The Rev. Billy Graham, dubbed "America's Pastor" and the "Protestant Pope," died Wednesday at his North Carolina home at age 99 after achieving a level of influence and reach no other evangelist is likely ever to match.

Keith Simons died of what police said was a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

SHALIMAR — Unanticipated delays have led to changes in the completion dates of two of the three Okaloosa County beach access projects.Last September the County Commission approved paying the Floridian Construction and Development Co. of Destin a little more than $1.7 million in bed tax money to improve accesses No. 4, 5 and 6 on Okaloosa Island.The projects include building elevated [...]

OKALOOSA ISLAND — A dead manatee that washed ashore on the Santa Rosa Sound side of Okaloosa Island has been decomposing at the shoreline for at least two weeks.The manatee, which is 5 to 6 feet long and at one point probably weighed about 400 pounds, is at the edge of a public waterfront lot amid several homes at the west end of the island near Eglin Air Foce Base's property. The animal was first reported to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation [...]

TALLAHASSEE — A week after a shooter slaughtered 17 people in a Florida high school, thousands of protesters, including many angry teenagers, swarmed into the state Capitol on Wednesday, calling for changes to gun laws, a ban on assault-type weapons and improved care for the mentally ill. The normally staid Florida Statehouse filled with students, among them more than 100 survivors of the Feb. 14 attack at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, on the edge of [...]