News

The Florida cowboy is a dying breed, but we need them to survive to keep Florida healthy.

Driving the news: Environmentalists want to help cattle ranchers preserve their swaths of land and be a line of defense against sprawling development, protecting watersheds and wildlife's habitat and migrations.

One hundred years ago today, "a pink-checked youth of about twenty-one," a veteran of "the World war," walked into the Tampa Tribune offices to report he had walked to town ... from York, Pennsylvania.

• His name was Henry Shanabrough, and he'd walked more than 1,000 miles on foot. He told the editors his plan was to turn around and walk home, then maybe head west in the spring.

Coincidentally, that same month, a niche architectural journal ran a story called "An Appalachian Trail: A Project in Regional Planning."

• A young conservationist named Benton MacKaye called for the construction of the Appalachian Trail, a protected natural footpath which roughly follows Shanabrough's route south.

K. Alicia Schulhof became Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital's first woman president over the summer. She moved back down to St. Petersburg from Indianapolis, where she served as president of Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital.

How does a health leader like Schulhof interact with tech? We asked about her habits.

Florida's citrus crop is on pace to shrink again next year to its lowest total since 1945, if you don't count the destruction Hurricane Irma caused in 2017 to the state's already-depleted groves.

Driving the news: The U.S. Department of Agriculture released its initial citrus crop forecast for the 2021-22 season: 47 million boxes of Florida oranges, down 11% from last season's 52.8 million.

Your new neighbor is the fastest-talking woman in the world, and she won't shut up.

What’s happening: While lots of folks move to the Sunshine State to retire, 9-time speed talking world record holder Fran Capo — who delivered the world's fastest TEDx Talk and is the first (and only, big surprise) author to sign books atop Mount Kilimanjaro — isn't interested in rocking chairs or other trappings of the Golden Years.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is advancing a plan to lift a three-decades-old ban on catching and killing goliath groupers in Florida waters.

Driving the news: FWC approved a proposed draft changing the rules yesterday, CBS Miami reports.

• Any issues or changes will be addressed at meetings expected to conclude by March 2022.

Robert DuBoise was 18 years old when he was sentenced to death. Almost 40 years later, he's a free man and suing the people who had him put away.

Driving the news: DuBoise is suing Tampa Police after he says officers conspired to falsify evidence to have him wrongfully convicted of murder and rape of Barbara Grams in the 1980s, Creative Loafing reports.

• He's also suing the dentist who claimed a bite mark on the victim matched DuBoise's teeth. DuBoise's lawyers say Richard Souviron knew there were clear inconsistencies between DuBoise's dental records and the mark— which turned out to not be human — but he testified under oath saying it was a match.

While Gaby Petito and Brian Laundrie have become national household names, several other women are still missing locally.

Why it matters: Family members of Kelly Vazquez, missing from Hillsborough County since May, have been trying to get the same traction for their daughter's case as Petito's.

• But the world, it seems, is more fascinated with Laundrie being on the lam than finding other missing women.