Education · Palm Beach County
The School District of Palm Beach County is reviewing over 1,800 library books following a state directive from the Florida Department of Education. The mandate requires districts to proactively audit shelves for sexually explicit content rather than waiting for parental objections. This initiative occurs as the district faces budget cuts and staffing reductions due to declining enrollment. Media specialists must remove flagged titles, review them, and sign attestations justifying their retention or removal.
Local Politics · Palm Beach County
Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Wendy Sartory Link is encouraging voters using ExpressVote touchscreen machines to use a provided stylus rather than fingers to avoid accidental selections on the aging equipment. Since early voting began Monday, only two incidents were reported and both were resolved in under a minute by switching to a stylus. New ExpressVote machines will be installed for the March election. Link also warned that recent redistricting affected 640,000 Palm Beach County residents, meaning some voters have new polling locations.
Crime · Delray Beach, FL
Casey Anne Smith, 41, of Boynton Beach appeared before a judge Friday morning on charges including money laundering, organized fraud, and selling a Schedule I controlled substance tied to the Delray Beach business Not Your Bakery LLC. A Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office affidavit alleges an undercover investigator ordered vape products and THCA resin from the business in February 2025, with lab testing finding delta-9 THC above the cited threshold. The judge set bonds totaling $20.03 million across 12 counts and ordered Smith to home arrest with a GPS monitor. Investigators allege financial records show approximately $16.9 million in net deposits in 2024 and $21 million in 2025, far exceeding reported gross sales of $2.6 million and $3.3 million respectively.
Crime · West Palm Beach, FL
A Palm Beach County grand jury indicted Hugh Earp Milner Jr. on charges including first-degree murder with a firearm in the Sept. 27 shooting death of Akeem Moore, a 31-year-old minister at Mount Calvary Baptist Church in West Palm Beach. Police say Milner fired at Moore's occupied vehicle in the 500 block of Ontario Place around 12:30 a.m., apparently mistaking them for someone else. Despite being wounded, Moore drove his uninjured passenger to a nearby fire station before dying at a hospital. Milner was arrested after Broward County Sheriff's Office deputies stopped a linked vehicle using license plate reader data.
Local Politics · Palm Beach County
President Trump posted his list of endorsed candidates for Florida statewide and federal offices Thursday evening, omitting Republican Deborah Adeimy in the reconfigured 23rd Congressional District covering central Palm Beach County, including his Mar-a-Lago estate. The district was redrawn by Republican state legislators to be overwhelmingly Democratic, and independent ratings classify it as safe or solidly Democratic. Trump also left out candidates in the 20th and 24th districts spanning Broward County and Miami-Dade County, while endorsing Republicans in competitive races in the 22nd and 25th districts.
