Jay Cridlin

Organizers of the 45-year-old festival called the decision “heart wrenching and devastating.”

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…

Graham, who died Tuesday at 87, left his mark on the region as governor and U.S. senator.

A longtime newspaper board member, she rejected a hostile takeover offer that would have made her millions.

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…

A month after suspending his 2024 presidential campaign, Gov. Ron DeSantis was back in South Carolina on Tuesday, days before the state’s key primary pitting former President Donald Trump against former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.He wasn’t there to reenter the race, though. Or even stump for Trump, whom he endorsed upon dropping out.DeSantis was invited to speak to state legislators in the capital city of Columbia about his support for state-backed constitutional amendments, including congr…

Florida’s 2024 Republican presidential primary election isn’t for another month. By the time it gets here, former President Donald Trump might be the only candidate left in the race.But if you’re still on the fence about whether to vote, a key deadline is coming next week.Feb. 20 is the final day to register to vote in the March 19 primary, and the last day to change your party affiliation. Because Florida is a closed-primary state, and Florida Democrats aren’t holding a presidential primary , o…

A federal judge has dismissed The Walt Disney Co.’s lawsuit against Gov. Ron DeSantis, saying the company’s argument that it was unlawfully punished over free speech lacked standing and merit.The suit, filed last spring, argued that the governor acted impermissibly by disbanding the Reedy Creek Improvement District — a special district that oversaw much of the governance of the land on which Disney World sits — and replacing it with a new oversight board. Disney had argued DeSantis made the move…

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna is inspiring a new generation of would-be leaders to enter the world of politics.Just perhaps not in the way she intended.Two Pinellas County Democrats have filed to run against the St. Petersburg Republican in the 13th Congressional District.Peter Owen, a 25-year-old former paralegal from Clearwater, filed to run against Luna on Dec. 17, according to Federal Election Commission documents.And Sabrina Bousbar, a 26-year-old Largo native and former adviser for the Administra…

Hours after a high school shooting in Perry, Iowa, killed a sixth-grade student and wounded five others, Gov. Ron DeSantis said such incidents were “more of a local and state issue” than a federal one, and as president, he wouldn’t support measures aimed at curbing gun ownership.In an interview with NBC News and the Des Moines Register while campaigning in the key early caucus state on Thursday, DeSantis pointed to how Florida has focused on mental health reforms and school safety improvements t…

Ron DeSantis went to bed last New Year’s Eve looking at a favorable path to the presidency.At least 10 national and key-state polls in December 2022 showed Florida’s governor leading former President Donald Trump in the race for the White House. He was fresh off a landslide gubernatorial reelection. A New York Times columnist called him the year’s ”biggest winner” in American politics. He was about to publish a memoir seen as a preface to an inevitable campaign.Then 2023 happened.Whether you wan…

David Stuckenberg was just in Washington, D.C., meeting with members of the local Republican Party. The district has 20 delegate votes up for grabs in the 2024 presidential election, and the Tampa entrepreneur-turned-presidential candidate wanted to make his case for each one.Washington, D.C., isn’t Iowa, New Hampshire or South Carolina — though he’s hitting all those key early primary states, too. But to build any steam for his long shot presidential bid, he’s employing what he calls a “’Moneyb…