By all indicators, Raquel Torres should be cleaning houses. And that's only if she had stayed out of a drug gang. ...more

November 1, 2009

School's zero-tolerance policies would be more tolerant if Gov. Charlie Crist signs a bill passed by the Legislature. ...more

May 1, 2009

A justice of the peace who gave parents of school-dodging kids the option of paddling their children in court or paying a fine has gotten a warning from the state panel that oversees judicial conduct. ...more

April 1, 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

Fort Myers mental health counselor Thomas Jackson Friedlander was described today as being either a sadistic pedophile or a lonely 78-year-old homosexual who was arrested for describing his corporal punishment fantasies. ...more

December 8, 2008

Around the same time a mental health counselor was talking online to an undercover detective in Pinellas County about having sex with the detective's fictional young sons, he was chatting with another undercover detective about having sex with that detective's fictional mentally handicapped daughter, a prosecutor said in court this morning. Charles Jackson Friedlander, 78, is scheduled to go on trial Monday on a charge he used a computer to arrange sex with the first detective's fictional 10- and 11-year old boys. Friedlander, of Fort Myers, could face between 10 years and life behind bars if convicted. ...more

November 14, 2008

More than 100 names, including Dick Stowers Elementary School and Glenn Barrington Middle School, have been suggested for the two schools under construction on the south side of FishHawk Boulevard in Lithia. ...more

October 22, 2008

More than 100 names, including Dick Stowers Elementary School and Glenn Barrington Middle School, have been suggested for the two schools under construction on the south side of FishHawk Boulevard in Lithia. ...more

October 22, 2008

Paddlings, swats, licks. A quarter of a million schoolchildren got them last year - and blacks, American Indians and youngsters with disabilities got a disproportionate share of the punishment, a study by a human rights group found. ...more

August 20, 2008

Federal authorities say a 78-year-old Fort Myers mental health counselor drove to Tampa to meet two prepubescent boys so he could beat them and have sex with them. ...more

July 26, 2008