Florida

MIAMI (AP) — Ron DeSantis wants suspected drug smugglers at the U.S.-Mexico border to be shot dead. Nikki Haley promises to send American special forces into Mexico. Vivek Ramaswamy has accused Mexico’s leader of treating drug cartels as his “sugar daddy” and says that if he is elected president, “there will be a new daddy in town.”

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Amazon launched the first test satellites for its planned internet service on Friday as a rival to SpaceX’s broadband network.

United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket blasted off with the pair of test satellites, kicking off a program that aims to improve global internet coverage with an eventual 3,236 satellites around Earth.

Amazon plans to begin offering service by the end of next year.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX has a huge head start over Amazon and its founder Jeff Bezos, who has his own rocket company, Blue Origin.

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis repeatedly slammed Republican front-runner Donald Trump on Thursday and defended his own campaign, warning that the former president could deliver the 2024 election to Democrats energized to beat him.

DeSantis, speaking at a campaign event in their shared home state, argued that Trump lost the 2020 election not because more voters supported Democrat Joe Biden but rather to cast him out of office.

STARKE, Fla. (AP) — A man is scheduled to die by lethal injection over 25 years after he killed women het met in north Florida bars during a dayslong spate of crimes.

Michael Zack III is set to die at 6 p.m. Tuesday for the murder of Ravonne Smith, a bar employee he befriended and later beat and stabbed with an oyster knife in June 1996. He was also convicted and separately sentenced to life in prison for murdering Laura Rosillo, who he met at a bar in a nearby county.

MIAMI (AP) — Tropical Storm Philippe is threatening to unleash heavy rains and flash flooding in the Leeward Islands on Monday before eventually recurving out into the central Atlantic where it could gain hurricane status around midweek, forecasters say.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said at 5 a.m. Monday that Philippe was about 125 miles (200 kilometers) east-southeast of Barbuda. Top sustained winds were at 50 mph (85 kph) with higher gusts and Philippe was moving northwest at a slightly increased 7 mph (11 kph).

MIAMI (AP) — When Félix Llerena arrived in Miami in 2017, he quickly got involved in the city’s politically active community of Cuban exiles. He was soon drawn to President Donald Trump for his aggressive approach toward Cuba’s communist government and his stated affinity for Cuban American culture.

(AP) --- The third Republican presidential debate will be held in Miami on Nov. 8, a day after several states hold off-year elections, and candidates will be facing the most stringent requirements yet to take part.

Participating candidates must secure 4% of the vote in multiple polls and 70,000 unique donors to earn a spot on the stage, the Republican National Committee said Friday. Party officials did not immediately respond to inquiries about who would moderate the debate.

MIAMI (AP) — Hurricane Nigel was moving quickly northeastward over the open waters of the Atlantic Ocean on Thursday as a Category 1 storm, and at the same time a potential tropical cyclone appeared to be forming off the southeastern coast of the United States.

Nigel was centered about 505 miles (815 kilometers) southeast of Cape Race, Newfoundland, the National Hurricane Center said. It had maximum sustained winds of 85 mph (140 kph) and was moving northeast at 30 mph (48 kph).

MIAMI (AP) — The classified documents indictment of Donald Trump would seem, on paper at least, to be the most straightforward of the four criminal cases the former president is facing.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA said Thursday that the study of UFOs will require new scientific techniques, including advanced satellites as well as a shift in how unidentified flying objects are perceived.

The space agency released the findings after a yearlong study into UFOs.

In its 33-page report, an independent team commissioned by NASA cautioned that the negative perception surrounding UFOs poses an obstacle to collecting data. But officials said NASA’s involvement should help reduce the stigma around what it calls UAPs, or unidentified anomalous phenomena.