Category: News

Tropic Watch: Hurricane Isaias has formed in the Gulf. Models have it heading into the panhandle, but we can expect a good deal of rain over the next week. Top Stories There was a lot this week at both the County and City Commission meetings. Josh Shepherd has the scoop from Monday’s City Commission and […]

TOP STORY Lakeland is reaching for the stars as Florida Southern College reopens the Miller Planetarium after it closed two decades ago. Fionna Sugg-Campos, a recent graduate of NYU’s journalism school, has the details in her first report for LkldNow. Reader Poll With the reopening of Florida Southern College’s Miller Planetarium, we’re curious: have you […]

TOP STORY On Monday, the city of Lakeland announced it’s paying $125,000 to settle a civil rights lawsuit resulting from a police dog bite. We cover the details, including the incident that led to it all. Josh Shepherd has the scoop on the other decisions your city commissioners made on Sept. 21, including the state […]

Tropic Watch: still eerily quiet but we’re not complaining. TOP STORY We hope you had a good Labor day weekend. Welcome back to our second-ever City Hall Scoop in which Josh Shepherd distills over 3 hours of a City Commission meeting into a 4-minute read to make it easy to stay informed on what your […]

AND WE RELY ON EACH OTHER As the world mourns the passing of icon Dolly Parton, Anna Toms explores the Imagination Library’s enduring impact on local literacy rates. In another program designed to increase academic achievement and improve children’s long-term success rates, Sarah Semon reports on the Boys & Girls Clubs’ free after-school program. POUR […]

LAKELAND VOTES Seven local offices were up for election on Tuesday. Six were decided with one, School Board District 3, going to a run-off in November. Read about the results in our local election coverage. Special thanks to Its3pm.io for providing tech support to ensure we had live election results for the local races and […]

Good news on the weather front: Tropics are still clear and quiet. Expect some dramatic sunsets from a cloud of Saharan dust. Believe it or not, it’s election season again. While many think of the August elections purely as party primaries, Polk County School Board races are nonpartisan and will be on the ballot. Join […]

TOP STORIES In this week’s top stories, Cindy Glover reports on two efforts by the city: 1) grant funding to assess cracks and other signs of damage at our historic promenade and 2) the effort to connect and grow Lakeland’s bike and pedestrian trails —plus, the barriers to each of these projects. Reader Poll Will […]

Quick Hurricane Season Check: We have our first named storm — Tropical Storm Arthur is expected to be short-lived with no impacts for Central Florida. Otherwise, the tropics remain quiet and are going to stay that way through the end of June according to Denis Phillips, chief meteorologist at Tampa Bay 28. TOP STORIES City […]