Members of Florida's congressional delegation proved their mettle last week by amending a key bill to keep federal funding flowing into the Everglades Restoration and Port Everglades projects.
The amendment allows the port, as well as state and local governments, to get reimbursed from the federal government for any design, engineering and construction costs once their plans get approval… Read more »
Plans to expand Port Everglades and generate 7,000 new South Florida jobs could get a major boost in Congress on Wednesday, paving the way for federal spending to help attract gigantic cargo and cruise ships that pass through a widened Panama Canal.
Businesses and job-seekers throughout the region are expected to benefit from a burst of ship traffic, which would set off economic ripples… Read more »
A lack of awareness, funding and treatment resources are the three biggest hurdles to cross in combating the plight of human trafficking in south Florida, according to panelists this morning at a brainstorming session led by U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel, D-West Palm Beach.Florida ranks third in the nation in the number of reports of human trafficking, according to panelists at the forum hosted… Read more »
The devil didn't come to Katariina Rosenblatt with horns and pitchfork, but wearing a red bikini, she said.Recalling the first time she was recruited into a human trafficking ring, Rosenblatt told her harrowing story Friday, in a tale that begins when she was 13 in the mid-1980s. She was living with her mom at a Miami Beach hotel after escaping an abusive situation at home.One day, a… Read more »
The U.S. Coast Guard failed to protect recruit Elisha Morrow from sexual abuse by her commander.After other recruits went to bed at bootcamp in New Jersey, Chief Petty Officer Carlos Resendez would call her to his office for a "special job." He would make her scrub the floor on her hands and knees, and position himself suggestively beside her. He made crude comments about her… Read more »
A Boynton Beach woman has turned what she calls her Coast Guard nightmare into a national campaign to stop sexual abuse in the military, even helping to push new legislation through the U.S. House of Representatives.Elisha Morrow, 26, quit the U.S. Coast Guard in disgust not long after boot camp, claiming sexual harassment by Chief Petty Officer Carlos Resendez, who is… Read more »
A Boynton Beach woman has turned what she calls her Coast Guard nightmare into a national campaign to stop sexual abuse in the military, even helping to push new legislation through the U.S. House of Representatives.Elisha Morrow, 26, quit the U.S. Coast Guard in disgust not long after boot camp, claiming sexual harassment by Chief Petty Officer Carlos Resendez, who is… Read more »
U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel was on the ground in Afghanistan just weeks before Tuesday’s ceremony recognizing Afghan forces had taken control of the country’s security structure from an international coalition.The move is part of the American drawdown after nearly 12 years of war and loss of more than 2,000 American military lives.Frankel , D-West Palm Beach, wanted to see the… Read more »
Suited up in 40 pounds of body armor and escorted by soldiers wielding high-caliber weapons, South Florida Congresswoman Lois Frankel found Afghanistan a treacherous place to visit last week after 12 years of war.On her first congressional trip abroad, Frankel kept thinking about her own son's dangerous duty in Afghanistan as she flew by helicopter over the… Read more »
A bipartisan team from the Florida congressional delegation is banding together to form a "ports caucus" to push the interests of the state's seaports in the nation's capital.Florida's 15 ports are "huge economic generators — folks here are familiar mostly with Port Everglades [in Broward] and the Port of Palm Beach — and they… Read more »
