Florida, Lakeland | featured news

Authorities had just breached the wall to the Pulse nightclub, and patrons who had been trapped inside with gunman Omar Mateen started to flee. SWAT team members carried a man with four gunshots in his legs, hip and shoulder to Officer Luke Austin. The man was bleeding profusely.

Keep Polk County Beautiful may be the latest recruit in the effort to prevent the Zika virus from affecting Polk residents.

Proposed county property tax rates will remain unchanged for the next fiscal year, the County Commission decided Tuesday.

Education reporter Madison Fantozzi tweets the Polk County School Board meeting.

One delegate said everyone fell in love with her. Another compared her to Jackie Kennedy. Melania Trump's star turn at the Republican National Convention Monday night captivated a GOP crowd that had rarely heard from her. But her speech also drew attention after the discovery that two passages matched nearly word-for-word the speech that first lady Michelle Obama delivered in 2008 at the Democratic National Convention.