Jenny Staletovich

On a vast, wind-battered bank wedged between Florida, Cuba and the Bahamas, scientists studying the troubling decline of queen conchs have discovered some rare happy news: a thriving conch republic.

Among the highest ever documented in the Caribbean, researchers believe the herds grazing on Cay Sal Bank provide a lifeline to overfished Bahamian waters miles away.

The day of her 38th birthday in April, Jane Castro decided it was time to finally find out if she’d contracted COVID-19 during a January trip to Arizona State University.

Florida business regulators shut down a web portal launched to make it easier for the public to file complaints about businesses that violate COVID-19 guidelines last month, just as cases statewide started to surge.

The Department of Business and Professional Regulation created the online form in mid March, but removed it May 29.

The early start to the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season — the sixth in a row and the first with three named storms by June 1— has rekindled calls to move up the season’s official start.

A U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plan to protect Miami-Dade County from hurricane storm surges over the next 50 years with flood gates across rivers, and a mile-long flood wall along its upscale waterfront, could cost nearly $4.6 billion.

The tentative plan, which is now open for public comment, is the latest and most fully detailed. The plan also calls for elevating about 2,300 flood-prone structures.

Monday kicked off the start of another busy hurricane season, forecast to be the fifth in a row with an above average number of storms.

A team of scientists looking for coral that can better survive global warming have identified a hardier Caribbean coral in the Bahamas.

Florida Democrats want federal auditors to investigate the state’s flawed unemployment system and a backlog they say ranks among the worst in the country.

South Florida has been sizzling in recent weeks, with a slew of new record high temperatures, and a record for the number of records being smashed.

There’s something else heating up: the ocean. And that could be bad for hurricane season.

Don’t look for any favors from this year’s hurricane season.

In the wake of the coronavirus, Florida’s troubled unemployment office has been crippled by a barrage of applications that topped 317,000 applications in just the last 10 days.

Those problems did not come without warnings.

Choking plastics and deafening noise in the world’s oceans may be harming wildlife in more ways than scientists previously thought.

In two new studies published Monday, researchers found stinky plastics may be luring sea turtles while ship noise may be damaging crabs’ ability to protect themselves from prey. Both studies, from the University of Florida and University of Exeter in England, were published in the journal Current Biology.

Among scientists, conveying uncertainty in predictions over sea rise, increasing temperatures and other impacts linked to climate change — without suggesting doubt — remains a nagging challenge.

Scientists investigating a devastating new coral disease infecting reefs from Florida to and throughout the Caribbean may be zeroing in on a culprit behind the unpredictable spread: ballast water from big ships.

Investigators are now poring over shipping records housed at the Smithsonian to confirm the connection and better contain it.

When Hurricane Irma made landfall in the Florida Keys in 2017, it sent a four- to six-foot storm surge to Biscayne Bay more than 100 miles away, flooding busy Brickell Avenue.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers now has a tentative plan to fix that: massive flood gates and walls that could include a two-mile stretch in the heart of downtown Miami.

Florida remains the shark attack capital of the world, even if the capital is getting a little less crowded.

Everglades National Park will delay a planned hike in entrance fees while the park continues whittling away at a massive backlog of maintenance repairs.

To end its losing battle to block oil exploration in Everglades wetlands, Florida plans to purchase 20,000 acres in Broward County.

On a stretch of the Lower Keys, near an old borrow pit quarried during the construction of Big Pine, sea water and mud cover much of the rocky ground.

Florida’s woeful water conditions may be driving manatees into new, more hazardous territory.

In 2019, the number of manatees killed by boats reached a new high. Of the 574 deaths recorded as of Dec. 20, 130 were caused by collisions with boats, marking the third year in a row that fatal boat strikes increased.

Just after he entered the White House, President Donald Trump pulled out of the Paris Climate accord. It was only the most obvious rebuke of efforts to address climate change, that has since included ending a NASA carbon monitoring program and loosening regulations on air pollution.

Anglers have long theorized that the mighty tarpon, a brawny fish that draws anglers from around the world as part of a $6 billion U.S. sportfishing industry, migrated vast distances in search of warm water and food.

Now, a new study drawing on two decades worth of tracking data shows just how far: across the Gulf of Mexico to the Yucatan.

A $1.4 trillion spending package signed by President Donald Trump includes a holiday gift for the Everglades: $200 million.

As cranes continue to crowd South Florida’s skyline, birds of different feather are becoming increasingly hard to find.

On Saturday, birders and counters working with Tropical Audubon headed out for the first round of the annual Christmas Bird Count. The Audubon tradition launched in 1900 to turn the tide against hunting birds and tap into the burgeoning conservation movement. What participants found this year were fewer birds and a decline in good bird habitat.

Florida has an underappreciated secret weapon to help heal its ailing reefs: prickly sea urchins.

The 2019 Atlantic hurricane season officially wraps up Saturday, ending another above-average season that packed lethal power.

A lethal Gulf Coast red tide that littered beaches with dead wildlife in 2018 is back and this time around, it's claiming one of North America's rarest bird species.

In his new book, "The Geography of Risk: Epic Storms, Rising Seas, and the Cost of America's Coast," Pulitzer-prize winning author Gilbert Gaul takes a look at the U.S. history of coastal development since World War II - and finds a recipe for disaster.

Floridians have until Friday to weigh in on whether the state should set limits for toxic algae in water.

Florida is required to conduct reviews of water quality standards every three years under the federal Clean Water Act. This year, the state’s blue green algae task force and environmentalists have been lobbying for standards to address regular toxic outbreaks in the St. Lucie, Caloosahatchee and other Florida waterways.

On a steamy August day, Frank Ridgely stands inside a chilly surgical suite at Zoo Miami, preparing to slice into a seven-and-a-half foot-long Burmese python.

The snake was captured at the Big Cypress National Preserve, one of an estimated thousands roaming South Florida, devouring small mammals and helping wreck the balance of the ecosystem.