Tagged: Florida

A 6-year-old boy's day off from school Friday left him with a vivid story to tell his classmates, after he was seized — and eventually released — by an alligator in South Florida. The attack occurred at a wildlife refuge near Boynton Beach, Fla., where Joseph Welch had taken his son, Joey, for a canoe ride.

As Welch, a native of Rhode Island who now lives in Pompano Beach, says in a Morning Edition interview airing Tuesday, his idea had been to do "something new and different."

In state legislatures around the country, lawmakers are debating important subjects — education reform, election laws, gun control and abortion. But in Florida, one of the hottest issues to come before the Legislature this term involves cats.

There, lawmakers are considering a contentious bill that would offer legal protection to groups that trap, neuter and return feral cats to their colonies.

An Alternative To Shelters

A police sergeant in Port Canaveral, Fla., has been fired after he brought targets bearing images resembling Trayvon Martin — a silhouetted figure in a hooded sweatshirt, holding a canned drink — to a police target practice session.

"Whether his act was hatred or stupidity, none is tolerable," Port Canaveral CEO John Walsh says of former officer Ron King, in a report by local station WFTV.