Jay Cridlin

Portions of the concert venue’s fabric roof fell onto the seats below.

The flames sparked from one of several scooters and bikes scattered throughout the house.

To fund its share of a new Tampa Bay Rays stadium and the proposed surrounding Historic Gas Plant District, the city of St. Petersburg is betting on growth.More than half of the nearly $700 million in city money targeted for the $6.5 billion project is projected to come from tax increment financing, a tool designed to pay off a public project via future tax gains on higher property values.Mayor Ken Welch’s administration believes that paying $287.5 million toward a stadium and $130 million towar…

Florida may not be quite the presidential swing state it once was. In the 2020 election, with its electorate shifting gradually to the right, Sunshine State voters went for Donald Trump — only the second time since 1960 that Florida didn’t back the eventual winner.But one thing you can count on: If it’s a presidential election year, the president will usually make at least one stop in Tampa Bay.Almost every four years since 2000, the sitting president has visited the region, often on the campaig…

The Florida Democratic Party has entered its Taylor Swift era.Following the release of the superstar singer’s new album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” on Friday, the party is mobilizing her fans to “Tay-ke back Florida” through a voter registration push targeting women ages 18 to 30.The campaign, “Florida Dems!!!”, was inspired by Swift’s new song “ Florida!!! ”In a text being sent out to registered Democrats in that demographic Friday afternoon, the organization said it was calling on Swifti…

Americans awoke Tuesday to images from a devastating scene in Baltimore , where a cargo ship rammed overnight into a major bridge, crumpling the road and sending cars into the water.For some in the Tampa Bay region, the scene conjured memories of the biggest bridge disaster in local history: The collapse of the Sunshine Skyway bridge after it was hit by a freighter in 1980.Though they occurred 44 years apart, it’s hard to shake the similarities between both tragedies. Here’s how they compare.The…

As election year contests go, Florida’s presidential preference primary today is bound to feel anticlimactic.Former President Donald Trump is all but certain to coast to victory in the state’s Republican primary, especially with Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley out of the race.On the Democratic side … well, actually, there is no Democratic side. The Florida Democratic Party nixed its presidential primary for 2024, opting instead to throw its support behind President J…

Former President Donald Trump rolled to a long-expected victory in Florida’s presidential preference primary on Tuesday, earning him another huge tranche of delegate votes en route to a November rematch with President Joe Biden.The Associated Press called the race for Trump as polls closed in the Panhandle at 8 p.m. Trump got 81% of approximately 1.1 million votes counted, according to the Florida Division of Elections’ tracker , followed by former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley at 13.9% and Go…

The National Transportation Safety Board on Tuesday issued a preliminary report on a Clearwater plane crash last month that killed the pilot and two people at a mobile home park on the ground.The report, based on interviews with witnesses and inspections of the record, is just the first step in unraveling what happened. Much more detailed reports, which may delve into more technical aspects of why the plane may have crashed, are generally available one to two years after a crash.As a result, the…

Super Tuesday is upon us.Sixteen states and one territory will hold presidential primaries and caucuses on Tuesday, with former President Donald Trump poised to leap closer to the delegate count needed to secure the Republican nomination for president.It’s the biggest day of the primary calendar, which began in Iowa on Jan. 15 and runs through early June. The votes Tuesday will determine more than a third of all delegate votes nationwide before the Republican National Convention in July.Florida…