SUNRISE, Fla.– Florida Panthers President of Hockey Operations & General Manager Bill Zito announced today the 54-man roster for the Panthers 2024-25 Training Camp presented by Baptist Health.

Florida’s roster consists of 31 forwards, 16 defensemen and seven goaltenders. Click **HERE** to download the full Panthers Training Camp roster.

The Panthers will host Training Camp Fan Fest presented by Baptist Health on Saturday, Sept. 21 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Baptist Health IcePlex in Fort Lauderdale. Fans can watch the Panthers on the ice throughout the day, participate in family activities and games, interact with the Panthers mascots Stanley C. Panther and Viktor E. Ratt as well as the Florida Panthers Dance Team. The Baptist Health IcePlex will host various programming from 2-6 p.m. including public skating, free skating lessons and ‘Learn to Curl’ that will all be open to the public with pre-registration required at FTLWarMemorial.com.

Select Florida Panthers training camp practices at Baptist Health IcePlex will be free and open to the public throughout the year. Fans can check the Panthers open practice schedule at FTLWarMemorial.com/Hockey/Panthers-Open-Practices. The open practice schedule is subject to change and fans are encouraged to check this website before attending. Fans must abide by the Practice Rules & Conduct outlined therein.

Media can stay tuned for the full training camp schedule to be released separately. Fans may visit FloridaPanthers.com/Preseason for the Panthers full preseason schedule. Florida’s Sept. 22 doubleheader against Nashville at Amerant Bank Arena will feature donation-based admissions of $20 plus fees, benefitting the Florida Panthers Foundation and the growth of youth hockey in South Florida.

South Florida Scripps stations will broadcast four of the Cats preseason contests (Sept. 27 at Carolina, Sept. 28 vs. Carolina, Sept. 30 vs. Tampa Bay and Oct. 2 at Tampa Bay). All Scripps programming can be found on the Broward/Miami Dade home of the Panthers, WSFL, channel 39. In Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast, fans can watch Panthers games on South Florida’s 9 (WHDT), and in Fort Myers, WFTX, channel 36.3. For complete broadcast information during the 2024-25 season, visit FloridaPanthers.com/HowToWatch.

The Florida Panthers are 2024 Stanley Cup Champions! 2024-25 Florida Panthers Territory Memberships are on sale now! Territory Members receive exclusive benefits, savings and access to special events as a Season Ticket Territory Member. Visit FloridaPanthers.com/Memberships to learn more, call the PUCK line (954.835.PUCK) or fill out this interest form to be contacted by a dedicated member of our team.

About Baptist Health

Baptist Health is the largest healthcare organization in the region, with 12 hospitals, more than 26,000 employees, 4,000 physicians and 100 outpatient centers, urgent care facilities and physician practices spanning across Miami-Dade, Monroe, Broward and Palm Beach counties. Baptist Health has internationally renowned centers of excellence in cancer, cardiovascular care, orthopedics and sports medicine, and neurosciences. In addition, it includes Baptist Health Medical Group; Baptist Health Quality Network; and Baptist Health Care On Demand, a virtual health platform. A not-for-profit organization supported by philanthropy and committed to its faith-based charitable mission of medical excellence, Baptist Health has been recognized by Fortune as one of the 100 Best Companies to Work For in America and by Ethisphere as one of the World’s Most Ethical Companies. For more information, visit BaptistHealth.net/Newsroom and connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn.

TAMPA, Fla. – Criss-crossing the back roads of Florida, you’ll see just how fruitful the state is. Watermelons, peppers, corn and many more crops fill the landscape. Each one is unique, but the farmers who grow them share one growing problem: labor.

Their issue isn’t finding labor. It’s how much their labor force makes. The amount per hour that migrant farmworkers make may surprise you. The Florida state minimum wage is $12 per hour. The minimum wage for migrant farmworkers in Florida is $14.77.

The vast majority of farmworkers in Florida come through the federal H-2A program. It allows farmers to bring reliable foreign labor into the U.S. for seasonal work. In addition to paying the minimum wage set by the government, farmers are also required to pay for the workers’ transportation into the country and pay for housing.

Farmers like Matt Parke, of Parkesdale Farms, say those costs are starting to add up.

“There’s got to be a breaking point. Do I know what it is? We haven’t got there yet, but we’re getting close,” he said.

Florida has more H-2A workers than any other state in the U.S., topping 51,000. In the last four years, their minimum wage has increased 26%. Parke says that high cost takes a huge bite out of his profits.

We visited him recently and watched his workers pick through a field of peppers. He said he’d be lucky to break even on what they were picking that day.

“There’s days where we’re losing money by picking. I mean, that’s just how it goes.”

Labor cost isn’t an issue for just Florida farmers. Forty-five states and territories have a higher migrant minimum wage than Florida’s $14.77. California is the state with the highest at $19.75.

Senator Rick Scott is one of 16 senators across the country who recently signed a letter to congressional leaders requesting a freeze on the H-2A minimum wage.

“You don’t want to put yourself in a position that you can’t, as a farmer, you can’t compete globally. We’re in a global market, but we shouldn’t be increasing their costs,” he said.

“How cruel do you have to be? Especially, you know, with the wealth that senators themselves have and yet they have no hesitation to suppress wages of the people that feed us and who build this state in this country,” says Ernesto Ruiz with The Farmworker Association of Florida.

He thinks the $14.77 rate isn’t high enough.

“It’s brutal. It is grueling, grueling work. It is grueling work, and it carries a bunch of risks. And typically, in society, we tend to pay to some extent commensurate with risk.”

Another large part of the issue for farmers is competition south of the border. Wholesalers want to buy the cheapest food. Since a Mexican farmer has lower labor cost, they can afford to sell food for less.

Matt Parke says his workers make between $150 and $200 a day. In Mexico, farmworkers can make as little as $10 a day.

“When two thirds of my cost is labor, how do you compete with somebody that’s not even 15% of their cost as labor? I mean, how can I compete with that?” questions Parke.

At the current rate of increases, the H-2A minimum could be more than $20 an hour by 2026.

“Within the next three years, you’re going to see a lot less farmers out here than there is now,” says Parke.

His biggest fear? Some day you won’t be able to find any “Product of the U.S.” stickers in your produce department.

“That would be the great fall of the United States. We’re working that way though.”

STAY CONNECTED WITH FOX 13 TAMPA BAY:

In the second attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump this summer, the Biden-Harris Justice Department has rushed to charge Ryan Wesley Routh in a two-count criminal complaint alleging federal firearms offenses.

These are obviously not the main crimes here: This appears to be a case of attempted murder of a major-party presidential candidate.

Naturally, we have the makings of a prosecutorial turf war.

Attempted murder is a state crime — a very serious one in the state of Florida, where murder is a capital offense. From a public-interest perspective, the case should be charged as attempted murder.

But it appears that the feds have rushed to lodge federal charges against Routh in hopes of getting the upper hand over their state counterparts.

Assassination attempts are rare; ambitious prosecutors are not. And ambitious federal prosecutors always want to control the criminal cases of great national consequence.

Yet that is not always the best thing for the case.

There is little doubt that both federal and state authorities have charges they can and should bring against the would-be assailant.

In the first instance, prosecution should proceed in the system in which the most straightforward, appropriately severe charges can be brought.

In this instance, that is the state of Florida.

Moreover, in 2022, Biden-Harris Attorney General Merrick Garland speciously claimed that Trump’s status as a Republican candidate running against the Biden-Harris ticket required appointment of a special counsel — because it was supposedly inappropriate for the DOJ to become embroiled in prosecutions involving the likely Republican nominee.

This was a political calculation. There was no need for a special counsel in DOJ’s investigation of Trump, which had been going on for nearly two years with no special counsel appointment — two years during which Garland failed to appoint a special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden and the Biden family influence-peddling scheme, as to which there was a patent conflict of interest.

Nevertheless, having made this decision, the Biden-Harris administration and its Justice Department should be stuck with it.

Garland claimed DOJ should stay out of Trump-related cases, and that a special counsel was necessary to insulate it from claims of politicized prosecution.

In light of those representations, then, the department should defer to Florida prosecutors.

More to the point, Florida should have primacy for legal reasons.

Attempted murder is a very straightforward charge in the state, carrying a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.

By contrast, the Justice Department may only charge murder or attempted murder if Congress has provided some jurisdictional basis for doing so.

As I’ve elsewhere elaborated, federal law clearly makes it a crime to attempt to assassinate a president, a president-elect or a presidential candidate who has apparently prevailed in the election (i.e., one who appears to have won the majority of state electoral votes but whose victory has not yet been ratified by Congress).

But the relevant statute does not cover major party candidates for president prior to the election.

Similarly, federal law provides for murder and attempted murder charges to be brought when the victim is a federal officer or employee, a visiting foreign dignitary, or a member of their families.

But again, those statutes don’t cover candidates for the presidency.

I suspect this is why the feds rushed to charge firearms offenses.

These, undoubtedly, are crimes over which the federal government has jurisdiction, provided that there is evidence that the gun in question has traveled in interstate commerce.

The feds were quick to point out that the gun allegedly recovered from Routh is not manufactured in Florida, creating the inference of interstate shipment.

That is fine as far as it goes. Criminals who attempt to influence elections by violent means should be hit hard with the full array of federal and state crimes.

But that said, this is an attempted murder case. Florida has the simplest criminal laws for that, and thus the best chance of prevailing at trial on the most fitting charges.

And with the Biden-Harris DOJ’s record of claiming it should not participate directly in cases involving Trump that could influence the election, federal prosecutors should make way for their state counterparts to bring the first case against the would-be assassin.

Andrew C. McCarthy is a former federal prosecutor.