National Park. Last month, a missing 54-year-old woman in Indonesia had been swallowed whole by a python, according to police. A scientist in Indonesia said the woman was likely swallowed by a reticulated python, which can grow up to well over 20 feet long.

☆ Florida motorist stranded in canal near alligator rescued after paraglider's emergency landing
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-01 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Dennis-Romero-Circle-Byline-Template.Jpg | Dennis Romero | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +2 min

A Florida motorist who was clinging to the top of her vehicle in a canal was rescued from the water after a paraglider made an emergency landing over the weekend. He noticed the motorist on the roof of her mostly submerged vehicle and decided to land, Piquet said. "We landed between power lines, uneven terrain," Piquet told NBC Miami. After he got as close as he could to the woman, Piquet shouted, "We need help." As a precaution, a Miami-Dade Fire Rescue diver checked the area of the canal near the submerged vehicle for additional victims and found none, the spokesperson said.

☆ Florida teen wins competition by capturing 28 Burmese pythons
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-26 | by ( The Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +2 min

MIAMI — A 19-year-old South Florida man captured 28 Burmese pythons during a 10-day competition that was created to increase awareness about the threats the invasive snakes pose to the state’s ecology. Earlier this year, a team of biologists hauled in the heaviest Burmese python ever captured in Florida. A Burmese python is held during a safe capture demonstration on June 16, 2022, in Miami. Concepcion told the South Florida SunSentinel that he’s been hunting pythons for about five years, and typically looks for them at night because that’s when they’re on the move, seeking the warmth of roads. We are removing record numbers of pythons and we’re going to keep at it,” South Florida Water Management District Governing Board Member “Alligator Ron” Bergeron said in a news release.

☆ The most devastating hurricanes in U.S. history
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-28 | by ( Jeremy Schultz | ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

Okeechobee Hurricane, 1928: This Category 4 storm had already devastated the Caribbean, killing 1,500 people by the time it hit southern Florida, destroying thousands of homes in West Palm Beach. The official Florida death toll was 1,836, most of them migrant farm workers. Decades later, the National Weather Service would revise the toll upward to "at least 2,500," adding that the real number will never be known. Many of the bodies washed out to the Everglades, never to be recovered. Courtesy NOAA/National Weather ServiceClose

☆ Millions in Florida urged to evacuate as Hurricane Ian nears
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-27 | by ( Brad Brooks | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

A man runs by a boarded up storefront, as Hurricane Ian spins toward the state carrying high winds, torrential rains and a powerful storm surge, in the downtown area of Tampa, Florida, U.S., September 27, 2022. The latest 8 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT) hurricane advisory put Ian's top winds at 120 mph (195 km per hour). Ian was most likely to come ashore south of Tampa near Sarasota, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said. Parts of central Florida could see as much of 2 feet (0.6 meter) of rain from Ian, according to the National Weather Service. If Ian strikes Tampa, it would be the first hurricane to make landfall in the area since the Tarpon Springs storm in 1921.

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