Tag Archives: Florida

Funeral for family of 4 to be first for victims of Miami condo collapse

By Francisco Alvarado

SURFSIDE, Fla. (Reuters) -The first funeral for victims of a collapsed Miami-area condo building will be held on Tuesday as mourners gather to lay to rest a family of four, including two young children, nearly two weeks after the disaster struck.

Also, officials updated the death toll to 32 after four more bodies were found in the partially collapsed 12-story Champlain Towers South building in Surfside, Florida. Some 113 people were still missing as rescue workers battled high winds from approaching Tropical Storm Elsa. Officials said they still have not determined what caused the collapse.

The lives of Marcus Guara, 52, his wife Ana Guara, 42, and their daughters, Lucia, 10, and Emma, 4, will be memorialized in a service at the St. Joseph Catholic Church in Miami Beach starting 2:30 p.m. ET.

Marcus Guara had just started a new job in November as a sales manager for a maker of towels and linens and often raised funds for charities, including St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, according to his Facebook account.

Nobody has been pulled alive from the mounds of pulverized concrete, splintered lumber and twisted metal since the early hours of June 24 when roughly half of the building came tumbling down in an oceanfront town adjacent to Miami Beach.

Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett told a briefing that rescue workers have been bothered by strong winds as Elsa approaches from the south.

“The wind is hampering the large cranes moving very heavy debris,” Burkett said, adding that he met with a family hoping rescuers will find their daughter, a recent law school graduate who married in January, and their son-in-law.

Experts and officials have warned that the probability of finding survivors was remote given how much time has passed.

Miami-Dade County Fire Chief Alan Cominsky said rescuers have not found any “livable spaces”. He said workers had removed more than 124 tons, or 5 million pounds worth, of debris to date.

Forecasters predict the area will be spared the worst of the storm. Still, concerns over the impact of Elsa prompted officials to order the demolition of the half of building that had been left standing, which was carried out on Sunday night.

Investigators have not determined what caused the 40-year-old complex to collapse. A 2018 engineering report found structural deficiencies that are now the focus of inquiries that include a grand jury examination.

Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava cautioned that it could take some time to find the root cause.

“The whole world wants to know what happened here,” Cava told the briefing. “I look forward to learning the truth.”

(Reporting by Franciso Alvarado; Additional reporting by Barbara Goldberg in Maplewood, New Jersey and Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut; Editing by Andrea Ricci and David Gregorio)

Biden in Florida to comfort families as search at collapse site paused over safety concerns

By Katanga Johnson and Steve Holland

SURFSIDE, Fla. (Reuters) – President Joe Biden visited Florida on Thursday to comfort the families of those killed and missing in last week’s condominium collapse, as the search-and-rescue operation was temporarily suspended due to concerns about the stability of the remaining structure.

Biden, whose personal experience with tragedy has marked his political career, was set to reprise the role of “consoler-in-chief” a week after the 12-story building partially caved in as residents slept.

The confirmed death toll remained at 18, after the discovery of six more bodies in the ruins of the Champlain Towers South condo, including two children, aged 4 and 10. Another 145 people are missing and feared trapped in the rubble, with hopes of finding any survivors dimming with each passing day.

After arriving in Miami, Biden attended a briefing with local officials, including Governor Ron DeSantis, who is widely seen as a potential Republican presidential candidate in 2024.

Biden told them he would deliver “whatever you need” and said he expected the federal government would cover the full costs for the county and state.

“We’re not going anywhere,” he said. “This is life or death.”

Workers at the site were instructed to stop just after 2 a.m. on Thursday, when movement in the debris raised concerns that the part of the building still standing could collapse, officials said.

“The search-and-rescue operation will continue as soon as it is safe to do so,” Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said at a news briefing. Officials said they were unsure when that would happen.

Authorities said they have not given up on locating survivors. But nobody has been pulled alive from the wreckage since the early hours of the disaster in the oceanfront town of Surfside, adjacent to Miami Beach.

Miami-Dade County Fire Chief Alan Cominsky said rescuers did hear signs of life during their initial efforts last week.

“They were searching for a female voice, is what we heard for several hours,” he said. “Eventually, we didn’t hear her voice anymore.”

Officials are also keeping a watchful eye on Tropical Storm Elsa, which formed over the Atlantic and could reach south Florida by Monday, potentially hampering search operations.

SEARCH-AND-RESCUE

Among those traveling with Biden on Thursday were U.S. Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, whose district includes the collapse site; Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell; and Liz Sherwood-Randall, White House homeland security adviser.

Biden had delayed his visit to Florida to avoid interrupting rescue efforts.

FEMA has dispatched five urban search-and-rescue teams – each comprised of 80 members – to assist in sifting through the rubble, White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters aboard Air Force One.

DeSantis said workers have removed some 1,400 tons of material from the collapse site.

Thursday’s trip is Biden’s second visit to the scene of a disaster since he became president in January.

In February, he traveled to Texas after a winter storm left millions without power or clean water for days and killed several people.

After his briefing, the president planned to thank first responders and rescue crews before meeting with victims’ families. He is scheduled to deliver remarks shortly before 4 p.m. in Miami.

Biden’s ability to connect his own hardships with the grief and anguish of others has become a defining feature of his public life, having endured the deaths of his first wife, a daughter and a son.

Investigators have not determined what caused nearly half of the 40-year-old condo complex to crumble in one of the deadliest building collapses in U.S. history.

But a 2018 report prepared by engineering firm Morabito Consultants ahead of a building safety recertification process found structural deficiencies in the 136-unit complex that are now the focus of inquiries.

The Washington Post reported late on Wednesday that the majority of the board of the Surfside condominium, including its president, resigned in 2019, partly in frustration over what was seen as the sluggish response to the report.

(Reporting By Katanga Johnson in Surfside and Steve Holland in Bal Harbor; Additional reporting by Jarrett Renshaw, Francisco Alvarado, Brendan O’Brien, Peter Szekely, Kanishka Singh and Trevor Hunnicutt; Writing by Joseph Ax; Editing by Giles Elgood, Steve Orlofsky and Sonya Hepinstall)

Death toll rises to 16 nearly a week after Florida condo collapse

By Gabriella Borter

SURFSIDE, Fla. (Reuters) -Another four bodies were found overnight in the shattered ruins of a collapsed Miami-area condominium tower, the mayor of Miami-Dade County said on Wednesday, bringing the confirmed death toll to 16 nearly a week after the building fell.

Nobody has been pulled alive from the mounds of pulverized concrete, splintered lumber and twisted metal since the early hours of the disaster, with 147 people still unaccounted for.

Officials have said they still harbor hope of finding survivors.

Investigators have not concluded what caused nearly half of the 40-year-old Champlain Towers South condo to crumple as residents slept in the early hours of last Thursday.

But a 2018 engineer’s report on the 12-floor, 136-unit complex, prepared ahead of a building safety recertification process, found structural deficiencies that are now the focus of inquiries.

As recently as April, the condo association’s president warned residents in a letter that severe concrete damage identified by the engineer around the base of the building had since grown “significantly worse.”

(Reporting by Gabriella Borter in Surfside, Fla; Additional reporting by Brad Heath, Alexandra Ulmer, Peter Szekely, Dan Whitcomb, Rich McKay, Brendan O’Brien and Kanishka Singh. Writing and additional reporting by Steve Gorman; Editing by Steve Orlofsky and Alistair Bell)

Rescue workers make slow progress at Florida building collapse

By Gabriella Borter

SURFSIDE, Fla. (Reuters) -Search-and-rescue operations stretched into a sixth day on Tuesday at the site of an oceanside Florida condominium complex that partially collapsed, although with no survivors found since last week hopes are dim for the 150 people still missing.

Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava told reporters that no bodies had been recovered from the rubble since Monday, keeping the official death toll at 11.

What caused a major section of the 40-year-old high-rise to crumble into a heap remains under investigation. Initial attention has focused on structural deficiencies described in a 2018 engineer’s report.

In April 2021, the condo association president warned residents that concrete damage had “gotten significantly worse” along with roof damage, and urged them to pay some $15 million in assessments needed to make repairs, media reported.

Authorities on Tuesday held out the possibility that survivors might yet be found in the pile of concrete and twisted metal left when nearly half of the tower abruptly caved in on itself.

“The way I look at it as an old Navy guy is that when somebody is missing in the military, you’re missing until you’re found, and we don’t stop the search,” said Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. “Those first-responders are breaking their back, trying to find anybody they can.”

Officials said late on Monday that emergency teams were still treating the round-the-clock operation – which has employed dog teams, cranes and infrared scanners – as a search-and-rescue effort.

But no one has been extricated alive from the ruins of the oceanfront Champlain Towers South condo in Surfside, adjacent to Miami Beach, since a few hours after one side of the high-rise collapsed early Thursday morning as residents slept.

Fire officials have spoken of detecting faint sounds from inside the rubble pile and finding voids deep in the debris large enough to possibly sustain life.

“Not to say that we have seen anyone down there, but we’ve not gotten to the very bottom,” Miami-Dade Assistant Fire Chief Raide Jadallah told reporters on Monday.

President Joe Biden and his wife Jill Biden will visit Surfside on Thursday, the White House said.

“They want to thank the heroic first responders, search-and-rescue teams and everyone who has been working tirelessly around the clock, and meet with the families who have been forced to endure this terrible tragedy,” White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters.

The disaster has led officials in nearby areas scrambling to check the safety of buildings.

Miami Beach, just to the south of Surfside, has ordered a “walkthrough visual” inspection of about 500 multi-family commercial units over the next week, Mayor Dan Gelber said.

“But at the same time we are going to require within probably three weeks, all of these buildings in the recertification process to come up with an updated report,” Gelber told CNN.

The tragedy may end up ranking as the greatest loss of life from an accidental building collapse in U.S. history.

Crowds of rescue workers were standing on top of the debris pile on Tuesday morning, sifting through the rubble. Scattered thunderstorms are expected on Tuesday, potentially slowing search efforts.

A makeshift memorial a block from the site held bouquets of fresh hydrangeas tucked into a chain-link fence. A poster board with hearts had a message for the first responders: “Thank you for looking for my grandmother.”

ENGINEER’S REPORT

The 2018 engineer’s report warned of “major structural damage” to the concrete slab beneath the pool deck and concrete deterioration, including exposed rebar, in the underground parking garage. The report’s author, Frank Morabito, wrote that the deterioration would “expand exponentially” if not repaired.

In April 2021, the condo association president informed residents that the concrete damage had “gotten significantly worse,” along with roof damage, and urged them to pay around $15 million in assessments needed to make repairs, according to a letter obtained by the Wall Street Journal and USA Today and seen by Reuters.

“It’s all starting to come together now, because like I’ve said all along, there was something very, very wrong at this building,” Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett told CNN on Tuesday when asked about the letter. “Buildings in America just don’t fall down like this.”

Burkett said the condominium association officials probably did not grasp the “intensity” of the issue. “Obviously, that was a fatal mistake,” he said.

A lawyer who works with the association, Donna DiMaggio Berger, previously said the issues outlined in the 2018 report were typical for older buildings in the area.

Ross Prieto, then Surfside’s top building official, met residents weeks after the report was produced and assured them the building was “in very good shape,” according to minutes of the meeting released on Monday.

Reuters was unable to reach Prieto, who is no longer employed by Surfside. He told the Miami Herald newspaper he did not remember getting the report.

(Reporting by Gabriella Borter in Surfside, Florida; Additional reporting by Brendan O’Brien, Brad Heath, Peter Szekely, Kanishka Singh and Dan Whitcomb; Writing by Joseph Ax and Alistair Bell; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Rosalba O’Brien)

Rescuers still hope for survivors as death toll in Florida collapse hits 10

By Gabriella Borter

SURFSIDE, Fla. (Reuters) -Rescue workers pulled a 10th body from the rubble of a collapsed Florida condominium on Monday, as officials vowed to keep searching for any possible survivors five days after the 12-story building fell without warning as residents slept.

Crews were using cranes, dogs and infrared scans as they looked for signs of life amid the ruins, hoping air pockets may have formed underneath the concrete that could be keeping some people alive.

“We’re going to continue and work ceaselessly to exhaust every possible options in our search,” Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava told a news briefing.

The death toll appears certain to rise, and Levine Cava acknowledged the number of casualties is “fluid.” There are 151 people still unaccounted for.

The cause of the collapse at the Champlain Towers South in Surfside, near Miami, remains under investigation.

A 2018 engineer’s report found serious concrete deterioration in the underground parking garage as well as major damage in the concrete slab beneath the pool deck. The author, Frank Morabito, wrote the deterioration would “expand exponentially” if it was not repaired in the near future.

But Ross Prieto, then Surfside’s top building official, met residents the following month after reviewing the report and assured them the building was “in very good shape,” according to minutes of the meeting released by the town on Monday.

Reuters was unable to reach Prieto, who is no longer employed by Surfside. He told the Miami Herald newspaper he did not remember getting the report.

The engineer’s report was commissioned in advance of the condo seeking recertification, a required process for buildings that reach 40 years of age. The tower was constructed in 1981. An estimate prepared by Morabito Consultants in 2018 put the cost of repairs at $9.1 million, including electrical, plumbing and work on the façade.

After the meeting, Prieto emailed the town’s manager to say it “went very well. The response was very positive from everyone in the room. All main concerns over their forty year recertification process were addressed.”

Guillermo Olmedillo, Surfside’s town manager in 2018, told Reuters he did not recall hearing about any issues related to the tower based on the engineer’s report.

“The last thing I knew was that everything is OK, reported by the building official,” he said.

Gregg Schlesinger, a lawyer and former general contractor who specializes in construction-failure cases, said it was clear the deficiencies identified in the 2018 report were the main cause of the disaster.

But Donna DiMaggio Berger, a lawyer who works with the condo association, said the issues were typical for older buildings in the area and did not alarm board members, all of whom lived in the tower with their families.

Morabito Consultants was retained by the building in 2020 to prepare a 40-year building repair plan.

The firm said on Saturday that roof repairs were underway at the time of the collapse but concrete restoration had not yet started.

“We are deeply troubled by this building collapse and are working closely with the investigating authorities to understand why the structure failed,” it said.

Levine Cava vowed officials will “get to the bottom” of why the building collapsed but said the priority right now is searching for survivors.

‘TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE’

Miami-Dade Assistant Fire Chief Raide Jadallah said workers have found voids large enough to keep victims alive.

“Not to say that we have see anyone down there, but we’ve not gotten to the very bottom,” he said.

He said searchers have heard some sounds, such as tapping of scratching, though he acknowledged it could be metal shifting. But he emphasized that there is no set amount of time after which the rescue effort should cease.

The teams include experts sent by Israel and Mexico to assist in the search.

Some relatives of those missing have provided DNA samples to officials, and family members were permitted to pay a private visit to the site by special arrangement on Sunday, Levine Cava said.

The police have identified eight victims, including a couple married for nearly 60 years and a mother whose teenage son is one of the few known survivors.

At a makeshift memorial a block away, tributes to the victims and “missing” posters hung on a chain-link fence, with flowers and children’s toys strewn about.

Given the scores of those still missing, the disaster may end up one of the deadliest non-deliberate structural failures in U.S. history.

Ninety-eight people perished when the roof of the Knickerbocker Theatre in Washington, D.C., gave way from the weight of snow during a silent movie screening in January 1922. Two interior walkways collapsed into the lobby of the Hyatt Regency hotel in Kansas City, Missouri, during a dance party in July 1981, killing 114.

(Additional reporting by Brendan O’Brien, Brad Heath, Peter Szekely and Kanishka Singh; Writing by Joseph Ax; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Alistair Bell)

Fifty-one people unaccounted for in Florida building collapse -officials

By Marco Bello and Rich McKay

SURFSIDE, Fla. (Reuters) – Hundreds of fire and rescue workers scoured through tons of rubble on Thursday after a 12-story oceanfront residential building partially collapsed close to Miami, with at least one person dead and 51 still unaccounted for, officials said.

Sally Heyman, a Miami-Dade County Commissioner, said officials have been unable to make contact with 51 people who “supposedly” live in the building, home to a mix of people including families and part-time “snow birds” who spend the winter months in the state of Florida.

Officials said the building, built in 1981, was going through a recertification process requiring repairs and that another building was being newly constructed next door, although the cause of the collapse remained unclear.

“We have 51 people that were assumed to have been there, but you don’t know between vacations or anything else, so we’re still waiting,” Heyman told CNN by phone. “The hope is still there, but it’s waning.”

A fire official said 35 people were rescued from the building in Surfside, a seaside enclave of 5,700 residents on a barrier island across Biscayne Bay from the city of Miami, including two who were pulled from the rubble as response teams used trained dogs and drones in a search for survivors.

Footage from WPLG Local 10, a Miami TV station, showed a rescue team pulling a boy from piles of debris and rebar, and firefighters using ladder trucks to rescue residents trapped on balconies.

Emergency responders and officials were still looking for people who might be in the rubble, as well as trying to identify residents not home at 1:30 a.m. (0530 GMT), when an entire side of the building pulled away and fell to the ground below.

“We all woke up in the early morning hours to a tragic scene,” said Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who toured the scene of the catastrophe on Thursday afternoon. “We still have hope to identify additional survivors.”

The Champlain Towers South had more than 130 units, about 80 of which were occupied. It had been subject to various inspections recently due to the recertification process and the adjacent construction of a building called 88 Park, Surfside Commissioner Charles Kesl told Local 10.

“There were garage underground issues related to that, to make sure that it was done soundly,” Kesl said. “And, to my understanding, there were some cracks from that project – minor cracks – that were just patched up. Nothing, based on my understanding, to the magnitude that would indicate that there was a structural problem that could result in something so catastrophic.”

Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said construction work was being done on the roof of the Champlain Towers South but there was no indication that it caused the collapse.

“It’s hard to imagine how this could have happened,” Burkett told reporters. “Buildings just don’t fall down.”

Burkett said that part of the building with balconies facing the beach “pancaked” where one floor appears to have fallen atop another, cascading down.

“The back of the building, probably a third or more, is totally pancaked,” he said.

Resident Barry Cohen and his wife were rescued from the building.

“At first it sounded like a flash of lightning or thunder,” Cohen, a former vice mayor of Surfside and a resident of the building, told reporters at the scene. “But then it just kept on – steadily for at least 15 to 30 seconds – it just kept on going and going and going.”

Cohen also said there had been construction for more than a month on the building’s roof.

The Miami-Dade Police have assumed control of the investigation. More than 80 fire and rescue units responded, the Miami-Dade County Fire Rescue Department wrote in a Twitter message early Thursday.

Eyewitness video obtained by Reuters showed neighbors gathering across the street from the rubble.

“This whole building here, it’s completely gone,” a person can be heard saying.

(Reporting by Marco Bello in Surfside, Florida; Additional reporting by Kanishka Singh and Radhika Anilkumar in Bengaluru, Rich McKay in Atlanta and Peter Szekely in New York; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Matthew Lewis)

Iowa joins U.S. states forbidding COVID-19 mask mandates in schools

(Reuters) – Iowa joined a handful of other U.S. states on Thursday in passing a law that forbids cities, counties and local school districts from requiring people to wear face masks that protect against the spread of the coronavirus.

Governor Kim Reynolds, a Republican, signed the measure into law just hours after it was approved by the state legislature. Texas and Florida, which also have Republican governors, have passed similar measures.

“The state of Iowa is putting parents back in control of their child’s education and taking greater steps to protect the rights of all Iowans to make their own healthcare decisions,” Reynolds said in a statement.

A week ago, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said people vaccinated against COVID-19 no longer need to wear a mask in most settings because the chance of them catching or transmitting the airborne coronavirus is so low. But it still advised face coverings be worn in schools, medical settings and public transit.

The decision by Texas, Florida and Iowa to ignore some of the guidance comes after a year in which many conservative political leaders have cast mask mandates as an erosion of individual liberty rather than a public health issue.

Some Democrat-led states, such as New York and Connecticut, have adopted the CDC advice and said vaccinated people are no longer bound by mask mandates, though unvaccinated people must still wear them if they cannot distance themselves from others. Those states also have not stopped individual businesses from requiring visitors to wear masks.

In his Tuesday executive order, Texas Governor Greg Abbott said schools must scrap any mask requirements by June 4. However, public hospitals and state jails may still impose mask requirements, the order said.

On Wednesday, the Utah legislature passed a bill forbidding public schools and state universities from requiring masks, which now heads to the governor to be signed into law.

(Reporting by Peter Szekely and Jonathan Allen in New York; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

Pipeline outage causes U.S. gasoline supply crunch, panic buying

By Laura Sanicola and Devika Krishna Kumar

(Reuters) -Gas stations from Florida to Virginia began running dry and prices at the pump rose on Tuesday, as the shutdown of the biggest U.S. fuel pipeline by hackers extended into a fifth day and sparked panic buying by motorists.

The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden projected that the Colonial Pipeline, source of nearly half the fuel supply on the U.S. East Coast, would restart in a few days and urged drivers not to top up their tanks.

“We are asking people not to hoard,” U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told reporters at the White House. “Things will be back to normal soon.”

Colonial was shut on Friday after hackers launched a ransomware attack – effectively locking up its computer systems and demanding payment to release them – and the company has said it is hoping to “substantially” restart by the end of this week.

But the outage, which has underscored the vulnerability of vital U.S. infrastructure to cyberattacks, has already started to hurt.

About 7.5% of gas stations in Virginia and 5% in North Carolina had no fuel on Tuesday as demand jumped 20%, tracking firm GasBuddy said. Unleaded gas prices, meanwhile, neared an average $2.99 a gallon, its highest price since November 2014, the American Automobile Association said.

In an effort to ease the strain on consumers, Georgia suspended sales tax on gas until Saturday, and North Carolina declared an emergency. The U.S. federal government, meanwhile, has loosened rules to make it easier for suppliers to refill storage, including lifting seasonal anti-smog requirements for gasoline and allowing fuel truckers to work longer hours.

Granholm said there is not a shortage but a gasoline supply “crunch” in North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia and Southern Virginia, regions that typically rely on Colonial for fuel.

Driver Caroline Richardson said she was paying 15 cents more per gallon than a week ago as she refueled at a gas station in Sumter, South Carolina. “I know some friends who decided not to go out of town this weekend to save gas,” she said.

DARKSIDE HACK

The strike on Colonial “is potentially the most substantial and damaging attack on U.S. critical infrastructure ever,” Ohio Senator Rob Portman told a Senate hearing on cybersecurity threats on Tuesday.

The FBI has accused a shadowy criminal gang called DarkSide of the ransomware attack. DarkSide is believed to be based in Russia or Eastern Europe and avoids targeting computers that use languages from former Soviet republics, cyber experts say.

Russia’s embassy in the United States rejected speculation that Moscow was behind the attack. President Joe Biden a day earlier said there was no evidence so far that Russia was responsible.

A statement issued in DarkSide’s name on Monday said: “Our goal is to make money, and not creating problems for society.”

It is unknown how much money the hackers are seeking, and Colonial has not commented on whether it would pay.

“Cyber attacks on our nation’s infrastructure are growing more sophisticated, frequent and aggressive,” Brandon Wales, acting director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), said on Tuesday at a Senate hearing on the SolarWinds hack that hit companies and government agencies.

GOVERNMENT STEPS IN

The Environmental Protection Agency issued a waiver on Tuesday that allows distributors to continue supplying winter fuel blends through May 18 in three Mid-Atlantic states to help ease supplies.

North Carolina and the U.S. Department of Transportation, meanwhile, relaxed fuel-driver rules, allowing truckers hauling gasoline to work longer hours. North Carolina and Virginia have both declared a state of emergency.

The U.S. has also started the work needed to enable temporary waivers of Jones Act vessels in response to the cyber attack – something that would allow foreign flagged fuel carriers to move from one U.S. port to another, the Transportation Department said.

There are growing concerns that the pipeline outage could lead to further price spikes ahead of the Memorial Day weekend at the end of this month. The weekend is the traditional start of the busy summer driving season.

Gulf Coast refiners that rely on Colonial’s pipeline to move their products have cut processing. Total SE trimmed gasoline production at its Port Arthur, Texas, refinery and Citgo Petroleum pared back at its Lake Charles, Louisiana, plant, sources told Reuters.

Marathon Petroleum is “making adjustments” to its operations due to the pipeline shutdown, a spokesman said without providing details.

While the pipeline outage is having big short-term consequences in some regions, some experts believe the longer term impact will be small.

“Markets will go crazy, but two weeks later no one knows it happened,” said Chuck Watson, director of research at ENKI, which studies the economic effects of natural and other disasters.

(Reporting by Laura Sanicola, Stephanie Kelly and Devika Krishna Kumar; Additional reporting by Nandita Bose; Editing by Paul Simao, Cynthia Osterman and Grant McCool)

Florida limits absentee voting with new Republican-backed law

By Julia Harte

(Reuters) -Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on Thursday signed a law curtailing access to absentee ballots and adding new hurdles to the process of submitting them, the latest Republican-backed voting restrictions to become law in a U.S. election battleground state.

The new law restricts the use of absentee ballot drop boxes to the early voting period, adds new identification requirements for requesting such ballots and requires voters to re-apply for absentee ballots in each new general election cycle. Previously, Florida voters only had to register for an absentee ballot once every two election cycles.

The law also gives partisan election observers more power to raise objections and requires people offering voters assistance to stay at least 150 feet (45 meters) away from polling places, an increase from the previous 100-foot (30-meter) radius.

Republican legislators in numerous states have pursued measures to restrict voting rights in the aftermath of former President Donald Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him through widespread voting fraud.

Minutes after DeSantis signed the law, the League of Women Voters of Florida and two other civil rights groups sued Florida’s 67 counties to try to block the new restrictions. They are represented by Marc Elias, a Democratic lawyer who also sued Georgia over voting limits the state passed in March.

Republican lawmakers, in pursuing the new measures, have cited the claims made by Trump, a Florida absentee voter himself, after his decisive loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

Judges rejected such claims in more than 60 lawsuits that failed to overturn the election result. Lawmakers in Republican-controlled states including Georgia, Texas and Arizona nevertheless proposed legislation that they said was necessary to curb voter fraud, which is relatively rare in the United States.

DeSantis acknowledged in a February press release that Florida had “held the smoothest, most successful election of any state in the country” in November, but said new limits on absentee ballots were needed to safeguard election integrity.

DeSantis, who signed the law in an appearance on the Fox News Channel show “FOX & Friends,” said, “Me signing this bill here says, ‘Florida, your vote counts, your vote is going to be cast with integrity and transparency.'”

Mail-in ballots or absentee ballots were used by Democratic voters in greater numbers than Republicans in the 2020 election as many people avoided in-person voting during the coronavirus pandemic.

Florida Republicans used mail-in voting slightly more than Democrats in the 2014, 2016 and 2018 general elections. But in November, Democrats submitted 2.2 million mail-in ballots compared to 1.5 million from Republican voters, state records show.

“Florida’s Republican legislative leaders seem determined to weaken the system that voters have relied on, without significant problems, for the better part of a generation,” Sylvia Albert, voting and elections director for good-government watchdog Common Cause, said in a statement on April 28 after Florida’s House passed the bill.

In March, Georgia’s Republican governor signed a law that tightened absentee ballot identification requirements, restricted ballot drop box use and allowed a Republican-controlled state agency to take over local voting operations.

Democrats and voting rights advocates sued Georgia over the measure, saying it was aimed at disenfranchising Black voters, whose heavy turnout helped propel Biden to the presidency and delivered Democrats two U.S. Senate victories in Georgia in January that gave them control of the chamber. Top U.S. companies also decried Georgia’s law, and Major League Baseball moved its All-Star game out of the state in protest.

(Reporting by Julia Harte in WashingtonEditing by Colleen Jenkins and Bernadette Baum)

Florida sues Biden administration in bid to restart cruise industry

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The state of Florida sued President Joe Biden’s administration in federal court on Thursday seeking to block the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s decision to prevent the U.S. cruise industry from immediately resuming operations paused for a year because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The suit, filed by Republican Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody in Tampa, asked the court to issue an injunction barring enforcement of the CDC’s order and to quickly lift a “nationwide lockdown” on the industry in place since March 2020. Early in the pandemic, there were dangerous outbreaks of COVID-19 on numerous cruise ships.

Florida, an important center for the U.S. cruise ship industry, said its ports have suffered a decline in operating revenue of almost $300 million since the pandemic started.

“We must allow our cruise liners and their employees to get back to work and safely set sail again,” Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said.

On Friday, the CDC issued new guidance to the cruise industry, a necessary step before passenger voyages can resume, but did not set a date for resuming cruises. Florida said in its lawsuit that “it now appears the CDC will continue that lockdown until November 2021, even though vaccines are now available to all adults who want them.”

“The CDC guidance is based on data and health and medical guidelines,” White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters when asked about the litigation.

The CDC declined to comment on the suit.

Florida said in the lawsuit that if a judge does not block the CDC’s order the state “will lose hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions. And, more importantly, the approximately 159,000 hard-working Floridians whose livelihoods depend on the cruise industry could lose everything.”

The Cruise Lines International Association, which represents Carnival Corp, Norwegian Cruise Line and Royal Caribbean Cruises, said on Monday the CDC guidance means there is “no reasonable timeline” for resuming cruises.

“With no discernable path forward or timeframe for resumption in the U.S., more sailings originating in the Caribbean and elsewhere are likely to be announced, effectively shutting American ports, closing thousands of American small businesses, and pushing an entire industry offshore,” the industry group said.

Norwegian on Monday proposed resuming cruises by July for cruises in which passengers and crew members are fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

Alaska’s two U.S. senators said in a joint statement on Saturday that after speaking with the CDC “we could see cruise ships in U.S. waters as early as mid-summer.”

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Will Dunham)