The air in McPherson Complex Auditorium in Ocala, once stale with bureaucracy, surged with something much more urgent upon the introduction of Item 7. Items 1-6 on the Marion County Commission planning and zoning agenda – ensnared in traps of technical jargon and dusted with mundane details – didn’t hold …
Read More »They've now topped $12.5 billion.
Read More »Subscribe to The Point, arriving in your inbox Monday through Friday at 8 a.m. The stories near you • WUFT News: After Hurricane Ian, sowing hope. “Hurricane Ian trampled over 5 million acres of agricultural land in Florida. The storm ranks among the top storms in U.S. history. For small, family …
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Editor’s note: Katie Delk is a 2022-2023 Florida Climate Institute Fellow reporting a series of articles about the impact of climate change on Florida’s farmers—and how they are adapting. Robert McMahon, in his faded denim jeans and straw hat, edged to the roof in a boom lift, three cows shuffling …
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Seven-year-old Ranessamae Rinehart could not contain her excitement after sitting on Santa’s lap at the Ocala Town Square gazebo recently. She asked Santa for Legos bricks and sparkly shoes with bows on them. As several other families waited in line for their turn to meet the old man with the …
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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) – Florida lawmakers are scheduled to meet Monday to consider ways to shore up the state’s struggling home insurance market in the year’s second special session devoted to the topic. Lawmakers are considering legislation to help keep private insurers solvent by creating a $1 billion reinsurance fund, …
Read More »Subscribe to The Point, arriving in your inbox Monday through Friday at 8 a.m. The stories near you • Mainstreet Daily News: State funds $24M in area springs projects. “Eleven projects in North Central Florida are set to receive a total of $24 million for recovery and protection of Florida’s springs, …
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The Atlantic hurricane season ended Nov. 30, but after the year that Florida experienced, residents would be wise to begin preparing for 2023 storms. It’s true even if the official start of the next hurricane season remains six months away. While residents prepared for the worst as two hurricanes appeared …
Read More »Subscribe to The Point, arriving in your inbox Monday through Friday at 8 a.m. The stories near you • Florida Politics: Joe Harding indicted on wire fraud, money laundering charges. “Harding, an Ocala Republican recently elected to his second term representing District 24, was released Wednesday on a $10,000 bond.” • …
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B. Keith Councell is a beekeeper stripped of his bees – 2,800 of them spread across his farms in Arcadia, Cape Coral, Pine Island and Fort Myers. His honeybees were among the 400,000 Florida bee colonies in Hurricane Ian’s path in September. Ian decimated 100,000 total hives, which were toppled and drowned in 12-foot storm surges as high as eight beehives. The state’s surviving bees were left starving from the storm’s destruction of foliage, the bees' source of energy and protein. Deprived of bees, feed and equipment, beekeepers have found relief among themselves.
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WUFT News News and Public Media for North Central Florida from the University of Florida in Gainesville