FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Carrie Meek, the grandchild of a slave and a sharecropper's daughter who became one of the first Black Floridians elected to Congress since Reconstruction, died Sunday. She was 95.

Meek died at her home in Miami after a long illness, family spokesperson Adam Sharon said in a statement. The family did not specify a cause of death.

A foiled succession plan, sensational allegations, and a family feud at the pinnacle of power — these are the ingredients in what promises to be a riveting race to succeed outgoing Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte.

The no-holds-barred contest scheduled for May 2022 has already produced what some observers see as an unsettling alliance: the offspring of two presidents pairing off in an unprecedented bid to run the country.

Hanukkah commemorates the Maccabees' victory over the Greeks and rededication of the Second Temple. The centerpiece of the Hanukkah celebration is the menorah, and it is a time of year to celebrate love, family and tradition.

In northern Minnesota, not much can beat the pristine view ­­– and the rush – of climbing a fire tower. Reaching 100 feet into the sky, there were once nearly 150 of these steel lookouts guarding the state's fire-prone forests.

Today, only a handful of climbable towers exist and they remain on the front lines of fire prevention through education and an innate human desire to perch above the treetops.

On-air challenge: Every answer today is a word, name, or phrase in which the only consonants are B and R, repeated as often as necessary. All the other letters are vowels.

A new strain of COVID-19 first discovered in South Africa was declared a variant of concern by the World Health Organization on Friday. Here's how the pharmaceutical industry plans to address the latest coronavirus curve ball.

Vaccine makers are already pivoting their efforts to combat the new variant: testing higher doses of booster shots, designing new boosters that anticipate strain mutations, and developing omicron-specific boosters.

Legendary Native American musician Joanne Shenandoah, a trailblazer popular with both mainstream and Native audiences, has died. A multi-instrumentalist, singer and composer who collaborated with such musical icons as Robbie Robertson and Neil Young (as well as with this writer), Shenandoah won a Grammy award and was among the most lauded musicians in the history of the Native American Music Awards. According to her sister Vicky Schenandoah, who confirmed with NPR by phone, she died late Monday night at the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Ariz. following a long illness. She was 64.

Amir Peay had high hopes when he salvaged the abandoned 140-year-old James E. Pepper Distillery near the heart of Lexington, Kentucky. After years of planning and renovations, it was finally ready to produce whiskey on site in 2017. But Peay's hopes were dashed a few months later, as the European Union imposed tariffs on American whiskey.

More loggerhead turtle nests were counted on South Carolina beaches this year than in 2020, according to state Department of Natural Resources data.

The Post and Courier of Charleston reports officials counted more than 5,600 sea turtle nests this year, with data still being tallied. The final 2020 count was 5,560.

That remains below the state's two biggest years, with 6,446 nests counted in 2016 and 8,774 in 2019.

The state’s first nest was reported on May 5 on Seabrook Island. The town of Kiawah Island said its last nest was counted Oct. 10.