WAFC Local News – March 27, 2026, 8:32 AM
Transcript
I’m Charles Murphy reporting. A congressman, Scott Franklin, seeing more economic growth around the corner. He says midterm elections are not often kind to presidents nonetheless. If we thought this was bad under Biden, which it was, you know, Biden’s inflation was the worst in the last 40 years. Well, you go back to those last 40 years and that’s exactly what Ronald Reagan inherited after Jimmy Carter’s disastrous time in office. He did have some good news for farmers and ranchers in our area. There’s going to be, you know, accelerated depreciation on equipment that they buy. The elimination of the death tax, making that permanent, is going to allow some certainty in families. You know, a lot of times if someone would pass, the children in many cases didn’t have the money to be able to pay the estate taxes. So they’d end up having to literally sell the farm in order to pay Uncle Sam. This will permanently relieve that. So families can keep farmland in their families and pass it down to their kids. Franklin says we are paying higher prices for food and some of those prices won’t go down. The pain is real, but we’re going to have to grow wages in a way that make people have enough money in their pocket to pay those higher prices. Among arrests, 35-year-old Jose Arrieta of Henry County was arrested after a high-speed chase in LaBelle, Henry County’s finest. Says they saw a 2012 Toyota sedan driving down State Road 29 with two dark windows shield tint. When they tried to pull it over, the vehicle increased speed and accelerated to 85 miles an hour in a 35 mile per hour zone. The vehicle turned onto A Road onto Dustin Drive and eventually was stopped after two and a half miles. The driver then gave up voluntarily. Charges include driving while license suspended. 33-year-old Luis Fundora of Cluiston faces charges of resisting arrest and drug possession. Deputies were in a high narcotics area in Cluiston and appeared to see a possible drug deal conducted. One of the vehicles involved headed eastbound on Avenida Del Club. They stopped the vehicle at Coral Street. They learned that the driver had had past incidents of firearm and drug possession. A search was done by a K-9 unit, and the K-9 alerted positive to the presence of narcotics. Deputies say they found some drug paraphernalia and fentanyl in the vehicle. They say that the suspect became increasingly irate as other units responded to the scene. A failed man will be sentenced next week for charges that include cruelty to animals and giving false information to law enforcement in DeSoto County. Adrian Soto went on trial earlier this month and was found guilty of fighting or baiting animals. The case dated from an incident in April of 2022. There was a cockfight going on in a citrus grove on County Road 763 in Arcadia. Palm Beach School Board member Edwin Ferguson says he’s opposed to the city of West Palm Beach creating their own school system. He’d like to eliminate charter schools and Hope schools. Henderson School cannot educate as well as we can. That’s a cherry-picked district. I’m Charles Murphy, WAFC News.
Recorded from the WAFC daily newscast (Glades Media).