Flags fly at half-staff in honor of Lincoln Díaz-Balart
Díaz-Balart was first elected to the Florida House of Representatives in 1986 and served until 1989, A new release from the Governor's Office said.
'I'm greedy': Xfinity driver Daniel Dye wants more than top 10s
WATCH: Fire engulfs 2 60-foot, 90-foot yachts in Florida river
From 1989 to 1992, Díaz-Balart served one term in the Florida Senate before being elected to the United States House of Representatives to serve Florida's twenty-first Congressional District until 2011.
Díaz-Balart was a leader in the Cuban American community and an advocate against communism and the Castro regime, the release said.
Governor Ron DeSantis declared flags to be flown at half-staff from sunrise to sunset on Friday.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Retired Worcester firefighter Joseph Casello, a lawmaker in Florida, dies of heart attack
Former Worcester firefighter Joseph A. Casello, who retired from the department and moved to Florida, where he entered politics, has died after suffering a heart attack. He was 73. Casello, a Democrat, was a sitting member of the Florida House of Representatives, representing District 90. He lived in Boynton Beach. He was hospitalized after a heart attack in early July and passed away on Friday, July 18, according to The Palm Beach Post newspaper. He had been on life support. He spent more than three decades with the Worcester Fire Department, having grown up in the city. He also worked as an electrician. After retiring from the department, he moved to Boynton Beach, in Palm Beach County. Within a few years he won a seat as a city commissioner. He was elected by three votes. He was first elected to the House in 2018. He was serving his fourth term. Before moving to Florida, Casello made a bid for Worcester City Council. He lost to incumbent Jofferey A. Smith in the 2007 race for the District 1 seat. Prior to being taken off life support, Casello released a statement: "My life has always been about public service and meeting the needs of my community. Serving as both a firefighter for 33 years and an elected official for 13 years has been the greatest honor of my life. Representing the people — through times of unity and division, triumph and challenge — has been a privilege I will always cherish." Casello, who retired from the Worcester Fire Department as a lieutenant, was stationed on Park Avenue the morning of March 7, 1990, when fire broke out in an apartment house on Florence Street. A mother and three young children died in the blaze. Casello later said the fire had deep and continuing affect on him. A photo of Casello, tired and distraught, appeared in the next day's newspaper. Casello's time as a Worcester firefighter was referenced in remarks by Nikki Fried, chairwoman of the Florida Democratic party. She said: "Joe Casello was the kind of public servant every community hopes for," Fried wrote. "As a firefighter for 33 years, he literally ran toward danger to protect others. As an Air Force veteran he understood how important it was to serve selflessly. As a city commissioner and state legislator, he brought that same courage and steady leadership to the halls of government." Material from The Palm Beach Post was used in this report. This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Ex-Worcester firefighter Joseph Casello, lawmaker in Fla., dies of heart attack


Miami Herald
11-07-2025
- Miami Herald
In a first, U.S. sanctions Cuba leader Miguel Díaz-Canel for human rights violations
Coinciding with the anniversary of the islandwide July 11 uprising in 2021 on Friday, the United States sanctioned Cuba's leader, Miguel Díaz-Canel, for his involvement in 'gross violations of human rights, ' the Department of State said in a statement. This is the first time the U.S. government has imposed sanctions on Díaz-Canel, Cuba's handpicked president and head of the Communist Party, a civilian figure who was spared in several rounds of sanctions on Cuban officials both under President Donald Trump, in his first term, and President Joe Biden. The State Department also sanctioned Cuban Defense Minister Álvaro López Miera, and Interior Minister Lázaro Alberto Álvarez Casas. The sanctions mean the three, along with their immediate family members, will be prohibited from traveling to the United States. Their public designation was made using a section of the State Department's budget appropriations act for fiscal year 2025, which states that foreign government officials who have been involved in significant cases of corruption or a violation of human rights are not 'eligible' to enter the United States. 'The United States will never forget the tenacity of the Cuban people four years ago as they demanded freedom and a future free from tyranny,' a senior State Department official told the Miami Herald. 'The Trump Administration remains firm in its commitment to holding the Cuban regime accountable for its repressive actions and rampant acts of corruption.' In addition, the State Department is imposing visa restrictions on several unnamed 'Cuban judicial and prison officials responsible for, or complicit in, the unjust detention and torture of July 2021 protestors.' Because those sanctions are imposed under a different authority provided by immigration laws, which establish confidentiality on visa matters, the administration cannot publicly identify those targeted. The State Department is also adding 11 hotels to its Cuba restriction list and its Cuba Prohibited Accommodations List, which include companies and properties linked to the Cuban government and the military conglomerate GAESA. Among those newly banned are luxury hotels recently built in Havana, like 'Torre K.' In 2019, during the first Trump administration, the State Department invoked a similar authority under the budget act to impose visa sanctions on Raúl Castro, the island's ultimate ruler, and his sons and daughters. Still, Díaz-Canel is the sitting president, and the sanctions likely mean he won´t be attending the United Nations' General Assembly, which he has done on a couple of occasions, in 2018 and 2023, accompanied by his wife, Luis Cuesta. Díaz-Canel's term will end in 2028. General López Miera, the head of Cuba's Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, was already unable to travel to the United States because in 2021 President Joe Biden added him to a list of 'specially designated nationals' for his role in the 'mass detentions and sham trials' that followed the July 11 demonstrations, Biden said. Days before leaving office in January 2021, President Trump had also sanctioned Álvarez Casas under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act and added him to the designated nationals list. The July 11 anti-government demonstrations were met with a crackdown ordered by Díaz-Canel on state television that day. Justicia 11J, a group that has tracked political detentions in Cuba, has documented at least 1,586 arrests linked to the uprising. Many of those arrested were given decades-long sentences in summary trials. By December last year, 553 protesters were still in prison, according to Justicia 11J. Other organizations estimate a higher number. As part of a deal brokered by the Vatican and the Biden administration, Díaz-Canel committed to releasing 553 'prisoners,' the exact figure used by the Justicia 11J; however, Cuban authorities ultimately released only 212. Since then, Cuban authorities rounded up some of the same people released under the deal, including well-known dissidents like José Daniel Ferrer, Félix Navarro and Donaida Pérez Paseiro. On Friday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on X that 'the Cuban regime continues to torture pro-democracy activist José Daniel Ferrer. The United States demands immediate proof of life and the release of all political prisoners.' Still in prison are Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, a prominent dissident artist, and Maykel Castillo, a Grammy-award-winning rapper and activist. Several women remain behind bars for protesting against the government that day, including Lisandra Góngora, a mother of five, sentenced to 14 years in prison, and María Cristina Garrido, a poet, activist and mother of three, sentenced to seven years. Worsening prison conditions Conditions in Cuban prisons have grown worse in recent years. The Cuban Prison Documentation Center, an independent organization based in Mexico, said that at least 24 people died in the prison system in the first six months of this year. The group documented 45 complaints of beatings and physical torture and 104 cases of denial of medical care in 43 prisons in the country. Lack of food and medications and unsanitary living conditions are also common, the group said. Yan Carlos González, a man who staged a 40-day hunger strike in prison protesting charges of sabotage that carried a 20-year sentence, died earlier this week, according to activists and Cubalex, a group providing legal help to people in Cuba. The group said González had been accused of burning a sugarcane field with no evidence. He died in a local hospital in Santa Clara, in central Cuba. A Human Rights Watch report published Friday also documented the accounts of 17 people who were detained in connection with the July 11 protests, claiming abuses suffered in prison. The interviewees described physical abuse by prison guards and said they were subjected to stress positions such as 'the bicycle' or 'wheelbarrow', in which prisoners 'are forced to run, handcuffed, with their arms raised above their heads,' the report says. A former detainee held in the Boniato prison in Santiago de Cuba said he was beaten and put in solitary confinement several times for making requests to guards. During one incident in 2022, 'they brought me down in handcuffs using a hold they call 'the bicycle,' and they beat me with a hose all over my body,' the former prisoner recalled, according to the report. 'If your family isn't bringing you food, you die,' one of the interviewees told Human Rights Watch. 'The food they gave you was inedible. It had worms in it,' said another. They also reported outbreaks of scabies, tuberculosis, dengue fever and COVID-19, which they said were left untreated. They said prison officials regularly ignored medical concerns. In a virtual meeting with relatives of imprisoned protesters, human rights activists and independent journalists at the U.S. embassy in Havana on Tuesday, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau called for the release of all political prisoners. In a video message, Secretary of State Marco Rubio praised those invited for opposing 'a regime that does everything possible to punish you and your families.' Last month, a Cuban diplomat said at a United Nations meeting debating the 'Nelson Mandela Rules' — a set of minimum standards for the treatment of prisoners — that in Cuban prisons 'the rights of persons deprived of liberty are guaranteed,' and that 'there is no overcrowding, violence against women, unsanitary conditions or discrimination.'
Yahoo
10-07-2025
- Yahoo
Florida leaders celebrate advances in pediatric genetic medicine
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WFLA) — With the signing of the Sunshine Genetics Act, Florida has positioned itself as a national leader in pediatric genetic medicine, but lawmakers and advocates say this is only just the beginning. After being signed by Governor Ron DeSantis, the Sunshine Genetics Act puts in place a five-year pilot program for newborns, where families can opt in to have their baby's full genetic code sequenced, free of charge. 'The implications are frightening': Cybersecurity experts weigh in following AI impersonation Marco Rubio The goal is to catch serious but treatable genetic conditions before symptoms even appear, offering families answers and access to care, when timing matters most.'It's just a matter of time before that hope is transformed into cures for rare diseases,' said State Representative Adam Anderson (R-Palm Harbor). Anderson led the bill after losing his son to Tay Sachs disease. He says momentum is already building beyond the state of Florida. 'I've already had about half a dozen other states reach out to me. They want to know what's going on in Florida. They're excited about the Sunshine Genetics Act, they want to bring the Sunshine Genetics Act to other states,' Anderson said.'I will tell you; it's been a rough, it's been a rough few years,' said Dorothea Lantz, PWSA | USA Director of Community Engagement. Lantz, a national advocate and mother to a child with a rare disease, says the national fight for better rare disease detection has been difficult, but with the Sunshine Genetics Act, Florida families can expect groundbreaking change.'I think being able to point to the state of Florida and say, 'Listen guys, you know we're working so hard to change rare, and recognize that rare isn't rare when it affects 30 million Americans',' said Lantz. Backers of the initiative acknowledge it opens new doors, but with it comes lingering questions, especially around data privacy. However, Representative Anderson said Florida already has one of the most protective genetic privacy laws on the books.'This genetic information is sensitive, we want to make sure that can't get into the hands of the wrong people, people who may want to use it for harm or profit, that's not what the Sunshine Genetics Act is about,' Anderson said. The Act not only jumpstarts the pilot program, but it also establishes the Florida Institute for Pediatric Rare Diseases within the Florida State University College of Medicine and lays the foundation for a new $100 billion genomic medicine industry in Florida universities, hospitals, and biotech leaders have joined the move, offering hope to families who may have otherwise endured years uncertainty. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.