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Digest
Dateline Florida
By Times Staff
Published April 27, 2007
Fire destroys Liberty City shantytown A shantytown for the homeless in Miami's Liberty City neighborhood burned Thursday morning after a candle toppled over inside a shack. Many residents, including a man who was arrested after chaining himself to a table, wanted to stay amid the rubble, the Miami Herald reports. Two activists who tried to block bulldozers from removing the rubble were arrested. The fire displaced 44 squatters in what activists have dubbed Umoja Village, after the Swahili word for unity, but no one was hurt. Woman, 95, tries to prove she's alive The government told Mabel Toevs of Sanford she was dead, which surprised her, since she's not. Toevs is 95 but spry enough to spend hours this week at a Social Security office trying to prove she's alive, the Orlando Sentinel reports. The Social Security Administration Death Master File says she died April 2, triggering a sympathy note to her "estate" from Community Care Rx, her prescription-drug service. "Medicare has reported to us the death of Mabel Toevs," the letter starts. "Please accept our condolences." Social Security officials were sympathetic but unable to explain the error. News update The Tampa City Council on Thursday approved a $65,000 settlement for a federal lawsuit with Melvonia Johns, a woman Tampa police handcuffed and locked in a bedroom in 2000 in front of her two children. Police were looking for drugs without a search warrant. None were found.
[Last modified April 27, 2007, 00:54:22]
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