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Alone in Senate race, Clay Yarborough hits stride with donors

August began with three candidates in the 2022 Senate District 4 Primary, and it ended with just one.

Senate Leadership endorsed Rep. Clay Yarborough as July ended, a move that cleared the field of two other legislators and made fundraising somewhat less urgent for the third-term Republican from Jacksonville.

Yet fundraising continued. In August, Yarborough raised nearly $46,000, good for his best tally since his March fundraising report and a sign of good things to come for the Duval County conservative.

A full $23,000 of the August haul went to Yarborough’s standing state-level political committee, Floridians for Conservative Values. The bulk of that money was local, including $5,000 donations from Thomas Petway IV and Florida Blue.

Even as COVID cases rise, U.S. Open, other events welcome fans

Full-throated shouts and hearty applause returned to the U.S. Open tennis tournament Monday, bursts of sound that offered some form of reaction to nearly each and every action. Also back: lengthy lines to get through the gates and to buy something to eat or drink.

A year after spectators were banned entirely from Flushing Meadows because of the coronavirus pandemic, lending a dystopian feel to a normally lively event, 100% capacity is once again being permitted — proof of vaccination needed; no masks required — at this and other sports events.

College football resumed Saturday, with tends of thousands on-hand for such as matchups as Illinois vs. Nebraska or Hawaii vs. UCLA. The NFL is letting its teams sell every ticket for the regular season; its first Sunday is Sept. 12.

Waters around Manatee County, Anna Maria Island are clear of red tide — for now 

After months of fish kills and sometimes smelly beaches, red tide conditions that affected waters around Anna Maria Island and Manatee County have receded — for now.

Karenia brevis, the organism that causes the harmful algal bloom known as red tide, was not present in any of the latest round of local water samples collected by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and its partners. It’s the first time since April that the organism has not been detected at significant levels in Manatee County waters.

Dead fish and respiratory irritation have also stopped fouling beach conditions on Anna Maria Island, according to Mote Marine Laboratory’s beach conditions tracker, which is updated by lifeguards.

Florida Realtors drop initiative that would have provided steady tax money to affordable housing

Realtors are dropping a multimillion-dollar effort to pass a constitutional amendment that could have ensured funding for affordable housing, saying they will work with legislative leaders to create a program to help people such as nurses, police officers and firefighters buy homes.

The decision, announced Tuesday night, came after the group Florida Realtors and the National Association of Realtors contributed at least $13 million to a political committee spearheading the effort to put the proposed constitutional amendment on the 2022 ballot.

The committee, Floridians for Housing, had spent about $2.75 million as of July 31 as it worked to collect the 891,589 petition signatures needed to get on the ballot. The state Division of Elections had received 64,937 signatures for the initiative as of Tuesday.