Lawyers who secured a $1.1 billion settlement in the deadly collapse last year of a beachfront Florida condominium building were awarded more than $70 million in fees Monday by a judge. The total was less than the approximately $100 million attorneys with the 17 law firms had requested, but there were no guarantees initially they…

SURFSIDE, Fla.—A year ago in the middle of the night, a 12-story oceanfront condo building in Surfside, Florida, came down with a thunderous roar, leaving a giant pile of rubble and claiming 98 lives—one of the deadliest structure collapses in U.S. history. The names of each victim were read aloud during a ceremony Friday to…

By Alex Harris From Miami Herald SURFSIDE, Fla.—Scraped clean of tons of rubble late last month, the bare garage floor of Champlain Towers South appears to rule out at least one early suspect in its catastrophic collapse. There were no telltale signs of a sinkhole. The garage floor, the building’s lowest level, remains in one…

Sixty years before Juan Mora’s Florida condo building came crashing down, killing him and at least 89 others, he was among hundreds of Cuban exiles who signed up for a covert, CIA-funded operation to overthrow Fidel Castro’s Soviet-backed dictatorship. Mora’s dream of restoring democracy in his homeland took him from military training at a Guatemalan…

MIAMI—A vaccinated Miami-Dade county commissioner who helped other local officials in Surfside following the collapse of a condominium building announced that he and his chief of staff tested positive for COVID-19. The news release late Sunday from Miami-Dade County Commission Chairman Jose “Pepe” Diaz said he and his chief of staff Isidoro Lopez, who also…

The death toll from the partial collapse of a condominium near Miami rose by four to 94 on Monday, with 22 people still unaccounted for as workers continued to sift through the rubble of the building, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said. Due to the passage of time, officials are increasingly relying on the…

Confirmed deaths in the partial collapse of a condominium near Miami rose by four to 94 on Monday as identifying remains became progressively difficult with the recovery effort in its 19th day, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said. Due to the passage of time, recovery workers are leaning more heavily on the medical examiner’s…

As firefighters responded to a five-story condominium collapse in Washington D.C. on July 1, a man who was trapped under the rubble owes a debt of gratitude to man’s best friend. Kimber, the 8-year-old search and rescue K-9 who assisted at the scene (on Kennedy Street in northwest D.C.), was able to pinpoint the man,…

WASHINGTON—The number of people confirmed to have been killed in the collapse of a Miami-area condominium tower last month reached 86, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said on Saturday. No survivors have been pulled alive from the ruins since the first few hours after the tower partially caved in on itself early on June…

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.—On Saturday, authorities raised the confirmed death toll from the collapse of a Miami-area condominium tower to 86, with 43 people still missing. At the Seaview Hotel, a vast and once impersonal ballroom has become a refuge—a shared space of hope and sorrow where grieving families comfort each other during the agonizing wait…