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Florida Republican Party chairman and Governor DeSantis ally Christian Ziegler is reported to be under law enforcement investigation after a woman filed a complaint with the Sarasota Police Department claiming he raped her. The Florida Center for Government Accountability says a police report – while heavily redacted – includes accusations of “rape” and “sexual battery.”The complaint, filed on October 4th, states the incident allegedly occurred inside the woman’s home in Sarasota. According to the woman, she had been a participant in a long-term and consensual sexual relationship with both Ziegler and his wife Bridget – a co-founder of the ‘Moms...

Florida Republican Party Chair Christian Ziegler is the subject of a police investigation that reportedly involves an allegation of sexual battery. The big picture: Nonprofit watchdog news site Florida Trident, citing sources close to the investigation, first reported that a woman alleged she was in a "longstanding consensual" sexual relationship with Ziegler and his wife, Bridget, before being "sexually battered" by Ziegler at her home, without his wife present. .... * Christian Ziegler took over as state GOP chairman in February after serving as a Sarasota County commissioner and years of conservative activism. * The governor appointed Bridget Ziegler to...

The Biden administration comes after New College and its conservative reforms, alleging specious civil rights violations. Last week, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights opened an investigation into New College of Florida, where I serve as a trustee, regarding alleged “disability discrimination.” The investigation was prompted by a complaint by ACLU attorney Jennifer Granick, alleging that the college’s trustees and administrators violated civil rights law by removing “gender neutral” signage from bathrooms, defunding the DEI and gender studies programs, and “misgendering” the former DEI director and a former student, who use “ze/zir” and “they/them” pseudo-pronouns, respectively. According to...

The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS) released an urgent consumer notification that Citgo fuel services from the Port of Tampa accidentally mixed Diesel Fuel into gasoline tanker trucks that offloaded product at gas pumps in Tampa, Fort Myers, Cape Coral and other areas. [FDACS Notice HERE] Customers who purchased Citgo gas at the affected areas after August 26th are at risk. Those fuel stations pumped diesel instead of unleaded gasoline. (AP) – […] The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services said late Sunday that gasoline purchased after 10 a.m. Saturday at some Citgo-supplied stations had a...

A Florida man was arrested on fraud charges in July after allegedly registering a 1977 Porsche 911 Turbo that was stolen from the Sarasota Classic Car Museum. The man allegedly used the VIN number from another vintage 911 out of a California salvage yard to register the car, police records show. Police responded to the Sarasota Classic Car Museum after the burglary alarm was tripped during the early morning of June 14, according to police records. The officers were unable to make contact with a museum employee at that time and initially determined that the building was secure. It surely...

Things to see/do -to avoid??

A public university in Florida will allow students to submit test scores from a college entrance exam that is said to be more rooted in Western classical and Christian traditions as an alternative to the ACT and SAT.New College of Florida announced that it plans to become the first public university in the state to accept Classic Learning Test scores in place of the ACT or SAT by fall 2024. Students can still submit ACT and SAT test scores as part of the admissions process. “As New College strives to become a world-class liberal arts educational institution, adding the CLT...

Sarasota’s Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium announced that one of its beloved manatees, Hugh, died Saturday at age 38. [Snip] After showing a behavior change Saturday, animal care staff at Mote monitored him before he became unresponsive in his habitat late Saturday afternoon, Mote said in a Facebook post. [Snip] “Hugh’s indelible and lasting legacy will be one of an invaluable contribution to the scientific understanding of manatee behavior and contributions to the conservation of his species,” Mote Marine’s Facebook post read. “Our team is forever grateful for the time we had with Hugh and his contribution to manatee conservation,...

On Tuesday, a Florida family medicine doctor was kicked out of the board meeting after testifying about the effectiveness of Ivermectin to treat COVID-19. Dr. John Littell, who served in the U.S. Army for seven years and is a 25-year board-certified family physician, was removed from the Sarasota Memorial Hospital Board Meeting after providing testimony on the efficacy of Ivermectin. The results of an internal examination into how Sarasota Memorial Hospital handled patient care during the peak of the COVID-19 epidemic were shared with the public on Tuesday afternoon, Herald-Tribune reported. “The direction we gave the staff was this report...

SARASOTA, Fla. (WWSB) -Florida Fish and Wildlife officers have arrested a Collier County man for five misdemeanor charges related to violations against endangered or threatened species. Officials say the incident occurred on Jan 9, on Marco Island. Officers say Renardo Stewart accelerated and ran a golf cart through a flock of black skimmers resting on the beach. Marco Island Police Department detained Stewart and he admitted to driving the golf cart through the flock of birds. The black skimmer is protected by the Federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act. It is also protected as State Threatened by Florida’s Endangered and Threatened...

Following up on his comments about "trendy ideology" and partisan interest groups in higher education, Governor Ron DeSantis has named six people with ties to conservative institutions to the Board of Trustees at New College in Sarasota. The appointments are subject to confirmation by the State Senate. The most prominent of the six nominees is Christopher Rufo, a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Manhattan Institute. Rufo has recently led the fight, according to a release from the governor, against critical race theory in American institutions, resulting in legislation in fifteen states. Rufo said in a tweer, "my ambition is...

Florida’s red wave is already wiping out school superintendents across the Sunshine State. Backed by Gov. Ron DeSantis and conservative activist groups, right-leaning candidates have gained control of many major district school boards and are purging prior leadership. “Parents woke up in the last few years,” a newly elected school board member backed by the conservative Moms for Liberty advocacy group told The Post. “They were exposed to the garbage that has gone on behind closed doors for so many years. That’s finished.” A trio of superintendents have been shown the campus door in GOP-leaning districts in November alone —...

Steven Walker, Sarasota Herald-Tribune Tue, August 23, 2022 at 10:41 PM· Sarasota County School Board candidates Bridget Ziegler, Tim Enos and Robyn Marinelli each won their elections in a conservative sweep of the seats up for election in Tuesday's primary. Republicans dominated election day voting numbers, outvoting Democrats 3 to 1, propelling the slate endorsed by Gov. Ron DeSantis to a strong lead with all precincts reporting. Despite trailing in campaign contributions in each of the three races, each candidate won by at least six percentage points.

SARASOTA, Fla. (WFLA) – A Florida man is recovering after surviving an alligator attack over the weekend. Jeffrey Heim was diving in the Myakka River on Sunday looking for megalodon teeth when he was attacked from behind by an alligator. “I thought it was a boat it hit me so fast or it felt like it was so fast,” the 25-year-old said. He told our sister station WFLA he wasn’t in the water for very long when the attack happened. He thinks the alligator was about 9 feet long and possibly a female. It’s currently alligator mating season in Florida....

'You know who I am?': Congressional candidate Martin Hyde threatens cop's career during traffic stop He apologized to Sarasota Police Officer Julia Beskin as he signaled his campaign's collapse. Update: Martin Hyde has since told Fox News he is still running. Sarasota congressional candidate Martin Hyde appears to have ended his campaign against U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan. The move comes after Hyde received national media attention — and scorn — over a police body cam video of his actions at a traffic stop. In a letter published by the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Hyde apologized for his behavior. But he also made...

Thomas Bakondy, Ainsley’s dad, told me that he has sent a number of NTEB articles to school board member Tom Edwards, an openly-gay “married” man, and that Edwards has led the charge with drafting policies that allow children to choose their pronouns without parental consent or notification. So what did the longtime NTEB-reading Bakondy family do? They did exactly as we are always calling people to do, to respectfully push back against this rising tide of darkness and preach Jesus! Kudos to you, Bakondy family, that’s real front lines stuff, keep it up. Another NTEB’er named Kim wrote to me...

A conservative school board member fired back at a liberal colleague who tried to silence a parent at a school board meeting on Tuesday in Florida. Bridget Ziegler confronted chair Jane Goodwin at the Sarasota County School Board meeting when Goodwin targeted Melissa Bakondy as Bakondy began speaking, the Daily Mail reported Friday.

A Florida congressional candidate apologized to an officer after threatening to ruin their career during a traffic stop. A congressional candidate from the Sarasota area, Martin Hyde issued the apology Wednesday, WFLA reported. The officer’s body camera captured the incident of pulling Hyde over on Valentine’s Day. The video shows the female officer explaining to Hyde that she pulled him over for speeding and texting while driving, WFLA reported. Hyde asked the officer, “You know who I am, right?” and threatened to call the police chief.

AMISH IN SARASOTA, FLORIDA As with elsewhere in Florida, snowbirds are a regular sight here. But intermixed with the more stereotypical visitors to Sarasota, a city and county on the Gulf of Mexico coast in southwest Florida, is a large community of Amish. Like other snowbirds, the Amish come from locales with cold winters. Think central Ohio, northern Indiana and, of course, the unofficial Amish capital of Lancaster County in Pennsylvania. At the height of the season, about 5,000 winter-weary Amish and Mennonites call Pinecraft, an enclave about 20 minutes from the popular St. Armand’s Circle, home. In the summer,...

SARASOTA, Fla. - On an otherwise unremarkable Tuesday morning, President George W. Bush was in Florida to discuss education initiatives at an elementary school. But that visit was interrupted by the worst terror attack on American soil. Bush had spent the night in Sarasota after holding a leadership forum with his brother Jeb, who was the governor of Florida at the time, and several other state officials in Jacksonville.