A woman wearing a burka was escorted out of a Florida county commissioners meeting on Tuesday after playing a recording of the Islamic call to prayer during the public comment period where residents spoke against the potential expansion of a local mosque amid concerns from some over its wording on zoning and agenda materials.

The incident occurred as the Pinellas County Board of County Commissioners was listening to residents address the board. A woman covered head-to-toe in black, with only her left eye visible, and approached the podium. Rather than making a verbal statement, she activated a recording of the call to prayer.

It was not immediately clear whether the gesture was a protest or a prank.

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The audio played for nearly a minute before Board Chairman Dave Eggers interrupted, pointing out that county rules require public speakers to deliver verbal comments rather than play recordings.

"Ma’am, you’re going to have to stop … stop the music, stop the tape," Eggers said.

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When the woman refused to comply, a Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office deputy approached the podium and escorted her out of the meeting room and the building.

Her removal sparked immediate friction in the room, with several audience members shouting and arguing with Eggers over the decision.

"Please. Just please exercise some decorum and kindness of your own," Eggers told the audience. "We’re all people living together here."

He further clarified the board’s rules to the crowd.

"We don’t allow taped things," he said. "You can record the meeting, but we don’t allow taped activity like that. We ask you to come here and make comments, and that was not a comment. That’s why she was asked to step out."

The incident came during a public period where multiple residents decried an Oct. 13 vote in which the board voted 4-3 to approve a land-use amendment for the expansion of the Masjid Al Rahman mosque, which was referred to in presentations and documents as a "community assembly facility."

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The vote changed the property's land use from residential rural to public and semi-public, which would allow the facility's owner to replace the building with a newer structure 1,000 feet larger. 

During Tuesday's meeting, public speakers spoke out against the facility, some citing the treatment of women in Muslim-majority countries.

"It is about the big picture and the long term," one woman told the commission. "By allowing this mosque to expand in our area, you are participating in the expansion of a totalitarian ideology which is fundamentally opposed to Western American values. Expansion of the ideology of Islam is not good for women's rights."

Another woman supported the mosque: "They want to turn it to face Mecca, and they want it to look a little more like a mosque instead of a house," she said. "We have no problems with them. We've been their neighbors for many years."

Commissioner Vince Nowicki reportedly questioned why the mosque wasn't described in plain language in government documents. 

"Residents read these materials to understand what is being proposed near them, and they should get the same plain description in every case, no matter the applicant," Nowicki wrote in an email to County Administrator Barry Burton, Florida Politics reported. 

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The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that the woman was escorted from the premises without further incident and will not face any criminal charges.

Cottonwood Falls, in the heart of Kansas, is a small town surrounded by prairie as far as the eye can see and dotted with idyllic farms and red barns. This ranching community of roughly 850 people proudly hosts a tiny museum whose centerpiece is a perfectly preserved settlers’ wagon. Next to it is the “House of God,” a café that also functions as a church, or vice versa. The cobblestone main street features at one end a hotel where what may once have been a saloon is now a bar. At the other end stands a startling stone building in French Renaissance style: one of the oldest courthouses still in operation west of the Mississippi River. Currently, it also serves as an early voting polling place for next Tuesday’s midterm elections.

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Far-right senator and family land in US after crossing from Brazil into Argentina and then flying via Ecuador

Flávio Bolsonaro declared himself the “true president” of Brazil after losing last Sunday’s presidential election and fleeing to the United States.

After landing on a private jet with his family in Miami, Florida, on Wednesday morning, the far-right senator published the claim in a letter – even though his own party has recognised the legitimate victory of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, as have all of Brazil’s institutions, and international observers who monitored and endorsed the vote.

HOA president was not on the list of titles Lana Martin ever planned to hold, but it's one that's befallen her.

Martin bought a townhouse in a 13-unit complex in Los Angeles in 2022. She quickly realized that the leaders of her homeowners association were ignoring a number of unaddressed issues, including a leaky decades-old roof that was flooding her neighbors' living rooms. Martin, who works for the California state government, decided to join her complex's three-person board to help out.

As the saying goes, no good deed goes unpunished.

The other two board members aren't very involved, so "everything falls on me," Martin says. She handles vendor calls, fields resident complaints, and babysits a low-budget property manager. Residents raised hell about the roof replacement project — they didn't want to stomach the roughly $160,000 cost that meant a painful $13,000 assessment for each unit. Some of them accused the HOA board and management company of acting illegally and threatened to lawyer up. Martin has had to block some of her neighbors' phone numbers.

"They wanted to second guess everything, Monday-morning quarterback everything, rather than just become involved," Martin says.

The reluctance to participate is understandable. It's also part of what's left Martin holding the bag.

HOAs are easy to hate. They are private mini-governments made up of non-expert volunteers who happen to live in proximity with one another. Across the country, millions of Americans have bought into condos, co-ops, and subdivisions governed by these associations, tethering their largest financial asset to an amateur bureaucracy. Most HOA stories are told from the outside looking in: a beleaguered resident hit with a ridiculous fine over a rogue garden hose or an overgrown lawn. Talk to the people who've ventured into the belly of the beast, and the picture gets gnarlier: You give up a ton of time, don't get paid, and everybody's always a bit mad at you.

And yet, HOA setups are growing. There were 373,000 community associations in the US in 2025, covering 29.6 million housing units and 78.1 million residents. By comparison, there were 222,500 in 2000. These entities collected $124.2 billion in assessments last year — about 1.5 times New York City's total tax revenue for the same year. You can see why things get so heated, and not just about money.

"HOAs are the ultimate pressure cooker environment for human interactions," says A.J. Steigman, a Florida real estate investor who currently sits on two boards. "You can cure cancer, you can pave the place in gold, you can even lower the HOA fees, and yet you're still going to have some elderly couple constantly complain about their flower patch."

Why would anyone in their right mind raise their hand for this?

HOAs typically attract two distinct archetypes, says Evan McKenzie, a political science professor at the University of Illinois Chicago and author of "Privatopia: Homeowner Associations and the Rise of Residential Private Government." On one side are the reluctant pragmatists — people who step up out of civic duty or sheer self-defense. On the other are what McKenzie calls the "condo commando" types who have some pretty strict ideas about how the people next door ought to live. For them, the board is a badge of domestic authority. Once they wind up in the same room, these groups inevitably clash — or, perhaps even worse, they run up against the paralyzing apathy of everyone else.

The paradox of HOA leadership is that the moment an owner displays basic competence, the rest of the community often abdicates. That's how James, a product designer in LA, landed in his current situation. He asked me to withhold his last name in order to protect his privacy — and keep from ruffling feathers among his neighbors.

HOAs are the ultimate pressure cooker environment for human interactions.

Back in 2021, a couple of people in his complex asked him to help out since he works from home and could keep an eye on things. He officially joined the board in 2023 and now acts as an unwitting customer service desk. Residents email the board about petty issues like intercom numbers and rat spottings. One recent Friday night, someone emailed to report a gas leak. "It's like, you need to call 911," James says.

He can't walk around his residence without risking someone coming up to him to pitch an idea or air a grievance. "You're never really off the clock," he says. He wishes he could quit, but no one else will step up.

Olivia Horbowy's story is one of self-preservation. When she bought an older top-floor condo in LA in 2024, the concept of an HOA was quite foreign to her. There were signs something might be amiss when she informed the building's then-leadership of her renovation plans for her new place — demands for extra documentation, a denied in-unit washer-dryer — but she brushed them off. She is an attorney, after all. But after moving into the space in the spring of 2025, she received notice of $15,200 in surprise accumulated fines related to the remodel. "They were convinced they were above the law and could make any decision they wanted," she says. After some legal back-and-forth, she didn't wind up paying.

As a result of the incident, Horbowy also decided to run for the five-person board herself. Victory wasn't entirely sweet, because of one preexisting board member's reaction. In emails, the aggrieved veteran referred to one member as a "kiss ass minion," accused the board president of taking bribes, and called Horbowy a "Russian whore." (She's Polish.) That member eventually resigned.

What makes HOAs and condo boards different from, for example, a corporate board is the question of interest, explains Nadav Shoked, a law professor at Northwestern. In HOA boards, the directors and the people affected by the decisions are often one and the same — and their neighbors. While they all have a common interest — the property — they often have interests that conflict.

People of a certain age, even though they may not be financially insecure, they worry about, will the money run out in my lifetime?

HOA boards contend with all sorts of fault lines. Older residents on fixed incomes tend to prioritize keeping monthly fees lower, while younger families lean toward upping fees for more amenities and construction projects. In situations where some owners live in their residences and others rent them out, boards wind up with a triangle of interests: Landlords want low costs and easy rental terms, full-time residents prioritize day-to-day quality of life, and renters wade through all of it without having a say.

These disconnects are why routine governance so frequently devolves into absurdity.

Andrew Simkovsky just wanted an investment property when he bought a condo in South Florida in 2024, but he wound up orchestrating a "hostile takeover" of the board amid concerns over their stewardship of said investment. He's since worked to rebuild the condo's finances and reestablish a budget. Still, the one thing that's surprised him is the hullabaloo over pets. The building's original bylaws from the 1970s officially barred them. In the '80s, there was an amendment allowing pets for owners but not renters, but over the decades, both groups had brought them in. The association's attorney advised them that enforcing the pet ban for tenants could be legally problematic, so Simkovsky decided to bring the building into the 21st century by officially allowing dogs and cats of up to 50 pounds for owners and instituting rules around leashes and cleanup that hadn't previously been in place. (Renters are still technically not allowed to have pets, but the board doesn't enforce that.) Purist residents revolted and wanted pets out. "My response to them was, they're already here, should I evict them?" he says.

Alice Young, a retiree in suburban Chicago, says she's fine to serve on her board as long as it doesn't cut into her pickleball time, even though "everything takes so goldarn long to resolve." Among the lengthy items on her agenda are finding a new property management company and convincing a fellow board member to personally confirm a single extension cord has been removed from the basement in order to close out another board member's violation.

The true crisis inside the HOA machine is money. Many boards have kept dues artificially low for decades in order to appease residents and put off pricey updates. Now, aging housing stock is colliding with surging insurance premiums, stricter reserve laws, and tighter safety regulations, and the bill is coming due.

Florida is an especially stark example. It has the second-most community associations of any state, behind only California, with 50,600 such groups covering 4.5 million housing units and 10.9 million residents. Neighbors who live under Florida HOAs kick in over $20 billion to their associations annually. A 2023 Florida Senate analysis found that 912,000 of the state's 1.5 million condo units were at least 30 years old. After the 2021 collapse of the Surfside condominiums that left 98 people dead, the state required qualifying buildings to undergo "milestone" structural inspections after a certain age and changed the rules so owners can't simply vote to underfund reserves for major structural repairs. In 2024, Redfin found double-digit annual increases in condo dues in Tampa, Orlando, Fort Lauderdale, and West Palm Beach.

This creates a brutal fiduciary burden. When Paul Vesely joined the board for his Florida second-home condo in 2009, the complex's on-site managers warned him against commissioning an engineering inspection, because "they might find something." The association has since taken out over $2 million in loans to pay for various updates and renovations, which translates to thousands of dollars a year for each unit. One owner, who has cancer, is currently delinquent on her payments, and the board will send her to collections if she doesn't pay. "As badly as we may feel about a certain individual, we have to be consistent," he says.

Not everyone shares the same economic clock. Bill Masterson recalls attending a condo meeting in Chicago years ago in which an elderly man pushed back against a $225,000 assessment to put in a parking lot. "Why can't you wait until I die?" the man asked. The board went ahead anyway, and the man lived for another several years. "People of a certain age, even though they may not be financially insecure, they worry about, will the money run out in my lifetime?" he says.

Masterson swore off condo boards when he moved from Chicago to Florida in 2016 and then signed right back up. He admits he's a stickler for the rules, but he's also aware of how silly disputes can break down relationships. One of his neighbors doesn't speak to him because of a long-past disagreement over a speed bump.

"That's OK, because the work gets done," he says. "You never know in a given moment what pressure people are under."

Lana Martin, back in LA, says contending with everything has been a "wild ride." She spoke to me the day roof construction on her complex had finally begun. She's relieved, but there's more work to be done. Next up: writing up a towing policy. "People won't voluntarily just agree, 'Oh yeah, I shouldn't block driveways,'" she says.

Emily Stewart is a senior correspondent at Business Insider, writing about business and the economy.

La polizia è intervenuta durante una partita di calcio giovanile vicino a Orlando, in Florida, dopo una segnalazione legata al comportamento dei genitori di un bambino di 3 anni. Ma la vicenda ha fatto rapidamente il giro del web per un altro motivo: secondo la famiglia, il piccolo Nevada sarebbe stato preso di mira perché troppo bravo a giocare a calcio. La storia ha scatenato un acceso dibattito sui social, tra chi difende il bambino e chi ritiene che i genitori debbano rispettare le regole e i limiti imposti nelle competizioni giovanili.

Nevada, appena tre anni, è protagonista di diversi video diventati virali in cui segna numerosi gol e si distingue dagli altri bambini in campo, alcuni dei quali hanno uno o due anni più di lui. Anche Thomas Hayes, uno dei responsabili della lega giovanile in cui il piccolo giocava, ha riconosciuto le sue capacità. “Il bambino è bravissimo. È fantastico, davvero bravo“, ha detto Hayes agli agenti intervenuti sul posto, come si sente nel filmato registrato dalla telecamera indossata da uno dei poliziotti.

Il responsabile ha però spiegato che il problema non riguardava soltanto le prestazioni del piccolo. Secondo la sua versione, Nevada tendeva anche a spingere gli altri bambini durante il gioco. “È molto più avanti rispetto agli altri. Segna tanti gol, ma spinge anche gli altri ragazzi“, ha raccontato agli agenti. Hayes ha aggiunto di aver già invitato i bambini a evitare comportamenti scorretti in campo e ha riferito che, alcune settimane prima, si era verificato un altro episodio di tensione con i genitori di Nevada. In quell’occasione, il responsabile aveva sostituito alcuni giocatori, compreso il bambino, suscitando il malcontento della famiglia.

“A loro non piace”, ha spiegato alla polizia, sostenendo che i genitori avessero reagito alla sua richiesta di impedire al figlio di spingere gli avversari e avessero finito per litigare con altre famiglie presenti. La madre del piccolo, tuttavia, ha fornito una versione molto diversa dei fatti. Nel video registrato dalla telecamera dell’agente, la donna sostiene che la famiglia cerchi sempre di tenersi a distanza dagli altri genitori, posizionandosi sul lato opposto del campo proprio per evitare discussioni. “Lo stanno letteralmente cacciando da questo posto perché è bravo a calcio“, ha dichiarato agli agenti.

Anche il padre di Nevada, in un filmato registrato dalla famiglia, ha contestato l’intervento delle forze dell’ordine: “Hanno chiamato la polizia per un bambino di tre anni perché è troppo bravo”. La madre ha raccontato alla CBS News che, prima della partita, l’allenatore aveva detto al bambino che avrebbe potuto continuare a giocare a condizione di passare la palla ai compagni. La situazione, però, sarebbe degenerata a metà dell’incontro, quando sono arrivati gli agenti. La donna ha inoltre affermato di aver visto alcuni genitori riunirsi in cerchio e parlare del figlio durante la partita.

In un’intervista con la giornalista Lauren Lorosa, la madre ha espresso tutta la sua frustrazione: “Mio figlio è già vestito. Non posso spiegare al mio bambino di tre anni che oggi non può giocare perché è troppo bravo“. Dal canto suo, Hayes ha dichiarato di voler chiedere alla famiglia di lasciare la lega, dicendosi anche disponibile a restituire il denaro pagato per l’iscrizione. La vicenda ha provocato una forte reazione sui social, dove Nevada e la sua famiglia hanno ricevuto numerosi messaggi di sostegno. Tra questi anche quello di Rachel Accurso, conosciuta online come Ms. Rachel, popolare star di YouTube, che ha commentato un post sull’accaduto dicendo che le piacerebbe ospitare il bambino nel suo programma. Non sono mancate, però, le critiche. Un allenatore, commentando il caso, ha scritto che i genitori del piccolo “dovrebbero vergognarsi”.

Nel frattempo, la lega i9 Sports ha pubblicato un comunicato su Facebook per fare chiarezza sulla propria posizione. “Siamo a conoscenza delle preoccupazioni espresse in merito a un episodio avvenuto durante un match locale di i9 Sports e le prendiamo molto sul serio”, si legge nella nota. L’organizzazione ha poi ribadito che “il rispetto e il benessere di ogni bambino e di ogni famiglia sono di fondamentale importanza”, aggiungendo di essere al lavoro per ricostruire quanto accaduto.

L'articolo La polizia interviene alla partita di un bambino: ha 3 anni e segna gol a raffica. “Cacciato perché troppo bravo” proviene da Il Fatto Quotidiano.

Far-right senator and his family boarded private plane to Ecuador after crossing border to Argentina, Argentina’s government confirms

The far-right senator Flávio Bolsonaro has reportedly fled Brazil and is on his way to the United States after losing Sunday’s presidential election to the leftwing incumbent, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who called the act “shameful”.

A report by the news website Metrópoles, citing people close to the politician’s family, said he was en route to the US. “The plane is in flight,” Metrópoles reported, without making clear where it had departed from.

• Michael Bowen started his career in church work, which he found unfulfilling and lacking stability.
• Driven by a love for Disney and a desire for change, he decided to make the move to Florida at 44.
• After a hiatus due to personal reasons, he returned to his job as a Disney bus driver this year.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Michael Bowen, a 51-year-old Walt Disney World bus driver and Disney content creator behind the YouTube channel "Incognito Mouse." It has been edited for length and clarity.

Most of my adult life, I worked in the church. I went to university and Bible school to become a minister. I went into this line of work thinking it would make someone else happy, and didn't really think about what would make me happy.

At one point, I ended up working at a smaller church that could not pay a full-time salary, so to support myself, I got a part-time job as a school bus driver.

In 2017, I took a vacation to Florida and visited Disney World. I remember sitting there on the last day of my vacation, in the beautiful, warm sun, by the pool, with palm trees beside me, and dreading going back to the stormy weather in New Jersey.

I felt I had to make some kind of change, or I was going to sentence myself to a miserable life.

I realized I could work as a bus driver for Disney

I first visited Disney World in 2013. I had thought it was strange — a bunch of adults, no kids, going to Disney. Yet, even on that first trip, I thought, man, what could I do to work here? There's no Disney church.

By the second time I went in 2017, I had followed Disney a lot more and saw it wasn't just for children. Now, as a school bus driver, I thought, "Oh, they do have bus drivers, and that is a legitimate career. I could actually do that."

I love Disney, and my ex-wife did, too. As huge Disney fans, we thought, why not go live in the most magical place on Earth and work there?

In 2020, at 44, I first moved to Florida

I was living out of state when I applied to be a bus driver at Disney. It's very difficult to get into it. It took several months to get to the interview, and I needed a Florida driver's license before I could get the offer.

I moved to Florida in January of 2020. After I got my license, I was put on a waiting list until a bus driver position became available. It wasn't until February 15 that I finally got the call to start the role.

For the first time in my life, I had a really stable job with all the benefits that some smaller churches aren't necessarily able to give: paid time off, pensions, retirement, things like that.

In particular, I had health insurance for the first time in a long time, and I was really happy.

I was convinced I was going to drive for Disney for the rest of my life and retire there. But in May 2022, I chose to leave after experiencing a difficult separation and divorce. I remember when I was leaving, I got the offboarding email, and it was the most gut-wrenching feeling that I had ever had.

I moved to Oregon, but I always wanted to move back

I decided to move to Oregon. I drove a city bus and things like that, but I wasn't happy.

During that time, I met another woman, now my wife, who was a big Disney fan like me. I rebranded my YouTube channel from church content to Disney around 2019, and started posting about being a Disney cast member in 2020. We met through the YouTube channel and decided to move to Florida together in 2025.

As before, I had to wait almost a year for a job opening at Disney. In the meantime, I worked for a different company contracted to drive the buses for Universal Studios.

Finally, in April 2026, at 50, I returned to Disney as a bus driver.

It's not seen as the most prestigious job, but I love it

For me, being a Disney bus driver is wonderful, but I feel like it's not the most prestigious job. Often, when people ride the bus, it's seen as just a way to get to the park.

However, it has its special moments. Once, there was a little boy visiting with his parents who, as he was getting on the bus, showed me two little toy buses. His mother told me he loved the buses so much and was so excited to show them to me. Little things like this just make my day, seeing people so excited.

I can enjoy all the magic of Disney and go to the park whenever I want. So it's the best of both worlds.

Walt Disney said, "It's kind of fun to do the impossible." If you'd have told me that I was going to do something like this several years ago, I would have said, " There's no way — it's not possible. I'm too old. I don't have the finances. I don't know what I would do."

But life is too short. If you are not happy or you want to do something else, you have to make it happen.

At first Matías Núñez began encountering online reports and citizen complaints about the proliferation of Flock cameras, the private automatic license plate reader service that has been contracted by police departments, universities, neighborhood associations and businesses across the United States. And then one day he found two of those devices in his own neighborhood in the coastal city of Hollywood, Florida: “I realized that every time I pass by, they record my location, and that they’re cropping up everywhere in my area. Once you see them, you start noticing them everywhere.”

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Three victims are in critical or serious condition after gunfire near Florida A&M University in Tallahassee; no arrests have been made.

At least 11 people were wounded in a shooting near Florida A&M University in Tallahassee on October 24, including three who suffered serious injuries, police said. One victim is in critical condition.

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Tallahassee Police Chief Lawrence Revell said eight other victims were in stable condition. A university student was among those injured.

Preliminary information indicates that the shooting followed a dispute involving several people, according to authorities. Police believe the incident was isolated rather than a random attack targeting the university.

No arrests have been made, and the investigation remains ongoing. Local authorities have urged members of the public to provide information that could help identify those responsible.

The shooting also left a family member injured as people fled the scene. A grandmother of one of the victims was hurt while trying to escape, bringing the reported number of people injured in the incident to 12 when non-gunshot injuries are included.

Reports from local media indicated that six adults and six minors were among those affected, including an 11-year-old child. The reports did not clarify how those figures corresponded to the 11 people shot and the additional person injured while fleeing.

Florida A&M University, founded in 1887, is a historically Black institution based in Tallahassee. The shooting occurred near its facilities, although police have said preliminary findings do not indicate that the university itself was the target.

The U.S. midterm elections come after aggressive efforts by both Democrats and Republicans to redraw district maps in their favor, a practice known as gerrymandering.

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