The cylindrical object that tore through the home in Naples on March 8 was subsequently taken to the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral for analysis.

The space agency said it was a metal support used to mount old batteries on a cargo pallet for disposal. The pallet was jettisoned from the space station in 2021, and the load was expected to eventually fully burn up on entry into Earth’s atmosphere, but one piece survived.

The chunk of metal weighed 1.6 pounds (0.7 kilograms) and was 4 inches (10 centimeters) tall and roughly 1 1/2 inches (4 centimeters) wide.

Homeowner Alejandro Otero told television station WINK at the time that he was on vacation when his son told him what had happened. Otero came home early to check on the house, finding the object had ripped through his ceiling and torn up the flooring.

“I was shaking. I was completely in disbelief. What are the chances of something landing on my house with such force to cause so much damage,” Otero said. “I’m super grateful that nobody got hurt.”

One of the people inside the home was unable to get out, but thankfully, a good Samaritan and fire officials joined together to save their life.

The blaze erupted when an oxygen tank exploded.

Joyce O’Barske said she was outside the home when her husband rushed to her.

“My husband comes running — well, not running ’cause he’s an amputee — through the garage and says, ‘Joyce, there’s a fire,'” she said.

That’s when her husband started having trouble breathing, so O’Barske called 911.

Two police officers who arrived first on the scene found the couple stuck inside the garage.

Joyce walked out, but her husband was stuck in his chair because he is unable to walk.

As crews tried to help free the amputee, the garage door would not budge. That’s when a good Samaritan stepped in to help.

Thankfully, the three men were able to get the man out of the garage to safety.

Inside the house, officials described what they witnessed.

“We did find heavy fire and smoke conditions in the back of the residence. We were able to quickly get it out,” said a firefighter.

Days later, that good Samaritan got a reward for his efforts.

He received a Citizen Recognition Challenge Coin from the same first responders he helped.

The husband made it out of the garage all right.

“He’s got burn marks, but he should be OK,” said O’Barske.

The couple’s two dogs were also saved from the house.

Officials are investigating what caused the oxygen tank to explode.

Frightening video, released Friday, shows a man in a hoodie walking up to the white Dodge with a large gun in his hand, opening the driver’s side door, then the other doors and hopping inside.

“Two large updates that I’ll provide today,” said Seminole County Sheriff Dennis Lemma on Monday.

According to the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office, the suspect’s vehicle, a green Acura, was located abandoned at an empty apartment complex in Orange County over the weekend. Police said inside the car was the driver, who was set on fire.

Twelve 10mm shell casings were also found around the torched vehicle.

“So, the car has been out on the streets probably, since February, unregistered, undocumented, with a license plate,” said Lemma. “A tow truck driver was found murdered in Orange County, at that scene, a green vehicle matching the description of this green vehicle was located, and there was more than 100 rounds fired at that location.”

The sheriff said that a good percentage of the rounds that were found on the scene are 10mm rounds, which are the same size as the rounds found on Guerrero’s car as well as the same size of the gun in the released video.

“Which is, again, an incredibly unique and uncommon round for us to see out on the streets,” said Lemma.

Despite the recovery of the car, law enforcement officials have yet to apprehend the individuals responsible for the carjacking and subsequent death of De Aguasvivas. The victim was discovered deceased inside her vehicle, which had been set ablaze on the day of the incident.

Adding to the complexity of the case, an Orange County Sheriff’s Office deputy was arrested over the weekend for allegedly disclosing confidential information to the victim’s family.

That deputy was identified as 33-year-old Francisco Estrella. He faces five felony charges.

“Eavesdropping and illegal interception of communication, a third-degree felony. Invading privacy, illegal disclosure communication, a third-degree felony,” said a judge.

Authorities claim the deputy secretly recorded and shared sensitive details related to the investigation to Guerrero’s husband, a long time family-friend.

Deputies said Estrella called the lead detective under a fake name and asked about the case. He told the detective that he was a family member.

That conversation between the detective and Estrella was secretly being recorded and then was handed over to Miguel, Guerrero’s husband, according to police.

The conversation was later found on Miguel’s phone, once he allowed deputies to look through it. During the search of the phone, they found Estrella also gave him information about the deputy working on the case.

“Two of those charges relate to unlawfully accessing a police database, and particularly the DAVID system, that release unique characteristics of the home address, photographs, and signatures of the lead investigator in this case,” said Lemma.

Deputies are still looking for more information about the two people in that green Acura.

An investigation is underway into the motive of this brutal homicide.

The baby orangutan was delivered by cesarean section on Saturday, weighing just over three pounds (1.3 kilograms), park officials said. The mother, Luna, is recuperating from surgery and will be reunited with the baby once she is stabilized.

These orangutans are found only on the island of Borneo and are listed as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Busch Gardens Tampa Bay is part of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ Species Survival Plan, which focuses on managing threatened populations and educates visitors about the animals.

The Bornean orangutan is the largest tree-dwelling ape species and the third largest overall. The birth of this newborn is a “milestone in orangutan conservation efforts,” Busch Gardens said in a news release.

Orangutans in the wild typically live between 35 and 40 years. The newborn ape does not yet have a name. The theme park bills its zoo as one of the largest in North America, housing thousands of animals.

Those three deputies came under fire and a man is now behind bars.

Hillsborough County Deputies said they were patrolling a Tampa Park Sunday when they came across the suspect, Anthony Carpenter.

Carpenter was asked to leave the area after trespassing and they claim he had an aggressive dog.

The dog was heard growling at several points in the body camera footage that was released.

After he refused to leave, deputies said they tried several times to deescalate the situation before shots were fired.

“How did I get hit?” said the deputy.

The deputy appeared to be confused but he was not critically injured.

When Carpenter was arrested, deputies said they found a gun and a knife in his coat.

Carpenter now faces several charges, including armed trespassing, resisting an officer with violence, and attempted first-degree murder.

Hiram “Ross” Grayam was delivering milk in April 1968 and failed to return home after work. Deputies later found his body and his milk truck deep in the woods in the Vero Beach area, the Indian River County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release. He had been shot several times.

The case went cold, and no arrests were made during the next 56 years.

“Through determination and the cooperation of witnesses, new leads emerged: Thomas J. Williams, now deceased, had confessed to Grayam’s murder, his guilt echoing from beyond the grave,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement.

Grayam, a decorated World War II veteran who received a Purple Heart, had become “a beloved milkman” after settling in Indian River County after the war, authorities said.

A witness told deputies she saw Grayam talking to two men who were walking on the side of the road, WPEC-TV reported.

“She said that Mr. Grayam engaged them in conversation, and announced that he would be back shortly,” Indian River County Sheriff Eric Flowers said. The two unidentified men and Grayam all left in the milk truck, he said.

Grayam’s family didn’t realize anything had happened, “except my father was a little late in coming home, and then a sheriff’s deputy, an investigator showed up,” Grayam’s son Larry, who was 16 at the time, told the TV station.

During a search of the area by ground and by air, the milk truck and Graham’s body were spotted by an airplane.

“When they arrived at the initial scene, Mr. Grayam was laying next to the milk truck with bullet wounds, killed execution style,” Flowers said.

In 2006, there were rumors that Williams might have been involved. So he wrote a letter to the editor of the local newspaper “saying that he had been accused of the murder, but he denied having knowledge of it, that he wasn’t involved in it,” the sheriff said.

The case went cold again, and Williams died in 2016.

With Williams now dead, detectives got huge breaks in the case during the past two years: Williams’ ex-wife and a friend of his sister came forward, telling investigators what they knew, the Florida TV station reported.

Flowers said that the witnesses — neither of whom know each other — told investigators that Williams had previously confessed to them that he had killed Grayam.

“These folks said, ‘I would have never said anything to you before, as long as he was alive, he was a threat to me and my family, we would have never told you,’ but the fact that he is now dead gave them the courage to come forward,” Flowers said.

Now, detectives are hoping that anyone who knows about the second man seen with Grayam before he was killed will contact them.

U.S. Border Patrol and Coast Guard officials on Friday said 14 Cuban migrants arrived to Dry Tortugas National Park on a homemade vessel.

It is unclear where the migrants were taken.

Officials warn against the treacherous treks, as voyages on makeshift vessels across the rough seas could be deadly.

A bill signed Thursday bans local governments from requiring heat and water breaks for outdoor workers. And a bill DeSantis signed Friday strips local citizen police oversight boards from investigating officers.

OUTDOOR WORKER SAFETY

In a bill DeSantis signed Thursday, Florida, one of the hottest states in the country, local governments will be banned from requiring heat and water breaks for outdoor workers.

It was a direct response to Miami-Dade County’s effort to require shade and water for construction, farm and other outdoor workers.

But in a state where construction and farming are huge industries — Miami-Dade estimates more than 325,000 workers in that county alone — critics lambasted the bill that keeps local government from protecting workers from heat and sun. Democratic state Sen. Victor Torres called the new law an attack on workers.

Asked about the bill Friday, DeSantis said it was an issue raised by Miami-Dade County lawmakers.

“It really wasn’t anything that was coming from me. There was a lot of concern out of one county — Miami-Dade,” DeSantis said. “They were pursuing what was going to cause a lot of problems down there.”

But the law will now keep Florida’s 66 other counties from requiring similar worker protections.

POLICE OVERSIGHT

Separately, DeSantis signed a bill Friday that would ban local policy advisory commissions from initiating disciplinary actions against officers, instead limiting the citizens boards to making recommendations on policy. DeSantis was surrounded by law enforcement officers and in front of cheering supporters as he signed the bill to ban citizens oversight boards from investigating complaints about police officers.

DeSantis said some counties have commissioners that appoint activists to oversight boards and use them as a political weapons for an anti-police agenda.

“They’re not free to use law enforcement as political pinatas, they’re not free to create false narratives, they’re not free to try to make it miserable to work in uniform,” DeSantis said. “They are not able to initiate disciplinary proceedings. We have other ways to do that.”

The law also requires the oversight boards to be appointed by and under the direction of sheriff’s and police chiefs. At least one member of oversight boards must be a retired law enforcement officer.

Trump and Johnson appeared side-by-side at the ex-president’s Mar-a-Lago club, a rite of passage for the new House leader as he hitches himself, and his GOP majority, to the indicted Republican Party leader ahead of the November election.

“I stand with the speaker,” Trump said at an evening press conference at his gilded private club.

Trump said he thinks Johnson, of Louisiana, is “doing a very good job – he’s doing about as good as you’re going to do.”

“We’re getting along very well with the speaker — and I get along very well with Marjorie,” Trump said.

But Trump flashed some criticism over efforts to oust the speaker calling it “unfortunate,” saying there are “much bigger problems” right now.

The visit was arranged as a joint announcement on new House legislation to require proof of citizenship for voting, but the trip itself is significant for both. Johnson needed Trump to temper hard-line threats to evict him from office. And Trump benefits from the imprimatur of official Washington dashing to Florida to embrace his comeback bid for the White House and his tangled election lies.

“It is the symbolism,” said Charlie Sykes, a conservative commentator and frequent Trump critic.

“There was a time when the Speaker of the House of Representatives was a dominant figure in American politics,” he said. “Look where we are now, where he comes hat in hand to Mar-a-Lago.”

While the moment captured the fragility of the speaker’s grip on the gavel, just six months on the job, it also put on display his evolving grasp of Trump-era politics as the Republicans in Congress align with the “Make America Great Again” movement powering the former president’s re-election bid.

Johnson and Trump underscored their alliance Friday by using similar wording to describe one part of their campaign strategy — pummeling President Joe Biden with alarmist language over what Republicans claim is a “migrant invasion.”

By linking the surge of migrants coming to the U.S. with the upcoming election, Trump and Johnson raised the specter of noncitizens from voting — even though it’s already a federal felony for a noncitizen to cast a ballot in a federal election and exceedingly rare.

Trump called America a “dumping ground” for migrants coming to the U.S., and revived pressure on Biden to “close the border.”

The speaker nodded along. “It could, if there are enough votes, affect the presidential election,” warned Johnson, who had played a key role in challenging the 2020 election that Trump lost to Biden, previewing potential 2024 arguments.

In fact, Trump had made similar claims of illegal voting in 2016 but the commission he appointed to investigate the issue disbanded without identifying a single case. A previous voter crackdown risked striking actual citizens from the voting rolls.

Ahead of the meeting, the Trump campaign sent a background paper that echoed language from the racist great replacement conspiracy theory to suggest that Biden and Democrats are engaging in what Trump’s campaign called “a willful and brazen attempt to import millions of new voters.”

Some liberal cities like San Francisco have begun to allow noncitizens to vote in a few local elections. But there’s no evidence of significant numbers of immigrants violating federal law by casting illegal ballots.

Afterward, Trump’s team said the speaker agreed to hold a series of public committee meetings over the next two months ahead of the new House legislation.

Greene, a top Trump ally, said on social media that while she is “working as hard as possible” to elect Trump, “I do not support Speaker Johnson.”

In the Trump era, the sojourns by Republican leaders to his private club in Palm Beach, Florida, have become defining moments, amplifying the lopsided partnership as the former president commandeers the party in sometimes humiliating displays of power.

Such was the case when Kevin McCarthy, then the House GOP leader, trekked to Mar-a-Lago after having been critical of the defeated president after the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. A cheery photo was posted afterward, a sign of their mending relationship.

Johnson proposed the idea of coming to Mar-a-Lago weeks before Greene filed her motion to vacate him from the speaker’s office, just as another group of hardliners had previously ousted McCarthy. The visit comes days before the former president’s criminal trial on hush money charges gets underway next week in New York City.

The speaker’s own political future depends on support — or at least not opposition — from the “Make America Great Again” Republicans who are aligned with Trump but creating much of the House dysfunction that has brought work there to a halt.

Johnson commands the narrowest majority in modern times and a single quip from the former president can derail legislation. He was once a Trump skeptic, but the two men now talk frequently.

“I think it’s an emerging relationship,” said Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., who served as interior secretary in the Trump administration.

Even still, Trump urged Republicans this week to “kill” a national security surveillance bill that Johnson had personally worked to pass, contributing to a sudden defeat that sent the House spiraling. The legislation was approved Friday in a do-over but only after Johnson provided his own vote before departing for Florida.

Johnson understands he needs Trump’s backing to conduct almost any business in the House — including his next big priority, providing U.S. aid to Ukraine to fight Russia’s invasion.

In a daring move, the speaker is working both sides to help Ukraine, talking directly to the White House on the national security package that is at risk of collapse with Trump’s opposition. Greene is warning of a snap vote to oust Johnson from leadership if he allows any U.S. assistance to flow to the overseas ally.

“We’re looking at it,” Trump said about the national security package.

On the issue of election integrity, though, Johnson is leading his House GOP majority to embrace Trump’s lies about a stolen election and laying the groundwork for 2024 challenges.

Trump continues to insist the 2020 election was marred by fraud, even though no evidence has emerged in the last four years to support his claims and every state in the nation certified their results as valid.

As he runs to reclaim the White House, Trump has essentially taken over the Republican National Committee, turning the campaign apparatus toward his priorities. He supported Michael Whatley to lead the RNC, which created a new “Election Integrity Division” and says it is working to hire thousands of lawyers across the country.

Tired of the infighting and wary of another dragged-out brawl like the monthlong slugfest last year to replace McCarthy, few Republicans are backing Greene’s effort to remove Johnson, for now.

But if Trump signals otherwise, that could all change.

These animals that look like a shark with a chainsaw-like mouth, are a part of a group of fish called elasmobranchs that include rays, skates and sharks, and they can live for several decades under normal circumstances. Typically, about five mature adults are lost each year, mostly when they are accidentally caught in fisheries.

But so far this year, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said they’ve lost 38, according to Wednesday’s report, six of which came in just the previous week.

It is still a mystery as to why the sawfish have been dying in record numbers. But divers and anglers have also reported seeing a variety of other species behaving in a highly erratic manner: spinning in circles rather than swimming. Some sawfish, too, have been spotted spinning before dying.

Spinning fish reports began in the fall of 2023. The spike in sawfish mortalities began in January 2024. It’s “possible that these two events could be related,” the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission says.

One such distressed sawfish was spotted in Cudjoe Bay in the Florida Keys on April 5. Biologists with the commission and the Mote Marine Laboratory transported the sawfish to a temporary tank at the Mote facility where it was observed. The fish’s condition stabilized, and on Thursday it was transported by Ripley’s Aquariums Conservation Team to a more permanent Mote quarantine facility for rehabilitation.

The commission and Florida’s Bonefish and Tarpon Trust have recorded more than 200 incidents with more than 30 species swimming in this unusual way. This is happening mostly in the Florida Keys, but there have also been reports as far north as the Miami area.

The smalltooth sawfish was the first marine fish to receive federal protection through the Endangered Species Act in 2003. The animal used to live in waters all throughout the Gulf of Mexico and along the East Coast from Florida to North Carolina, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, but their small numbers generally are now only found off the coast of Florida.

In addition to the spinning, recent reports from anglers and divers in Florida say they have seen the sawfish beach themselves.

A team of local, state, and federal wildlife experts are scrambling to find out what’s causing the animals to go into these dangerous death spirals.

“Typically, when we think of fish acting strangely or dying we either think of low oxygen conditions in the water or red tide and so we saw neither,” Mike Parsons, a marine scientist at Florida Gulf Coast University told CNN’s Bill Weir. Parsons wonders if the hot temperatures in the ocean waters are to blame.

Most tests for toxins have been negative, but scientists have seen an unusually high number of algae called gambierdiscus that can produce a wide variety of neurotoxins that can be harmful to fish and dangerous to humans.

Gambierdiscus is normally found in tropical and subtropical waters all around the world, but the algae can grow quickly when waters are warmer than usual. The climate crisis has brought record-hot temperatures to the waters around southern Florida.

Gregg Furstenwerth, a lifelong diver in the Florida Keys, said he feels unnerved seeing fish swim in circles and stingrays swimming upside down

“It’s like I’m in the middle of a disaster movie and I’m that guy yelling from the mountaintop trying to get people to pay attention,” Furstenwerth told CNN’s Bill Weir.

The uncertainty of what is causing the problem bothers him.

“There is no concrete, conclusive proof of what is happening yet and that is still to be determined, which is quite terrifying,” said Furstenwerth. “If it continues, it is going to be the end of this ecosystem as we know it.”

Officials said that on Tuesday afternoon they got a call about an animal in distress that was locked in a vehicle parked at a Home Depot parking lot.

“Even standing next to the window the window was cracked about maybe two inches two and a half,” said officer Taylor Battistelli. “You could just feel the heat coming out the car.”

Once the officer smashed the window, he was able to reach inside, pull the handle and eventually got the dog out.

“The rear window was breached and we’re getting the dog out now,” said the officer on body camera footage. “Come here baby, come here baby, come on, come on.
Lets go.

“You wanna go ahead and if you don’t mind taking the dog that’s cooking,” said the officer as he handed the small animal to officer Battistelli.

The dog was given water and was placed inside the patrol car as they waited for the owner to return.

“She was panting really heavily, she appeared very nervous, you could feel the heat coming off her, she felt like she was on fire when I first pulled her out.” Battistelli said.

They were able to use a thermometer from the business just to see how hot it was inside.

“Got in the car and put it in there and it read, at that point, 122 degrees,” explained Battistelli. “This was after 10 to 15 minutes of the car ventilating at this point.”

According to Florida law, bystanders are also allowed to rescue a child or a pet believed to be in danger from heat but under certain conditions.

“First thing, is the vehicle locked, is there any other way to get into the vehicle before you break a window, you have to contact law enforcement before or immediately afterwards if you choose to break the glass,” Attorney Gary Lesser said. “The law was designed for this situation and the law was followed and they saved the dog.”

The dog’s owner is facing an aggravated animal cruelty charge.

Trump valet Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira are charged with conspiring with Trump to obstruct an FBI investigation into the hoarding of classified documents at the former president’s Palm Beach estate. All three have pleaded not guilty.

Lawyers for Nauta and De Oliveira are set to ask U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon during a Friday afternoon hearing to throw out the charges they face, a request opposed by special counsel Jack Smith’s team, which brought charges against them and Trump. It’s unclear when the judge might rule.

The two Trump aides are not charged with illegally storing the documents but rather with helping Trump obstruct government efforts to get them back.

Prosecutors say that Nauta in 2022 moved dozens of boxes from a storage room at Mar-a-Lago to Trump’s residence in an apparent effort to prevent their return to the government and that he and De Oliveira conspired with Trump to try to delete surveillance video that showed the movement of the boxes and that was being sought by the FBI.

Lawyers for the men argue that there is no allegation that either man knew that the boxes contained sensitive government records.

“The Superseding Indictment does not allege that Mr. De Oliveira ever saw a classified document. It does not allege that Mr. De Oliveira was aware of the presence of any classified documents in the boxes that he moved,” lawyers for De Oliveira wrote in court filings.

They also say there’s no evidence that he was aware of any government investigation at the time he helped move boxes inside the property.

Trump, Republicans’ presumptive presidential nominee, has separately filed multiple motions seeking to dismiss charges against him. Cannon has denied two that were argued last month — one that said the Espionage Act statute at the heart of the case was unconstitutionally vague, the other that asserted that Trump was entitled under a 1978 law called the Presidential Records Act to retain the classified files as his personal property after he left the White House following his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

Katherine Altagracia Guerrero De Aguasvias, 31, of Homestead, was attacked and kidnapped at gunpoint Thursday afternoon at an intersection northeast of Orlando, Seminole County Sheriff Dennis Lemma said during a news conference on Friday.

“What we are now investigating is a homicide,” said Lemma.

Video showed the moment the victim was hijacked in the Winter Springs area of Seminole County. A man with am automatic 10 mm gun appears to approach the woman’s white Dodge SUV, opens the driver’s door, unlocks the doors and gets into the vehicle with her.

A witness called police about the scary sight.

“There’s a guy going down East Lake Drive in Seminole County, he was chasing a car, hit the car, got out of his car wit a hood over his face, and he had a machine gun, it looked like,” said the caller.

Lemma said investigators found what they believe was her burning SUV with her body inside less than two hours later in a rural area of Osceola County, just south of Orlando.

This comes after people nearby heard gunshots and saw smoke.

“Something exploded,” said a woman in cellphone video showing the smoke.

“By the time authorities with the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office arrived there, there was so much damage to the vehicle, you could not positively identify the vehicle,” said Lemma. “But they also discovered that one person was deceased and found in that vehicle.”

Near the vehicle, authorities said, they found 12 shell casings of 10 mm rounds.

Investigators will use dental records and DNA to confirm the body’s identity.

Authorities said they are searching to confirm many other details as well, like why was Guerrero De Aguasvias in Seminole County?

“We were told she was here visiting family. We were not able to confirm that she has any family member here,” said Lemma.

Guerrero De Aguasvias was at an intersection just outside of Winter Springs when a green Acura began to ram her SUV prior to the carjacking, Lemma said.

“At that time, she picks up the phone and called her husband, told her husband that she was being rammed, that there was somebody there that was following her,” said Lemma.

Guerrero De Aguasvias’ husband told her not to stop, authorities said.

“To not call 911 is something that, again, I don’t know the answer to that,” said Lemma.

Neither called the authorities, Lemma said. Another motorist called 911 and took a cell phone video of the carjacking. The video shows a passenger from the Acura pointing a gun at Guerrero De Aguasvias and then jumping in the back seat of her SUV before they drive off, followed by the Acura.

Lemma said investigators believe Guerrero De Aguasvias was targeted by the occupants of the Acura, but they don’t have a motive for the carjacking.

“She called her husband; husband said, ‘Don’t leave the car,’ no reports to law enforcement, that this was not a random act of violence, that the perpetrators knew who they were going after,” said Lemma. “Why they were going after them is something that is part of our ongoing, continuing investigation.”

Guerrero De Aguasvias has had no criminal history since moving to the U.S. five years ago, Lemma said.

Authorities urge anyone with information about the green older model Acura sedan to call 911.

Meanwhile, Guerrero’s family members have been gathering at a home in Homestead.

Neighbors said they devastated. One of them spoke to 7News through a translator.

“She was a good person. I went to give the family my condolences, and they are heartbroken, and so am I,” he said.

Family members said investigators have advised them not to speak with the media.

Deputies believe this was a targeted attack, as they continue to investigate.

More than 112,000 children age 4 or younger were overlooked in Florida during the 2020 tally which helps determine federal funding and political power every 10 years, according to Demographic Analysis estimates using administrative records to estimate the population’s size.

The Demographic Analysis is one of the tools the Census Bureau uses to calculate how good a job it did of counting every U.S. resident during a census that determines how many congressional seats each state gets.

Vermont had the smallest undercount of young children during the 2020 census, with a negligible rate of 0.02%, the equivalent of six children.

Preschool-age children are the most difficult age group to count and are regularly missed during the nation’s head count, an oversight that can shortchange communities of federal funding for programs like Head Start. During the 2020 census, an estimated 1 million children age 4 and under nationwide were overlooked, an undercount of almost 5.5%.

Parents often don’t know they should include their babies on the census forms, and, at other times, young children are missed in multigenerational households or if they live in two households because of joint custody.

“We know these undercounts are often correlated with undercounts of certain race and ethnicity groups along with other factors that we were not able to measure directly,” Census Bureau Director Robert Santos said in a statement. “We are diligently working to address this issue.”

Pinellas County Sheriff’s Deputy Christopher Ryan had just 11 seconds from when he gave this first command to when the incident ended, Monday night.

According to police reports, the suspect, Amy Jaeger, told Deputy Ryan “no” several times and said “kill me now” more than four times. Police Chief Anthony Holloway of St. Petersburg said Deputy Ryan fired his weapon 11 times.

“He stepped back and kept giving her orders, and she kept continuing to move toward him,” said Holloway.

The altercation allegedly started when Jaeger and her boyfriend got into an argument because the boyfriend was trying to end the relationship. Police said the situation escalated when Jaeger then stabbed her boyfriend three to four times, but he was able to escape to a neighbor’s home for help.

Jaeger chased him and used another knife to try to pry open the neighbor’s front door. That’s when Deputy Ryan arrived.

Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri commended Deputy Ryan for his actions.

“But what’s most important, is that Deputy Ryan is safe,” he said. “All the law enforcement officers are safe, and that he, protected himself under these circumstances. So, I mean, these are tough situations. They’re very difficult to deal with.”

The task force investigating the shooting said they are not looking to file charges against the deputy.

“It was 11 seconds, you know, I mean, think about that and how fast that is and what he had to do. So, we’re just very thankful, for the thorough investigation has been done by the task force,” added Gualtieri.

Jaeger is in critical condition while the 70-year-old stabbing victim is stable. As for Deputy Ryan, he’s on paid administrative leave.

On Wednesday in Lee County, surveillance video captured the entire ordeal when the collision occurred.

The driver, later identified as Marcos Diego Manuel, was then seen climbing out of the sunroof and jogging away from the scene. When he returned to the scene on a bicycle, he was met by police officers and admitted to maneuvering the car when the crash happened.

Manuel was charged with multiple counts of DUI, hit-and-run and driving without a license.

George Riley, executive director of the state GOP, said Tuesday that he was deeply sorry for his behavior during a stay at a hotel in Kissimmee, near Orlando.

“I have been dealing with alcoholism and mental health issues,” Riley, 43, told the Tampa Bay Times. “I will pay for any damages that were caused. I apologize to the employees for my bad behavior and I will be seeking help soon.”

Riley’s behavior is the latest black eye for the Florida GOP. Earlier this year, the party ousted its chairman, Christian Ziegler, following an investigation into a rape accusation. Police later cleared him.

The party’s current chairman, Evan Power, didn’t immediately respond to a Wednesday text message seeking comment about Riley, whose phone number was blacked out in the investigation report.

Riley’s sister reached out to Osceola County sheriff’s deputies on Friday because she was worried that she hadn’t heard from in a week and knew he was traveling on business to Kissimmee. She and Riley’s father told deputies that Riley suffers from a medical condition, which was redacted in an incident report, and that he needs to take medication.

Deputies went to the hotel where Riley’s sister told them he was staying and spoke to a front desk associate and two managers. They told the deputies that they had refused to extend Riley’s stay in the middle of last week because of his excessive drinking and damage he had caused to his room, including broken electric blinds, according to the incident report obtained through a public records request.

One hotel manager told deputies that Riley had bought so much alcohol from a store in the hotel that the manager had to order more. After being denied an extension of his stay, Riley packed up and left.

Using pings from his cellphone, deputies on Saturday located Riley at another area hotel, where he was under the influence of alcohol, the report said. Deputies examined him and determined that he didn’t pose a risk to himself or anyone else and didn’t meet the criteria to be forcibly committed for evaluation.

Surveillance video captured Ernesha Atmore using a soft-sided cooler to steal approximately $20,000 worth of designer sunglasses.

Hillsborough State Attorney Suzy Lopez says a theft caught on video a couple of years ago, may have sealed her fate.

“She committed one of the most brazen thefts I’ve heard of. She went into a Sunglass Hut at International Plaza and had a soft-sided cooler, and she just scooped up about $20,000 in designer sunglasses. When the employee said, ‘What are you doing,’ she said, ‘I have a taser.’ And, as you know, a taser is a weapon,” explained Lopez.

After Atmore’s arrest, police officers found stolen goods in her car, which were collected as evidence. Atmore’s criminal record led to her facing stiffer penalties as she had had multiple convictions in the past.

Although she was offered a plea deal of three years by prosecutors, Atmore chose to go to trial, where a jury found her guilty. She now faces a 30 year prison sentence.

Before her sentencing, Atmore faced two additional theft charges, including the incident at a Zales jewelry store in Brandon Center Mall, where she attempted to steal a ring valued at $8,749.99. This added more time to her prison sentence.

As the proceedings continued, Atmore showed no remorse as she smiled for the camera during her booking. She is now going away for 30 years and six months and won’t be free again until she’s nearly 60 years old.

Scientists around the world have been working for years to address the decline of coral reef populations. Just last summer, reef rescue groups in South Florida and the Florida Keys were trying to save coral from rising ocean temperatures. Besides working to keep existing coral alive, researchers have also been growing new coral in labs and then placing them in the ocean.

But protecting the underwater ecosystem that maintains upwards of 25% of all marine species is not easy. Even more challenging is making sure that coral grown in a laboratory and placed into the ocean doesn’t become expensive fish food.

Marine researcher Kyle Pisano said one problem is that predators like parrot fish attempt to bite and destroy the newly transplanted coral in areas like South Florida, leaving them with less than a 40% survival rate. With projects calling for thousands of coral to be planted over the next year and tens of thousands of coral to be planted over the next decade, the losses add up when coral pieces can cost more than $100 each.

Pisano and his partner, Kirk Dotson, have developed the Coral Fort, claiming the small biodegradable cage that’s made in part with drinking straws boosts the survival rate of transplanted coral to over 90%.

“Parrot fish on the reef really, really enjoy biting a newly transplanted coral,” Pisano said. “They treat it kind of like popcorn.”

Fortunately the fish eventually lose interest in the coral as it matures, but scientists need to protect the coral in the meantime. Stainless steel and PVC pipe barriers have been set up around transplanted coral in the past, but those barriers needed to be cleaned of algae growth and eventually removed.

Pisano had the idea of creating a protective barrier that would eventually dissolve, eliminating the need to maintain or remove it. He began conducting offshore experiments with biodegradable coral cages as part of a master’s degree program at Nova Southeastern University. He used a substance called polyhydroxyalkanoate, a biopolymer derived from the fermentation of canola oil. PHA biodegrades in ocean, leaving only water and carbon dioxide. His findings were published last year.

The coral cage consists of a limestone disc surrounded by eight vertical phade brand drinking straws, made by Atlanta-based WinCup Inc. The device doesn’t have a top, Pisano said, because the juvenile coral needs sunlight and the parrot fish don’t generally want to position themselves facing downward to eat.

Dotson, a retired aerospace engineer, met Pisano through his professor at Nova Southeastern, and the two formed Reef Fortify Inc. to further develop and market the patent-pending Coral Fort. The first batch of cages were priced at $12 each, but Pisano and Dotson believe that could change as production scales up.

Early prototypes of the cage made from phade’s standard drinking straws were able to protect the coral for about two months before dissolving in the ocean, but that wasn’t quite long enough to outlast the interest of parrot fish. When Pisano and Dotson reached out to phade for help, the company assured them that it could make virtually any custom shape from its biodegradable PHA material.

“But it’s turning out that the boba straws, straight out of the box, work just fine,” Dotson said.

Boba straws are wider and thicker than normal drinking straws. They’re used for a tea-based drink that includes tapioca balls at the bottom of the cup. For Pisano and Dotson, that extra thickness means the straws last just long enough to protect the growing coral before harmlessly disappearing.

Reef Fortify is hoping to work with reef restoration projects all over the world. The Coral Forts already already being used by researchers at Nova Southeastern and the University of Miami, as well as Hawaii’s Division of Aquatic Resources.

Rich Karp, a coral researcher at the University of Miami, said they’ve been using the Coral Forts for about a month. He pointed out that doing any work underwater takes a great deal of time and effort, so having a protective cage that dissolves when it’s no longer needed basically cuts their work in half.

“Simply caging corals and then removing the cages later, that’s two times the amount of work, two times the amount of bottom time,” Karp said. “And it’s not really scalable.”

Experts say coral reefs are a significant part of the oceanic ecosystem. They occupy less than 1% of the ocean worldwide but provide food and shelter to nearly 25 percent of sea life. Coral reefs also help to protect humans and their homes along the coastline from storm surges during hurricanes.

Alexandra Baraga was charged with several driving under the influence charges.

Deputies said Baraga pinned the officer against another vehicle while he was performing a traffic stop.

The deputy and the other driver were taken to the hospital.

The deputy suffered serious injuries but is in stable condition and expected to make a recovery, according to the Florida Keys Sheriff.

The other driver sustained minor injuries.

“He’s committed to helping Trump in any and every way,” said Texas businessman Roy Bailey, who attended the retreat. “We are going to follow his lead, and we’re excited to do everything we can to get Trump elected.”

“If we can unlock and motivate our donors for Trump and put more fuel in his tank, that’s what we want to do, and that’s what we need to do to make sure [President Joe] Biden is not reelected,” Bailey said.

The appreciation retreat, which was held at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Florida, was for large donors, major fundraisers and finance committee members of the DeSantis campaign. DeSantis and his wife, Casey, attended. It was held on the same weekend the Trump campaign announced a record $50.5 million haul at a fundraiser in Mar-a-Lago.

Upon ending his bid for the White House in January, DeSantis endorsed Trump in the Republican primary, but he has not appeared with the former president at any campaign events since. At a news conference in Florida in March, DeSantis was asked if he would join Trump on the campaign trail and he emphasized how Florida was not as competitive a state anymore.

“This is not going to be a state that’s competitive in November, and that’s just the reality. So I don’t anticipate there being much campaign here for the top of the ticket,” DeSantis said. “How I can help nationally, I want to be able to do that, I don’t know exactly.”

NBC News was first to report that DeSantis plans to help fundraise for Trump.

Scott, who is seeking reelection this fall, was one of multiple senators who followed former President Donald Trump’s lead in softening GOP messaging on abortion. It comes in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision overturning the constitutional right to an abortion and leaving the matter for states to decide. Democrats, buoyed by a series of wins in state ballot initiatives and other contests since then, have made it clear that they hope to put the issue front and center this November.

After the Florida Supreme Court approved the abortion amendment for November’s ballot, Scott said in a statement that he believes in “reasonable limits placed on abortion” and is focused on ensuring that in vitro fertilization treatments are protected and adoptions are more affordable.

“We all know that life is the greatest gift we have ever received, we want to welcome every unborn baby into life, and we prefer adoption over abortion,” Scott said.

Scott is softening his messaging amid roiling politics on abortion across the country. The Arizona Supreme Court decided Tuesday that state officials can enforce an 1864 law criminalizing all abortions except when a woman’s life is at stake.

Florida Democrats, meanwhile, are pushing not only to enshrine abortion rights in the state’s Constitution but to invoke the issue in their efforts to unseat Scott and other Republicans. Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, one of the leading Democrats seeking her party’s nomination against Scott, said the fight was over the “basic dignity for a woman to be able to make that choice of her own body, of when and how to start a family.”

Mucarsel-Powell said in an interview after Florida’s court ruling last week that voting to support the state’s abortion rights amendment in November isn’t the end game. She said voters need to vote Scott out of office so he “doesn’t have a say on what happens to women.”

Once seen as the quintessential swing state, Florida has become more conservative in recent years. Trump won there in 2016 and 2020, but Democrats, which trail in registration numbers by some 800,000 voters, are hoping a focus on abortion rights will swing the state back in their favor.

Scott has been flagged by national Democrats as a prime target this year in their efforts to preserve a narrow majority in the Senate, though Democrats are defending more seats than Republicans. The stakes are especially high for Scott, who said last month that he is “seriously considering” running for Senate leadership. In 2022, he ran against U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell to be the Senate’s top Republican but lost with a 37-10 vote.

McConnell recently announced his intention to step down from Senate leadership later this year.

The Monday court opinions from Florida’s Supreme Court included affirmation of a 15-week abortion ban and a trigger mechanism that would put the state’s six-week abortion ban in place by next month. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee said Florida women have higher stakes on the ballot than they have in years.

“The fight against these new restrictions on access to abortion will shine a brighter spotlight on Rick Scott’s long, dangerous record of supporting draconian abortion bans,” said Maeve Coyle, the DSCC’s spokesperson. “In November, Florida voters will stand up for women’s freedom to make their most personal medical decisions by rejecting this abortion ban and firing Rick Scott from the Senate.”

Hillsborough County Sheriff’s deputies responded to a report of a suspect breaking into cars, Monday morning.

When they arrived, the suspect, later identified as Jamarian Jackson, fled the scene. In a desperate bid for freedom, the teen jumped several fences before hiding inside a trash can.

Despite his best efforts, the keen nose of a sheriff’s department K-9 tracked him down. Once found, Jackson can be seen popping out of the receptacle with his hands up and then falling to the ground, spilling out of the garbage bin. 

Jackson was apprehended and charged with burglary of an occupied dwelling, resisting an officer without violence, and possession of a controlled substance with intent to sell or deliver. 

Eric Johnson, 58, was seen hitting and kicking the parked cruiser on Tuesday after authorities shared the video on the sheriff’s office social media page.

While the motive behind Johnson’s outburst remains unclear, deputies said they are no stranger to this individual.

The Volusia County Sheriff’s Office said Johnson has had 91 charges, including felony battery, battery on a law enforcement officer, robbery, aggravated assault, and more. He is now charged with felony criminal mischief and attempted burglary of a vehicle.

Johnson remains in custody in Volusia County on $11,000 bond. 

The incident began with a verbal dispute between the victim and the shooter in the parking lot of a supermarket.

“In that verbal altercation, the suspect decided to take his firearm out, and he started shooting at the victim,” said Public Relations Coordinator Carolina Montelongo.

According to Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, the victim ran several streets away from the stores to a random neighbor’s home to hide.

A home security camera captured the moments the victim hide behind a parked car in the driveway. The shooter ultimately found him and fired multiple shots.

Homeowners in the area said they do not know these men.

“There is never an excuse to turn a verbal argument into a something that violent that that video that we just saw. That is scary,” added Montelongo. “This suspect didn’t care about the victim’s life or that it was 2 p.m. There were people walking there were people driving their cars. This suspect didn’t think about the consequences of his actions. And let’s be very clear, we are going to find him, and he’s going to know what he did and the consequences of his actions.”

Authorities are now searching for the shooter, who is now wanted on several charges, including attempted murder and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon. Meanwhile, the victim, who was hit multiple times, is listed as stable.

Anyone who recognizes the suspect is asked to call the sheriff’s office at 813-247-8200.

The governor was in Stuart, Florida, on Tuesday to send a strong message to potential retail thieves and porch pirates.

“They will be held accountable,” said DeSantis.

House Bill 549 stiffens penalties for thieves, especially those who come on people’s property to take packages, known as porch pirates.

“You have a cottage industry of porch piracy where people will steal packages from someone’s front porch,” said DeSantis.

The law’s new penalties for porch pirates include:

• Making theft of property in an amount less than $40 is a first-degree misdemeanor.
• A subsequent violation is a third-degree felony.
• Theft of property valued at $40 or more is a third-degree felony.

7News has reported at length on thefts that took away people’s sense of security, along with their items.

“I had several packages stolen from my front door,” said Miami resident Myron Roberts.

Some video shows packages being scooped up in seconds.

Back in May of 2023, in Northwest Miami-Dade, two women made off with two large packages worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in broad daylight.

“This makes me feel very upset, that that they felt like it was OK to just walk on your property,” said resident Kiana Jackson.

But the thieves aren’t just targeting personal items. Small business owners who depend on delivery to function are also impacted by the thieves.

“I run a company called Urban Troos. It’s a really fine designer pillow decor brand,” said business owner Hannah Gardner.

Thieves in Dania Beach set Gardner’s business back a month in production and $20,000 in the hole.

“We would love for you to return thousands of dollars of inventory that absolutely has no value to you,” said Gardner.

The new law aims to make criminals think twice.

“This is not the place to do it, and if you try to do it in Florida, you are going to regret that you tried to do it in Florida,” said DeSantis.

The law goes into effect on Oct. 1.

The incident occurred about a year and a half ago, but new body camera footage, obtained by The Tributary, a nonprofit newsroom, shows a better picture of what happened that day.

“You can’t bend me over like that, bro. I know my rights,” said the man as he was searched by a deputy.

The footage shows officers strip searching the man during an arrest for allegedly selling cocaine in September 2022.

The video shows officers pulling down Ronnie Reed’s pants and underwear, exposing his genitals in front of the public.

Following the incident, three of the officers involved have been disciplined by the department.

“If the individual is concealing contraband, meaning drugs, he will pick up a second charge, which is introducing a controlled substance into a corrections facility. But that’s not the street officer’s concern,” said law and safety expert Dale Carson.

Safety experts like Carson say that since the officers were searching for a $20 bill and narcotics, a strip search in public view was absolutely inappropriate.

“It sends a message to the community that they shouldn’t cooperate at all with law enforcement. That’s the devastating aspect of this circumstance,” said Carson.

Florida Statute does authorize law enforcement to conduct strip searches for narcotics upon receiving written approval from a supervising officer, but the policy only allows corrections officers to conduct the searches.

During the internal investigation, both officers testified they were never trained on the agency’s strip search policy.

“Had you ever had any type of training in the search that was conducted on Mr. Reed?” asked a female officer in the interrogation video of the officers.

“No, not to that extent. No,” said JSO Officer Joel Belgard.

But according to the department, all officers are trained on the strip search policy.

“Bro, listen, bro. You’re doing too much,” said the man being searched on the bodycam footage.

“No, I’m not!” said the officer.

Carson said that at the end of the day, any officer should know the conduct captured in the body camera footage is wrong.

“You don’t need a general order to spell out what is common sense. The key to this is to not treat people like you would not like to be treated,” said Carson.

The three officers involved in the strip search received written reprimands, which is one step below a suspension.

Fire rescue rushed him to a hospital, where he went into cardiac arrest 11 times.

It was nothing short of a miracle that he survived and the medical team that saved him made sure to keep up with his health every step of the way.

“Even when he wasn’t in our care anymore and had gone on to RMC, we were constantly checking on him,” said Stephanie Calderella, assistant nurse manager. “How’s he doing is he doing okay? Like we were all so invested in this.”

The doctors at Orlando Health said Middleton suffered a massive pulmonary embolism and luckily he was taken to the exact place he needed to be to survive.

“For him, the time he came to the hospital to the whole thing, everything fell in place rightly and with our team and everything else we were able to take care of it,” said Sumith Aleti, a cardiologist.

Now, the members on that medical team and fire rescue crew are being recognized for their heroic efforts with the Lifesaver Award.

As for how Middleton has been doing since then.

“I feel good. I know biggest thing everybody’s told me is to make sure I take my time, don’t rush. I’m usually a go getter, so I go, go, go, so it’s hard for me to slow down,” he said.

He said he was glad to be able to thank each of them personally and said he’s still working through the ordeal he experienced.

“To be honest, it’s still something i’m still continuing to process,” he said. “I don’t think anyone can necessarily understand what it’s like to go through something like that or to like literally die, let alone nine times, so it’s something I’ve still been processing.”

The doctors and nurses said it was surreal seeing how far Middleton has come and they’re very happy to see him making his way back to a normal life.

Aimee Harris was sentenced in Manhattan federal court by Judge Laura Taylor Swain, who called the Palm Beach, Florida, woman’s actions “despicable.”

Harris pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge in August 2022, admitting that she received $20,000 of the $40,000 that was paid by Project Veritas for personal items belonging to the president’s daughter, Ashley Biden.

Project Veritas, founded in 2010, identifies itself as a news organization. It is best known for conducting hidden camera stings that have embarrassed news outlets, labor organizations and Democratic politicians.

A tearful Harris apologized for enabling Ashley Biden’s private writings to be sold after she found the diary and other items at a friend’s Delray Beach, Florida, home in 2020, where prosecutors said Ashley Biden believed her items were safely stored after she temporarily stayed there in spring 2020.

“I do not believe I am above the law,” Harris said after a prosecutor urged a prison sentence following her failure to appear at numerous sentencing dates on the grounds that she was consumed with caring for her two children, ages 8 and 6.

“I’m a survivor of long term domestic abuse and sexual trauma,” she told the judge.

With a lawyer for Ashley Biden observing from the courtroom’s spectator section, Harris apologized to the president’s daughter, saying she regrets making her childhood and life public.

In announcing the sentence, Swain noted that Harris and a co-defendant, Robert Kurlander, of nearby Jupiter, Florida, had first tried unsuccessfully to sell Ashley Biden’s belongings to then-President Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign.

The judge said that Harris, besides being motivated by greed, had hoped to impact the nation’s political landscape.

Kurlander, who has not yet been sentenced, and Harris, had each pleaded guilty to conspiracy to transport stolen property across state lines.

Defense attorney Anthony Cecutti urged no prison time, citing his client’s traumatic life and her efforts to care for her children while recovering from abuse and violence.

“She carries the shame and stigma of her actions,” he said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Sobelman urged a prison sentence, saying Harris had exhibited a “pattern of disrespect for the law and the justice system.”

“Ms. Harris is not the victim in this case,” Sobelman said. “Ms. Biden is the victim in this case.”

He said Harris in the summer of 2020 had stolen Ashley Biden’s diary, a digital storage card, books, clothing, luggage and “everything she could get her hands on” in the hopes she “could make as much money as she could.”

“She wanted to damage Ms. Biden’s father,” he said.

Harris was told to report to prison in July. As she left the courthouse, she declined to speak.

The lawyer for Ashley Biden also declined to comment, though he submitted a letter to the judge on his client’s behalf a day earlier that was not immediately put in the court record.

Alyssa Zinger appeared in a Hillsborough County courtroom for her pre-trial detention hearing on Monday.

She faces charges including lewd or lascivious molestation with a defendant over 18 and victims between 12-15, lewd or lascivious battery, possession of child pornography, sexual cyberharassment, and others.

In the pre-trial hearing, Tampa detective Amanda Baranowski testified that investigations uncovered Zinger posing as a home-schooled 14-year-old on social media sites TikTok and Snapchat.

She allegedly tricked at least five boys between 13 and 14 into “dating” her. Baranowski said even family and friends of those boys met Zinger under the guise that she was a teenager.

Detectives found sexually explicit videos of Zinger and the victims, as well as text messages.

One victim told detectives Zinger got jealous of his new girlfriend and started sharing revenge porn.

“He indicated that a sexually explicit video of himself and another minor was being circulated through Snapchat,” Baranowski said.

Throughout the testimony, Judge Ward took note of Zinger’s response to the allegations.

“Every time something happens that the state puts on that maybe you disagree with you shake your head no,” she said. “You don’t seem to understand that the problem is not who recorded the video. The problem is you are in multiple videos with young boys 13 and 14 years old, you are an adult, you are manipulating, taking advantage of these young boys.”

She also called out Zinger’s parents, who were present in the courtroom. Prosecutors showed body camera video from a search warrant visit to get Zinger’s phone.

“What I can’t understand is when they are trying to help you to the extent that it interferes with a criminal investigation and to the extent that it helps you evade accountability and responsibility,”

Zinger’s phone was never turned over. Detective Baranowski testified she told law enforcement the phone was lost after they determined the phone they initially received didn’t belong to her. Any evidence they’ve seized so far comes from the victims and Zinger’s iCloud.

Prosecutors would not say if criminal charges are possible for her parents.

Meanwhile, the investigation to find if there are more victims continues.

Zinger has an arraignment scheduled for April 16th.

Volusia County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Stan Manhart was one of the first responders on the scene and he shared Felipe Ribeiro Desouza’s initial response after the rescue.

“The first thing he said was he’s never going to the beach again,” said Manhart.

Desouza was among several people caught in the rip current that day but was the only one found unresponsive. Two boogie boarders pulled him out of the water and kept him afloat until lifeguard Dalton Smith arrived.

“We just let him know that they needed to his head up above water,” said Smith. “And we just swam them all in together.”

Ty Tarnow, with the New Smyrna Fire Department, recalled the challenges of performing CPR on a slippery board in wet conditions but it did not stop rescuers from trying.

“With the patient being slippery, the board being wet they were able to maintain the patient on the board and doing very effective CPR,” said Tarnow.

Once Ribeiro Desouza was handed off to the New Smyrna Fire Department, they still had the tough job of getting his pulse back.

“With saltwater drownings, what happens is when the saltwater enters the lungs, you have a major fluid shift in the body,” added Tarnow. “So that creates pulmonary edema. So this this patient needed advanced lifesaving airway procedures.”

Tarnow says the victim didn’t have a pulse for somewhere between 5 to 7 minutes.

“It was just a miracle that this young man was able to pull through,” he added. “You’re only as strong as your weakest link, and there were no weak links here.”

Ribeiro Desouza was swimming far from a staffed lifeguard tower when he almost drowned. He has since made a full recovery.

When Venice resident Mary Hollenback heard banging on her front screen door, she said she wasn’t too concerned.

“I thought it was somebody else who didn’t live here trying to get in, trying to get into the wrong house,” she said. “I got off the couch, came around the door prepared to say, ‘You’re in the wrong place.'”

But inside her home she found an unwanted guest. It was a scaly one with a tail.

Hollenback said two thoughts came to her.

“One is, ‘Oh, my gosh, I have an alligator in my house.’ Number two is, ‘Oh, my gosh, I have an alligator in my house. How am I going to get rid of him?'” she said.

Grabbing her phone, Hollenback dialed 911.

“By that point, I was shaking so badly, I didn’t know who else to call,” she said. “I don’t think I could have even looked up a phone number.”

The alligator made it from her hallway and appeared to get stuck in her kitchen.

It took a few Sarasota County Sheriff’s County deputies and Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officers to haul the 7-foot, 11-inch alligator away.

“They were so calm, so cool, so professional. They just acted like, ‘Oh, alligator in the house? OK. no big deal. We got it, case closed,'” said Hollenback.

The homeowner explained you’re how the alligator got in through her screen door.

“It’s just a magnet, but he was pushing on this and eventually just broke the magnetic connection,” she said.

And it appears the gator didn’t have to travel too far. Hollenback thinks he came from a pond located right across the street from her house.

“He had to come through two yards, cross the street and then come into my house, but nobody saw him,” she said.

Hollenback said she isn’t worried about any future visitors after getting the guest of a lifetime.

“‘Cause only in Florida you’re going to get an alligator in the house,” she said.

FWC officials said the alligator was transferred to an alligator farm.

Taylon Nichelle Celestine, 22, of Georgia, entered the highway 115 miles (180 kilometers) from the Alabama border in the Florida Panhandle and headed west. Within 5 miles (8 kilometers), she fired into a passing car several times, spraying auto glass and grazing the driver in the arm, the department said in a statement.

She then fired at a second vehicle, hitting the driver in the neck. The driver was injured and treated at a hospital.

Troopers stopped the woman after she drove for about 16 miles (26 kilometers) and found her with an AR-15 rifle and 9mm handgun. She was arrested and booked into the Holmes County jail. She was charged with attempted murder, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and improper discharge of a firearm.

The Florida Highway Patrol didn’t provide details about bail or Celestine’s legal representation.

Disney’s request last Friday to the federal appellate court was motivated by last month’s settlement deal involving two Florida lawsuits between Disney and the DeSantis-appointed Central Florida Tourism Oversight District. After DeSantis took over the theme park’s governing board, the company and the district began fighting in state court over how Disney World will be developed in the future.

As part of the settlement, Disney agreed to pause the separate federal lawsuit, which is being appealed, pending negotiations on a new development agreement with the DeSantis appointees. The district provides municipal services such as firefighting, planning and mosquito control, among other things, and was controlled by Disney supporters for most of its five decades until the DeSantis appointees took it over last year.

Disney had a deadline of next week to file an opening brief in its appeal to the federal Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, but that deadline is now set for mid-June.

The settlement deal halted almost two years of litigation that was sparked by DeSantis’ takeover of the district from Disney supporters following the company’s opposition to Florida’s so-called Don’t Say Gay law.

The 2022 law banned classroom lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity in early grades and was championed by the Republican governor, who used Disney as a punching bag in speeches while running for president earlier this year. He has since dropped out of the race.

As punishment for Disney’s opposition to the controversial law, DeSantis took over the governing district through legislation passed by the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature and appointed a new board of supervisors. Disney sued DeSantis and his appointees, claiming the company’s free speech rights were violated for speaking out against the legislation. A federal judge dismissed that lawsuit in January, but Disney appealed.

Before it was filled with DeSantis appointees early last year, the board — then composed of Disney supporters — agreed to give Disney control of Disney World’s design and construction. The new DeSantis appointees claimed the “eleventh-hour deals” neutered their powers and the district sued the company in state court in Orlando to have the contracts voided.

Disney filed counterclaims and asked the state court to declare the agreements valid and enforceable.

Under the settlement, the development agreement and covenants giving Disney design and construction control would be considered null and void, and the new board agreed to operate under a master plan that had been in effect before DeSantis took over the district.

Emmanuel Espinoza drove about 165 miles (266 kilometers) from the University of Florida in Gainesville to Frostproof, Florida, for a family event. When he arrived at his mother’s, he began stabbing her when she answered the door and then called 911 to confess to the slaying, said Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd.

Elvia Espinoza, 46, was on the phone with another relative when her son attacked her.

“We talked to him and he confessed. He said, ‘You know, I have wanted to kill my mother for many, many years because she got on my nerves,’” Judd said. “We asked him, ‘What’s your relationship with your mother?’ and, he said about an eight out of 10, that he really loved her, but she irritated him.”

The mother was a second grade teacher and was loved by the community, Judd said.

“This is a horrible event,” Judd said. “It’s a very sad day with an inexplicable, vicious murder,” he said.

Jail records didn’t list an attorney for Espinoza.

The reported haul from the event with major donors at the Palm Beach, Florida, home of billionaire investor John Paulson sets a new single-event fundraising record and is almost double the $26 million that Biden’s campaign said it raised recently at a gathering with former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama at Radio City Music Hall in New York.

“It’s clearer than ever that we have the message, the operation, and the money to propel President Trump to victory on November 5,” his campaign senior advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles said in a statement.

The event, billed as the “Inaugural Leadership Dinner,” sends a signal of a resurgence of Trump and the Republican Party’s fundraising, which has lagged behind Biden and the Democrats.

“This has been some incredible evening before it even starts because people — they wanted to contribute to a cause of making America great again, and that’s what’s happened,” Trump said briefly to reporters as he arrived at the event with his wife Melania Trump.

Trump and the GOP announced earlier in the week that they raised more than $65.6 million in March and closed out the month with $93.1 million. Biden and the Democrats announced Saturday that they took in more than $90 million last month and had $192 million-plus on hand.

“While Donald Trump has been busy awarding himself golf trophies at Mar-a-Lago and palling around with billionaires, Joe Biden has been crisscrossing the nation connecting with voters and outlining his vision to grow our economy from the bottom up and the middle out,” Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison said in a statement, referring to Trump’s Florida residence.

Campaign fundraising reports filed with the Federal Election Commission detailing donations from Saturday’s event are not expected until a mid-July filing date.

Trump initially struggled to attract big donors in particular when he launched his campaign and some lined up to support the other Republicans who challenged him in the presidential primary. But as Trump racked up easy wins, leveled the field and became the party’s presumptive nominee, the GOP has solidified behind him.

Saturday’s high-dollar event hosted about 100 guests, including more than a few billionaires. Contributions to the event will go toward the Trump 47 Committee, according to the invitation, a joint fundraising agreement with the Republican National Committee, state Republican parties and Save America, a political action committee that pays the bulk of Trump’s legal bills. In an unusual arrangement, the fundraising agreement directs donations to first pay the maximum allowed under law to his campaign and Save America before the RNC or state parties get a cut.

Donors who gave the suggested $814,600 per person or $250,000 per person will only have $5,000 of their donation go to Save America, sending hundreds of thousands of dollars to the cash-strapped RNC.

As Trump prepared in March to install a new handpicked leadership team at the RNC, including his daughter-in-law Lara Trump, some members of the RNC worried that the committee’s money would go toward Trump’s sizable legal fees as he fights a number of court cases, including four criminal cases.

The fundraising arrangement doesn’t direct RNC funds to Trump’s legal bills. But when checks of any amount are written to the combined campaign, the campaign and Save America get paid first by default.

Co-chairs of the fundraiser include Robert Bigelow, a Las Vegas-based businessman who had supported Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign; New York grocery billionaire John Catsimatidis; Linda McMahon, the former World Wrestling Entertainment executive and head of the Small Business Administration while Trump was president; casino mogul Steve Wynn; and former Georgia Sen. Kelly Loeffler, according to the invitation.

Guests were asked to contribute $814,600 per person as a “chairman” contributor, which came with seating at Trump’s table, or $250,000 per person as a “host committee” contributor. Both options come with a photo opportunity and a personalized copy of Trump’s coffee table book featuring photographs from his administration, ”Our Journey Together.”

Three of Trump’s former rivals for the GOP nomination — South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy — were expected to appear as “special guests.”

Hours before the fundraiser, Trump complained on his social media site about the judge in his upcoming New York hush-money trial and the former president once more compared himself to the late Nelson Mandela, who was jailed for years by South Africa’s longtime apartheid government before he became the country’s leader.

“If this Partisan Hack wants to put me in the ‘clink’ for speaking the open and obvious TRUTH, I will gladly become a Modern Day Nelson Mandela – It will be my GREAT HONOR,” Trump wrote.

In response, Biden campaign official Jasmine Harris said: “Imagine being so self-centered that you compare yourself to Jesus Christ and Nelson Mandela all within the span of little more than a week: that’s Donald Trump for you.”

The Florida Forest Service said Friday that the blaze, which broke out Thursday near Pensacola, was now more than 60% contained over an area of 50 acres (20 hectares). No injuries were reported.

Spring is the height of wildfire season in the Southeast, before summer brings humidity and drenching thunderstorms to the Gulf Coast.

The cause of the fire was unknown and remained under investigation.

Homes were evacuated Thursday in some parts of Escambia County north of Pensacola Naval Air Station. A few people stayed overnight in a shelter at a church.

The Florida Forest Service used bulldozers and plows to cut fire lines, and crews were patrolling the perimeter.

“They’re continuing to mop up around some of the homes that are showing some heat nearby,” Blackwater Forestry Center’s Operations Administrator David Smith told the Pensacola News Journal. “But there are no threats at this time.”

The fire melted vinyl siding off some homes in neighboring subdivisions.

Jeremy Mixon told WEAR-TV that his home is currently unlivable.

“Oh man, inside there’s smoke damage in there real bad,” Mixon said.

Another resident, Schye McGruder, feared losing her house as flames roared high up in the trees.

“I didn’t even walk off my porch and just turned around, and they were just over the roof, it was so bad. It was terrible. I was frightened. I was so scared,” McGruder said.

A separate fire to the west near Pascagoula, Mississippi, caused blowing smoke across Interstate 10, contributing to four crashes around 1 a.m. Saturday. State Highway Patrol spokesperson Cal Robertson told WLOX-TV that three of the crashes involved two vehicles, while one involved four vehicles. Three of the crashes caused injuries, but no one was killed.

“Here, hold this for a minute.” That’s what Officer Danielle Goldberger was told by Officer Marcin Trawinski, from Florida Fish and Wildlife, when he went to get the tape to wrap up a seven-foot-nine-inch-long male alligator’s snout.

The feisty 120-pound-plus reptile was wrangled by Trawinski, with a hand from Goldberger. The FWC trappers came out and carted the gator away.

On May 5, 2023, Tallahassee Police officer Kiersten Oliver pulled over 56-year-old Calvin Riley for driving with a suspended license. The 26-year-old officer detained Riley and called for backup.

While the other officer walked over to Riley to question him, bodycam footage captured Oliver handling a bottle of cognac before allegedly pouring the small bottle into Riley’s car during the search and insinuating that Riley had opened it inside the vehicle.

Despite claims of smelling alcohol, no immediate evidence of impairment was found. The officers discussion, caught on bodycam, indicated a strategy to arrest Riley for DUI, even though they did not have concrete evidence. Oliver, needing to move Riley from her police car to the other officer’s vehicle, called in a senior officer, Sergeant Brian Smith for more backup.

The two lower-ranking officers later turned off their body cameras once Smith realized they were still recording. Before they stopped recording, officer Oliver suggested parking Riley’s car in a nearby church so he wouldn’t have to pay any fees for getting his car back. Riley said between posting his $750 bond, legal fees, and missed work at the barbershop, he missed several car payments before deciding to forfeit his car.

Riley has since filed suit and his legal representation are focusing on the lack of a policy that prohibits the impounding of liquids as evidence, a justoification officer Oliver cited for her actions.

The Tallahassee Police Department issued a statement reading in part quote we have thoroughly reviewed the incident and did not find any evidence of misconduct.

Riley’s case is not heading to trial and will begin on Friday.

Workers for the space agency picked up the object from the homeowner in Naples, Florida, last week and took it to the Kennedy Space Center, across the state in Cape Canaveral, where it is being analyzed to determine its origin, NASA spokesman Josh Finch said Thursday in an email.

“More information will be available once the analysis is complete,” Finch said.

Space debris typically burns up while reentering Earth’s atmosphere.

The object pierced the roof of a home owned by Alejandro Otero on March 8. He told television station WINK that he was notified by his son about the crashing object while he was on vacation. He came back early to check it out and found a cylindrical-shaped object weighing nearly 2 pounds (0.91 kilograms) that had ripped through his ceiling and torn up the flooring.

“I was shaking. I was completely in disbelief. What are the chances of something landing on my house with such force to cause so much damage,” Otero said. “I’m super grateful that nobody got hurt.”

John Passidomo, 72, was a lawyer and former city councilor and vice mayor of Naples. He and Senate President Kathleen Passidomo, a Republican, were visiting national parks on vacation less than a month after the Florida Legislature wrapped up its annual 60-day session.

“The President and First Gentleman were law school sweethearts,” Sen. Dennis Baxley said in a memo to senators. “The trip to visit several national parks in Utah was one of many great adventures they shared during five decades together. Their last few days together were marked by many special moments, beautiful scenery, and wonderful reflections on their lifetime.”

The two, who were about to celebrate their 45th anniversary, were hiking in Bryce Canyon National Park when John Passidomo fell Monday and suffered head and other injuries. The next day, the family was told he wouldn’t survive, and the couple’s children flew to his bedside, Baxley said.

“The President has lost the love of her life, and is absolutely devastated by this sudden and unexpected accident,” Baxley said.

During Thursday’s stop in Davie, DeSantis described how more money will be coming to Florida from the Seminole Indian Tribe after signing Senate Bill 1638 into law.

The money will be allocated into restoration programs for the Florida Everglades and the South Florida Water Management District. The agency is expected to receive millions of dollars each year.

“For necessary repairs and upgrades to both the Central and South Florida water management systems, so this is a really big deal,” said DeSantis.

The Seminole Indian Tribe fought hard to offer table games in a sports book. In 2021, the tribe entered an agreement with the state to offer sports book gambling through their app at their property in Hollywood.

As part of the agreement, the Seminole Indian Tribe will share upwards of $750 million a year with Florida.

“Historic day indeed, and as a native Floridian, this truly warms our hearts,” said Seminole Tribe of Florida Chairman Marcellus Osceola Jr.

The breakdown of how those funds will be distributed includes the following:

• $150 million for South Florida Water Management District
• $100 million for the Resilient Florida Grant Program, which helps residents prepare their homes for storms
• $100 million for the Florida Everglades to assist with the removal of invasive species

Anything left over will go toward water quality improvement grant programs.

“You’re looking at about $450 million, probably in future years, every year, for quality improvement grant programs,” said DeSantis.

The governor said the signing of this bill will be a win-win for Florida and the programs that will be benefited.

“This bill is going to now dedicate the bulk of the Florida gaming revenue from the Seminole Tribe Compact to conservation efforts, and this is going to be done in ways that are going to be very beneficial,” he said.

The chase, which involved at least three law enforcement agencies on Tuesday, ended with Walter Medina facing charges in two counties.

The incident began when Walter Medina was spotted by police officers after the woman he allegedly kidnapped escaped while the vehicle was briefly stopped at a Walgreens. That was when she ran to a nearby gas station to call authorities.

After the subsequent collision during the pursuit, which spanned multiple counties, Medina fled on foot, but it wasn’t long before K-9 units caught up to him.

The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office said the woman was being held against her will for two and a half months. She was allegedly beaten with a baseball bat and screwdrivers. When she was found by deputies, she had broken bones, bruises and cuts to her body.

Medina faced a judge on Wednesday in Orange County where he was arraigned. In Orange County, he faces charges, including fleeing and alluding, reckless driving and hit-and-run.

The Orange County judge set his bond to $15,000 and he has a hold out of Hillsborough County where he faces even more charges, including attempted second-degree murder, armed kidnapping and armed false imprisonment.

Southwest Flight 4273 was traveling from New Orleans to Orlando when the captain declared an emergency after experiencing turbulence aboard the Boeing 737 jet, the airline said in a statement.

“The Captain declared an emergency, a requirement to deviate from a filed flight plan, and also requested that paramedics be available when the aircraft arrived to assess any potential injury,” the statement said.

A passenger and a flight attendant were transported to a Tampa area medical facility, the airline added.

The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the incident, a spokesperson told CNN.

According to CNN Weather, storms that brought severe weather from the Ohio Valley to the Deep South on Tuesday were draped over the Gulf of Mexico this morning, causing strong thunderstorms in the area.

But park visitors can one day expect to see much more beyond that wilderness at the iconic park in Central Florida – something more ambitious than just a ride overhaul or a retheming.

“It’s probably the largest expansion ever at Magic Kingdom,” Michael Hundgen, Walt Disney World site portfolio executive, said Tuesday during a rare media event previewing new Disney attraction designs and technology at its Walt Disney Imagineering facility in California.

He said the expansion will be about the size of Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge, which occupies about 14 acres. A Disney team is currently on research trips and going through concept design for this expansion area.

Hundgen did not say what themes or stories would exist there – or when this project would be completed.

Disney’s 10-year investment plan

The Magic Kingdom expansion is one part of a $60 billion investment Disney has said it’s planning for its parks, cruises and experiences over the next decade.

To show how the investment could be used, Disney invited CNN, along with a group of about a dozen other media outlets, on Tuesday to see projects in the works at Walt Disney Imagineering, including new technology in the research and development phase.

Disney CEO Bob Iger, who returned to his role in November 2022 only two and a half years after leaving the company, said Tuesday: “As I looked at the returns on the invested capital that we made in this business over the 15 years prior to my coming back, it was extraordinarily compelling. We should allocate in a direction where we had great returns.”

While Iger said the company has a fairly good idea of what’s being built in the near future, he said “it’s actually silly” to allocate every dollar of that $60 billion right now, given that they do not know what content might become a huge hit in the coming years.

They do not know what their next “Frozen” will be, for example, so Iger said the company should remain flexible with what they choose to build in later years.

‘Why hasn’t Disney prepared anything?’

As Universal Orlando Resort prepares to open a third theme park, Epic Universe, in 2025, the lack of information about what might come in later years at Disney has been a subject of criticism.

At a virtual Disney shareholder meeting on Wednesday, a preselected question was asked: “Why hasn’t Disney prepared anything, or placed more than just a handful of attractions to be ready for this in 2025 at Walt Disney World?”

Iger responded, “That just couldn’t be further from the truth.” He said Disney has been aware of Universal’s plans for more than a decade, and that Disney has a method of analyzing all its needs to strategically deploy its capital.

After naming new lands and attractions that were developed at Disney’s Florida resort over the past decade, Iger said, “By staggering these major launches, we have been able to commercially and operationally optimize our new offerings over time, rather than having to do it all at once.”

However, these projects, including the newest announcement of what Disney calls Magic Kingdom’s “Beyond Big Thunder” project, are expansions of existing theme parks at best; the project from Universal, which is owned by Comcast, will be a brand-new theme park.

Iger said a legal settlement reached last week between Disney and the state of Florida “will actually enable us to pursue the kind of significant investment in our Florida parks that you’re talking about,” calling it a “win-win.”

Possible new destination at Disneyland

During the same shareholder’s meeting, Iger showed a new sketch of an area based on the “Avatar” movies that he called a “possible new destination” for the original Disneyland resort in California.

But any plans for expanding the theme park footprint at the Disneyland resort would need Anaheim city approval because of zoning issues.

The decision to rezone existing Disney property into more theme park space, a project dubbed “Disneyland Forward,” will come before the Anaheim City Council in coming weeks.

Creating the Force

Iger said 70% of the $60 billion investment will be focused on new attractions that expand the capacity of Disney’s theme parks and cruise ships. The remaining 30%, he said, is focused on the technology and maintenance to make that expansion happen.

One of those patented technologies, called “HoloTile,” was shown to reporters on Tuesday. While this hasn’t been designated for any particular theme park project yet, Imagineers demonstrated how one could move a box or a chair, just like Darth Vader using the Force, with the wave of a hand.

Invented by Imagineer Lanny Smoot, who was recently inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, HoloTile allows multiple, small tiles to be pushed together to make a floor that can allow people to walk in any direction or any distance, without actually ever stepping off the tiled area.

“There are rays of light or pools of light that bounce off my legs … to tell the floor where I am,” Smoot said.

Smoot said multiple people can walk on it in any direction without bumping into each other. And if someone were to run at full speed on this floor, they would never run off the tiles. The HoloTile could be put to use in a virtual reality environment, for instance, to allow movement – click here to check out a demonstration.

Smoot said this took years of work: “As one of my friends says, ‘long fuse, big bang.’”

‘Star Wars’ BD-X droids

Research and development teams also demonstrated “Star Wars” BD-X droids, which are “puppeted” by engineers using what look like video game controllers.

The droids, which were tested at Disneyland’s Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge last October, will be reappearing there for a couple of months, beginning April 5.

Way beyond your average robot, “reinforcement learning” helps the droids give an incredible illusion of “communicating” with humans, using highly advanced movements and are even able to balance themselves when running into unstable surfaces or objects.

Figures for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure

Along one cubicle wall in its Imagineering machine shop, this quote was seen written on a white board: “Progress has little to do with speed, but more to do with direction” – unknown

What started as rudimentary robots with pre-recorded speech and sounds, as seen in Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room in 1963, Disney’s Audio-Animatronics have become advanced with fluid movements and human expressions.

On the media tour, Disney showed its completed figures for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure – a new ride coming to both the California and Florida resorts – to replace Splash Mountain. An opening date for that has not been announced.

Based on the movie “The Princess and the Frog,” the characters wave, talk and sing to guests as they ride along a log flume.

This level of advanced Audio-Animatronics has thus far only been seen in Disney’s international theme parks.

Stella Reese Chase, whose mother Leah Chase was a renowned New Orleans chef and TV personality, was invited to California to see these figures after a Disney team had visited her hometown to research how to create this attraction with authenticity.

As Chase watched Princess Tiana wave and talk for the first time in 3D, she said, “I’m just amazed, you know. What can I say? I’ve never seen anything like it. This is really a wild experience.”

Charita Carter, executive creative producer at Walt Disney Imagineering, worked on the project from its inception about four years ago.

It takes Disney up to six years to go from a new concept to a finished attraction. Carter recently got to experience the ride she had worked on from the ground up.

Asked whether it was what she expected, Carter said, “Yes, it is really coming together. There are so many beautiful things that are happening, so I was really pleased.”

The object left homeowner Alejandro Otero wondering where it came from. He thinks it’s from outer space.

“It used to have a cylindrical shape, and you can tell by the shape of the top that it traveled in this direction through the atmosphere, when it burned, created in this burn and melting the metal over in this direction,” he said.

The unknown two-pound object crashed through the family’s home in Naples.

“It’s either space junk or a space meteorite. It’s 50/50,” said a person on video.

Otero said his son was home alone when he heard a loud bang.

“It was a tremendous sound, and it almost hit my son. He was two rooms over and heard it all,” he said.

Otero called the Collier County Sheriff’s Office after making the discovery. They helped Otero dig out the object after it crashed throughseveral layers of ceiling and the floor.

“Is it heavy?” Otero asked the deputies. “Holy cow! Are you kidding me?”

“I was shaken, I was completely in disbelief. What are the chances of something landing on my house with such force to cause so much damage?” said Otero. “And, you know, totally, I’m super grateful that nobody got hurt.”

Otero said he thinks the object came from space.

“The International Space Station had scheduled debris coming from them to land into Earth, and to go through the atmosphere, burn and safely land, whatever it was left, in the ocean, the Pacific, or any other areas, northern urban areas,” said Otero.

There are several articles online about trash from the space station hitting Earth on March 8, the same day Otero’s home was hit.

Still, after everything, this family is happy no one was hurt.

“Very heavy and very damaging. I mean, this lands on anybody or any structure will [be] completely destroyed. We got super lucky,” said Otero.

NASA officials said they plan to analyze this object at the Kennedy Space Center to figure out its origin.

Scott’s campaign said Wednesday it plans to spend about $700,000 per week for a series of radio, digital, TV and streaming-services ads in English and Spanish.

Over the next several weeks, the campaign will release different ads aimed toward this key voting group, which has voted increasingly Republican in the past few election cycles. These ads will run in Miami, West Palm Beach, Orlando and Tampa — all which are major cities in Florida critical for his reelection campaign, Miami having the largest group of Hispanic voters.

The first TV ad was released Wednesday, with no mention of Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a former U.S. representative from Miami running to unseat the senator.

This week, Democrats have celebrated a glimmer of hope for this election cycle after the Florida Supreme Court approved an abortion-rights ballot initiative to be decided by Florida’s voters this November.

“In Florida, we understand how socialism suffocates the human spirit,” Scott said in the Wednesday morning ad. “That’s why I fight against the socialist agenda in Washington.”

Scott, like other Republicans, has often accused Democrats of leaning into socialism. This accusation has generally kept a rift between Democrats and Hispanic voter groups who escaped communist regimes in Cuba and Venezuela, which makes up a large portion of voters in Miami-Dade County. This traditionally blue county leaned red in the most recent midterm cycle, and it currently is Florida’s most populated county with more than 60% of its registered voters identifying as Hispanic.

Scott said last month that he puts a lot of effort into talking to Hispanic voters and finds that they care about the “same issues that everybody does,” like education, public safety and jobs.

“People that have come from to this country from another country, in a legal way, they came here because they wanted rule of law,” Scott said. “They want what America has to offer.”

Mucarsel-Powell, who announced her campaign last August, was elected in 2018. She was born in Ecuador and was Congress’ first Ecuadorian American and first South American-born congressional delegate. She lost her seat to Republican U.S. Rep. Carlos Gimenez after one term.

Mucarsel-Powell said last month that she relates to Hispanic voters because her story is similar to “so many people that live here in South Florida.”

As part of her campaign, she does biweekly Spanish radio interviews to reach out to Hispanic communities. In these interviews, she often speaks to voters concerned about socialism and has accused Scott of promoting “misinformation.”

“I have seen firsthand what it looks like when you have a dictators take over,” Mucarsel-Powell said. “So many people relate to that. That’s why it’ll be more difficult — very difficult — for him to be able to really get in touch with the reality of Latinos that live here in South Florida and what we’re facing.”

Each of the brothers pleaded guilty in New York to one count of securities fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, according to federal prosecutors.

The two brothers were arrested in June and charged with illegally trading on nonpublic knowledge of a shell company’s secret plan to buy Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of struggling social network Truth Social.

“Michael and Gerald Shvartsman admitted in court that they received confidential, inside information about an upcoming merger between DWAC and Trump Media and used that information to make profitable, but illegal, open-market trades,” Damian Williams, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement.

The indictment accused the brothers and a third individual, Bruce Garelick, of together making more than $22 million in October 2021 by trading on their inside knowledge of the deal.

Shares of the shell company, Digital World Acquisition Corporation, spiked after the blank-check company publicly announced an agreement to merge with Trump Media.

“Insider trading is cheating, plain and simple,” Williams said, “and today’s convictions should remind anyone who may be tempted to corrupt the integrity of the stock market that it will earn them a ticket to prison.”

After years of legal and regulatory delays, the Trump Media merger finally closed last week, paving the way for the Truth Social owner to go public.

Trump Media’s share price has surged, creating a financial windfall for the former president, who is the dominant shareholder. Trump owns 78.8 million shares in Trump Media, a stake valued at about $4.1 billion. Trump Media’s (DJT) stock fell 4% Wednesday.

The frenzy on Wall Street began in October 2021 after Trump revealed plans to merge his new social media business with Digital World Acquisition Co., a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC.

According to prosecutors, the Shvartsman brothers and Garelick, a then a director on Digital World’s board of, tipped off friends and colleagues about the impending deal, allowing them to buy securities in the SPAC before the Trump Media deal became public.

The defendants passed the secret information about the impending Trump Media deal to friends on. Trip to Las Vegas, to Michael Shvartsman’s neighbors and to Gerald Shvartsman’e employees at a furniture supply store.

There was no allegation in the indictment that Trump himself had any involvement in the alleged insider trading scheme.

The incident occurred Tuesday morning near the South Lakeland Airport in Mulberry, located approximately 40 miles away from Tampa. The Polk County Sheriff’s Office held a press release after the crash, identifying Arthur Canning as the pilot who was killed.

Sheriff Grady Judd said Canning was a pilot for 10 years and flew ultralights for the past decade. The 76-year-old pilot flew his final flight in an experimental amateur-built aircraft that recently received its flight certificates last fall. The flight was Canning’s second attempt at piloting the plane, following its first flight less than a week ago.

“He apparently stalled and crashed directly into the ground,” Judd stated. “He immediately died as a result of horrific traumatic injuries from the crash.”

The sheriff’s office is investigating the death investigation while the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the crash.

WPTV has been speaking with parents about how they’re handling this tough conversation with their children and how Jamie Felix, 45, is being remembered.

Parents and students said Felix will be remembered as a smart woman who loved her students and career.

NewsChannel 5 spoke with a parent who said his kids were friends with Felix’s children.

She was a teacher in the community and a friend, parent Daryl Faniel said.

“She was brilliant, and she was a great helper,” Faniel said. “She taught at the school so she was always with the kids.”

Faniel said his family was close to Felix, who police said was killed by her estranged husband Friday night at a West Palm Beach hotel parking lot.

Police said he then turned the gun on himself and shot himself outside a rental car facility. Police said this all happened in front of her two children.

“It’s devastating,” Faniel said. “My kid, he’s 10 years old. Her son is 10-years-old. What can we tell them? What can I say to make them understand that?”

Her estranged husband was also a school employee until this past October.

Court records show at about the same time in October Jamie Felix filed for divorce and petitioned the court for protection due to domestic violence against her husband, Ray Felix, 60.

At the start of a new school week, students and fellow teachers returned to campus to find a pillar of their school no longer there.

“What happened is just a travesty,” Faniel said. “It was a travesty. I can’t believe it happened. It’s devastated me, devastated my kids, my girlfriend. They were friends. They were recently texting days up until this thing that happened, trying to rekindle the boys back on the team together and now she’s gone.”

This will be a difficult week for many in the community.

The school district said grief counselors will be available on campus as long as needed.