South Florida Local News

MIAMI — Tyler Anderson pitched seven scoreless innings, Aaron Hicks homered and the Los Angeles Angeles beat Miami 3-1 on Tuesday, sending the Marlins to their worst start in franchise history.

Anderson (1-0) scattered four hits, walked two and struck out five. The left-hander was lifted after 83 pitches.

“Honestly, today I just wanted to make as many good pitches as I could,” Anderson said. “There is no goal of trying to throw more. Sometimes I feel that could put you in a bad spot, trying too hard as opposed to just trying to make as many good pitches as you can.”

Hicks’ solo blast in the fourth put the Angels ahead 1-0. He drove a fastball from Miami starter Jesús Luzardo inside the foul pole in right for his first hit with Los Angeles, snapping an 0-for-11 start.

“You definitely want to start the season quick and get the first (hit) out of the way and enjoy your season with the highs and lows,” said Hicks, who signed with the Angels as a free agent in the offseason. “Today, it felt good, especially with the way that it came.”

The Angels increased their lead on run-scoring singles from Hicks and Taylor Ward in the sixth.

Bryan De La Cruz homered in the ninth inning for the Marlins, who lost their sixth straight game to start the season.

Luzardo (0-1) gave up three runs and four hits, walked two and struck out five over 5 1/3 innings.

“It’s a little frustrating, but I can tell you that there’s no one in the universe that wants to win more than the guys on the field,” Luzardo said. “The guys in this clubhouse, every day, we come with a positive mindset and a positive attitude.”

Logan O’Hoppe doubled and singled for the Angels, who won their third straight after starting the season with consecutive losses at defending AL East champion Baltimore.

“We’ve all been under a little stress since we hit Baltimore,” Angels manager Ron Washington said. “But I think that stress is subsiding now.”

Angels rookie Nolan Schanuel, of neighboring Boca Raton, walked twice, extending his career-starting on base streak to 34 games.

“The word out on him is that he doesn’t swing at too many bad pitches,” Washington said. “He will make you throw the ball across the plate. Tonight he did that and we needed it.”

After Matt Moore relieved Anderson and pitched a perfect eighth, Luis García allowed De La Cruz’s one-out solo homer and walked Jazz Chisholm Jr. García retired Tim Anderson on a groundout and struck out pinch hitter Jesús Sánchez for his first save.

Angels shortstop Zach Neto made a diving stab of Josh Bell’s hard smash in the hole and threw Bell out at first for the second out in the sixth. The play drew cheers from dozens of Neto’s family and friends who sat by the first base area. A Miami native, Neto is playing his first series in his hometown.

The Marlins acquired infielder Emmanuel Rivera from the Arizona Diamondbacks for cash considerations. In a corresponding move, infielder Jacob Amaya was designated for assignment.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Marlins: RHP Eury Pérez (right elbow inflammation) continues to play catch with the anticipation of progressing to a bullpen session soon.

UP NEXT

LHP Patrick Sandoval (0-1, 16.20) will start the series finale for the Angels on Wednesday against Marlins LHP A.J. Puk (0-1, 18.00).

Democrats highlighted searing personal stories and delivered impassioned political broadsides Tuesday as they sought to capitalize on a pair of abortion rulings delivered a day earlier by the Florida Supreme Court.

And, they warned of even more fallout from court rulings and legislative actions.

First, they said, is the ban on almost all abortions after the sixth week of pregnancy, a Florida law that goes into effect in four weeks, on May 1, as a result of one of the state Supreme Court rulings.

Next, they asserted, “right-wing MAGA extremist politicians” will stop families from using in vitro fertilization, or IVF. After that, they declared, Republicans would move on to restricting access to contraception.

“Florida’s six-week abortion ban is cruel, it’s dangerous and it’s extreme. Florida’s six-week abortion ban will cost lives and it will hurt the health, the safety and the well-being of the women of this great state. Florida’s six-week abortion ban is an assault on freedom. It’s an assault on liberty and it’s an assault on the dignity of the women of this state,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York said in Fort Lauderdale.

Jeffries, who would become House speaker if Democrats win control in the November elections, was in South Florida on the first day of a multi-pronged effort by Democrats to use the Florida Supreme Court abortion decisions to mobilize voter turnout this fall.

“Make no mistake about it: Freedom itself is on the ballot on November 5th in Florida,” Jeffries said, decrying what he said has been the impact of “extremists in Tallahassee, extremists on the Florida Supreme Court, extremists in Washington, and those who were put on the United States Supreme Court by MAGA extremists.”

Democrats on offense

The Democrats were on the offensive Tuesday in Florida on multiple fronts — something they’ve rarely managed to pull off in recent years as their political fortunes have gone into freefall.

Jeffries and seven other Democratic members of Congress, from Florida and elsewhere, held a field hearing to alert people to the coming six-week abortion ban and the referendum on the November election ballot that would reverse that ban — if voters approve enshrining abortion rights in the Florida Constitution.

U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston, organized the hearing not knowing exactly when or how the Florida Supreme Court would rule.

On Monday it OK’d a ban on almost all abortions after 15 weeks, a decision that automatically greenlights the coming six-week restriction. The Supreme Court also allowed the proposed constitutional amendment on the November ballot.

In a statement issued Tuesday by the White House, President Joe Biden Biden said the Florida Supreme Court’s “extreme decision puts desperately needed medical care even further out of reach for millions of women in Florida and across the South…. Florida’s bans — like those put forward by Republican elected officials across the country — are putting the health and lives of millions of women at risk.”

And the administration dispatched Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra to Fort Lauderdale to join the abortion-rights effort. “Women in America should not be living in medical apartheid,” Becerra said.

In a Biden campaign conference call, campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said the six-week ban could help mobilize voters.

“We do see more and more Americans sort of standing up and saying and declaring that they don’t want politicians interfering with some of these most personal decisions between them and their doctors, them and their families that we know are really critical,” she said.

That doesn’t mean Florida is seen as fertile political territory for Biden. “In terms of just Florida and the campaign, look, we’re clear-eyed about how hard it will be to win Florida,” Chavez Rodriguez said. “But we also know that Trump does not have it in the bag.”

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Testimony

At the hearing, a range of witnesses brought forward personal stories about anything that interferes with an individual’s decision on whether to have an abortion, or on other reproductive health issues, such as IVF.

Deborah Dorbert, of Lakeland, described her harrowing experience that began with what seemed like a routine visit to her physician the day before Thanksgiving in 2022 when she was pregnant.

“Everything was going smoothly with my pregnancy besides experiencing the normal symptoms of morning sickness and being tired,” she said. The technician performing the screening had a troubled look on her face and summoned the obstetrician. The doctor informed Dorbert that her baby’s kidneys didn’t develop, meaning that the child would only live a short time after birth.

Despite medical advice, she said doctors told her the pregnancy couldn’t be ended because of the 2022 state law banning most abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy, and she was told she would have to carry the baby to full term. “The next few months were the hardest times of my life,” she testified.

At 37 weeks, labor was induced. “I held him in my arms and he passed away after 94 minutes,” she said.

“Even though the baby had a life-threatening condition, until my life was on the line, I couldn’t get induced,” she said.

The condition meant there was no amniotic fluid, making the pregnancy extremely painful because there was no cushion for the fetus in her body. The effects are with the family almost a year and a half later. “We’ve all really struggled with our mental health,” she said.

Deborah Dorbert cries as she testifies about her experience carrying her baby son, whose kidneys never developed, to full term because of Florida’s 15-week abortion ban. She spoke during a field hearing of the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee at the Broward County Governmental Center in Fort Lauderdale on Tuesday. (Amy Beth Bennett / South Florida Sun Sentinel)

Sandra Elidor, a Broward resident, turned to IVF because of endometriosis, in which uterine-like tissue grows outside the uterus and makes pregnancy difficult. When the Alabama Supreme Court ruled in February that embryos created through IVF should be considered children, it created nationwide turmoil, Elidor said.

“Many of us were scared,” she said, and some stopped IFV treatments.

Decisions on IVF “should not be the government’s decision to make,” she said.

Dr. Ian Bishop, an obstetrician-gynecologist and assistant professor and director of family planning at the University of Miami Health System, warned the new restrictions would cost lives and impact the health care of many Floridians. (Bishop said he was speaking for himself, not the university.)

He said he is “compelled by my conscience to provide abortion” services to women who need them. But being “squeezed” between state law and his medical responsibility to care for his patients has changed his practice. “Nor being able to help the person in front of me as I hold their hand is devastating,” he said.

Bishop also told the lawmakers that federal protections for abortion rights are needed. “My patients need your help.”

Bishop said women would “absolutely” die as a result of Florida’s ban on most abortions after six weeks if women are forced to continue potentially dangerous pregnancies.

Bishop said the restrictions would have “profound implications for medical education.” Some prospective doctors will go to other states for training, not wanting their education limited.

Democrats framed the issue as one of “extreme Republicans” meddling in decisions that should be between women and their doctors.

“Right-wing MAGA extremist politicians in Tallahassee inflicted an abortion ban on Florida women,” Wasserman Schultz. “They want to insert themselves in our most personal difficult health care decisions.”

The audience of about 125 people was mostly invited Democrats and congressional staffers. Besides the members of Congress — including Floridians Kathy Castor, Maxwell Frost, Jared Moskowitz and Darren Soto — several Democratic state senators and representatives were present.

The all-Democratic congressional hearing was technically official government business. Jeffries and Wasserman Schultz said it wasn’t a partisan effort.

“Our concern at this moment is not electoral politics,” Jeffries said.

U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston, chaired most of the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee field hearing on abortion access at the Broward County Governmental Center in Fort Lauderdale on Tuesday. (Amy Beth Bennett / South Florida Sun Sentinel) Faulting Republicans

Democrats faulted former President Donald Trump for nominating the Supreme Court justices who provided the votes needed for the court’s conservative bloc to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision that had guaranteed abortion rights in the U.S. for five decades.

“‘Donald Trump cannot run, cannot hide from the fact that he appointed three justices with the intent that he achieved by overturning Roe v. Wade and tearing away women’s reproductive freedom and forcing the government in the midst of deeply private personal health care decisions,” Wasserman Schultz said.

U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Parkland, pointed to the three most recent state Supreme Court justices appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

They voted to uphold the ban on almost all abortions after six weeks, and voted against allowing the proposed constitutional amendment on the Florida ballot.

He said that is “telling about where the Supreme Court is going,” and suggested voters remember, and express their disapproval of the justices when they are up for retention votes in the November election.

Florida State Rep. Robyn Bartleman speaks to Miramar Mayor Wayne Messam prior to a field hearing of the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee held at the Broward County Governmental Center in Fort Lauderdale on Tuesday to discuss abortion restrictions. (Amy Beth Bennett / South Florida Sun Sentinel) Republicans respond

Republicans dismissed the Democrats’ predictions of doom.

“We agree with the three women on the Court who got it right in dissent. This amendment is misleading and will confuse voters. The language hides the amendment’s true purpose of mandating that abortions be permitted up to the time of birth,” Julia Friedland, the governor’s deputy press secretary, said via email.

Evan Power, chair of the Florida Republican Party, said Democrats are the ones with an extreme agenda.

“The only thing extreme about Florida Republicans is the amount of winning we do. This was an issue in 2022 and Republicans won by record numbers. This is just a sad attempt for Democrats to try and fake enthusiasm for their radical agenda that has seen them be on the losing end of a shift” of voters moving away from the Democratic Party and toward the Republican Party, Power said via text.

Florida state House Speaker Paul Renner, R-Palm Coast, said the proposed constitutional amendment is not what it seems.

“Abortion activists have spent millions putting an extreme amendment on Florida’s ballot,” he said in a statement. “Amendment 4 would make Florida’s abortion laws more liberal than countries throughout Europe and eliminate existing laws that most people on both sides of the abortion issue agree on — like parental consent for minors and any restrictions on late-term abortions. We are confident that when the people of Florida learn what this amendment does, they will vote NO on Amendment 4.”

Democrats said Renner was exaggerating the effects of the amendments.

State Rep. Jenna Persons-Mulicka, R-Fort Myers, said Monday in a news conference after the Supreme Court’s rulings that people need to “have the conversation about how extreme this amendment truly is. … This amendment rolls us back to the dark ages before advancements in science and medicine before Roe vs. Wade. It is broad. It is far-reaching. It is dangerous. It is wrong for Florida.”

U.S. Rep. Darren Soto, a Central Florida Democrat, predicted voters — especially women — would respond differently in November.

“The Florida Supreme Court slammed the door shut on reproductive freedom for millions of Florida women,” he said. “But then they handed the keys over to women to decide in November.”

Staff writer Abigail Hasebroock contributed to this report.

Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com and can be found @browardpolitics on Facebook, Threads.net and Post.news.

As a dispute over referendum funding for charter schools heats up in Broward County, the Palm Beach County School Board may end its own battle Wednesday by paying 45 charter schools a combined $54.9 million.

The expected payout is the result of a 2023 legal victory for charter schools that also has impacted Broward, which is the same appellate judicial district as Palm Beach County.

The issue in Palm Beach County relates to a tax of $100 per $100,000 in assessed property, which voters passed in a referendum in 2018. The money was used for teacher salary increases, safety and security and the funding of art and music teachers for four years. The law at the time didn’t explicitly say charter schools must be included, and Palm Beach County restricted the money to its district-run schools only.

In 2019, two charter schools, Academy for Positive Learning and Palm Beach Maritime Academy, and two parents filed a lawsuit challenging the district’s decision. After an initial win for the school district in trial court, the 4th District Court of Appeal ruled in favor of the charter schools in 2021, saying the district needed to start sharing. The decision was upheld after the state Supreme Court declined to hear the case in September 2021.

After that time, the district agreed to include all charter schools in referendum payments for the next two years, which was estimated to be about $45 million.  But still unanswered was whether the district must reimburse charter schools for the first two years where they hadn’t been paid.

The court ruled in March 2023 that Palm Beach County must make retroactive payments, and the district started making retroactive payments.

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“Based on the ruling of the Fourth District Court of Appeal, the School Board distributed payments reflecting the amount of the retroactive 2018 referendum revenues as required by the courts to every charter school in Palm Beach County and further sent funding letters regarding the interest payments owed on the 2018 referendum revenues,” the School Board agenda item states.

“The charter schools noted various disputes related to these interest payments. The Settlement Agreements included in this Board item are representative of the parties’ desire to resolve all disputes, including, without limitation, all claims raised or that could be raised in connection with the 2018 referendum principal payments or funding letters,” the item states.

Broward is still in the middle of a dispute over funding from its own 2018 referendum, and the state Board of Education found the district out of compliance with state law at a March 27 meeting. The board cited the Palm Beach County court rulings in its findings.

Broward shared some money with charter schools, about $4.6 million of $455 million collected over four years. But about 30 charter schools sued in October, seeking a proportional share of referendum money. The state Board of Education has become involved in the matter and says Broward owes about $80 million.

Broward’s tax, at $50 per $100,000 in assessed property, was half the size of Palm Beach’s at the time. The state law was changed in 2019 to explicitly require school districts to share with charter schools, and Broward and Palm Beach complied when they asked voters to approve new referendums in 2022.

The issue in Broward has angered some board members. Board member Daniel Foganholi has accused Interim General Counsel Marylin Batista of mishandling the matter and is asking the School Board to fire her April 16.

Abortion-right advocates are predicting a national fallout from the Florida Supreme Court’s decision Monday to allow a six-week abortion ban to take effect on May 1.

The law will shutter clinics, limit abortions performed here each year, delay care and send thousands of people across state lines to terminate their pregnancies, they said Tuesday.

“[This ban] will affect the entire country,” said Megan Jeyifo from the Chicago Abortion Fund, who added that Florida’s six-week cutoff is “essentially an all-out ban.”

Read the Florida Supreme Court’s decision to allow voters to decide on abortion access

Many low-income women can’t afford travel, prompting them to carry pregnancies to term or take abortion pills at home past six weeks, prescribed via telehealth by doctors from other states.

Six weeks of gestation is just two weeks after a pregnant woman misses her first period before most women know they are pregnant. Florida also still requires two in-person visits at least 24 hours apart before someone can get an abortion.

“It will make it virtually impossible” to get an abortion, said Kara Gross, Legislative Director and Senior Policy Counsel of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida.

The court also gave the OK for Florida residents to vote on whether to undo the six-week ban in November, through a ballot initiative that aims to put abortion rights into the state’s constitution up until viability, long considered to be about 24 weeks. If passed by a 60% majority, that amendment would take effect in mid-January.

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But providers and advocates say there may be irreversible changes to abortion in Florida before then.

“People, rightfully so, are excited about the opportunity to vote to enshrine abortion up to 24 weeks in the state constitution of Florida. But we can’t forget that these are real people’s lives, in the meantime, that are impacted — who won’t be able to access care, who are going to confront many more challenges,” said Stephanie Loraine Piñeiro, executive director of the Florida Access Network, a fund that helps women afford abortion care.

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Piñeiro said some of Florida’s independent abortion providers will struggle to stay afloat for the next nine months.

“Abortion clinics don’t receive bailouts, the same that corporations might. So what the landscape is going to look like is going to be dramatically different, whether we’re able to enshrine abortion in the state constitution or not,” she said.

In response to requests about how its operations might change, Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida interim CEO Barbara Zdravecky in an emailed statement reiterated the organization’s dedication to providing care.

“When the six-week ban goes into effect, we will continue to provide safe and legal abortion care in compliance with the law. Patients who need abortion care and are past six weeks pregnant will be navigated to other states with more access. Today and every day, Planned Parenthood will care for our patients and will never stop fighting for our right to control our bodies and our lives,” Zdravecky said.

Illinois replaces Florida

On May 1, Illinois will become the closest state to the Southeast that offers abortions past 12 weeks.

“We anticipated the worst, and the worst is here,” said Megan Jeyifo of the Chicago Abortion Fund. “So I think we are prepared for an influx, I think providers in our state have been working tirelessly for the last two years. The largest concern is that there won’t be money to get people to the appointments.”

Who gets abortions in Florida? New data present a clearer picture

Jeyifo said the Chicago Abortion Fund helped over 12,000 women get an abortion in 2023, spending an average of about $360,000 a month. The fund has never had to turn anyone away, but that day may come soon, Jeyifo said.

Smaller groups funding abortion care, including the Florida Access Network and the Brigid Alliance, already struggle to meet demand and expressed similar concerns.

“Abortion funds like us, we’re going to be more strapped for resources than ever,” said Piñeiro.

For John Stemberger, newly named president of Liberty Counsel Action, Monday’s Supreme Court decision is a victory. It struck down a long-held precedent that the state constitution’s privacy clause protected the procedure.

“I’m thrilled that after 35 years of work, the court has clarified that Florida’s privacy right has nothing to do with abortion,” he said.

An abortion ban tempered only by the right to vote on it | Editorial

But others expressed concerns about women’s safety.

For one, shuttered Florida clinics and increased demand could create a backlog that stretches across several U.S. states, said Serra Sippel, interim executive director of the Brigid Alliance, a national network assisting people who need to travel for abortion.

“As more people need to travel, we’ll also see clinics scheduling appointments well into the future to meet the demand. So this means people seeking abortions may be forced to delay their procedures and carry their pregnancies further into term, which can be mean risking their health,” she said.

Concerns about vagueness

Dr. Rachel Humphrey, a Central Florida OBGYN specializing in high-risk pregnancies, said she’s concerned the six-week ban’s exceptions are too vague.

Both the current ban and the six-week ban offer exceptions to save the mother from severe harm or death, regardless of how far along the pregnancy is, as well as exceptions for “fatal fetal abnormalities.” The bill has nonclinical language that Humphrey said leaves medical providers confused as to what qualifies. The six-week ban also offers exceptions for rape, incest or trafficking up to 15 weeks.

“We have had multiple cases where I and other physicians involved knew that continuing the pregnancy was dangerous for the mother,” Humphrey said. “And yet not dangerous enough that we felt it met the criteria that the politicians determined.”

One example up for debate is when someone’s water breaks pre-term, which can cause an incomplete miscarriage.

Making Florida relevant again, immediately | Editorial

“We literally have to wait for the mom either to complete the miscarriage process, or for her to get really sick while waiting before you can give her medicines to help her. And that’s the reality of what we’re dealing with right now, even before the six week ban,” Humphrey said.

But not all doctors agree. Dr. William Lile, a North Florida OBGYN, said the law is clear about what constitutes an exception. If doctors are delaying care in a way that endangers the mother, they are misinterpreting the law, he said.

“The biggest problem is ignorance about what the law actually says,” Lile said. “When the mother’s physical health is threatened, they can perform that procedure with or without a heartbeat. They don’t have to wait until the mom is in the critical stages in the ICU and might even have a uterine infection and might even have a loss of her uterus. They can respond and treat the mom appropriately when they feel the mother’s life and physical health is threatened.”

The law states exceptions are allowed when “two physicians certify in writing that, in reasonable medical judgment, the termination of the pregnancy is necessary to save the pregnant woman’s life or avert a serious risk of substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman other than a psychological condition.”

If another physician is not available, only one physician is required.

“When we actually looked at the law, we were like, ‘this isn’t going to change the way we practice medicine at all. If we can say, ‘this mother broke her bag of water, she’s at risk for having a life-threatening infection, and that would cause her further harm,’ there’s absolutely no delay per the law,” Lile said.

Ccatherman@orlandosentinel.com

Anne Z. Cooke | Tribune News Service (TNS)

NADI, Fiji Islands — “That’s Tom Hanks’ island, in ‘Cast Away’ the movie,” said the passenger sitting nearby, on the rear deck.

We’d seen him standing in line, a college kid in a red shirt, packing and repacking a knapsack while we waited to board the early morning ferry out of Viti Levu, largest of Fiji’s 330 islands. Leaning over the railing, he pointed at the horizon and a faint grey-green shape.

“Its real name is Modriki, and it’s small, just 100 acres,” he said. “But the beach is awesome. Tourists can’t wait to go.”

No surprise there. For most South Pacific travelers, nothing rivals Fiji’s sandy beaches, palm-shaded gardens, starry nights and Melanesian hospitality. We’d island-hopped over the years, tried a dozen different beach resorts, and liked most of them. Until 2019, when we joined a hiking group for a long look at the island’s mountains.

• Horses are cheaper than trucks, say Fiji farmers, if you’re out to see a neighbor. (Steve Haggerty/TNS)

• Navala Village, Fiji’s last traditionally thatched village, is an hour from the Fiji Orchid Hotel and welcomes visitors. (Steve Haggerty/TNS)

• Families on vacation make new friends in the pool near the Toba Bar & Grill, Intercontinental Hotel & Resort, Fiji. (Steve Haggerty/TNS)

• For a last-minute weekend on Lomani Island, take the one-hour ferry trip from Port Denerau. (Steve Haggerty/TNS)

• The Nausori Highland Road, scaling ancient lava slopes, reveals the origins of Fiji’s birth. (Steve Haggerty/TNS)

• Daring travelers join a Fijian warrior at the International Hotel & Resort’s evening Torch Lighting Ceremony, Fiji Islands. (Steve Haggerty/TNS)

• Natadola Bay’s public beach, beside the Intercontinental Hotel & Resort, is one of Viti Levu’s best. (Steve Haggerty/TNS)

• Fiji’s farming families grow vegetables year around to sell at Nadi’s Outdoor Market. (Steve Haggerty/TNS)

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Finally last fall, with COVID in decline and Fiji open for tourists, we hopped a plane and headed back, this time for another look at what makes the country tick. Finding hotels wasn’t easy; Fiji is to Australians what Hawaii is to Americans. But we crossed our fingers, found five with rooms and struck gold at three places begging for a repeat visit.

The Fiji Orchid, a stately manor house near Viti Levu’s northwest shore and the former home of Hollywood actor Raymond Burr, star of the detective series “Perry Mason,” felt nothing like a hotel and everything like a home away from home. With an inviting living room and framed memorabilia, it beckoned at the end of a very long day.

Hotel Manager Deepika Dimlesh arranged an authentic Fijian dinner, and co-owner Gordon Leewie told tales of Fiji life in the early days. Though Nadi (NAN-dee) International Airport was 20 minutes away, our bure (BOO-ray, room, house), one of six in the lush tropical garden, was as quiet as a cemetery.

“We’ve had guests who stayed for weeks,” said Dimlesh at dinner. “One was even writing a book. But most are international travelers, businessmen flying through. We tell them, if you have a layover don’t try to sleep in the lounge. We’ll pick you up, you can use the pool, eat dinner or go to bed, and we’ll drive you back.”

Curious about Lautoka, Viti Levu’s second-largest town on the northwest shore, we hired tour guide and driver Kesho Goundar, who (like many Fijians) speaks Fijian, English and Hindi. Stopping at the town’s huge covered market, he bought a couple of kava “sticks,” the gifts we would need – for the chief – if we visited a village.

Then it was on to the Sabeto Mountains and the Garden of the Sleeping Giant. A popular park, it was founded by Burr, a worldwide orchid collector. Hundreds of orchids, planted along the trail to the summit, a huge head-like rock, are the highlight of a visit. And the adjacent forest — a tower of vines, shadowy branches and strange flowers — was a set waiting for a movie.

The next day we headed upcountry to Navala Village, the country’s last thatched village, driving past barnyards, gardens, sugar cane fields, villages, the occasional manufacturing plant and Methodist, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu and Catholic-oriented primary schools.

At first glance Navala looked empty, until guide Mark Navaroka came out to collect our $25 entrance fee and a kava stick for the chief.

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“This is how we used to build houses,” he said, leading us inside the chief’s official structure, where a couple of village leaders sat cross-legged, talking. “They built it in 1954 when five dying Catholic villages joined together,” he continued, leading the way to the school and church.

Turning onto the Nausori Highland Road – not another car in sight – we lurched uphill over a rocky, pot-holed track for more than an hour, each hill steeper than the one before, until we rounded the top, a photographer’s delight. Finally, around the corner, we passed two hunters on horseback with rifles and dogs.

Moving to Viti Levu’s southwest corner, we checked into the Intercontinental Fiji Golf Resort & Spa, a 35-acre landscaped property on Natadola Bay. And instead of salesmen in suits, the hotel was as busy as a country club on a holiday weekend. Dads and kids played volleyball; moms worked out at a fitness center. We spotted kids racing hermit crabs, and others learning Fijian words and Polynesian dances. Menus at the hotel’s several restaurants listed continental and some Fijian dishes, and our favorite, the lively Toba Bar & Grill, took our order in five minutes and served the food in 10.

Coaxed into trying the Jet Ski “experience,” we flew over the waves, riding tandem behind two watersports guides. But the skis were trumped by the hotel’s Coral Planting project, headed by marine scientists Lawaci Koroyawa and Luke Romatanababa. Joining them in the water, we learned how to plant healthy corals onto damaged reefs.

Most memorable was the river cruise with Singatoka River Safari. Wide and long, the river winds through an endless valley, weaving past rocky hills, farms and meadows. Children splashed in it and men scrubbed their horses, waving as we passed. Pastoral and peaceful, it was a nod to an older century.

The 35-mile-long trip ended at a village, with a tour, lunch at the community center and a kava ceremony — shared cups – with the chief and town fathers. Kava is calming, some say. Just more weak tea, say others.

How many villages are there, we wondered. “Hundreds, but that’s not all,” said the hotel’s desk clerk. Each indigenous Fijian family belongs to a village that owns the land its on. It’s like a clan, she explained. And only indigenous Fijians can own land. So add all the villages and their land and it’s nearly 90% of the country. “The government makes Fiji’s laws, but the villages rule themselves. That’s why they’re important.”

As our last week approached, we took the ferry to Lomani Island Resort – yes, an adults-only beach resort – on Malolo Lailai island, a single hour’s ferry ride to the mainland and Nadi International Airport. You can stay overnight and still make it to the airport on time.

But it wasn’t the beach that earned the gold star. It was the charming cottages, each with a private yard and plunge pool. The smiling waiters and creative, chef-designed meals, served at candle-lit tables. The “double-X” swimming pool and the water sports center.

“It’s peaceful here,” said Shelley White, the general manager, when we met at the cocktail hour. “And quiet. But with Nadi next door, we stay busy with weddings and anniversaries, and lately, even business retreats. We can order everything we need and get it delivered the next day,” she said.

“Still, we love to have visitors like you, people who know this place and like it,” she added, with a puckish smile. “Let me know the next time you travel. I might decide to come along.”

If you go

Fiji Airways flies from Los Angeles, with Fijian attendants and quality service, and includes dinner, breakfast and snacks. Departures leave just before midnight and arrive at 5:30 a.m. Fiji Airways also flies from San Francisco and Honolulu.

Air New Zealand flies from Los Angeles, San Francisco and Honolulu

American Airlines flies from Los Angeles and San Francisco

United Airlines flies from Houston

Delta Airlines flies from Los Angeles and Seattle

©2024 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Laurie Baratti | (TNS) TravelPulse

Leading vacation rental company Airbnb is updating its Extenuating Circumstances Policy, including renaming it the Major Disruptive Events Policy “to better reflect its purpose.” This will provide greater flexibility for travelers who may need to cancel their reservations when unforeseen circumstances, such as natural disasters, extreme weather events and government-imposed travel restrictions, affect their ability to complete their stay.

Under this updated cancellation policy, guests can cancel reservations and receive refunds in cases of “foreseeable weather events,” such as hurricanes, that would result in another covered event occurring, such as large-scale utility outages. According to Travel + Leisure, the policy already applies to other “unexpected major events,” such as declared public health emergencies, including epidemics, but excluding COVID-19. This revised policy, which will go into effect on June 6, overrides individual hosts’ own cancellation policies.

This updated policy also applies to mid-trip cancellations, making it so that travelers can receive refunds for the unused portion of their stays in the event of a covered cancellation.

However, it’s important to note that Airbnb’s policy does not cover all unforeseen incidents, such as injuries, illnesses or government-imposed requirements, like jury duty or court appearances.

“The changes to this policy, including its new name, were made to create clarity for our guests and Hosts, and ensure it’s meeting the diverse needs of our global community,” Juniper Downs, Airbnb’s Head of Community Policy, said in a statement. “Our aim was to clearly explain when the policy applies to a reservation, and to deliver fair and consistent outcomes for our users. These updates also bring the policy in line with industry standards.”

The introduction of this revised policy aligns with Airbnb’s recent efforts to bolster travelers’ confidence in booking home-share stays. For example, earlier this month, it banned indoor security cameras in its rental homes worldwide due to privacy concerns, and, in 2022, instituted a permanent ban on parties, a move which was initially instituted temporarily during the COVID-19 crisis.

Last year, to crack down on fraudulent listings, the company introduced a “verified” status and badge for its rentals in an effort to reassure customers that the specified property does actually exists at the address indicated and that the host is reliable.

In 2022, Airbnb also updated its policies and platform to provide greater pricing transparency, displaying total costs, including fees, in user searches and altering its algorithm to rank listings with the best total prices higher in the results. At the same time, Airbnb provided “guidance” to hosts, encouraging them to set only “reasonable” checkout requests and requiring them to be displayed in the listing.

“Guests should not have to do unreasonable checkout tasks such as stripping the beds, doing the laundry, or vacuuming when leaving their Airbnb,” the company wrote in a statement at the time. “But we think it’s reasonable to ask guests to turn off the lights, throw food in the trash, and lock the doors — just like they would when leaving their own home.”

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©2024 Northstar Travel Media, LLC. Visit at travelpulse.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

May-lee Chai | Star Tribune (TNS)

Like many women of her generation, the unnamed Japanese American writer at the center of Marie Mutsuki Mockett’s bold, erotic “The Tree Doctor,” finds herself in midlife, squarely ensconced in the sandwich generation. She’s burdened with the double-whammy of childcare and tending to an elderly parent while holding down a job, in this case as an adjunct lecturer.

At novel’s start, Mockett’s protagonist has flown from her home in Hong Kong for what was supposed to be a brief trip to northern California to help her widowed mother, who has dementia and needs to be placed in long-term care.

“The Tree Doctor,” by Marie Mutsuki Mockett. (Graywolf/TNS)

Then, the pandemic hits. All nonessential travel is banned; Hong Kong has imposed a strict quarantine for travelers. The woman is stranded in her childhood home, remotely teaching a class on Japanese aesthetics and trying to console her two children and husband through video chats.

This could have been a novel solely about the unfair amount of work that disproportionately fell upon many women during the pandemic, the care-giving while also doing economic labor. But Mockett has something far more sly in mind. And it’s not about learning how to bake sourdough bread, like so many pandemic-era memes aimed at women.

As she cares for her mother’s long-neglected garden, the woman calls on a man at the local nursery — known as “The Tree Doctor” — and one thing leads to another, as the saying goes. A torrid, graphic, no-holds barred affair ensues.

The woman isn’t going to leave her husband or children. She’s not looking for a replacement mate. She’s intellectually fulfilled by discussing the intricacies of “The Tale of Genji” with her bright college students. No, she’s in it for the sex, for re-discovering what her body needs after decades of putting herself dead last on the checklist of things to do.

Mockett is the author of four books, including novel “Picking Bones from Ash” and two works of nonfiction. Her prose is as lush as the garden in the woman’s Carmel home, as Mockett weaves together discussions of flora, dissections of passages from “Genji” and the woman’s memories of childhood trips to Japan with her mother.

Marvel, for example, at how Mockett describes the irises: “Late spring was a time of lush color, dominated by violet and blue. The color purple in Japanese was murasaki, she recalled with delight. In the iris bed, there were now five flowers blooming, and the wisteria had, like Rapunzel, sent down its lilac curls.”

The title character remains an archetype, an antidote to the life of self-sacrifice that has been unhealthy for the woman. He may be a fantasy of sorts, but it’s also unrealistic to expect women, particularly mothers, to fulfill everyone else’s needs but their own. As the woman notes, “Someone once said that for every baby a woman has, that’s two books she doesn’t write.”

“Tree Doctor” is a book that says that kind of sacrifice takes its toll.

The Tree Doctor

By: Marie Mutsuki Mockett.

Publisher: Graywolf, 256 pages, $17.

©2024 StarTribune. Visit at startribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

TORONTO — Auston Matthews scored his NHL-leading 61st and 62nd goals of the season to go along with an assist as the Toronto Maple Leafs built a four-goal lead before hanging on late to down the Florida Panthers 6-4 in a potential first-round playoff preview Monday.

Nicholas Robertson and Matthew Knies also had a goal and an assist each for Toronto, while Tyler Bertuzzi and David Kampf provided the rest of the offense.

Ilya Samsonov made 26 saves for the Leafs, who were without five regulars — including star winger Mitch Marner (high ankle sprain) for an 11th straight game.

Vladimir Tarasenko had a goal and two assists for Florida. Sam Reinhart, Sam Bennett and Brandon Montour also scored. Sergei Bobrovsky allowed five goals on 16 shots through two periods before getting the hook. Anthony Stolarz made six saves in relief.

The Leafs, who sit third in the Atlantic Division and would have played Florida if the playoffs started Monday, had a chance to clinch a post-season berth for an eighth consecutive year, but results elsewhere didn’t go their way.

The Panthers, meanwhile, could have overtaken the Boston Bruins for first in the Atlantic with a victory.

Toronto, which fell to Florida in an emphatic five games in the second round of last spring’s post-season on the Panthers’ march to the Stanley Cup final, opened the scoring at 13:59 of the first period when Robertson scored on a breakaway following a turnover at the Leafs’ blue line.

Matthews, who became just the ninth different player in NHL history to twice hit 60 goals in a season Saturday, doubled the lead 33 seconds later when TJ Brodie circled Florida’s net and found the sniper in front for his 61st.

Florida got on the board 47 seconds into the second when Montour’s effort through a screen beat Samsonov for his seventh, but Bertuzzi took a pass from Matthews at the lip of Bobrovsky’s crease 39 seconds later to bag his 19th.

Samsonov then made a huge stop on Anton Lundell that had the Scotiabank Arena crowd on its feet.

Kampf scored his seventh for a 4-1 advantage at 8:32 after Leafs enforcer Ryan Reaves won a puck battle behind Florida’s net.

Knies, who fed Robertson’s breakaway pass on Toronto’s opener, added his 13th off a Pontus Holmberg setup for a 5-1 lead through 40 minutes.

Tarasenko got one back at 2:12 of the third when he tipped 22nd — and fifth since being acquired from the Ottawa Senators ahead of last month’s trade deadline — on a nice deflection from the slot.

Reinhart made it 5-3 with 8:02 left in regulation with his 52nd as the Panthers continued to push before Bennett got Florida within one with 1:50 remaining with his ninth.

But Matthews scored his 62nd into an empty net to seal it after some nervy moments.

UP NEXT

Panthers: Visit Montreal on Tuesday.

MIAMI — Mike Trout hit two solo homers and the Los Angeles Angels rallied from an early four-run deficit and beat the Miami Marlins 7-4 on Monday.

Trout’s second shot — a 473-foot blast in the sixth — landed in the walkway high above the wall in left-centerfield. It was the 26th multihomer game of Trout’s and the two blasts put him at 371 in his career, surpassing Gil Hodges for 81st on the all-time list.

Trout’s bid for a third homer ended when Miami reliever Tanner Scott (0-2) walked him to load the bases in the eighth. Brandon Drury then reached on a fielder’s choice that scored Anthony Rendon from third and snapped a 4-4 tie.

The Angels padded their lead in the ninth on Jo Adell’s RBI single and a balk by reliever Anthony Bender that scored Adell from third. Trout grounded out to third to end the inning.

Adam Cimber (1-0) induced a double play grounder against Jake Burger to end the sixth and pitched a scoreless seventh. Matt Moore followed with a perfect ninth and Carlos Estevez pitched the ninth for his second save.

Luis Arraez had two singles and three walks for the Marlins, who lost their season-starting fifth straight.

George Soriano relieved Miami starter Max Meyer to start the sixth and allowed consecutive solo shots against Nolan Schanuel and Trout that tied it at 4-all.

In his first appearance since July 23, 2022, Meyer gave up two runs, two hits, walked two and struck out four. Meyer, the third overall selection in the 2020 major league draft, missed last season after undergoing right elbow surgery.

Nick Gordon’s two-RBI double capped a four-run first for Miami against starter Chase Silseth. Burger and Jazz Chisholm Jr. also hit RBI singles.

The Angels narrowed the deficit on Aaron Hicks’ RBI groundout in the second before Trout’s first solo shot in the fourth.

Silseth was lifted after three innings and 76 pitches. The right-hander allowed four runs and five hits, walked two and struck out five.

Two-time Masters golf champion Bubba Watson threw the ceremonial first pitch before the game.

The Marlins selected the contract of LHP Kent Emmanuel from Triple-A Jacksonville and designated RHP Vladimir Gutierrez for assignment. Gutierrez pitched four innings of relief in Miami’s 9-7 loss against Pittsburgh on Sunday.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Angels: OF Mickey Moniac walked in two plate appearances after sitting out the series finale against Baltimore on Sunday because of illness.

Marlins: LHP Braxton Garrett (left shoulder soreness) is scheduled to throw three innings in an extended spring training game Tuesday in Jupiter, Fla.

UP NEXT

LHP Tyler Anderson (season debut) will start the second game of the series for the Angels on Tuesday. The Marlins will go with LHP Jesús Luzardo (0-0, 3.60).

By MICHAEL R. SISAK and JENNIFER PELTZ (Associated Press)

NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump posted a $175 million bond on Monday in his New York civil fraud case, halting collection of the more than $454 million he owes and preventing the state from seizing his assets to satisfy the debt while he appeals, according to a court filing.

A New York appellate court had given the former president 10 days to put up the money after a panel of judges agreed last month to slash the amount needed to stop the clock on enforcement.

The bond Trump is posting with the court now is essentially a placeholder, meant to guarantee payment if the judgment is upheld. If that happens, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee will have to pay the state the whole sum, which grows with daily interest.

If Trump wins, he won’t have to pay the state anything and will get back the money he has put up now.

Until the appeals court intervened to lower the required bond, New York Attorney General Letitia James had been poised to initiate efforts to collect the judgment, possibly by seizing some of Trump’s marquee properties. James, a Democrat, brought the lawsuit on the state’s behalf. Her office declined to comment Monday.

The court ruled after Trump’s lawyers complained it was “a practical impossibility” to get an underwriter to sign off on a bond for the $454 million, plus interest, that he owes.

The company that underwrote the bond is Knight Specialty Insurance, which is part of the Knight Insurance Group. The chairman of that company, billionaire Don Hankey, told The Associated Press that both cash and bond were used as collateral for Trump’s appellate bond.

Trump is fighting to overturn a judge’s Feb. 16 finding that he lied about his wealth as he fostered the real estate empire that launched him to stardom and the presidency. The trial focused on how Trump’s assets were valued on financial statements that went to bankers and insurers to get loans and deals.

Trump denies any wrongdoing, saying the statements actually lowballed his fortune, came with disclaimers and weren’t taken at face value by the institutions that lent to or insured him.

The state courts’ Appellate Division has said it would hear arguments in September. A specific date has not been set. If the schedule holds, it will fall in the final weeks of the presidential race.

Under New York law, filing an appeal generally doesn’t hold off enforcement of a judgment. But there’s an automatic pause — in legalese, a stay — if the person or entity obtains a bond guaranteeing payment of what’s owed.

Courts sometimes grant exceptions and lower the amount required for a stay, as in Trump’s case.

Trump’s lawyers had told the appeals court more than 30 bonding companies were unwilling to take a mix of cash and real estate as collateral for a $454 million-plus bond. Underwriters insisted on only cash, stocks or other liquid assets, the attorneys said.

They said most bonding companies require collateral covering 120% of the amount owed.

Trump recently claimed to have almost a half-billion dollars in cash — along with billions of dollars worth of real estate and other assets — but said he wanted to have some cash available for his presidential run.

Recent legal debts have taken a sizable chunk out of Trump’s cash reserves.

In addition to the $175 million he had to put up in the New York case, Trump has posted a bond and cash worth more than $97 million to cover money he owes to writer E. Jean Carroll while he appeals verdicts in a pair of federal civil trials. Juries found that he sexually assaulted her in the 1990s and defamed her when she went public with the allegation in 2019. He denies all the allegations.

In February, Trump paid the $392,638 in legal fees a judge ordered him to cover for The New York Times and three reporters after he unsuccessfully sued them over a Pulitzer Prize-winning 2018 story about his family’s wealth and tax practices.

In March, a British court ordered Trump to pay to pay legal fees of 300,000 pounds ($382,000) to a company he unsuccessfully sued over the so-called Steele dossier that contained salacious allegations about him. Trump said those claims were false.

Trump could eventually generate cash by selling some of the nearly 60% of stock he owns in his newly public social media company, Trump Media & Technology Group — but that would be a longer-term play. Trump’s stake could be worth billions of dollars, but a “lock-up” provision prevents insiders like him from selling their shares for six months.

BOSTON — Lawyers representing migrants flown to Martha’s Vineyard nearly two years ago by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis can sue the charter flight company that transported them to the island off the Massachusetts coast, according to a ruling Monday by a federal judge in Boston.

The 50 Venezuelans were sent to Martha’s Vineyard from San Antonio, Texas, and had been promised work and housing opportunities.

Under Monday’s ruling, the migrants can proceed with their suit against Florida-based Vertol Systems Co., which had agreed to fly them to the island for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

An email to the company seeking comment after the afternoon release of the ruling was not immediately returned.

Migrant flights lawsuit dropped against Florida

Also named in the suit is DeSantis, who ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for president before dropping out in January.

The U.S. District Court of Massachusetts said in its ruling that it does not have jurisdiction over DeSantis in this case.

The court, however, found that the facts of the case “taken together, support an inference that Vertol and the other Defendants specifically targeted Plaintiffs because they were Latinx immigrants.”

The DeSantis administration noted that the judges’ order dismissed the state defendants.

“As we’ve always stated, the flights were conducted lawfully and authorized by the Florida Legislature,” Julia Friedland, the deputy press secretary for DeSantis, said in a statement. “We look forward to Florida’s next illegal immigrant relocation flight, and we are glad to bring national attention to the crisis at the southern border.”

The court also said that “Unlike ICE agents legitimately enforcing the country’s immigration laws … the Court sees no legitimate purpose for rounding up highly vulnerable individuals on false pretenses and publicly injecting them into a divisive national debate.”

‘It was all a political stunt’: South Florida Hispanics fume over Martha’s Vineyard controversy

Iván Espinoza-Madrigal, executive director of Lawyers for Civil Rights, called the 77-page ruling a major victory in the Martha’s Vineyard case.

He said in a statement that the ruling sends the message that private companies can be held accountable for helping rogue state actors violate the rights of vulnerable immigrants through what it characterized as illegal and fraudulent schemes.

By PAT GRAHAM (AP Sports Writer)

Hall of Fame defensive lineman Warren Sapp is headed back to the classroom in order to be more of a hands-on coach for the Colorado Buffaloes.

Deion Sanders added the 51-year-old Sapp to the staff as a graduate assistant, which paves the way for him to work on the field with the team. Sapp, who’s taking classes, introduced himself to the Buffaloes as the senior quality control analyst — a mouth-full, he added — but that role would limit his involvement on the field.

“We’re building mansions here,” Sapp said to the team when he was introduced by Sanders to the group in a video posted on YouTube. “That’s why I’m here, to help you build your mansion.”

The University of Miami standout spent 13 seasons in the NFL with Tampa Bay and the Oakland Raiders. Sapp was the 1999 AP defensive player of the year and won a Super Bowl title with the Buccaneers following the 2002 season.

Sapp, who finished his career with 96 1/2 sacks, is looking forward to working alongside Sanders and the rest of the staff.

“I’ve been a Deion Sanders fan since I was 12 years old,” Sapp said in the video posted through “ Well Off Media,” which is run by Deion Sanders Jr. “We’re all here for the man. Let’s go ride — championship time.”

Deion Sanders had nothing but praise for Sapp’s pedigree — pointing out he had a gold jacket, too — and his trash-talk game.

“That’s how we meet, talking junk,” Sanders said to the team.

Sanders has been busy tinkering with his coaching staff following a 4-8 showing in his first season at Colorado. He added Robert Livingston as the defensive coordinator and brought in Phil Loadholt to shore up a shaky offensive line to better protect his QB son, Shedeur Sanders. The team is sticking with Pat Shurmur as the offensive coordinator after he took over play-calling duties during last season.

Colorado is gearing up for its spring game on April 27 at Folsom Field. It will be aired on the Pac-12 Network, the team announced Monday, and followed that night by a concert featuring Lil Wayne at CU Events Center.

The Buffaloes are moving from the Pac-12 to the Big 12 next season.

By MICHAEL R. SISAK (Associated Press)

NEW YORK (AP) — The judge in Donald Trump’s April 15 hush-money criminal trial declared his daughter off-limits to the former president’s rancor on Monday, expanding a gag order days after Trump assailed and made false claims about her on social media.

Judge Juan M. Merchan said the original gag order — barring Trump from making public statements about jurors, witnesses and others connected to the case — did not include his family members, but subsequent attacks warranted including them.

Trump is now also barred from commenting publicly about the family of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, though he is still free to go after Bragg, the elected Democrat whose office is prosecuting the case.

“This pattern of attacking family members of presiding jurists and attorneys assigned to his cases serves no legitimate purpose,” Merchan wrote. “It merely injects fear in those assigned or called to participate in the proceedings that not only they, but their family members as well, are ‘fair game,’ for Defendant’s vitriol.”

A violation could result in Trump being held in contempt of court, fined or even jailed.

Trump criticized Merchan and Merchan’s daughter, a Democratic political consultant, in a series of Truth Social posts last Wednesday, a day after the judge issued his original gag order. Another post, over the weekend, included a photograph of Loren Merchan.

Prosecutors had urged Merchan to clarify or expand his gag order after Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform last week that Loren Merchan “makes money by working to ‘Get Trump,’” and wrongly accused her of posting a social media photo showing him behind bars.

Trump’s lawyers had fought the gag order and its expansion, arguing that Trump was engaging in protected political campaign speech.

Trump’s lawyers and the Manhattan district attorney’s office declined comment.

The trial, which involves allegations Trump falsified payment records in a scheme to cover up negative stories during his 2016 presidential campaign, is scheduled to begin April 15. Trump denies wrongdoing and has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records.

Merchan’s gag order echoes one in Trump’s Washington, D.C., election interference criminal case. It prohibits statements meant to interfere with or harass the court’s staff, prosecution team or their families — now including Merchan’s family.

The Broward School Board’s top lawyer could be fired this month following questions over whether the school district failed to share enough money from a 2018 tax referendum with charter schools.

General Counsel Marylin Batista could be terminated without cause at the April 16 School Board meeting, under a proposal from Board member Daniel Foganholi.

“In recent weeks, concerns have arisen regarding the conduct and decision-making of the General Counsel, despite the Board’s explicit directives and established protocols,” Foganholi wrote in an agenda item. “The General Counsel has undertaken certain actions independently, which have led to unfavorable outcomes for the School District.”

He specifically listed the School Board’s efforts to resolve the dispute over charter school funding. The School Board decided in 2018 to only share a small portion of money with charter schools from a referendum for teacher pay, safety and security and mental health. The total amount was about $4.6 million over four years.

But state officials said court rulings have made clear the district must provide a proportional share of the referendum money. About 30 charter schools sued the district in October to receive money they say they are owed, and the State Board of Education found the School Board out of compliance Wednesday. A state lawyer said the district owes charter schools about $80 million.

The School Board voted March 20 to try to resolve the issue quickly, but district lawyers submitted a memo stating reasons why the district shouldn’t have to share the money. Some board members said the memo didn’t reflect the will of the board.

During the state Board of Education meeting, Batista gave answers that indicated she agreed the School Board had to share money with charter schools, based on court rulings in 2021 but said it was a decision of management at the time. She was interim general counsel at the time the rulings became final.

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• Education | State says Broward schools must pay millions to charter schools by December

Foganholi, one of two appointees of Gov. Ron DeSantis on the School Board, cited other issues as well.

“Since my swearing in back in 2022, there have also been multiple public major missteps and different legal opinions given on the same topic, depending what board member requests guidance,” he said in the agenda item.

Batista, responding to a request from the South Florida Sun Sentinel for comment, said, “I remain focused and committed to advancing the best interests of the School Board.”

If she is fired without cause, she is entitled to 60 days notice and 20 weeks severance, according to her contract.

Batista has been a lawyer with the school district since 1996. She became interim general counsel for the board in May 2021, after then-General Counsel Barbara Myrick was on indicted on a felony charge of improperly disclosing information from a statewide grand jury. Myrick has pleaded not guilty, and her case is still pending.

Batista initially didn’t apply for the permanent job, but when the School Board failed to reach an agreement with two candidates who were finalists for the job, it agreed to negotiate with her for the permanent job. She started as the permanent general counsel in February 2023.

By KIM CHANDLER (Associated Press)

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — An Alabama inmate seeking to block the state’s attempt to make him the second person put to death by nitrogen gas has filed a lawsuit arguing the first execution under the new method was “botched” and caused cruel and prolonged suffering.

Attorneys for Alan Eugene Miller, who survived a 2022 lethal injection attempt, filed the lawsuit Friday in federal court in which they challenged the execution method and asked a judge to prevent a potential execution from going forward.

Miller’s attorneys argued that the first nitrogen execution in January left Kenneth Smith shaking and convulsing on a gurney as he was put to death. The suit argued that it would be a violation of the ban on cruel and unusual punishment to put him to death using the same protocol, which used a mask to deliver the nitrogen gas. They also argued the state is seeking to execute Miller to “silence” him in retaliation for speaking out about his failed lethal injection attempt, calling that a violation of his free speech and due process rights.

“Rather than address these failures, the State of Alabama has attempted to maintain secrecy and avoid public scrutiny, in part by misrepresenting what happened in this botched execution,” the lawyers wrote. They said Alabama was unable to conduct such an execution “without cruelly superadding pain and disgrace, and prolonging death.”

A spokeswoman for Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall did not immediately respond to a text message seeking comment on the lawsuit.

In February, Marshall’s office asked the Alabama Supreme Court to set an execution date for Miller using nitrogen gas. The court has not yet ruled on the request. Miller is scheduled to file a response with the court this week.

The request for an execution date comes as the state and advocates continue to present opposing views of what happened during the state’s first execution using nitrogen. Smith shook and convulsed in seizure-like movements for several minutes on the death chamber gurney as he was put to death on Jan. 25.

Miller was sentenced to death after being convicted of a 1999 workplace rampage in which he killed Terry Jarvis, Lee Holdbrooks and Scott Yancy.

Like Smith, Miller survived a previous lethal injection attempt. The state attempted to execute Miller by lethal injection in September 2022, but that execution was called off after officials were unable to insert an intravenous line into the 351-pound (159-kilogram) prisoner’s veins.

After that attempt, the state struck an agreement with Miller’s lawyers that it would never again seek to execute Miller by lethal injection and that any attempt to execute him in the future would be done with nitrogen gas. However, Miller’s attorneys argued that witness accounts of Smith’s execution contradict Marshall’s assertion that it was “textbook” and went according to the state’s plan.

A separate lawsuit filed by another death row inmate seeking to block the use of nitrogen gas said witness accounts show that Smith’s execution was a botched “human experiment.”

An attorney listed for Miller did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on the lawsuit.

Miller said that during the aborted 2022 lethal injection attempt, prison staff poked him with needles for over an hour as they tried to find a vein and at one point left him hanging vertically as he lay strapped to a gurney.

Miller, a delivery truck driver, was convicted in the fatal workplace shootings of the three men. Prosecutors said Miller killed Holdbrooks and Yancy at one business and then drove to another location where he shot Jarvis. Each man was shot multiple times.

Testimony at Miller’s trial indicated Miller was delusional and believed the men were spreading rumors about him. Jurors convicted Miller after 20 minutes of deliberation and then recommended a death sentence, which a judge imposed.

By KIM TONG-HYUNG and HYUNG-JIN KIM (Associated Press)

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea test-fired a suspected intermediate-range ballistic missile toward waters off its eastern coast Tuesday, South Korea’s military said, as it pushes to advance its weapons aimed at remote U.S. targets in the Pacific.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the missile was launched from an area near the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, and flew about 600 kilometers (372 miles) before landing in the sea between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.

Lee Sung Joon, spokesperson of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the launch likely followed up on a North Korean test in March of a solid-fuel engine built for a new intermediate-range hypersonic missile it has been developing. If perfected, such weapons could reach the U.S. Pacific military hub of Guam and beyond, experts say.

Lee didn’t specify why the South Koreans were assessing the missile as an IRBM or whether it was flown at less than its capacity, but said the North Koreans were likely experimenting with new warhead technologies.

Japan’s Defense Ministry gave more details in its assessment, saying the missile flew about 650 kilometers (403 miles) while reaching a maximum altitude of 100 kilometers (62 miles) before landing in waters outside of Japan’s exclusive economic zone. The Japanese military didn’t immediately say whether it assessed the missile as intermediate range or something else.

It was the North’s first known launch event since March 18, when North Korean leader Kim Jong Un supervised a live-fire drill of artillery systems designed to target South Korea’s capital.

Japan’s coast guard shared an assessment of the country’s Defense Ministry that the missile has already landed but still urged caution for vessels passing the area.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters that no damage related to the missile has been reported. He said North Korea’s frequent missile launches “threaten the peace and safety of not only Japan but also the region and the international security.”

Tensions in the region have risen since 2022 as Kim used Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a distraction to accelerate his testing of missiles and other weapons. The United States and South Korea have responded by expanding their combined training and trilateral drills involving Japan and sharpening their deterrence strategies built around strategic U.S. assets.

There are concerns that North Korea could further dial up pressure in an election year in the United States and South Korea.

Following the March 19 test of the solid-fuel IRBM engine, Kim said the strategic value of such weapons would be just as important as his intercontinental ballistic missiles targeting the U.S. mainland.

In recent years, North Korea has been focusing on developing more weapons with built-in solid propellants. Those weapons are easier to move and hide and can be made to launch quicker than liquid-propellant missiles, which need to be fueled before launch and cannot stay fueled for long periods of time.

Kim has also vowed to acquire hypersonic missiles that can overwhelm its adversaries’ missile defense systems. Other weapons North Korea have tested this year include cruise missiles and “super-large” multiple rocket launchers aimed at the Seoul capital area.

The latest launch came two days after North Korea reaffirmed its plans to launch several reconnaissance satellites this year. South Korea’s military said Monday there were no signs that a satellite launch is impending at the North’s main launch facility in the northwest.

Kim has described satellites as crucial for monitoring U.S. and South Korean military movements and enhancing the threat of his nuclear-capable missiles. Last November, North Korea put a military spy satellite into orbit for the first time.

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AP journalist Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed to this report.

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Follow AP’s Asia-Pacific coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/asia-pacific

The Florida Supreme Court tore a page from the Florida Constitution and flung it in the faces of the people Monday by effectively banning abortion in Florida. Six of the seven justices said the word “privacy” does not mean what most people sensibly assume it does.

But in a second ruling that was both sound and surprising, a court dominated by appointees of Gov. Ron DeSantis allowed the people of Florida to vote in November on a ballot initiative that would specifically protect abortion rights. It will be on the ballot as Amendment 4.

In a 4-3 decision, justices rejected Attorney General Ashley Moody’s contrived arguments that the initiative’s ballot summary is misleading. But Justice Carlos Muñiz picked up two votes for a concurring opinion that hints at an eventual “fetal personhood” declaration by the court that would render Amendment 4 moot.

The 6-1 decision to ban abortions, the most radical act yet of this reactionary court’s contempt for precedents it dislikes, says in effect that the people didn’t know abortion would be affected when they approved Florida’s landmark 1980 privacy amendment to the state Constitution.

The privacy provision, gutted

That provision guarantees — or did until Monday — that “every natural person has the right to be let alone and free from governmental intrusion into the person’s private life except as provided herein…”

And if the people didn’t know, the majority said, then the court was wrong to conclude in 1989 that abortion was included in the right to privacy.

All seven justices in 1989 agreed with the majority opinion that nothing could be more private or personal than the decision whether to abort or continue a pregnancy.

What the 1989 court said then is still self-evident.

Monday’s decision not only upholds Florida’s ban on abortion after 15 weeks but effectively implements another law, labeled the Heartbeat Protection Act by its legislative supporters, that forbids abortion after six weeks — a time when many women don’t yet know they are pregnant.

It is astonishing, appalling and intolerable that Charles Canady, the senior justice, did not recuse himself and voted for that outcome. While representing Florida in Congress, he opposed abortion stridently. His wife, Jennifer, a freshman state House member, co-sponsored the six-week ban, written so as to take effect immediately if the court upheld the 15-week law.

Ultimate judicial activism

That outcome is no less disgusting for its inevitability since DeSantis began packing the court with candidates curated for their ideologies, first by a nominating commission that DeSantis commands, secondly by a secret cadre of advisers led by a leading abortion opponent, the Federalist Society’s Leonard Leo, and finally by DeSantis himself.

It was the ultimate in judicial activism, a trait DeSantis and his justices all claim to abhor. Moreover, the majority opinion also focused on what it imagined were the intentions of those who supported the 1980 privacy amendment rather than on the plain and logical meaning of the text.

Whatever happened to textualism?

The decision also contradicted the unmistakable opinion of a majority of voters who rejected the Legislature’s 2012 attempt to do what the court finally did this week. That failed amendment would have barred public funds for abortion and held that the privacy clause could not be used to provide broader privacy rights than those in the U.S. Constitution.

Once again, Justice Jorge Labarga’s solitary dissent casts harsh light on the majority’s biased conclusions.

“Contrary to the majority,” he wrote, “I am convinced that in 1980, a Florida voter would have understood that the proposed privacy amendment included ‘broad protections for abortion.’

“The right of privacy is no novel concept … even in early considerations of the right of privacy, scholars recognized that the right would be one that would evolve over time — and it did.”

By 1980, Labarga noted, the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision (since repealed by a right-wing majority), had educated the entire American public on how privacy bears on abortion.

Seven years after Roe, Florida voters wrote privacy rights into the state constitution. Labarga wrote at length to document what Florida voters heard and knew in the aftermath of Roe.

Labarga’s ‘deep dismay’

Labarga warned that Monday’s decision could jeopardize other aspects of privacy despite the majority’s claim that it doesn’t.

“What the majority has done today supplants Florida voters’ understanding — then and now — that the right to privacy includes the right to an abortion,” he wrote, concluding by expressing his “deep dismay.”

Infuriated voters have options. They can and should vote overwhelmingly for Amendment 4 on Nov. 5.

In the longer range, they should stop electing politicians like DeSantis, and demand that their legislators restore the independence of the judicial nominating commissions, which was destroyed by a 2001 law enabling the governors to appoint all nine members of each panel rather than only three.

They should also demand that Florida’s Judicial Qualifications Commission investigate Canady’s ethics in voting to uphold, in effect, his wife’s new abortion ban.

The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Opinion Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writer Martin Dyckman and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson. Editorials are the opinion of the Board and written by one of its members or a designee. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel.com.

The former head of the Pentagon’s investigation into the mysterious health incidents known as Havana Syndrome told the CBS investigation show “60 Minutes” he believes Russia was behind them and was attacking U.S. officials abroad and at home.

In partnership with The Insider, a Russian exile media outlet, and German magazine Der Spiegel, 60 Minutes reported Sunday night on new evidence connecting a possible domestic incident of Havana Syndrome to Russia and identified a Russian military intelligence unit, identified as 29155, as the possible culprit of some of the suspected attacks, the latest turn in a case that has confounded U.S. spy agencies.

Havana Syndrome got its name from the city where U.S. and Canadian diplomats and intelligence officials first reported in 2016 experiencing strange noises and sensations of pressure, and later developed debilitating symptoms like vertigo, migraines and hearing and cognitive problems. The incidents were later reported around the world, which led to suspicions that a foreign adversary, possibly Russia, was attacking U.S. diplomats and spies with some type of directed energy weapon.

To read the full report, click here to go to miamiherald.com

A Republican House member from Michigan openly mused during a town hall last week about wiping out the Gaza Strip, telling his constituents that “it should be like Nagasaki and Hiroshima.”

“Get it over quick,” Rep. Tim Walberg said, according to a video that emerged online from the March 25 event in Dundee, Michigan.

His remarks, invoking the U.S. atomic bombings of Japan during World War II while discussing his opposition to U.S. humanitarian aid for Gaza, drew swift condemnation, including at least one call for his resignation. He said that his remarks were taken out of context and that the clip showed only part of his response.

Justin Amash, a former House GOP colleague in Michigan and a Palestinian American, denounced Walberg for his comments, writing on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Saturday that they “evince an utter indifference to human suffering.

“The people of Gaza are our fellow human beings — many of them children trapped in horrific circumstances beyond their individual control,” Amash wrote. “For him to suggest that hundreds of thousands of innocent Palestinians should be obliterated, including my own relatives sheltering at an Orthodox Christian church, is reprehensible and indefensible.”

Amash, the only sitting Republican member of Congress to support President Donald Trump’s first impeachment, left the Republican Party in 2019 while facing attacks by Trump. Amash is running in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate in Michigan.

In a post on X on Sunday morning, Walberg, 72, a former pastor and a longtime House member who represents southern Michigan, sought to clean up his remarks and accused his critics of twisting his words.

“As a child who grew up in the Cold War Era, the last thing I’d advocate for would be the use of nuclear weapons,” he wrote. “In a shortened clip, I used a metaphor to convey the need for both Israel and Ukraine to win their wars as swiftly as possible, without putting American troops in harm’s way.”

Walberg’s office also provided an audio recording and a transcript of the exchange that prompted his remarks. He had been asked why the United States was spending money to build a pier to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza.

“We shouldn’t be spending a dime on humanitarian aid,” he said, according to the recording. “It should be like Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Get it over quick. The same should be in Ukraine. Defeat Putin quick. Instead of 80% of our funding for Ukraine being used for humanitarian purposes, it should be 80%, 100% to wipe out Russian forces, if that’s what we want to do.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

WASHINGTON — Observations and other notes of interest from Sunday night’s 119-107 victory over the Washington Wizards:

– If Jimmy Butler Week is about to follow, then everything else is a non-issue.

– Including the passive start Sunday, before late and needed on-demand scoring.

– And the lack of a breakout game in two weeks.

– Perhaps it’s the lingering remnants of his illness.

– Perhaps it’s allowing others to thrive, as Terry Rozier did Sunday.

– Perhaps it’s merely waiting for this moment at hand.

– With huge games now following against the Knicks, 76ers, Rockets and Pacers.

– And that’s the thing with Butler, wondering about what is next.

– Mostly, when that “it” moment is about to happen.

– This week would be as good a time as any.

– Affording greater confidence that Playoff Jimmy is about to follow.

– Yes, there is something to be said about pacing oneself at 34.

– But there also is plenty to be said about giving oneself a week off before the playoffs, rather than having to push through the play-in round.

– At one point, Rozier was up to 15 shots when Butler stood at five.

– With Duncan Robinson back from his back issue, the Heat opened with a lineup of Bam Adebayo, Nikola Jovic, Butler, Rozier and Robinson.

– That lineup entered 4-5.

– Robinson had missed the previous five games with left facet syndrome, with coach Erik Spoelstra embracing the return.

– “It is good,” Spoelstra said. “Considering everything, we’re encouraged where we are right now from a health standpoint and where we’re trending.”

– The only injuries for the Heat were the absences of Caleb Martin (ankle), Tyler Herro (foot) and Josh Richardson (shoulder).

– Orlando Robinson, Cole Swider and Alondes Williams were back with the Heat after the Heat’s G League affiliate closed out its regular season Saturday.

– The Sioux Falls Skyforce advanced to the G League playoffs after finishing second in that Western Conference under coach Kasib Powell, the former Heat forward.

– “I really commend Kasib and the staff and the players,” Spoelstra said. “It feels like there were six or seven mini-seasons within one season. Just all the changes in personnel and the successes have been significant with the fact that we had a lot of call-ups and guys have gotten a lot better. And we’ve said that it’s either going to happen with us or somewhere else, that’s the whole point of that league and our developmental program. We want to serve players to do that.”

– Spoelstra added, “Now, we also want to have success and I think Kasib has done a really good job managing all of that this season and keeping the ship going in the right direction. We all watched the game last night. But we’re encouraged that we get the No. 2 seed and still have to do it in the playoffs.”

– Haywood Highsmith and Jaime Jaquez Jr. entered together first off the Heat bench.

– With former Wizard Delon Wright third off the Heat bench.

– And then Thomas Bryant for nine deep.

– Instead of Kevin Love, who was active.

– A starter the previous five games, Patty Mills this time was shuffled out of the Heat mix.

– Adebayo’s first steal was the 500th of his career.

– Spoelstra watched from the team plane as Nova Southeastern fell Saturday on a late 3-pointer in the NCAA Division II championship game.

– Having spent time with Nova coach Jim Crutchfield and studied his system in Davie, Spoelstra offered empathy.

– “I watched it on the plane actually because that’s when the game was happening and they were down almost 10 points in the second half,” Spoelstra said. “They came storming back and really looked like they were going to make the plays necessary to win. But I tip my hat to coach Crutchfield. What he’s done at Nova really is amazing. I have so much respect for him. He’s a unique basketball thinker and mind.”

– Spoelstra added, “If I were 19, 20 years old and I was a good player down here in South Florida, I would definitely go there. That’s a fun style of basketball. You play at a high level. You’re coached extremely well, You get to compete for championships, and it looks like they just had some amazing memories and experiences from that. It was a tough loss, but there’s a lot to be proud of from this year.”