Was really surprised by this too, because iirc Python 2 did not do this.

No, type hints are not enforced.

It is but if you start with a float you get a float back.

Yes, it has no implicit conversions like JS or R. It does, however, allow you to not specify the type of a variable and even change it without complaining. Even if you add types these are only hints that won’t generate errors unless you use external type checking (e.g. mypy).

Python is strongly typed, but it is also dynamically typed.