Mandy Miles

Fifty or so Key West youth hockey players participate in a free hockey clinic on Aug. 21, with Toronto Maple Leafs player Brandon Duhaime and Reagan Rust, former captain and assistant coach for Boston University’s women's hockey team. MANDY MILES/Keys Weekly

Immigration agents with Customs and Border Protection (CBP) have removed at least 65 people from Key West and Stock Island since Aug. 1 as enhanced enforcement efforts continue and additional agents are seen around town.

Key West honors the International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition on Aug. 23 at the African Cemetery at Higgs Beach. The event featured poetry readings and historical commentary. Photos by LARRY BLACKBURN/Keys Weekl

Florida Department of Transportation crews are installing a new traffic light at the north end of College Road, where it intersects U.S. 1. The work may require temporary lane closures and the light is expected to be finished this winter. MANDY MILES/Keys Weekly

A buzzy chatter filled Baby’s Coffee Tuesday afternoon on Fleming Street, where curious customers were delighted to find the long-awaited downtown location open, inviting and serving the premium, high-mountain-grown coffee that has been satisfying Key West’s and the Lower Keys’ caffeine cravings for 35 years.

Key West’s historic fire bell is struck each year on Sept. 11 at the precise times two hijacked planes hit the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City — 8:46 a.m for the North Tower and 9:03 a.m. for the South Tower. LARRY BLACKBURN/Keys Weekly

Bill Lay is more accustomed to working in the kitchens of his five restaurants than walking the halls of government in Tallahassee and Washington, D.C. But Lay has found himself meeting with state and federal legislators on both sides of the aisle and being interviewed in recent weeks by the Wall Street Journal, which quoted him in a recent article entitled, “Why Thousands of Florida Workers are Disappearing.” Lay was also recently interviewed by the New York Times about his own personal efforts, supported by the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association, to find some middle ground on the immigration and deportation issue, which is affecting Key West’s and the Florida Keys’ workforce — and Lay’s kitchen staff at his five restaurants, bars and catering company.

The former president of the College of the Florida Keys is contesting his July 20 termination, and has requested an administrative hearing so a judge can review the circumstances of his firing and the actions the school’s board of trustees took to do so.

A banner on the Fleming Street fence of Nicole Sohn and Linda Bagley-Sohn announces the lawsuit filed in May accusing the city of selectively enforcing its code to target rainbow-painted fence pickets. MANDY MILES/Keys Weekly

The list goes on: Autocracy with an excessive religious base Kleptocracy benefiting the 0.01% Extreme wealth inequality Oligarchs and billionaires having disproportionate political power Indoctrination and extreme nationalism Constant propaganda and manufactured enemies Political loyalty becoming more important than truth Attacks on education, science and independent institutions Weak social welfare systems and little safety net for ordinary people Healthcare and basic necessities treated as commodities Criminalizing poverty while protecting the criminal wealthy Normalization of political violence and brutality Demonization of minorities and immigrants Strongman politics and cults of personality Distrust of journalists and independent media Corruption being treated as normal or even admirable A foreign policy built heavily around power, dominance and spheres of influence And, perhaps most disturbing, a population increasingly divided against itself while the people at the top keep getting richer