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Orlando a top-10 city for percent of gay residents

By TIMES WIRES
Published October 17, 2006

ORLANDO

The Orlando metro area now ranks in the top 10 cities in the country for gay, lesbian and bisexual residents, according to a recent study.

More than 80,000 people, 6 percent of the adult population, in the area are gay, a study by the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy at the UCLA School of Law found.

Orlando ranks ninth in the study. San Francisco had the highest percentage of gays at more than 8 percent.

The city of Orlando and local companies have become more progressive toward gays in recent years, said Chris Alexander, vice president of sales and marketing for Gay Days Inc.

BALTIMORE

NAACP to monitor elections in Florida

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People announced Monday it will have hundreds of volunteers monitoring voting in Florida and nine other states next month, sending observers to polling places, taking citizen complaints and notifying the Justice Department of any serious problems.

The states were chosen based on those with pivotal elections, states with concentrations of black voters, and those with a history of polling problems, the Baltimore-based civil rights organization said.

Besides Florida, the NAACP plans to monitor Nov. 7 balloting in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas.

PENSACOLA

Pacific forces leader after Vietnam dies

Retired Adm. Maurice Weisner, who commanded the nation's post-Vietnam War Pacific forces, died Sunday, his family said Monday. He was 88.

Adm. Weisner was commander in chief of Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force operations in the Pacific from August 1976 until his retirement in November 1979. He took command from Adm. Noel A.M. Gyler, who saw U.S. involvement in Vietnam end.

After retiring, Adm. Weisner was president of the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation in Pensacola in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the museum doubled its size.

"He was a giant of an individual, no question about it," said retired Capt. Bob Rasmussen, the museum's director.

LEHIGH ACRES

Teen killed, another hurt in ATV crash

One Fort Myers teen was killed and another was badly hurt when two all-terrain vehicles collided head-on Sunday.

Kyle Allen Flint, 16, died in the Sunday crash on land owned by the Southwest Florida Water Management District. Aaron Sullivan, 16, is hospitalized with critical injuries.

TALLAHASSEE

Child abuse, neglect deaths down in 2005

The deaths of 96 children were attributed to abuse or neglect in Florida in 2005, down from 111 in 2004, the Department of Children and Families said. The average over the past seven years is 93.

[Last modified October 17, 2006, 01:57:38]