Daniel Rivero

The first legal challenge to Florida’s controversial law banning so-called “sanctuary” cities and counties was filed on Tuesday against Governor Ron DeSantis and Attorney General Ashley Moody in the Southern District of Florida. Leading the federal lawsuit is the City of South Miami.

"Ni las moscas están [Not even the fleas are here]." That's how one shopkeeper at the Tropicana Flea Market in Miami's Allapattah neighborhood described the usually bustling place on Sunday. 

A federal lawsuit has been filed against the Florida Secretary of State and ten county Supervisors of Elections across the peninsula, in what amounts to the first major legal challenge to a controversial bill that was passed by the Republican-dominated legislature to require former felons pay all fines and fees before being able to vote.

The number of Cuban nationals being detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has sharply risen over the last few years, according official data from the federal agency obtained by WLRN through a Freedom of Information Act request.

The state of Florida has officially launched an investigation into the group that raised over $23 million online, in a stated effort to privately build President Trump’s proposed border wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.

“In response to consumer complaints, including those referred by the Office of the Attorney General, the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services has opened an investigation into this charity,” Department of Agriculture spokesperson Franco Ripple told WLRN in an email.

Mango season is nearly upon us, that annual ritual of pungent juices dripping onto the chin, of begging friends and family for a spare fruit or two, of driving slowly along back streets to check out that one tree that drops fruit right on the side of the road that you’ve been thinking about since this time last year.

And all this time, you might be asking yourself, "How can I get in on the mango action without avoiding the middlemen? If I live in a condo, can I grow my own mango tree?"

Business from cannabis is growing fast in Florida; some of it regulated tightly, and some of it without rules. But all of it comes with cash that the banking industry is reluctant to touch. 

The first legal industrial hemp seeds in decades are growing now in South Florida soil.

CBD is showing up in ice cream, gummy bears and cocktails, but the state says the products are illegal.

When Amendment 4 passed last November, many people thought it would give over a million people with felony convictions the right to vote in Florida. 

Florida Commissioner of Agriculture Nikki Fried ran on a platform of what she called 'the three W’s': weapons, water and weed. Within months of her swearing in, it’s that last W that’s already generating a buzz around the state. 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis recently announced that he will be heading a trade mission to Israel in May. He will be joined by Florida's Cabinet -- Attorney General Ashley Moody, Commissioner of Agriculture Nikki Fried, and Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis. An official meeting of the Florida Cabinet will take place at the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem during the visit.

Gummy bears, oils, cocktails, ice cream ... Products with CBD in them have practically become ubiquitous in South Florida. The chemical CBD comes from the cannabis plant and that fact is leaving business owners in a kind of grey zone. But increasingly the federal government is taking notice, while regulations from the state are forthcoming.

A bill that is advancing in the Florida Senate could provide relief for a large chunk of people with felony convictions who want to regain the right to vote following  the passage of Amendment 4 last November.

Former gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum laid out a vision of “registering and engaging” one million new voters across Florida over the next few years at an event in Miami Gardens on Wednesday.

Despite ongoing confusion about the roll out of a recent expansion of voting rights in Florida, county election offices across the state say people who rushed to register to vote when Amendment 4 went into effect in January have been issued voter information cards with no issues.

The Florida Bar has confirmed to WLRN that it has opened an investigation into a tweet sent on Tuesday by Republican Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, which some have interpreted as witness tampering. Gaetz is a Bar certified attorney in Florida.

The tweet was directed towards President Trump's longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen, who is testifying before Congress today about his relationship with the President.

Thousands of homeless residents across Florida have been arrested in recent years on charges of asking for money in public spaces without government authorization. A lawsuit filed this month by the Southern Legal Counsel alleges that those thousands of arrests are violating the First Amendment -- a stance that has previously been upheld by U.S. District Courts for the Middle and Northern Districts of Florida.

One year ago, Michael Riggio was second in command of the New York Police Department's Counterterrorism Division. But just months after the February 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, he left the post to lead a new project at the Broward Sheriff’s Office.

Like many Floridians who have been convicted of a felony, Clarence Office, 61, was excited to register to vote on January 8, when the state’s Amendment 4 went into effect.

With Amendment 4 going into effect in less than a week, there are parts of the process of restoring the voting rights for convicted felons that appear to have not yet been considered, said incoming Democratic state Senator Jason Pizzo. He said it could potentially throw a wrench into the rights restoration process.

With its passage on November 6, Amendment 4 granted over a million felons across the state the right to vote.

It was noon on Monday and Miami-Dade County was about halfway done with its ballot recount for last week’s elections. Yet next door, in Broward County, the official recount hadn’t even started yet.

Mail ballots are convenient but lack certain perks that voting in person gives voters. Namely, mail-in ballots are ten times more likely to be thrown out by county Supervisors of Elections than in-person ballots, according to a report issued last month by the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida.

As voters across Florida gear up for early voting for the November elections, and as some ballots have already been shipped out to overseas voters, one question is being repeated over dinner tables and text message chains: “How should I vote on this amendment that is asking me three different questions at the same time?”

Every 20 years the Florida Constitution Revision Commission (CRC) meets to propose changes of law to the Florida Constitution. In 2018 the commission met and came up with several ideas included in the 13 amendment proposals to send to Florida voters in the November 2018 elections.

Whether voters will actually ever see those amendments at the ballot box is another story.

A recent series of stories by the Miami New Times found that police in Miami-Dade County have made tens of thousands of arrests for small amounts of marijuana, even after a 2015 policy allowed them to issue civil citations for those same offenses.

Those optional arrests have at times led to life-changing consequences for the suspects.

When Chris Riley created the phone app TIKD from his Coral Gables offices, he had dreams of innovating access to the court system for people who got speeding tickets. What he never imagined was that he would soon butt heads with the Florida Bar, that he would be claiming nearly $20 million in damages from the entity that regulates attorneys in the state and that the federal government would get behind him in his fight.

The Miami-Dade County Police Department has created a new unit tasked with preventing people with serious mental illnesses from reaching a crisis point or potentially shooting someone with firearms, WLRN has learned.

Florida prisons are seeing an increasing number of inmate deaths that authorities blame on a synthetic marijuana substance known as K2, or spice.

The increase in overdoses has prompted state officials to launch an educational campaign intended to show inmates the dangers of using the substance. The campaign was first reported by WLRN's news partner the Miami Herald.

Jason Bellows was a Florida inmate on his way out of prison and back into the real world. 

The Florida Department of Corrections (FDC) is proposing a plan to reduce in-person visitation hours. That comes at the same time it rolls out a for-profit contract with a Miramar-based company for digital visitations. Critics question the motives of the state, while the FDC maintains there is no connection between the two.

The state’s proposal would cut prison visitations in half in most facilities.