Jury selection was supposed to start Monday in the trial of Highlands County inmate Terrence Barnett, but it had nothing to do with his connection to the death of Polk County Detention Sgt. Ronnie Brown. ...more

November 28, 2009

A Lake Placid man allegedly struck his 69-year-old mother-in-law several times and locked all her clothes, a laptop and phone wires in his bedroom after a Monday morning argument. ...more

November 28, 2009

A Lake Placid Middle School student was arrested Wednesday after school officials reportedly found a gun in his book bag. ...more

November 20, 2009

A University of South Florida student told investigators that he disabled a smoke alarm in his dorm room so he could smoke marijuana undetected. Early Friday morning, he was charged on both counts, one of which is a felony. ...more

November 14, 2009

A University of South Florida student told investigators that he disabled a smoke alarm in his dorm room so he could smoke marijuana undetected. Early Friday morning, he was charged on both counts, one of which is a felony. ...more

November 13, 2009

Highlands County Sheriff's Deputy Jacob Riley says he was hit in the chest by a thrown cellphone Saturday night after being dispatched to a Decatur Street home to check on an argument. ...more

November 5, 2009

Abuses of prescription painkillers is a hard pill for state lawmakers to swallow. So-called "pill mills" have transformed much of Florida into "the painkiller capital of the United States, the notorious home to a cottage industry of storefront pain clinics selling alarming numbers of narcotics and feeding a brazen black market," state Rep. John Legg said in a press release. ...more

October 24, 2009

Tattoo artists who ink up minors without first checking if Mom or Dad said OK could spend up to five years in prison. ...more

April 1, 2009

A proposal that would make it a felony to have sex with animals passed out of its first state House committee today. ...more

March 27, 2009

Children no longer would be arrested for such minor violations of zero tolerance polices as bringing plastic butter knives to school, drawing pictures of guns or throwing an eraser under measures moving through the Florida Legislature. ...more

March 25, 2009