Tara Alexis Sykes was taken into custody on Friday and charged with attempted murder while engaged in aggravated child abuse, the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office said in a Facebook post on Monday.

An arrest report alleged that Sykes communicated with her 10-year-old daughter on the online gaming platform Roblox and instructed the girl “on various methods to kill the infant.” The court documents said Sykes is related to the 2-month-old.

“Sykes instructed the 10-year-old to drown the infant in the bathtub, burn the infant with scalding water, and drop the infant on the floor to kill the infant,” the sheriff’s office said.

On Thursday, the sheriff’s office was contacted by Gulf Coast Kids House about a 2-month-old infant who had suffered serious injuries after being dropped on the kitchen floor by the 10-year-old. Gulf Coast Kids House is a child advocacy center where forensic interviews and medical exams of children suspected of abuse are conducted.

The arrest report alleged that the 10-year-old picked up the infant “after he became fussy and was walking into the kitchen with him to find an adult” when the baby fell. The foster father picked up the baby and took him to the hospital where doctors said he had a skull fracture.

Morgan Lewis, a spokesperson with the sheriff’s office, said the 2-month-old is expected to survive.

The 10-year-old allegedly said during a forensic interview that she dropped the baby “on the floor at the direction of her mother,” the arrest report stated. The girl said she was “terrified of her mother and felt that if she did not follow through with the instructions, Sykes would harm or kill her as well,” the report said.

An investigation into the incident also revealed that Sykes had allegedly instructed the 10-year-old on “how to kill the adults the 10-year-old was temporarily living with by cutting their throats with a knife while they slept and burning their house by dousing bed sheets with aerosol spray and setting them on fire,” the sheriff’s office said.

The 10-year-old allegedly doused the sheets but was not able to carry out the instructions, according to authorities.

Sheriff Chip W. Simmons said he was “truly disturbed” by the allegations “and the thought that anyone could think like this, let alone instruct these acts to be carried out.”

“I have been in Law Enforcement for over 40 years and have never seen anything quite like this,” he said in a statement. “There is something really wrong with her.”

Sykes is being held without bond. The sheriff’s office spokesperson said they do not foresee the 10-year-old being charged. The case remains under investigation.

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Earlier this month, the Florida Department of Health sent cease-and-desist letters to multiple broadcast stations that had aired the ad, threatening criminal charges against stations that didn’t stop playing it.

The advertisement encourages people in Florida to vote “yes” on a ballot initiative that would add language to the state constitution allowing abortions until fetal viability. The amendment would override Florida’s six-week abortion ban. The campaign ad features a woman named Caroline with terminal brain cancer who needed to end her pregnancy in order to receive treatment that could extend her life.

The letters sent to broadcast stations describe the ad as false and dangerous, emphasizing that Florida’s current abortion law makes an exception for the life of the mother. They suggested that women who believe otherwise might seek abortions out of state, which “would threaten or impair” their health.

Floridians Protecting Freedom, the group behind the ad, filed a lawsuit on Wednesday requesting a restraining order to prevent the health department from coercing or threatening TV stations that aired the group’s ads.

In a bluntly worded order, Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker sided with the plaintiffs. The restraining order against Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo lasts through Oct. 29.

“To keep it simple for the State of Florida: it’s the First Amendment, stupid,” Walker wrote.

He noted that the state had produced its own campaign opposing the ballot initiative, and said that demanding the removal of opposing ads amounted to censorship.

Even before the decision, Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel had denounced the cease-and-desist letters as a violation of the First Amendment.

“Threats against broadcast stations for airing content that conflicts with the government’s views are dangerous and undermine the fundamental principle of free speech,” Rosenworcel said on Oct. 8.

Although some TV stations continued to air the ad after receiving the cease-and-desist letter, at least one, WINK-TV, stopped running it in response.

In the lawsuit, the Floridians Protecting Freedom group also sought a preliminary injunction to bar the health department from seeking to further intimidate or threaten TV stations, along with financial and punitive damages from the department for what the plaintiffs considered a violation of their right to free speech. The cease-and-desist letters, their complaint said, were “an escalation of a broader State campaign” to use public resources and government authority to attack the ballot initiative.

The group filed its lawsuit against both Ladapo and the health department’s former general counsel, who sent the letters.

That attorney, John Wilson, left office a week after sending the letters, according to the Tampa Bay Times and the Miami Herald. The newspapers reported that Wilson had stated in a resignation letter that “a man is nothing without his conscience.”

The judge’s temporary restraining order applies only to Ladapo.

The Florida Department of Health continued to oppose the ads in a statement on Friday.

“The fact is these ads are unequivocally false and detrimental to public health in Florida,” said Jae Williams, the department’s communications director. “The media continues to ignore the truth that Florida’s heartbeat protection law always protects the life of a mother and includes exceptions for victims of rape, incest, and human trafficking.”

Caroline, the woman featured in the ad who requested that her last name not be published, said she learned about the health department’s cease-and-desist letters while preparing to evacuate her home ahead of Hurricane Milton.

“It surprised me, because I was receiving so much compassion and support initially,” she said on a call with reporters on Friday.

In response to the judge’s decision on Thursday, Lauren Brenzel, campaign director of the “Yes on 4” ballot initiative, issued a statement calling it a “crucial victory.”

“The court has affirmed what we’ve known all along: the government cannot silence the truth about Florida’s extreme abortion ban,” Brenzel said.

Bacardi Jackson, executive director of the ACLU of Florida, said the organization was also happy with the judge’s order.

“What we are seeing is an incredible pushback from our government in terms of just our freedom to have a free and fair election, and so it is very exciting when a judge can very clearly see what is happening,” Jackson said on the call with reporters.

The case isn’t over, however. A hearing is set for Oct. 29 to discuss the preliminary injunction request.

NBC News’ Adam Edelman contributed.

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Malinowski, 54, known as “Lieutenant Dan,” was arrested on two outstanding warrants for failure to appear in court and a misdemeanor charge of trespassing in a city park after warning, police said in a statement.

Officers warned Malinowski on Thursday that he was creating a health hazard because he did not have an “accessible marine sanitation device aboard his unregistered vessel and did not have record of proper disposal of waste,” police said.

He was told to leave the Bayshore Linear Park and Dock but was still there Friday morning, police said.

Malinowski was taken to the Hillsborough County Jail, and his vessel was impounded, police said.

Hurricanes Oct 10

‘Lieutenant Dan' survives Hurricane Milton in a sailboat

Florida Oct 9

A Florida man riding out Hurricane Milton on his boat alarms TikTok and local officials

He remained jailed as of Friday afternoon, according to facility records. It was not clear if he had an attorney.

Malinowski survived Hurricane Milton aboard his sailboat after capturing national attention when TikTok creator Terrence Concannon posted a series of videos about his experience riding out Hurricane Helene.

He drew concern and scrutiny over his decision to remain at sea during the deadly storms.

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In a sharply worded ruling, U.S. District Judge Mark E. Walker of the Northern District of Florida issued a temporary restraining order calling threats by the Florida Department of Health “unconstitutional coercion.”

“To keep it simple for the State of Florida: it’s the First Amendment, stupid,” Walker wrote in his ruling.

At the center of the legal dispute is Amendment 4, a measure that would add an amendment to the state constitution to protect the right to abortion until fetal viability, which is considered to be somewhere over 20 weeks into pregnancy. The amendment would undo a six-week abortion law that took effect earlier this year.

The group behind the campaign in support of the abortion-rights ballot measure, Floridians Protecting Freedom, produced the commercial, which features a Tallahassee mother describing how she was diagnosed with brain cancer when she was 20 weeks pregnant before a series of state restrictions went into effect.

“The doctors knew that if I did not end my pregnancy, I would lose my baby, I would lose my life, and my daughter would lose her mom,” she says, adding that the state’s current law would not have allowed the abortion she received before she could begin cancer treatment.

Floridians Protecting Freedom filed a lawsuit accusing the state of “using public resources and government authority to advance the State’s preferred characterization of its anti-abortion laws as the ‘truth’ and denigrate opposing viewpoints as ‘lies.’”

The lawsuit named Florida’s Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, who heads the state’s health department, and its former general counsel, John Wilson, as defendants. Wilson resigned from the position last week.

In his ruling, Walker argued that while the state can continue to campaign against the amendment, it cannot “trample on” the free speech of the plaintiff.

“While Defendant Ladapo refuses to even agree with this simple fact, Plaintiff’s political advertisement is political speech — speech at the core of the First Amendment,” Walker said. “The government cannot excuse its indirect censorship of political speech simply by declaring the disfavored speech is ‘false.'”

In a statement, the campaign director for Floridians Protecting Freedom called the court’s decision a “critical initial victory.”

“The court has affirmed what we’ve known all along: the government cannot silence the truth about Florida’s extreme abortion ban,” Lauren Brenzel said. “It’s a deadly ban that puts women’s lives at risk. This ruling is a powerful reminder that Floridians will not back down in the face of government intimidation.”

Florida is one of nine states with a measure on the Nov. 5 ballot to protect access to abortion.

According to the media tracking firm AdImpact, it's also the most expensive — with about $150 million in ads spent so far, The Associated Press reports. That spending total includes millions the state Republican Party has spent, at DeSantis’ behest, to urge voters to reject the question.

For the ballot measure to be adopted in Florida, it needs support of 60% of those who vote on it.

DeSantis has vowed to defeat Amendment 4 and used allies in his administration to leverage state agencies against the measure, including using the Florida Department of Health to launch a website attacking the ballot measure and the Office of Election Crimes and Security, an election police unit created by DeSantis, to start investigating claims of fraud in the signature-gathering process approved for the ballot. That office issued a report claiming a “large number of forged signatures or fraudulent petitions” were submitted to get the question on the ballot. The state also announced a $328,000 fine against the ballot-measure group.

Read Judge Walker's ruling:

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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That employee, Arvin Mirasol, has since been fired and is now serving prison time but passengers say the cruise line could have done more to protect them.

A photo shared by the Lipcon, Margulies, & Winkleman law firm appears to show a camera tucked underneath a sink inside a state room aboard Royal Caribbean’s Symphony of the Seas. According to a class action lawsuit filed Tuesday in Miami’s federal court, it was one of the devices used by Mirasol to secretly record passengers.

“We have a memory of him sort of being very adamant about wanting to enter into our cabin room and he wanted to fill the soap dispenser that was located in the shower,” said the woman.

Mirasol, a former stateroom attendant for Royal Caribbean, is now serving 30 years in federal prison.

According to the 32-page lawsuit, “law enforcement discovered numerous videos of naked females undressing in the bathroom as well as videos of child pornography.”

Aside from placing hidden cameras in bathrooms, the lawsuit claims, “Mirasol also stated that while the guests were taking a shower, he would enter the rooms and hide under the bed while recording them naked with his cellular device.”

“This is already a known industry problem and not just hidden cameras being an issue and it’s happened on virtually every other cruise line but also rapes and sexual assaults at sea,” said Michael Winkleman, the attorney representing the plaintiffs in the case.

Winkleman said Royal Caribbean should also be to blame.

“I think Royal Caribbean had a moral obligation to notify all the passengers that likely could’ve been affected, they didn’t do that, now the notice is out there,” said Winkleman.

Winkleman and the woman asked what justice would look like for him in this case.

“It’s more about getting the word out there because Royal Caribbean is not,” said the woman.

The lawsuit focuses on a time frame of Dec. 1, 2023, to Feb. 26, 2024, which was around the time Mirasol worked aboard the Symphony of the Seas.

Winkleman believes there could be upwards of a thousand people who were affected and have no idea.

“We have clients that were children that were affected, similar in age to my daughter,” said Winkleman. “I have a 10-year-old daughter, I know it terrifies me thinking of the kind of impact it would have on a child.”

“The safety and privacy of our guests is our highest priority, and we have zero tolerance for this behavior. We immediately reported this case to law enforcement and terminated the crew member. As this is pending litigation, we are unable to comment further at this time,” the statement read.

“Sleeping in hotels is very, it’s challenging,” she said. “Even public bathrooms, changing rooms. I try to avoid them because I just don’t want to be violated again.”

Winkleman said there’s currently no law in the books that forces cruise lines to notify passengers if they’ve been potential victims of a video voyeur, something he said needs to change and he hopes this lawsuit will put a spotlight on this issue.

Biden arrived in Tampa and flew by helicopter to St. Pete Beach, surveying the wreckage left behind by Milton, including the roof of Tropicana Field that was shorn off by the powerful storm’s winds. Later, as the president’s motorcade drove along the highway, piles of debris, tattered billboards, toppled fences, fallen trees and closed gas stations were seen. It passed through a neighborhood where almost every home had water damage and heaps of belongings were on the curb.

“I’m here to personally say thank you to the brave first responders,” Biden said. “This is all a team effort folks, you made a big difference and it saved lives but there’s much more to do and we’re going to do everything we can to get power back in your homes not only helping you recover but to help you build back stronger.”

HURRICANE MILTON LATEST

Florida Oct 12

As Florida reels, focus turns to restoring power, assisting victims in Hurricane Milton's wake

The visit gave Biden another chance to press House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., for congressional approval of more aid money before the Nov. 5 election. Johnson said Sunday that lawmakers will deal with the issue after the election because of the amount of time it takes to come up with an estimate. He said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that his “guesstimate” is that $100 billion will be needed.

“We’ll provide the additional resources,” Johnson said.

In Florida, Biden announced $612 million for six Department of Energy projects in areas affected by the hurricanes to improve the resilience of the region’s electric grid. The funding includes $94 million for two projects in Florida: $47 million for Gainesville Regional Utilities and $47 million for Switched Source to partner with Florida Power and Light.

The president is pressing for swift action by Congress to make sure the Small Business Administration and FEMA have the money they need to get through hurricane season, which ends Nov. 30 in the Atlantic. He said Friday that Milton alone had caused an estimated $50 billion in damages.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said last week that FEMA will be able to meet “immediate needs” caused by the two storms. But he warned in the aftermath of Helene that the agency does not have enough funding to make it through the hurricane season.

But Johnson has pushed back, saying the agencies have enough money for the time being and that lawmakers will address the funding issue during the lame-duck session after the election.

Also percolating in the background are tensions between Kamala Harris and Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla. As Helene barreled toward Florida, the two traded accusations that the other was trying to politicize the federal storm response.

Harris’ office last week suggested that DeSantis was dodging her phone calls. DeSantis responded that he was unaware she had called and he grumbled that she hadn’t been involved in the federal government’s response before she became the Democratic nominee.

Biden said he hoped to see DeSantis on Sunday, if the governor’s schedule permitted. DeSantis was not among the officials who greeted Biden in Tampa or joined his briefing in St. Pete Beach.

Hurricane Milton made landfall in Florida as a Category 3 storm on Wednesday evening. At least 10 people were killed and hundreds of thousands of residents remain without power.

Officials say the toll could have been worse if not for widespread evacuations. The still-fresh devastation wrought by Helene just two weeks earlier probably helped compel many people to flee.

Tara Alexis Sykes was taken into custody on Friday and charged with attempted murder while engaged in aggravated child abuse, the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office said in a Facebook post on Monday.

An arrest report alleged that Sykes communicated with her 10-year-old daughter on the online gaming platform Roblox and instructed the girl “on various methods to kill the infant.” The court documents said Sykes is related to the 2-month-old.

“Sykes instructed the 10-year-old to drown the infant in the bathtub, burn the infant with scalding water, and drop the infant on the floor to kill the infant,” the sheriff’s office said.

On Thursday, the sheriff’s office was contacted by Gulf Coast Kids House about a 2-month-old infant who had suffered serious injuries after being dropped on the kitchen floor by the 10-year-old. Gulf Coast Kids House is a child advocacy center where forensic interviews and medical exams of children suspected of abuse are conducted.

The arrest report alleged that the 10-year-old picked up the infant “after he became fussy and was walking into the kitchen with him to find an adult” when the baby fell. The foster father picked up the baby and took him to the hospital where doctors said he had a skull fracture.

Morgan Lewis, a spokesperson with the sheriff’s office, said the 2-month-old is expected to survive.

The 10-year-old allegedly said during a forensic interview that she dropped the baby “on the floor at the direction of her mother,” the arrest report stated. The girl said she was “terrified of her mother and felt that if she did not follow through with the instructions, Sykes would harm or kill her as well,” the report said.

An investigation into the incident also revealed that Sykes had allegedly instructed the 10-year-old on “how to kill the adults the 10-year-old was temporarily living with by cutting their throats with a knife while they slept and burning their house by dousing bed sheets with aerosol spray and setting them on fire,” the sheriff’s office said.

The 10-year-old allegedly doused the sheets but was not able to carry out the instructions, according to authorities.

Sheriff Chip W. Simmons said he was “truly disturbed” by the allegations “and the thought that anyone could think like this, let alone instruct these acts to be carried out.”

“I have been in Law Enforcement for over 40 years and have never seen anything quite like this,” he said in a statement. “There is something really wrong with her.”

Sykes is being held without bond. The sheriff’s office spokesperson said they do not foresee the 10-year-old being charged. The case remains under investigation.

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Tara Alexis Sykes was taken into custody on Friday and charged with attempted murder while engaged in aggravated child abuse, the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office said in a Facebook post on Monday.

An arrest report alleged that Sykes communicated with her 10-year-old daughter on the online gaming platform Roblox and instructed the girl “on various methods to kill the infant.” The court documents said Sykes is related to the 2-month-old.

“Sykes instructed the 10-year-old to drown the infant in the bathtub, burn the infant with scalding water, and drop the infant on the floor to kill the infant,” the sheriff’s office said.

On Thursday, the sheriff’s office was contacted by Gulf Coast Kids House about a 2-month-old infant who had suffered serious injuries after being dropped on the kitchen floor by the 10-year-old. Gulf Coast Kids House is a child advocacy center where forensic interviews and medical exams of children suspected of abuse are conducted.

The arrest report alleged that the 10-year-old picked up the infant “after he became fussy and was walking into the kitchen with him to find an adult” when the baby fell. The foster father picked up the baby and took him to the hospital where doctors said he had a skull fracture.

Morgan Lewis, a spokesperson with the sheriff’s office, said the 2-month-old is expected to survive.

The 10-year-old allegedly said during a forensic interview that she dropped the baby “on the floor at the direction of her mother,” the arrest report stated. The girl said she was “terrified of her mother and felt that if she did not follow through with the instructions, Sykes would harm or kill her as well,” the report said.

An investigation into the incident also revealed that Sykes had allegedly instructed the 10-year-old on “how to kill the adults the 10-year-old was temporarily living with by cutting their throats with a knife while they slept and burning their house by dousing bed sheets with aerosol spray and setting them on fire,” the sheriff’s office said.

The 10-year-old allegedly doused the sheets but was not able to carry out the instructions, according to authorities.

Sheriff Chip W. Simmons said he was “truly disturbed” by the allegations “and the thought that anyone could think like this, let alone instruct these acts to be carried out.”

“I have been in Law Enforcement for over 40 years and have never seen anything quite like this,” he said in a statement. “There is something really wrong with her.”

Sykes is being held without bond. The sheriff’s office spokesperson said they do not foresee the 10-year-old being charged. The case remains under investigation.

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Ryan Wesley Routh was arraigned in federal court in West Palm Beach on an indictment brought last week charging him with attempted assassination and gun offenses.

Routh, through his attorneys, pleaded not guilty to the five charges against him. His attorneys also waived a formal reading of the charges and officially requested a jury trial.

Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart oversaw the hearing, and the only time Routh spoke was when he told the judge “yes, your honor,” in response to whether he understood the charges against him.

TRUMP ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT

Donald Trump Sep 24

Ryan Routh, arrested near Trump's Florida golf course, is charged with attempted assassination

news Sep 23

Judge orders would-be Trump assassin Ryan Routh held without bail

The second attempt on Trump’s life, on Sept. 15, was thwarted when a member of his Secret Service protective detail spotted Routh’s rifle barrel protruding through the golf course fence line, ahead of where Trump was playing, authorities have said. The agent fired in the direction of Routh, who sped away and was arrested in a neighboring county.

Routh did not fire any rounds and did not have Trump in his line of sight, officials have said. He left behind a digital camera, a backpack, a loaded SKS-style rifle with a scope and a plastic bag containing food.

Prosecutors have said that he had written of his plans to kill Trump in a handwritten note months before his Sept. 15 arrest in which he referred to his actions as a failed “assassination attempt on Donald Trump” and offered $150,000 for anyone who could “finish the job.” That note was in a box that Routh had apparently dropped off at the home of an unidentified witness months before his arrest.

Routh’s arrest came two months after Trump was shot and wounded in the ear in an assassination attempt during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. The Secret Service has acknowledged failings leading up to that shooting but has said that security worked as it should have to thwart a potential attack in Florida.

Routh was initially charged in a criminal complaint only with gun offenses before prosecutors pursued additional charges before a grand jury. Prosecutors will often quickly bring the first easily provable charges they can and then add more serious charges later as the investigation unfolds.

Other charges he faces include illegally possessing his gun in spite of multiple felony convictions, including two charges of possessing stolen goods in 2002 in North Carolina. He’s also accused of having a weapon with a serial number that was obliterated and unreadable to the naked eye, in violation of federal law.

William Robert Braddock III, 41, of St. Petersburg, Florida, was charged with threatening two people, one of whom the DOJ said was his primary opponent in the 2022 election for Florida’s 13th Congressional District. Braddock allegedly threatened to “call up my Russian-Ukrainian hit squad” and make the primary opponent disappear, according to the indictment.

The DOJ indictment did not name the alleged victims.

One of Braddock’s primary opponents and the race’s eventual winner, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., contended in 2021 court documents that Braddock was stalking her and wanted her dead.

A Florida court in 2021 granted Luna and a conservative activist and friend of hers, Erin Olszewski, a temporary restraining order.

Braddock terminated his campaign in 2021 shortly after the judge granted the injunction.

NBC News could not immediately reach Braddock for comment on Saturday. It is unclear whether Braddock has entered a plea.

A spokesperson for Luna and an attorney for Olszewski did not immediately respond to requests for comment Saturday afternoon.

Braddock told the Pinellas County judge in 2021 he opposed the injunction and wanted to “obtain, review and validate” evidence presented against him, saying he didn’t “know what they have.”

After allegedly making the threats, Braddock fled the country and was later found to be residing in the Philippines, according to the DOJ. He was then deported to the U.S. and made his first court appearance Thursday in Los Angeles, per the DOJ news release.

Braddock is charged with one count of interstate transmission of a true threat to injure another person, for which he could face a maximum of five years in prison if convicted, the DOJ said.

The case is part of the Justice Department’s Election Threats Task Force, convened in 2021 to address threats targeting election workers. The FBI’s Tampa field office is investigating the case with support from the St. Petersburg Police Department, the DOJ said.

Luna is up for re-election on Nov. 5. The Republican primary for her seat in August was canceled after Luna was the only candidate to qualify.

Donna Mendell contributed.

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A Miami Beach, Florida, officer said he went into “dad mode” when he found a 2-year-old girl wandering alone in a building on Ocean Drive while her parents were allegedly out partying.

A picture captured the moment Officer Brandon Miller, of the Miami Beach Police Department, comforted the toddler he found screaming and searching for her parents at around 3 a.m. on Sept. 10.

“The little girl was just in her pamper and swimsuit top, completely soaked when we found her,” Miller said. “The person we received the call from actually works security across from the building and he said he could just hear her screaming, screaming, ‘Mama, papa.'”

Police body camera footage released Tuesday showed Miller and other officers responding to the building where the girl was found.

“Where’s mommy?” the officers ask the girl in the footage. “You’re ok, we’re here to help you, ok?”

At one point, Miller picks the girl up in his arms as officers begin searching the complex for the girl’s family.

“You alright?” he asks before the girl gives him a high-five.

Police said the couple was out clubbing and left the 2-year-old, as well as her 12, 11 and 5-year-old brothers alone, sleeping in the apartment they rented, for over four hours.

All four children were taken to the Department of Children and Families. The parents were arrested and then appeared in court, charged with child neglect.

Lentz and Hurd insisted they are good parents, saying the 12-year-old was supposed to be awake watching the younger three. They called this a horror story and a tragic mistake.

“It was a small, tragic mistake that I’m really hurt about and I don’t know what to do,” Lentz said. “We’ve been doing a lot of crying, a lot of crying, every time we see pictures we cry.”

While police searched for her parents, Miller comforted the toddler.

“I have a 2 and a 3-year-old at home and I guess I went into dad mode. I saw her, I thought about my son. I thought about my daughter,” he said.

Lentz and Hurd are desperate to get their children back.

“We are really good parents, we are good people, we don’t leave our children, this is not a regular thing for us,” Hurd said.

The judge said both parents are allowed to see their children while they’re in DCF custody. The couple is expected back in court in next month.

“I understand you want to come to Miami Beach on vacation, you want to have fun, but if you have your kids, obviously they take priority,” Miller said.

The incident happened on the third floor of a garage at 1567 San Remo Avenue after officials said it appeared the woman driving the SUV accidentally hit the accelerator.

Coral Gables Fire Rescue officials said the crash sent the SUV through a concrete barrier.

Aerial footage from Chopper 6 showed the white SUV over the edge of the garage and against a tree.

Officials said there was a woman inside the vehicle that was hanging halfway out but was being held up by the tree.

Rescue workers used ropes to bring the woman to safety, and she was taken to a nearby hospital in stable condition.

“Pretty sure that she was pretty shaken up, but looking at it from outside, she was fairly calm considering how dramatic this incident was,” Coral Gables Fire Rescue Division Chief Xavier Jones said.

An employee of a doctor’s office across the street said they heard the moment of impact.

“I basically heard a car peeling out, like they hit the gas by accident or trying to go really fast. I heard a really hard crash, so I thought it was a car crash between two cars,” Katiana Polanco said.

Officials brought a crane in to remove the vehicle and said structural engineers would be taking a look at the garage.

Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, faces charges of possessing a firearm despite a prior felony conviction and possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number. Additional and more serious charges are possible as the investigation continues and Justice Department prosecutors seek an indictment from a grand jury.

Routh appeared briefly in federal court in West Palm Beach, where he answered perfunctory questions about his work status and income. Shackled and wearing a blue jumpsuit, he smiled as he spoke with a public defender and reviewed documents ahead of the initial appearance. The lawyer declined to comment after the hearing ended.

Routh was arrested Sunday afternoon after authorities spotted a firearm poking out of shrubbery on the West Palm Beach golf course where Trump was playing. Prosecutors asked that he remain locked up as a flight risk. A federal magistrate set additional hearings for later this month.

Routh had been camped outside the golf course with food and a rifle for nearly 12 hours before a Secret Service agent confronted him and opened fire, according to court documents filed Monday.

An FBI affidavit accompanying a criminal complaint shows how law enforcement officials, during their investigation, used his cellphone information to place him at the golf course from 1:59 a.m. Sunday until about 1:31 p.m. A digital camera, a loaded rifle with scope and a plastic bag containing food was recovered from the area where Routh had positioned himself, according to the affidavit.

According to the court documents, Routh was stopped by officers about 45 minutes after he fled the golf course.

Officials said that Routh answered in the affirmative when officers asked him if he knew why he was being stopped. The vehicle was stopped at about 2:14 p.m. on northbound Interstate 95 in Martin County, which neighbors Palm Beach County.

Body camera footage released by the Martin County Sheriff’s Office on Monday showed Routh being taken into custody.

When he was detained had a calm, flat demeanor and showed little emotion when he was stopped, according Martin County Sheriff William Snyder.

“He never asked, ‘What is this about?’ Obviously, law enforcement with long rifles, blue lights, a lot going on. He never questioned it,” Snyder said.

The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office hosted a news conference with the Secret Service and FBI Monday afternoon. Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said the road around the golf club would remain closed until at least Tuesday and said the security level at Mar-a-Lago was “as high as it can be.”

U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida Markenzy Lapointe confirmed that a loaded SKS-style rifle with a scope was found at the course with its serial number “obliterated.” He added that Routh was prohibited from possessing a firearm based on his previous convictions.

Lapointe said the federal investigation into the apparent assassination attempt remains in its “early stages.”

“Together we will continue to work tirelessly to ensure accountability,” he told reporters.

Acting Director Ronald Rowe Jr. of the U.S. Secret Service added that Routh “did not have a line of sight to the former president” and did not fire at Secret Service agents before he fled the scene.

FBI Special Agent in Charge in Miami Jeff Veltri said Routh wouldn’t speak with investigators and invoked his right to an attorney.

Veltri said authorities requested search warrants seeking access to a video recording device, cell phones, a vehicle and electronics at Routh’s previous addresses.

Investigators also collected DNA that was sent to the FBI’s lab in Quantico, Virginia, and agents in the FBI’s Charlotte and Honolulu field offices are conducting interviews.

Routh was the subject of a closed investigation in 2019 when someone reported he was in possession of a firearm despite a prior felony conviction, but Veltri says the tipster would not confirm making the report.

The authorities did not immediately reveal any other details about Routh or allege a particular motive. But he left an online footprint that reveals shifting political views and intense outrage about world events.

“You are free to assassinate Trump,” Routh wrote of Iran in an apparently self-published 2023 book titled “Ukraine’s Unwinnable War,” which described the former president as a “fool” and “buffoon” for both the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riots and the “tremendous blunder” of leaving the Iran nuclear deal.

Routh wrote that he once voted for Trump and must take part of the blame for the “child that we elected for our next president that ended up being brainless.”

He also tried to recruit fighters for Ukraine to defend itself against Russia, and he had a website seeking to raise money and recruit volunteers to fight for Kyiv.

Court records obtained by The Associated Press and NBC News show Routh was convicted of multiple felony offenses, including two charges of possessing stolen goods in 2002 in North Carolina.

Speaking in a soft voice in court, he said that he was working and making around $3,000 a month, but has zero savings.

Routh said that he has no real estate or assets, aside from two trucks worth about $1,000, both located in Hawaii. He also said that he has a 25-year-old son, whom he sometimes supports.

He is being represented by a public defender and is due back in court for a bond hearing next Monday, Sept. 23.

The court documents also detail the charges and possible penalties Routh could face if convicted.

The charge of a convicted felon in possession of a firearm carries a possible 15-year sentence, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release.

A second charge of possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number carries a possible five-year prison sentence, a $250,000 fine and also three years supervised release.

Secret Service agents stationed a few holes up from where Trump was playing golf noticed the muzzle of an AK-style rifle sticking through the shrubbery that lines the course, roughly 400 yards away.

An agent fired and Routh dropped the rifle and fled in an SUV, leaving the firearm behind along with two backpacks, an aiming scope and a GoPro camera, authorities said. Routh was later stopped by law enforcement in a neighboring county.

It was the second apparent assassination attempt targeting Trump in as many months.

On July 13, a bullet grazed Trump’s ear during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Eight days later, Democratic President Joe Biden withdrew from the race, giving way for Vice President Kamala Harris to become the party’s nominee.

A mother accused of pushing her 1-year-old daughter out of a car in Hialeah, Florida, allegedly became enraged after the child spilled shampoo, according to a new arrest warrant.

Tasshay Mills, 29, was arrested last week on child abuse and child neglect charges in the incident that led to a missing child alert before the girl was found safe.

The incident happened Thursday night in the area of Northwest 37th Avenue and Northwest 54th Street.

Witnesses said they were at the intersection when the girl was found in the roadway.

According to the warrant, a woman who was in the car with Mills and her 1-year-old said the child spilled shampoo on the seat, which made Mills angry.

Mills hit the child multiple times as the child cried then became angrier, opened the rear door of the car and pushed the child out of the car, causing the girl to fall on the asphalt, the warrant said.

Mills drove away, leaving the child abandoned in the middle of the road, before she made a u-turn back to the scene to pick up the victim, the warrant said.

One of the witnesses had picked up the child and was contacting police when Mills returned and confronted the witness.

A Ring camera captured the encounter and showed the witness holding the girl while calling police.

“Hey, are you okay? It’s okay, I’m gonna sit down. Oh my God,” the woman says in the video. “Hello? I need you to come, I need you to come.”

Moments later, two vehicles pull up and the mother gets out of one vehicle and approaches the witness.

“I’m not giving you this baby!” the witness yells.

“That is my baby!” the mother responds as she grabs the child and walks away.

“Oh my God! I need you guys to come, she f—ing snatched the baby out of my hands!” the witness says into her phone.

One witness said the child had several pieces of gravel on her face and arm, was bleeding from her head and had trouble breathing, the warrant said.

The witnesses took photos of Mills’ license plate, which helped police identify her as the person involved, the warrant said.

A Hialeah Police detective contacted Mills and asked her to take the child to a hopital, and Mills agreed to but when she didn’t, the officer went to her address but Mills wasn’t there, the warrant said.

The detective again contacted Mills, who said she was waiting for transportation, but when the detective asked Mills for the child’s location so she could be checked out, Mills refused, the warrant said.

The woman who’d been in the car with Mills and her daughter contacted police and told them where Mills could be found, at an address in Miramar, and officers found her there with a friend.

The friend gave police the location in Opa-locka where the 1-year-old could be found, and after she was found the child was taken to Jackson North Medical Center to be checked out.

Mills was questioned by detectives and told them she’d pulled over and removed the child so she could clean the seat, but her other comments were redacted from the warrant.

Mills was initially arrested in Broward but was booked into a Miami-Dade jail on Tuesday, records showed. She went before a Miami-Dade judge on Wednesday who granted her a $7,500 bond and appointed her a public defender.

Gulf District Schools Superintendent Jim Norton confirmed that Chance Gainer, an 18-year-old wide receiver and defensive back at Port St. Joe High School, died following the away game at Liberty County High School. 

Norton described Gainer’s death as a “tragic loss” and said “our community is in profound sorrow.”

“He was a remarkable athlete, a beloved teammate, and an overall exceptional young man who loved Jesus,” Norton said in a statement from the district. “Chance was quiet but exuded captivating warmth and genuineness that drew people to him.”

Norton called Gainer’s death “perhaps the most heartbreaking situation imaginable for a family and a community.”

Port St. Joe High School Principal Sissy Godwin said in the statement that, “You may not have heard Chance in the crowd, but you could see his smile from across the room.”

Gainer was tended to on the field after he collapsed but did not have a pulse when EMTs first arrived at the scene, NBC News affiliate WJHG reported. Medical personnel were able to find a pulse before Gainer was rushed via ambulance to a hospital in Blountstown, Florida, where he later died.

The community gathered at the high school after Gainer’s death “just to be together,” Norton said, adding that it was “an indescribably heartwarming experience to watch the community pour their hearts of love on the family and Chance’s teammates and coaches.”

Gainer was playing defensive back when he collapsed, Tim Davis, the athletic director and assistant principal for Liberty County High School, where the game was being played, told Northwest Florida Daily News.

“He just went to the ground suddenly,” Davis told the outlet. He said coaches tended to Gainer on the field before calling EMS shortly thereafter.

In a Facebook post, Davis said it was “such an emotional night as the importance of football faded away.”

A verified GoFundMe page created to support Gainer’s family described the teen as a “star athlete” and a “well loved classmate.”

“A team, a school, a community and most importantly, a family is truly devastated by the loss of Chance,” the description on the GoFundMe page reads.

The Florida High School Athletic Association extended their “heartfelt sympathy” to Gainer’s family and the Port St. Joe community in a statement on Facebook.

According to WJHG, Gainer was an honors student with a better than 4.0 grade point average. He had recently visited Vanderbilt University where he discussed potentially attending college.

Port St. Joe High School was open Saturday afternoon to offer grief support to students and members of the community, the school said on Facebook. Extra counselors will be available Monday for those who need it.

Port St. Joe High School is located in the Florida Panhandle, a little over 100 miles southwest of Tallahassee. WJHG reported that the school’s upcoming game on Friday has been postponed.

Gainer’s is not the first death of a high school football player so far this season.

At least five high school football players and one middle school player have died this season alone. Of the high school players, three died either while they were practicing or shortly thereafter, one died during a preseason workout and another died after he was tackled and hit his head during a game.

The early-season deaths have prompted renewed calls for reform in the sport. 

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William Bryan, 70, of Muscle Shoals, Alabama, underwent surgery on Aug. 21, at Ascension Sacred Heart Emerald Coast hospital in Miramar, Florida, because of spleen abnormalities, according to a statement from the personal injury firm Zarzaur Law, based in Pensacola, Florida.

The Walton County Sheriff’s Office, in coordination with other authorities, said in a statement to NBC News on Wednesday it is investigating Bryan’s death.

William Bryan and his wife, Beverly Bryan, were in the Sunshine State visiting their rental property when he began experiencing “left-sided flank pain,” Beverly Bryan’s attorneys said.

He was admitted to the hospital for further evaluation, and although the Bryans were reluctant to have surgery in Florida, they were persuaded by Dr. Thomas Shaknovsky, a general surgeon, and Dr. Christopher Bacani, the hospital’s chief medical officer, that he could experience serious complications if he left the hospital’s care.

Both Shaknovsky and Bacani appeared to be involved in discussions, according to records, for how to proceed with Bryan’s medical treatment, Beverly Bryan’s lawyer, Joe Zarzaur, said in the statement.

Shaknovsky performed a hand-assisted laparoscopic splenectomy on William Bryan, Zarzaur said, which had deadly consequences.

“Dr. Shaknovsky removed Mr. Bryan’s liver and, in so doing, transected the major vasculature supplying the liver, causing immediate and catastrophic blood loss resulting in death,” the statement said. “The surgeon proceeded with labeling the removed liver specimen as a ‘spleen,’ and it wasn’t until following the death that it was identified that the organ removed was actually Mr. Bryan’s liver, as opposed to the spleen.’”

Shaknovsky told Beverly Bryan her husband’s spleen was so diseased that it was four times bigger than normal and it had moved to the other side of his body, Zarzaur alleges. But in a typical human body the liver exists on the opposite side of the abdomen and it is much larger than a spleen, he said.

Ascension Sacred Heart Emerald Coast hospital said in a statement Wednesday it’s “performing a thorough investigation” into Bryan’s death and takes allegations like the one made by his family “very seriously.”

“Ascension Sacred Heart Emerald Coast has a longstanding history of providing safe, quality care since the hospital opened its doors in 2003,” the statement said. “Patient safety is and remains our number one priority. Our thoughts and prayers remain with the family. We hold the privacy of our patients in the highest regard. We do not comment on specific patient cases or active litigation.”

According to the Cleveland Clinic, the typical human spleen is roughly the size of an avocado, and the typical human liver is roughly the size of a football.

“The family was informed that Mr. Bryan’s spleen, the root of his original symptom profile upon presentation to the hospital, was still in his body and appeared with a small cyst on its surface,” the statement said.

Shaknovsky had made a similar mistake in 2023, removing portions of a pancreas instead of an adrenal gland, in a case that was settled privately, Zarzaur said.

The employment status of Shaknovsky and Bacani wasn’t immediately clear on Wednesday afternoon. They were not reached for comment.

The Walton County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement that authorities are investigating the circumstances around Bryan’s death.

“Walton County Sheriff’s Office in conjunction with the District 1 Medical Examiner’s Office and Office of the State Attorney is reviewing the facts involving the death of William Bryan to determine if anything criminal took place.”

According to Zarzaur, Beverly Bryan doesn’t want Shaknovsky to perform any more surgeries.

“My husband died while helpless on the operating room table by Dr. Shaknovsky. I don’t want anyone else to die due to his incompetence at a hospital that should have known or knew he had previously made drastic, life-altering surgical mistakes,” according to the statement from her attorney.

 She is pushing for criminal and civil proceedings, Zarzaur said.

“Our goal at Zarzaur Law is to get justice for the Bryan family and make our community safer one case at a time,” he said. “While most doctors are doing excellent work to keep us healthy, there is a small percentage that should not be practicing medicine.”

According to a Wednesday afternoon search with the Florida Board of Medicine, Shaknovsky’s medical license is active. That is also the case for Bacani, records show.

NBC News’ Toby Lyles contributed

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The proposal to build courses at Jonathan Dickinson State Park in Southeast Florida is now put on hold after bipartisan pushback and protests across the state. But had the idea received state approval, and both Woods and Nicklaus would have been involved in course-design work.

“There were actually going to be at least two courses; one would be a Tiger course and one would be a Jack course,” Eugene Stearns, an attorney who represents Nicklaus, told NBC News.

He said Nicklaus, who has designed more than 300 courses across the world, would have done the work free of charge had the proposal become a reality. 

“For Jack, it was a charitable issue,” Stearns said. 

The proposal — which was first reported by the Tampa Bay Times — was part of changes to nine state parks that also included the addition of amenities like pickle ball courts and new lodges. Golf courses, however, were the biggest point of controversy from the proposal.

A DeSantis administration official said the plans were not finalized and they expected pushback. But things spiraled too quickly before they were ready when they were made public.

“We kind of lost the narrative on this one,” said a DeSantis administration official. “Leaks did not help.”

DeSantis never said he backed the plan, and he has stated he never “approved” it. It came out of an agency whose head the governor appoints.

The backlash ran the political spectrum, from Democrats to environmental groups to most state Republicans, including Sens. Rick Scott and Marco Rubio, along with Rep. Matt Gaetz.

“I know you love our Florida environment. We campaigned together on saving the environment in 2018. I saw your sincerity firsthand, up close,” Gaetz posted on X, directing his comments to DeSantis. “Please use your excellent leadership skills to kill this anti-Florida Man initiative. Keep our parks natural.”

There has also been pushback to past attempts to put golf corses in Florida state parks, with the general idea that people in the state are opposed to any additional development in those areas.

TGR Design, Wood’s Florida-based golf course design company, did not respond to multiple requests seeking comment, but four sources, including the DeSantis administration official, confirmed that it was involved in the early stages of the proposal.

The proposal was spearheaded by Folds of Honor, an Oklahoma-based non-profit organization that helps veterans. It uses golf, among other things, to raise scholarship money for families of members and first responders who were killed or disabled.

The group, which has floated the idea of golf courses in Florida state parks in the past, issued a statement last week confirming its involvement. It said the plan was to bring “world class” golf to Southeast Florida and donate proceeds to military and first-responder families.

The statement from the group was shared and amplified by nationally-known conservative firebrand Dan Bongino, who said the group personally assured him the proposal was not returning. 

“My good friends at ‘Folds of Honor’ have also assured me that they do not plan to move forward on this project,” Bongino, who lives in the area, wrote on social media. “They are great people, doing great things. They just didn’t understand the local passion for JD Park.”

A second lesser-known group, Delaware-based Tuskegee Dunes Foundation, earlier posted on a newly-created website that it was also behind the proposal, but it has since backed away.

“We have received clear feedback that Jonathan Dickinson State Park is not the right location,” the group posted. “We did not understand the local community landscape and appreciate the clarity. We will not pursue building in the beloved Jonathan Dickinson State Park.”

Little is known about that group, which shared an Oklahoma address with Folds of Honor, but the group in January did hire two Florida lobbyists, including Ryan Matthews, the former head of the state’s Department of Environmental Protection, which is the agency that would have had broad authority to move forward with the plan and whose leader DeSantis appoints.

DeSantis’ communications team initially supported the idea, even as public pushback grew.

In a statement last week, DeSantis press secretary Jeremy Redfern said that it was something former President Teddy Roosevelt, a well-known conservationist, would have supported.

“Teddy Roosevelt believed that public parks were for the benefit and enjoyment of the people, and we agree with him,” Redfern said. “No administration has done more than we have to conserve Florida’s natural resources, grow conservation lands, and keep our environment pristine. But it’s high time we made public lands more accessible to the public.”

On Wednesday, though, DeSantis distanced himself from the proposal.

“It was not approved by me. I never saw that,” he told reporters. “A lot of that stuff was just half-baked, and it was not ready for prime time.”

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Former Okaloosa County deputy Eddie Duran’s “actions were reasonable and appropriate given the information he was provided” and “what he feared to be a potentially dangerous domestic situation,” John Whitaker said in a statement.

“For months now Mr. Duran, his wife, and his six children have been waiting for this opportunity to tell a jury not so much what happened on May 3rd but rather why it happened,” Whitaker said. “In hindsight everyone, especially Mr. Duran, wishes with all their hearts that this incident had never occurred.”

Florida May 31

Florida sheriff's office fires deputy who fatally shot Black airman at home

Florida May 9

Florida sheriff's office releases bodycam video of fatal shooting of Air Force airman by deputy

Duran, 38, shot Air Force Senior Airman Roger Fortson multiple times on May 3, moments after Fortson, 23, opened the door of his Fort Walton Beach apartment. Fortson, who was home alone, was holding a gun pointed to the ground, body camera video shows. Duran had been responding to a call of a domestic disturbance.

Duran was charged with manslaughter with a firearm Friday, more than three months after he fatally shot Fortson and days after Sheriff Eric Aden was re-elected. The felony charge carries a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison. Duran turned himself in Monday.

Circuit Judge Terrance Ketchel set his bond at $100,000 and other conditions, including that he not have contact with Fortson’s family or possess a firearm, Assistant State Attorney Greg Marcille said. As of Thursday afternoon, Duran was no longer listed as an inmate on the website of the Escambia County Jail, where he had been detained.

Fortson’s mother, Chantemekki Fortson, who has criticized the sheriff’s office and how long it took the state attorney to announce whether Duran would face charges, said she was disappointed he was released.

On the day of the shooting, Duran had been directed to apartment 1401, where Fortson lived, by a woman at the apartment complex, body camera video shows. Fortson’s family and their attorneys have insisted Duran went to the wrong apartment, because Fortson was home alone with his small dog on a video call with his girlfriend when he was killed. Records of 911 dispatch calls show deputies had never been called to his apartment before but had been called to a nearby unit several times in the previous year, including once for a domestic disturbance.

Fortson was stationed at Hurlburt Field Air Force Base in Okaloosa County. The Fortson family is from DeKalb County, Georgia.

The body camera video also shows that when Duran arrives at Fortson’s apartment, he stands outside and listens for more than 15 seconds, but no voices inside can be heard on his body camera. Duran then knocks on Fortson’s door without identifying himself. He moves to the side of the door before he knocks again and announces himself. Seconds later, he moves in front of the door, knocks and again says: “Sheriff’s office. Open the door!” Fortson answers the door with a gun in his right hand pointed at the ground, and Duran shoots him almost immediately. After he shoots him multiple times and Fortson collapses, he instructs him to drop his gun.

About two weeks after his killing, Fortson’s girlfriend told WSB-TV of Atlanta, where she lives, that they had been making weekend plans when Duran knocked on the door. She said that neither she nor Fortson was aware Duran was law enforcement and that they had not heard him identify himself. Fortson’s girlfriend, who has asked not to be identified, his family and their attorneys never disputed he was armed and have said he retrieved his legally owned gun to protect himself.

The same month, Ben Crump, the prominent civil rights attorney who is representing the Fortson family, released video that Fortson’s girlfriend recorded in the moments after he was shot. He can be heard groaning and saying, “I can’t breathe.” A deputy yells back at him, “Stop moving!” The phone is pointed at the ceiling.

“Nothing can ever bring Roger back, and our fight is far from over, but we are hopeful that this arrest and these charges will result in real justice for the Fortson family,” Crump said after Duran was charged.

Duran’s attorney rebutted the Fortson family’s account in his statement Thursday, saying that after Duran announced himself, he “heard a response from a voice inside the apartment which featured an expletive questioning why the police were at his door.” He also said Duran drew his weapon only after Fortson confronted him.

The outcome would have been different, Whitaker said, if “Fortson had not decided to open his front door and step towards a law enforcement officer while armed with a deadly weapon.”

After the charges were announced last week, the sheriff’s office said that it stood by its decision to terminate Duran as a result of its administrative internal affairs investigation and that it “has been fully accountable and transparent,” including by releasing the body camera video and other records and making numerous public statements. The department said it also continues “to wish Mr. Fortson’s family comfort and peace” as Duran’s case proceeds.

The sheriff’s office had initially said Duran “reacted in self defense.”

On May 31, nearly a month after the killing, Aden announced that Duran had been fired following an administrative internal affairs investigation that concluded “Fortson did not make any hostile, attacking movements, and therefore” Duran’s “use of deadly force was not objectively reasonable” under sheriff’s office policy.

Aden said in a statement May 31, the day the sheriff’s office released the findings of its investigation: “The objective facts do not support the use of deadly force as an appropriate response to Mr. Fortson’s actions. Mr. Fortson did not commit any crime. By all accounts, he was an exceptional airman and individual.”

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Video shared on social media shows the moments a Florida road rage incident took a dangerous turn with a man pulling a gun on another driver.

Port St. Lucie Police said the incident happened Tuesday when 63-year-old Paul Slane drove his black Mercedes around a truck while pointing a handgun at the two people inside, then stopped in front of the truck in a roadway.

The video, apparently taken by the passenger of the truck shows Slane get out of the Mercedes and approach the truck with a gun in his hand.

“Get out of the f—ing car now!” he yells in the video.

“Should I shoot him?” says the man who’s driving the truck, who also appears to have a handgun in his hand.

“Get out of that f—ing car!” Slane says in the video. “I’m telling you right now!”

“You were the one that started it,” the truck’s driver responds.

Slane then reaches into the truck and swipes at the woman’s phone.

“Give me the f—ing phone,” he says. “Get out of the f—ing car now…out of the car!”

“Who the f— are you bro?” the woman says. “You’re getting arrested, you know this, right?”

Slane then walks back to his Mercedes and drives away.

Police said Slane was later arrested on multiple charges including aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, attempted armed robbery and simple battery.

The finding comes nearly a year after The Associated Press published body-camera footage following a Fourth of July crash in which Joseph Ruddy was accused of striking another vehicle, leaving the scene and improperly seeking to leverage his position as an assistant U.S. attorney in Tampa to blunt the fallout.

In the footage, a disoriented Ruddy could barely stand up straight, slurred his words and leaned on the tailgate of his pickup to keep his balance. But he was under control enough to hand over his Justice Department credentials to officers from two jurisdictions dispatched to investigate the crash.

“What are you trying to hand me?” a Tampa police officer asked. “You realize when they pull my body-worn camera footage and they see this, this is going to go really bad.”

A one-page summary published Wednesday by the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General doesn’t name Ruddy but substantiated allegations that an assistant U.S. attorney “engaged in misuse of position” when he provided his work credentials unsolicited. And last year, the Justice Department confirmed that it was referring Ruddy’s case to the inspector general’s office.

Investigators also found that the assistant U.S. attorney cited in their report “engaged in conduct prejudicial to the government” by driving drunk and then leaving the scene of a crash after hitting another vehicle. The report was referred to the Justice Department’s Professional Misconduct Review Unit for appropriate action.

After the AP inquired about Ruddy’s work status last year, he was removed from several cases but the Justice Department confirmed on Wednesday that he remains an assistant U.S. attorney. Neither Ruddy nor his attorney responded to messages seeking comment Wednesday.

“While we cannot comment on specific personnel matters, the Department of Justice holds all personnel, including its assistant U.S. attorneys, to the highest standards of personal and professional conduct,” the department said in a statement. “We take all allegations of misconduct by Department personnel seriously and take appropriate action where warranted.”

Ruddy is known in law enforcement circles as one of the architects of Operation Panama Express, or PANEX — a task force launched in 2000 to target cocaine smuggling at sea, combining resources from the U.S. Coast Guard, FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Historically, PANEX-generated intelligence contributes to more than 90% of U.S. Coast Guard drug interdictions at sea. Between 2018 and 2022, the Coast Guard removed or destroyed 888 metric tons of cocaine worth an estimated $26 billion and detained 2,776 suspected smugglers, a senior Coast Guard official said in congressional testimony last year. The bulk of those cases were handled by Ruddy and his colleagues in Tampa, where PANEX is headquartered.

A former Ironman triathlete, the 70-year-old Ruddy enjoys a reputation among attorneys for hard work and toughness in the courtroom. Among his biggest cases were some of the early extraditions from Colombia of top smugglers for the feared Cali cartel.

But the majority of cases handled out of his office involve mostly poor fishermen from Central and South America who make up the drug trade’s lowest rungs. Often, the drugs aren’t even bound for U.S. shores and the constitutional guarantees of due process that normally apply in criminal cases inside the U.S. are only loosely observed.

Despite his own admissions and witness testimony, state prosecutors never charged Ruddy with hit-and-run and dismissed charges of driving under the influence with property damage — a first-degree misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in prison.

Ruddy, whose blood-alcohol level tested at 0.17%, twice the legal limit, was instead allowed late last year to plead no contest to reckless driving, a second-degree misdemeanor, and given 12 months’ probation.

“We had no witnesses who could testify to seeing Mr. Ruddy behind the wheel during the incident, which is a key factor in proving DUI cases,” said Erin Maloney, spokeswoman for the state attorney’s office in Hillsborough County, which includes Tampa. “This outcome ensures the defendant is still held accountable.”

On the night of his arrest, Ruddy was accused of sideswiping an SUV whose driver had been waiting to turn at a red light, clipping a side mirror and tearing off another piece of the vehicle that lodged in the fender of Ruddy’s pickup.

“He never even hit brakes,” a witness told police. “He just kept going and he was swerving all the way up the road. I’m like, ‘No, he’s going to hurt somebody.’”

When officers arrived at Ruddy’s home in the Tampa suburb of Temple Terrace, they found him hunched over his pickup, holding his keys and using the vehicle for support, a police report said. Officers noted that he had urinated on himself, was unable to walk without help and failed a field sobriety test.

“I understand we might be having a better night,” Tampa police patrolman Taylor Grant said before looking at the business card.

“Why didn’t you stop?” the officer asked.

“I didn’t realize it was that serious,” Ruddy said in a slurred response.

“You hit a vehicle and you ran,” the officer said. “You ran because you’re drunk. You probably didn’t realize you hit the vehicle.”

The doctor, Ishwari Prasad, was accused of not immediately stopping the colonoscopy when the patient began yelling during the procedure at a surgery center in Tampa on June 5, 2023, according to an administrative complaint filed by the state Health Department.

In a separate colonoscopy performed the same day, Prasad delegated part of the procedure to a surgical tech who is not a licensed doctor, the complaint alleges.

Prasad uses assistive hearing devices to communicate with his surgical team and was not wearing them during either of the procedures, according to the complaint.

Prasad did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

The complaint, filed in October, accuses Prasad of two counts of medical malpractice. The minimum standard of care requires doctors to immediately stop performing a colonoscopy if a patient is not fully sedated, the document says.

According to a settlement reached this year, Prasad was fined $7,500 and restricted from performing gastroenterology procedures. He neither admitted nor denied the allegations, according to the settlement.

According to Health Department records, Prasad began practicing medicine the early 1980s in New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, specializing in gastroenterology and internal medicine. His license in Florida was issued in 1990, according to the records.

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Gaetz defeated Navy veteran Aaron Dimmock, who was backed by McCarthy, R-Calif., in the deeply Republican 1st District on the Florida Panhandle.

McCarthy and his allies had targeted Gaetz, along with other Republicans who voted to oust him from the speakership late last year. McCarthy was able to claim only one win, helping to defeat House Freedom Caucus Chairman Bob Good, R-Va., this summer. Reps. Nancy Mace of South Carolina and Eli Crane of Arizona also fended off primary challenges after they voted to oust McCarthy. 

A McCarthy-aligned super PAC called Florida Patriots PAC spent $3.5 million on ads against Gaetz, according to the ad tracking firm AdImpact. The group ran ads referring to an ongoing Ethics Committee investigation into Gaetz over allegations of drug use and sexual misconduct. Gaetz has dismissed the investigation as “frivolous.”

But in a sign that Gaetz was in a strong position heading into the primary, Florida Patriots PAC stopped spending in the race three weeks ago.

Gaetz also got a boost from former President Donald Trump, who endorsed him. Gaetz touted the endorsement on the airwaves, with one TV ad featuring audio of Trump saying Gaetz is “a very good person, and he’s a very capable man. You ever watch this guy on television? Like a machine. He’s great. He loves Florida, and he loves the country.”

McCarthy is betting his effort was not completely in vain, suggesting that it could have dinged Gaetz if he decides to run for statewide office someday. 

“I don’t think he’ll ever be able to run for governor like he wants to,” McCarthy said at last month’s Republican convention, according to The Independent.

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Kai Trump, the 17-year-old granddaughter of the former president, took to Instagram Sunday to announce her verbal commitment to play golf at the University of Miami.

“I am super excited to be a Cane and represent the University of Miami. Gooo Canes!” she posted.

The teen is the former president’s eldest granddaughter and daughter of Donald Trump Jr. and his ex-wife, Vanessa Trump.

She thanked her parents and her grandfather in the post.

“I would like to thank my mom, Vanessa, and my dad, Don, for always supporting me through my journey. I would also like to thank my great team for getting me to this point,” she said. “I would like to thank my Grandpa for giving me access to great courses and tremendous support.”

Kai Trump is an avid golfer and in addition to her Instagram, has a YouTube channel dedicated to her love of the sport.

In a video on YouTube channel about getting to know her, Trump says she started playing golf at the age of 2 thanks to her mother. She said she wants to become a professional golfer and that it’s a huge goal of hers to make it to that level.

She was seen playing in the ProAm of the LIV Golf Team Championship at the Trump National Doral Golf Club in 2022, and has discussed playing with her grandfather, including during her speech at the Republican National Convention last month.

“He calls me during the middle of the school day to ask how my golf game is going and tells me all about his, but then I have to remind him that I’m in school and I’ll have to call him back later,” she said at the convention. “When we play golf together if I’m not on his team, he’ll try to get inside of my head and he’s always surprised that I don’t let him get to me. But I have to remind him, I’m a Trump, too.”

His windshield just confirmed it: When the dew point drops in the dead of the night, it’s prime time for pythons.

“I catch more pythons when that happens,” Aycock explained. “It’ll make things start moving.”

Aycock, a contractor with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, has hunted Burmese pythons in the Everglades for 11 years. The retired U.S. Army veteran divides his time between North Carolina, the Florida Panhandle and Homestead, Florida, where he keeps a recreational vehicle.

He always participates in the Florida Python Challenge, hosted by the wildlife commission to incentivize people to track down invasive Burmese pythons that thrive in Florida’s preserved wetlands. This year’s 10-day challenge ends at 5 p.m. Sunday.

The timing is intentional: Pythons typically hatch from their small, leathery eggs each August before wriggling away into the swamp.

Aycok loves snakes. He’s also passionate about preserving the Everglades and understands the “greater ecological issue with these pythons,” a prolific apex predator threatening Florida’s native snakes and mammals.

These pythons are notoriously hard to spot in the wild and determining their numbers is difficult, but the United States Geological Survey conservatively estimates tens of thousands have spread from South Florida. With each female laying clutches of 29-50 eggs on average, their impact has been devastating.

In one 2012 study, the USGS found populations of raccoons had declined by 99.3%, opossums by 98.9% and bobcats by 87.5% since the early 2000s. Controlling this voracious snake species, scientists say, is a critical goal.

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More than 600 hunters participated in this year’s challenge, hoping to top last year’s total of 209 pythons killed. The grand prize winner, who humanely kills the most, receives $10,000.

The competition is designed to raise awareness and has succeeded on that score, attracting celebrities and inspiring reality television shows.

But the need for python control is so much bigger. Since 2017, Florida has been paying some 100 contractors to round them up year-round in a project shared by the wildlife agency and the South Florida Water Management District.

Through 2023, more than 18,000 pythons have been removed from the wild, with about 11,000 taken out by contractors like Aycock.

It’s a decent supplemental income — $13 an hour while driving the backroads, or $18 an hour if they walk into the swamp — and contractors also get paid per snake: $50 for the first 4 feet (1.2 meters) in length, plus $25 per subsequent foot.

“You’re not going to make a living doing this full-time. There’s no way you could do it,” Aycock said.

Florida prohibits hunters from using firearms to kill pythons, and they aren’t venomous, so capturing them is very much a hands-on exercise.

Aycock goes into the wetlands to check on known hatching spots and grabs at them when he can. But mostly he drives down lonely roads in the dead of night, training a spotlight into the swamps to the sounds of croaking frogs.

These bug-filled drives are like therapy sessions for Aycock. Sometimes he brings along fellow members of the Swamp Apes, a veterans therapy nonprofit he belongs to that catches invasive snakes in the wild, clears overgrown trails and works toward environmental preservation.

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The group’s founder, Tom Rahill, and two other Swamp Apes followed behind as an Associated Press team rode along with Aycock and another Swamp Ape member during this year’s challenge.

Rahill is a contractor too, and said he knows the swamp so well that he can smell a python’s distinct “musk” odor and can feel in his gut if the night is ripe.

There is an art to catching a snake, these men say, and it varies from hunter to hunter. Some use a snake hook and then jump on them before shoving them into bags. Rahill prefers using his hands if the snake is docile enough.

“Instead of jumping on the snake, you just kind of gently get up to it and then just pick it up,” Rahill said. “Then you can stroke their belly, their belly scales, and you can just pick up a wild python and do this.”’

But Burmese pythons, constrictors that have no natural predators and can swallow animals whole, aren’t always calm.

Aycock described the time when he caught a 17-foot python: He and his wife had to dance around the snake before he could wrangle the animal and control its head to keep the predator from lunging at them. Even then, a hunter needs a helper to keep the snake uncoiled until it calms down and can be double-bagged to prevent escape.

Once the snakes are caught, the hunters have 24 hours to deliver them to the wildlife agency. It is illegal for any person other than a licensed contractor to transport a live, invasive snake.

Aycock takes them home first to be euthanized with a captive bolt, which shows it has been “humanely killed.”

“That’s the part of the job that I really just … hate,” Aycock said. “I hate having to kill snakes.”

On this night, the AP called it quits long after midnight, after Aycock came up empty-handed. An hour later, Rahill spotted a hatchling.

That’s the way snake hunting goes. Aycock said he has gone months without finding one. But on a lucky night, hunters get a burst of joy when they spot the oily sheen of a Burmese python hiding in the high grass.

“I think I get an adrenaline rush every time,” Aycock said. “When it’s lunging toward me, it’s a good day.”

Police were called to the Emperors Gentleman Club around 4:30 a.m. Tuesday after a man in a truck drove through a group of people outside the club and then rolled into it, Telemundo Tampa reported.

Witnesses told police the driver, later identified as Dylan Fogle, 25, had been kicked out of the establishment but “then returned to drive the truck into a group of people standing at the entrance,” officials said.

The driver was hospitalized in critical condition.

“This is an unbelievably tragic and completely avoidable incident,” Tampa Police Chief Lee Bercaw said. “We are thinking of all those impacted including the innocent bystanders who witnessed this horrific ordeal.”

Fogle was charged with first-degree murder, two counts of attempted first-degree murder, vehicular homicide, two counts of DUI with serious injury and DUI manslaughter.

Boaters found the package on Monday in mangroves off Panther Key near Everglades City, Collier County Sheriff’s Office officials said.

The package contained 56 pounds of cocaine separated into 25 individually wrapped kilograms, with an estimated street value of $625,000.

Collier Sheriff Kevin Rambosk posed for a photo with the cocaine, which was posted on the sheriff’s office Facebook page.

“We appreciate the help of Good Samaritans in our community who saw something unusual and contacted law enforcement,” Rambosk said.

The bundle was covered in barnacles, indicating it had been in the water for a long while, the sheriff’s office said.

Detectives are trying to determine where the cocaine came from, but said it likely washed in with the tides from the east coast from recent storms.

Large packages of drugs ranging from marijuana to hashish to cocaine have been discovered floating in the waters off Miami and the Florida Keys recently, officials said.

Earlier this month, Hurricane Debby blew $1 million worth of cocaine onto a Florida Keys Beach.

Officials in Collier County said Monday’s find is uncommon for today but “reminiscent of the ‘square grouper’ marijuana smuggling days in Collier County during the 1970s and 1980s.”

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What it’s not known for is kids.

Yet the area that is home to The Villages has become the fastest-growing metro for young children in the U.S. this decade.

The number of children age 14 and younger has grown this decade by 18.4% in the Wildwood-The Villages metro area. The big reason is the working-age population has risen by 19.1%, making it also the fastest-growing metro area in the U.S. for that age group this decade, according to population estimates released this summer by the U.S. Census Bureau.

“Someone has to provide services to that growing population of retirees and many of these workers will be young adults with children who live in the county,” said Stefan Rayer, population program director at the Bureau of Economic and Business Research at the University of Florida in Gainesville.

Those workers include lawn care providers, plumbers, electricians, financial advisers, nurses, construction workers, real estate agents, roofers and physical therapists for a retirement community that has grown from a remote and rural enclave to one of the fastest-growing places in the U.S. since the 1990s.

The Wildwood-The Villages metro area had more than 151,500 residents last year, most of whom are retirees, up from 130,000 residents in 2020.

Because of the demographics of the area, raising children has it challenges.

Morgan Philion, 31, has to drive to a neighboring central Florida county for obstetrician visits or to take her 2-year-old son to a pediatric dentist since there aren’t any appointments available locally. When they want to visit a children’s museum, they drive 80 miles (128 kilometers) southwest along Interstate 75 to Tampa.

“Storytime” at the local public library has become a lifeline for Philion and other young families in the Wildwood-The Villages metro area.

“It’s really hard finding things to do, and this is the one activity they offer kids,” Philion said.

During weekdays, librarians including Anita Stevenson lead anywhere from a dozen to two dozen preschoolers in songs about reading, shooting bubbles from a handheld device and telling stories with titles like “Betty Goes Bananas” and “Cock-a-Doodle Quack! Quack!”

“There are a lot of new families moving in,” said Stevenson, pointing toward recently built apartment buildings down the street.

Eldresah St. Fleurant, 28, her husband and two young daughters were among those families who moved into the apartments by the library after having difficulty finding a home, since many communities in the area were geared only toward people age 55 and older.

“It’s good and it’s bad,” St. Fleurant said about raising children in the area.

On the one hand, the break-neck growth offers countless job opportunities and new store openings, but the county also lacks family-friendly facilities like an urgent care center for children. The library’s “Storytime” is an exception.

“If you don’t come to something like this, you’re not going to find young families cruising around here,” she said.

Sarah Feeney’s 3-year-old son wears hearing aids. She said it was “a nightmare” finding an audiologist who sees children in the Wildwood-The Villages area since all the medical services “are geared toward the older generation.” Now drive 60 miles (96.5 kilometers) along the Florida Turnpike to Orlando for those appointments. They also struggled to find a church with youth programming.

Despite all that, the 40-year-old has enjoyed living in Wildwood since moving less than a year ago from St. Petersburg, Florida.

“It’s less crowded. It’s less stressful and it’s more manageable,” said Feeney, who also has a 5-month-old boy.

No one younger than age 19 can live in The Villages, and at least one member of the household must be 55 or older. Because of the age restriction, the growth of young families has been in some small communities just outside The Villages, like Wildwood and Oxford.

Recognizing the youth surge, The Villages recently opened Middleton, a master-planned residential development adjacent to the retirement community geared toward employees and their families.

For older residents of The Villages like 60-year-old Chris Stanley, the influx of families is a breath of fresh air, but she worries about the growing lack of affordable housing and overcrowded schools. The school district has 13 schools for its 9,400 students. The highly rated Villages Charter School is limited primarily to the children of employees.

“We are here until we croak. We’re frogs,” Stanley joked. “We built this enormous infrastructure here and we need people to run it. If we don’t have young people here with children who are able to afford living here, and can pay for daycare and housing, we have a real problem here.”

The Wildwood-The Villages’ median age last year was 68, the nation’s oldest, but it has declined from 68.4 at the start of the decade because of the youth infusion. Meanwhile, the median age in the U.S. crept up this decade from 38.5 to 39.1.

Children still represent a small percentage of the county’s population — 7.2% of Sumter County’s population last year — compared to more than 21% for the entire U.S. But it’s growing, up from 6% a decade earlier.

The growth starkly contrasts what’s going on nationwide, as the number of U.S. children age 14 and under declined by 3.3% this decade. The largest U.S. metro areas — New York, Los Angeles and Chicago — have lost a combined 614,000 children since 2020.

Sumter County Commissioner Andrew Bilardello has been around the area long enough to remember when it just had a single traffic light. Back then, in the 1980s, students graduating from high school either joined the military, went away to college or moved within the state to Jacksonville, Orlando and Tampa for jobs.

Few young people stayed, Bilardello said, so he is happy to see the growth this decade in children and working-age people in a community with America’s oldest residents.

“We want to keep young people here,” Bilardello said. “That is our future.”

___

Follow Mike Schneider on the social platform X: @MikeSchneiderAP.

Kenneth Pinkney, 47, of Fort Lauderdale, was ordered to serve 37 months behind bars followed by three years of supervised release, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida said in a statement.

“No one should live in fear of being targeted because of their religious beliefs,” First Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Davis said said in the attorney’s office statement. “Everyone, including federal employees, have the right to carry out their duties safely. 

Pinkney’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday night. The victim was not identified.

Prosecutors said Pinkney displayed an aggressive demeanor toward the carrier while she was delivering mail in Broward County on Oct. 9, 2023, two days after Hamas militants’ incursion into Israel, a day that would spark war and rekindle religious and ethnic divisions across the globe.

The carrier, identified only as a 47-year-old woman of Muslim faith, took note, prosecutors and investigators said in the criminal complaint filed against Pinkney.

On Oct. 24, as the uniformed woman was about 2 and a half hours into her delivery day and near her USPS delivery truck, Pinkney approached her as he rode a bicycle and made a hand gesture that indicated a gun aimed at her, according to the complaint.

At first, the woman said, she thought the man needed something and she asked if she could help, according to the complaint, which was bolstered by an affidavit from an FBI special agent.

The man stopped and repeatedly said she should leave the country before tapping the back of her head with two fingers in the gesture of a gun, the complaint alleged. “Go back to your country,” the defendant allegedly told the carrier, according to the U.S. attorney’s statement on Friday.

She got inside the truck, where Pinkney grabbed her neck and, after a struggle, pulled off her hijab, the U.S. attorney’s office said.

The woman was able to get out of the vehicle, where the struggle continued, according to prosecutors. Pinkney allegedly struck the woman multiple times, and she grabbed onto his shirt and ripped off a piece that prosecutors later said matched the defendant’s clothing.

When the woman was able to establish some distance she told the defendant she was calling 911, and the defendant said he was as well, according to the criminal complaint. He waited a few minutes for authorities to arrive but left before they did, according to the document.

His call helped authorities track him down, the filing said.

Prosecutors alleged that during the attack, Pinkney also spat on the victim, called her a “terrorist” and made anti-Muslim comments. The woman was treated for pain and scratches on her face, the complaint indicated.

“The FBI is unwavering in our efforts to protect those who are targeted based on race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability status,” FBI Miami field office Special Agent in Charge Jeffrey B. Veltri said in a statement. “We will continue to bring those to justice who commit hate crimes.

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New dashcam video shows a wild police chase in Miami-Dade County, Florida that ended in a crash that sent a box truck onto its side and left a suspect facing charges.

The incident happened back on Aug. 1 as authorities were following a black GMC Denali pickup truck that had been reported stolen in Broward.

The video, obtained by NBC6 on Thursday, shows authorities following the truck as it made its way on Interstate 95 south in Miami-Dade, then onto the Palmetto Expressway.

The truck exits at Northwest 7th Avenue and pulls over as authorities shout instructions to the driver.

“Driver, lower all the windows! Driver!” an officer yells before the truck suddenly speeds off.

According to an arrest report, the Denali hit a white Mercedes then continued to flee on the eastbound Palmetto.

The video shows the truck speeding through traffic, narrowly missing other vehicles as it drove on the inside shoulder.

As the Denali approached the Golden Glades Interchange, it crashed into three other vehicles then went onto the wrong side of the road where it hit the box truck, causing the box truck to roll over.

The driver lost control and the truck came to a stop on the grassy shoulder of the entrance ramp of State Road 91 from Northwest 7th Avenue.

The arrest report said the driver got out of the Denali as authorities approached at gunpoint but he refused to stop.

“Let me see your f—ing hands!” an officer shouts at him in the video, before two officers take him into custody.

Authorities arrested the driver, 35-year-old Joseph Samuel Gianino, on multiple charges including aggravated fleeing and eluding causing injury, grand theft of a motor vehicle, leaving the scene of a crash and driving with a suspended license.

The report said Gianino was already on probation for fleeing and eluding.

Police are trying to identify a man who tried to burn down a Florida family-owned restaurant with a Molotov cocktail in late June.

The restaurant has been here for over two decades and the owner doesn’t know why anybody would try to burn it down.

“I was in shock – we’ve been here for 22 years and never had anything like this happen to us,” owner Danielle Thomas said. “We’re a well-known family-owned restaurant, we just never had any issues with anybody or anything.”

Fortunately, the restaurant wasn’t damaged.

“If the place caught on fire then all my employees would be out of work,” Thomas said. “They’ve been with me for many years, 15 years most of them. And they really don’t have anywhere to go, and it would have been very hard for a lot of people.”

But there was some damage outside the restaurant.

“The floor caught on fire, water bucket caught on, a couple of things caught on fire, but thank God the bottle never broke, so it didn’t spread the gasoline, so it eventually went out,” Thomas said.

It happened at around 4:45 in the morning in late June, so investigators may be short on witnesses. But detectives have video and froze some images of the man they’re trying to identify and the red Toyota Corolla he was driving.

Thomas asks anybody who recognizes anything to report it to police or Crime Stoppers.

“The car is pretty clear. The picture and the cars are still around so they should be able to catch the car with the driver,” she said.

The business only closed for a few hours the morning it happened while investigators did their work. The number to Crime Stoppers is 954-493-TIPS.

U.S. Border Patrol officials said Debby is responsible for blowing 25 packages containing more than $1 million worth of cocaine onto a beach.

The cocaine, around 70 pounds in total, was found by a good Samaritan, who contacted authorities.

Border Patrol officials seized the drugs.

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Bodycam video shows the moments a man was pulled onto a dock after being hit by a propeller in the waters off the Florida Keys. 

The operator of that vessel said he was running under the bridge when he saw a person surface directly in front of his boat.

After he struck Bender, the operator stopped and brought both divers on board before driving to Key Haven Boat Ramp, where emergency response crews took Bender and flew him to a Miami hospital at around 8:09 a.m., according to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office.

Bender suffered lacerations to his head, neck, right arm and shoulder, the incident report details. He was breathing and “barely responsive.”

From interviews, Moeller gathered that “Steven and Sean had taken the inflatable dinghy from [their vessel, the Grady White,] to an area under the Boca Chica Bridge and were lobstering.”

The operator of the Stratos said he saw a dinghy “approximately two pilings over from where he struck the snorkeler,” and that it did not have a dive flag. 

But a witness on another boat reportedly told a different deputy that there was a dive flag displayed. 

When Moeller went to investigate and take pictures of the scene, the dinghy had been moved back to the Grady White by witnesses on that third boat.

The operator of the vessel does not currently face any charges in the crash.

The first day of lobster mini-season also saw at least two boats capsize and one catch fire in Miami-Dade County.

In Monroe County, four people were rescued from a vessel that was taking on water near Mile Marker 39 and a diver found a “package of suspected cocaine.”

The investigation continues.

Tara Alexis Sykes was taken into custody on Friday and charged with attempted murder while engaged in aggravated child abuse, the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office said in a Facebook post on Monday.

An arrest report alleged that Sykes communicated with her 10-year-old daughter on the online gaming platform Roblox and instructed the girl “on various methods to kill the infant.” The court documents said Sykes is related to the 2-month-old.

“Sykes instructed the 10-year-old to drown the infant in the bathtub, burn the infant with scalding water, and drop the infant on the floor to kill the infant,” the sheriff’s office said.

On Thursday, the sheriff’s office was contacted by Gulf Coast Kids House about a 2-month-old infant who had suffered serious injuries after being dropped on the kitchen floor by the 10-year-old. Gulf Coast Kids House is a child advocacy center where forensic interviews and medical exams of children suspected of abuse are conducted.

The arrest report alleged that the 10-year-old picked up the infant “after he became fussy and was walking into the kitchen with him to find an adult” when the baby fell. The foster father picked up the baby and took him to the hospital where doctors said he had a skull fracture.

Morgan Lewis, a spokesperson with the sheriff’s office, said the 2-month-old is expected to survive.

The 10-year-old allegedly said during a forensic interview that she dropped the baby “on the floor at the direction of her mother,” the arrest report stated. The girl said she was “terrified of her mother and felt that if she did not follow through with the instructions, Sykes would harm or kill her as well,” the report said.

An investigation into the incident also revealed that Sykes had allegedly instructed the 10-year-old on “how to kill the adults the 10-year-old was temporarily living with by cutting their throats with a knife while they slept and burning their house by dousing bed sheets with aerosol spray and setting them on fire,” the sheriff’s office said.

The 10-year-old allegedly doused the sheets but was not able to carry out the instructions, according to authorities.

Sheriff Chip W. Simmons said he was “truly disturbed” by the allegations “and the thought that anyone could think like this, let alone instruct these acts to be carried out.”

“I have been in Law Enforcement for over 40 years and have never seen anything quite like this,” he said in a statement. “There is something really wrong with her.”

Sykes is being held without bond. The sheriff’s office spokesperson said they do not foresee the 10-year-old being charged. The case remains under investigation.

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Tara Alexis Sykes was taken into custody on Friday and charged with attempted murder while engaged in aggravated child abuse, the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office said in a Facebook post on Monday.

An arrest report alleged that Sykes communicated with her 10-year-old daughter on the online gaming platform Roblox and instructed the girl “on various methods to kill the infant.” The court documents said Sykes is related to the 2-month-old.

“Sykes instructed the 10-year-old to drown the infant in the bathtub, burn the infant with scalding water, and drop the infant on the floor to kill the infant,” the sheriff’s office said.

On Thursday, the sheriff’s office was contacted by Gulf Coast Kids House about a 2-month-old infant who had suffered serious injuries after being dropped on the kitchen floor by the 10-year-old. Gulf Coast Kids House is a child advocacy center where forensic interviews and medical exams of children suspected of abuse are conducted.

The arrest report alleged that the 10-year-old picked up the infant “after he became fussy and was walking into the kitchen with him to find an adult” when the baby fell. The foster father picked up the baby and took him to the hospital where doctors said he had a skull fracture.

Morgan Lewis, a spokesperson with the sheriff’s office, said the 2-month-old is expected to survive.

The 10-year-old allegedly said during a forensic interview that she dropped the baby “on the floor at the direction of her mother,” the arrest report stated. The girl said she was “terrified of her mother and felt that if she did not follow through with the instructions, Sykes would harm or kill her as well,” the report said.

An investigation into the incident also revealed that Sykes had allegedly instructed the 10-year-old on “how to kill the adults the 10-year-old was temporarily living with by cutting their throats with a knife while they slept and burning their house by dousing bed sheets with aerosol spray and setting them on fire,” the sheriff’s office said.

The 10-year-old allegedly doused the sheets but was not able to carry out the instructions, according to authorities.

Sheriff Chip W. Simmons said he was “truly disturbed” by the allegations “and the thought that anyone could think like this, let alone instruct these acts to be carried out.”

“I have been in Law Enforcement for over 40 years and have never seen anything quite like this,” he said in a statement. “There is something really wrong with her.”

Sykes is being held without bond. The sheriff’s office spokesperson said they do not foresee the 10-year-old being charged. The case remains under investigation.

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So far this year, 40 shark attacks have taken place worldwide. And just this week, another shark attack took place in South Florida.

But has there been an uptick in attacks? 

On Monday, a 37-year-old went spearfishing with a friend and his two kids. After getting a fish, he was bitten by a bull shark in the legs and torso.

As of Wednesday, he is still recovering in the hospital.

“You need to try to escape the shark, it’s the only option,” Jose Angel Hernandez said in an interview Monday.

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The reason?

“Inevitably when people are recreating in the water and sharks are living in feeding in the water, sometimes there are these interactions, and the interactions are seemingly more frequent, and that really is exactly what’s happening. We are seeing some species of sharks on the increase, absolutely,” said Dr. Mikki McComb-Kobza, the executive director of Ocean First Institute.

But those increases in populations don’t necessarily mean more bites. Experts believe that today, more people are just reporting them.

“I don’t think we are off the mark, I think we are just seeing a lot more attention on this and a lot more eyes out there sharing this information,” Kobza said.

Globally, the average is 100 shark attacks a year. Last year, Florida saw 16 shark attacks.

“These instances are still extremely rare. Estimates range from one in 11.5 million to one in 200 million,” said John Hlavin, a fourth-year PhD student at the Rosenstiel School.

While Monday’s diver was bit by a bull shark, experts said that species is not responsible for Florida’s most common bite.

“The majority of our bites come from smaller black tip sharks. That’s why Florida, we have the most shark bites in the U.S., but our injuries tend to be less severe,” said Yannis Papastamatiou, a professor at Florida International University.

While reports of attacks spike in the summer months, experts said there’s no evidence to suggest it’s due to one specific thing.

But is it a trend we are seeing? 

“The evidence so far states what we’re actually seeing is more northward shifts as species are able to tolerate historically, temperate colder and temperate waters, so that actually might mean less sharks in our area,” Hlavin said.

The experts NBC6 spoke to have shared five golden rules that you can follow to try to avoid a shark attack:

1. Always make sure you are swimming in a group
2. No jewelry while in the water
3. No splashing that could mimic bait fish on the water
4. Swim during the day when it’s nice and hot, not dawn or dusk
5. And don’t go where signs of fish are. Look for birds in the sky or bait fish down below. If you see that, it’s best to get out of the water

New videos show the moments when parts of a crane fell from a high-rise project and onto a bridge in downtown Fort Lauderdale, Florida, killing a construction worker and injuring several others earlier this year.

The incident happened on April 4 at a residential tower under construction right next to the New River. A chunk of the crane and construction materials broke off, falling onto the 3rd Avenue Bridge.

Police body-worn cameras also captured first responders interacting with victims. Workers were heard telling police the segment of the crane fell from the top of the structure.

Construction worker Jorge De La Torre, 27, fell with the crane section and was killed. Three other people who were on the ground or in vehicles were injured in the incident.

One of the injured victims, Gemmalyn Castillo, filed a $50-million-plus negligence lawsuit, saying she suffered “severe and serious head and facial trauma” after the incident.

Attorneys for Castillo said she was a rideshare customer who was in the backseat passenger side of a Tesla. After the crane fell on the Tesla, the driver jumped out and Castillo was left inside, the attorneys said. Castillo was knocked out for a bit in the backseat, came to, and was able to get herself out of the vehicle.

Her attorney already saw the video.

“When these types of things happen as a community, we have to look and say, what are we doing to make sure it does not happen again? Because right now, I have not heard anything about any criminal charges, and where is the accountability?” said Judd Rosen, who represents Castillo.

Fort Lauderdale Police have wrapped their investigation, finding nothing criminal about what happened and calling it an accident.

Federal agency Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is still investigating.

Tara Alexis Sykes was taken into custody on Friday and charged with attempted murder while engaged in aggravated child abuse, the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office said in a Facebook post on Monday.

An arrest report alleged that Sykes communicated with her 10-year-old daughter on the online gaming platform Roblox and instructed the girl “on various methods to kill the infant.” The court documents said Sykes is related to the 2-month-old.

“Sykes instructed the 10-year-old to drown the infant in the bathtub, burn the infant with scalding water, and drop the infant on the floor to kill the infant,” the sheriff’s office said.

On Thursday, the sheriff’s office was contacted by Gulf Coast Kids House about a 2-month-old infant who had suffered serious injuries after being dropped on the kitchen floor by the 10-year-old. Gulf Coast Kids House is a child advocacy center where forensic interviews and medical exams of children suspected of abuse are conducted.

The arrest report alleged that the 10-year-old picked up the infant “after he became fussy and was walking into the kitchen with him to find an adult” when the baby fell. The foster father picked up the baby and took him to the hospital where doctors said he had a skull fracture.

Morgan Lewis, a spokesperson with the sheriff’s office, said the 2-month-old is expected to survive.

The 10-year-old allegedly said during a forensic interview that she dropped the baby “on the floor at the direction of her mother,” the arrest report stated. The girl said she was “terrified of her mother and felt that if she did not follow through with the instructions, Sykes would harm or kill her as well,” the report said.

An investigation into the incident also revealed that Sykes had allegedly instructed the 10-year-old on “how to kill the adults the 10-year-old was temporarily living with by cutting their throats with a knife while they slept and burning their house by dousing bed sheets with aerosol spray and setting them on fire,” the sheriff’s office said.

The 10-year-old allegedly doused the sheets but was not able to carry out the instructions, according to authorities.

Sheriff Chip W. Simmons said he was “truly disturbed” by the allegations “and the thought that anyone could think like this, let alone instruct these acts to be carried out.”

“I have been in Law Enforcement for over 40 years and have never seen anything quite like this,” he said in a statement. “There is something really wrong with her.”

Sykes is being held without bond. The sheriff’s office spokesperson said they do not foresee the 10-year-old being charged. The case remains under investigation.

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The pup was found locked in the car, which was not running and had the windows cracked less than an inch, in the city about 46 miles south of Tampa on Monday.

“The dog appeared distressed and her owner couldn’t be located,” police said. “Fearing that without intervention she would suffer serious harm or death, an officer smashed a window.”

The Bradenton Police Department identified the responding officer as Sgt. Bordin, who spoke to the dog during the rescue.

“I know buddy, I’m gonna get you out. You’re hot in there, I get it,” Bordin says as he puts on black gloves and readies his window-breaking tool. “Back up!”

He then makes a hole in the lower left side of the window. The whole thing cracks and Bordin peels the glass off in almost a single piece.  

Once the window is gone, the dog can be seen panting heavily. Bordin opens the door and tells the pup, “Let’s get out of here.”

She walks back and forth on the car seats to the officer and to another person who opened the driver’s side door, before finally hopping out of the car, wagging her tail. 

Police said the temperature outside was at least 90 degrees.

“In 90-degree weather, the temperature inside your vehicle can reach 109 degrees in 10 minutes and 124 degrees in 30 minutes,” the department said.

Authorities offered the rescued pup water. 

“The poor girl downed a liter of water before being taken for a checkup,” police said. She was “held in an air-conditioned patrol car until Animal Services took custody of her.”

It appeared the dog had been left alone for some time, according to authorities.

“The dog’s owner was located,” police said. “However, the dog remains in the custody of Animal Services while the investigation continues.”

More details on the owners, including whether they were facing criminal charges, were not immediately provided.

Authorities warned others: “DO NOT LEAVE YOUR PETS IN CARS!”

Tara Alexis Sykes was taken into custody on Friday and charged with attempted murder while engaged in aggravated child abuse, the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office said in a Facebook post on Monday.

An arrest report alleged that Sykes communicated with her 10-year-old daughter on the online gaming platform Roblox and instructed the girl “on various methods to kill the infant.” The court documents said Sykes is related to the 2-month-old.

“Sykes instructed the 10-year-old to drown the infant in the bathtub, burn the infant with scalding water, and drop the infant on the floor to kill the infant,” the sheriff’s office said.

On Thursday, the sheriff’s office was contacted by Gulf Coast Kids House about a 2-month-old infant who had suffered serious injuries after being dropped on the kitchen floor by the 10-year-old. Gulf Coast Kids House is a child advocacy center where forensic interviews and medical exams of children suspected of abuse are conducted.

The arrest report alleged that the 10-year-old picked up the infant “after he became fussy and was walking into the kitchen with him to find an adult” when the baby fell. The foster father picked up the baby and took him to the hospital where doctors said he had a skull fracture.

Morgan Lewis, a spokesperson with the sheriff’s office, said the 2-month-old is expected to survive.

The 10-year-old allegedly said during a forensic interview that she dropped the baby “on the floor at the direction of her mother,” the arrest report stated. The girl said she was “terrified of her mother and felt that if she did not follow through with the instructions, Sykes would harm or kill her as well,” the report said.

An investigation into the incident also revealed that Sykes had allegedly instructed the 10-year-old on “how to kill the adults the 10-year-old was temporarily living with by cutting their throats with a knife while they slept and burning their house by dousing bed sheets with aerosol spray and setting them on fire,” the sheriff’s office said.

The 10-year-old allegedly doused the sheets but was not able to carry out the instructions, according to authorities.

Sheriff Chip W. Simmons said he was “truly disturbed” by the allegations “and the thought that anyone could think like this, let alone instruct these acts to be carried out.”

“I have been in Law Enforcement for over 40 years and have never seen anything quite like this,” he said in a statement. “There is something really wrong with her.”

Sykes is being held without bond. The sheriff’s office spokesperson said they do not foresee the 10-year-old being charged. The case remains under investigation.

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According to MIA, a broken pipe caused the lime-colored leak inside the airport’s Concourse G. 

Authorities originally said the mysterious liquid was glycol, but later said it was actually “water from the AC system with a green dye in it so if there if there is ever a leak it can traced to its source. Totally non-hazardous,” according to Miami-Dade Aviation Department Communications Director Greg Chin.

The airport did not say it was experiencing any delays as a result, which is good, considering that TSA expects to screen a record number of people this July Fourth weekend.

“The valve feeding the pipe has been closed to stop the leaking, and cleanup efforts are now underway,” the airport said in a statement. 

Part of the area was sectioned off with yellow caution tape as travelers snapped pictures and took videos. 

“We would like to thank our passengers in Concourse G for their patience and understanding,” officials said.

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Serenity Michelle Bushey claims in the lawsuit that she lost her job at Cafe Risque in the Gainesville area after the law took effect on Monday since she is younger than 21. The purpose of the law was to deter human trafficking, according to Florida lawmakers.

The lawsuit was filed Monday in federal court in Tallahassee on behalf of Bushey, the owner of Cafe Risque and two adult businesses in Jacksonville. It seeks a permanent injunction stopping the law from being enforced, claiming it violates their First Amendment right to free speech and Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection.

Besides Bushey, eight other adult performers who are older than 18 but younger than 21 are unable to work at Cafe Risque because of the new law, the lawsuit said.

“As with similar performers around the state, Bushey earned her living through her art while providing entertainment for the benefit and enjoyment of her audience,” the lawsuit said. “Plaintiffs have a clear legal right to engage in protected speech of this nature.”

The new law also prohibits hiring cooks, DJs, waitresses and security guards who are older than 18 but younger than 21, or even use workers in that age group from third-party contractors hired to perform tasks like air-conditioning repairs or carpentry, according to the lawsuit.

Kylie Mason, communications director for the Office of the Attorney General, said Tuesday that the office hadn’t yet been served with the lawsuit but will defend the new law.

Francine Farrar couldn’t believe her eyes early on the evening of June 18 when a 45-foot sailboat with no one aboard eerily floated toward her family’s beach rental in Pensacola.

“I saw this tattered sailboat, it looked ghostly, just kind of coming in,” Farrar, a 46-year-old Meridian, Mississippi, homemaker, told NBC News last week.

The craft washed ashore and the strange sight of a sailboat on the sand quickly became a source of neighborhood fascination, said 35-year-old Pensacola resident Allie Garrett.

“We called it the ‘ghost ship.’ It quickly became known as the ‘ghost ship’ across Pensacola beach,” said Garrett, a meteorologist and storm chaser who took multiple photos and drone footage of the prone vessel.

Wayward boats are common during Florida hurricane season as vessels succumb to high winds and get taken off their moorings.

“We just thought this sailboat broke loose from the marina, that someone didn’t tie it down well enough,” Farrar said.

But this beached ship turned out to have a far more complicated journey to where it now sits in Pensacola.

Shortly after locals posted images of the craft on social media, those pictures gained the attention of 39-year-old Michael Barlow, whose life was saved weeks earlier during a harrowing Coast Guard rescue in the Gulf of Mexico.

Barlow immediately recognized the images and video to be The Lady Catherine III, which he purchased in Fort Pierce, Florida, in May.

“I knew it was her,” Barlow said.

The Catherine pushed off from Fort Pierce on May 21, Barlow said, with plans to dock in Rockport, Texas, where he was closing down an excavation business and selling off belongings to start a new wandering life.

“We were just going to explore the world,” Barlow said of his wife and 9-year-old son. “We’re normal people. We have normal finances, very, very basic. And this is the only way I could take my son and show him there’s a whole world out there, beyond what’s in America. It’s the only way to do this realistically until this happened.”

Barlow and a friend were headed back to Texas when high winds and massive waves that would eventually become Hurricane Alberto lashed the Catherine and rendered it inoperable.

“We went through storms one after another, after another, after another, and then that last storm just hit us and exploded my front headsails,” Barlow said in an interview from Honduras, where he’s temporarily living and teaching scuba. “We lost our headsail, we lost our motor, and we were getting turned. It was unforecast and it was devastating.”

He added: “The seas were the craziest thing I’ve ever seen. I’ve been on the water my entire life, worked on offshore fishing boats, and I’ve seen some gnarly seas. But this was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”

A Garmin satellite communication device was one of the few electric or gas-powered tools not destroyed by crashing seawater, and Barlow was able to get word to authorities on shore that he was stuck in dangerous waters.

“We were fine right now, but we have no control of the boat and it’s getting worse,” Barlow said, recalling his message to the Coast Guard. “We starting to get turned sideways. The waves were rolling the boat. There was not much we could do.”

The Coast Guard in New Orleans said it was alerted to two boaters whose “vessel became disabled approximately 190 miles south of Panama City” on June 1.

A Coast Guard helicopter and surveillance plane found Barlow and his friend on the Catherine, officials said, but a boat-to-boat rescue was out of the question in those unstable waters.

“‘We can come get you right now, but you have to leave the vessel,’” said Barlow, recalling the choice Coast Guard rescuers gave him. “‘You’re definitely rolling the dice on your life if you stay.’ It was just a bad situation and it was getting progressively worse.”

Barlow picked a rescue over the boat he purchased for $80,000.

“The aircrews arrived on scene, the helicopter aircrew hoisted the two persons aboard and transported them to Panama City Airport in Panama City, Florida,” a Cost Guard statement said.

Barlow said he was reasonably confident the Catherine would show up again, and it did, 17 days later and nearly 200 miles away.

“We did our best to leave her in the best condition to make it through the storm,” Barlow said. “We lashed everything down and we hoped she could ride it out.”

Now, the sailor has nothing but bad choices ahead of him.

He could pay $20,000 to have the Catherine taken to dry dock for repairs that could very well total more than its pre-Alberto value.

Or he could shell out about $28,000 to simply have the vessel taken away and demolished, which would at least stop the financial hemorrhage.

“If we’re talking about business numbers, it’d make more sense to scrap the boat,” Barlow said. “That’s just the stone-cold truth.”

He’s now in talks with state and local officials in hopes of finding a solution in coming weeks.

As the owner of a “derelict vessel,” Barlow has to move it away or possibly face a third-degree felony, punishable by a fine of up to $5,000 and even prison time, officials said.

“Yes, our officers have been in contact with Mr. Barlow,” Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission spokesperson Faith Fawn said in statement. “He has 30 days from the date the uniform boating citation was issued to bring his vessel into compliance.”

Barlow said he’s not giving up on his world-sailing dreams even if this Catherine misadventure costs him so much of his life savings.

“I said I can make another 80,000 bucks and we can carry on with life and try again or we can sit around here and try to be tough guys and really lose it all,” Barlow said of his final moments on the water aboard the Catherine.

“This definitely did not shake my resolve as far as sailing goes. I love the ocean. I respect the ocean. It’s relentless and beautiful at the same time.”

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Tara Alexis Sykes was taken into custody on Friday and charged with attempted murder while engaged in aggravated child abuse, the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office said in a Facebook post on Monday.

An arrest report alleged that Sykes communicated with her 10-year-old daughter on the online gaming platform Roblox and instructed the girl “on various methods to kill the infant.” The court documents said Sykes is related to the 2-month-old.

“Sykes instructed the 10-year-old to drown the infant in the bathtub, burn the infant with scalding water, and drop the infant on the floor to kill the infant,” the sheriff’s office said.

On Thursday, the sheriff’s office was contacted by Gulf Coast Kids House about a 2-month-old infant who had suffered serious injuries after being dropped on the kitchen floor by the 10-year-old. Gulf Coast Kids House is a child advocacy center where forensic interviews and medical exams of children suspected of abuse are conducted.

The arrest report alleged that the 10-year-old picked up the infant “after he became fussy and was walking into the kitchen with him to find an adult” when the baby fell. The foster father picked up the baby and took him to the hospital where doctors said he had a skull fracture.

Morgan Lewis, a spokesperson with the sheriff’s office, said the 2-month-old is expected to survive.

The 10-year-old allegedly said during a forensic interview that she dropped the baby “on the floor at the direction of her mother,” the arrest report stated. The girl said she was “terrified of her mother and felt that if she did not follow through with the instructions, Sykes would harm or kill her as well,” the report said.

An investigation into the incident also revealed that Sykes had allegedly instructed the 10-year-old on “how to kill the adults the 10-year-old was temporarily living with by cutting their throats with a knife while they slept and burning their house by dousing bed sheets with aerosol spray and setting them on fire,” the sheriff’s office said.

The 10-year-old allegedly doused the sheets but was not able to carry out the instructions, according to authorities.

Sheriff Chip W. Simmons said he was “truly disturbed” by the allegations “and the thought that anyone could think like this, let alone instruct these acts to be carried out.”

“I have been in Law Enforcement for over 40 years and have never seen anything quite like this,” he said in a statement. “There is something really wrong with her.”

Sykes is being held without bond. The sheriff’s office spokesperson said they do not foresee the 10-year-old being charged. The case remains under investigation.

This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News:

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The Bay County Sheriff’s Office identified the three men on Saturday as 24-year-old Harold Denzel Hunter, 25-year-old Jemonda Ray and 24-year-old Marius Richardson from Birmingham, Alabama.

The three arrived with friends in Bay County on Friday evening and “checked into their rental and rushed out to get into the water,” Sheriff Tommy Ford said. The men were caught in a rip current around 8 p.m.

Ford said his office received a call reporting three distressed swimmers on Friday night and his office responded with the U.S. Coast Guard, Bay County Emergency Services and other agencies to locate them.

First responders attempted their search and rescue for more than two hours, Ford said. Once the men had been pulled out of the Gulf of Mexico, they received medical care. On Saturday, Ford announced that all three men had died at local hospitals.

“I have such a heavy heart this morning about the loss of three young visitors to our community,” Ford said in a statement. “I witnessed so many people, including visitors to our community, come together last night on the beach to desperately search for them.”

After the individuals were located, the U.S. Coast Guard’s Panama City station urged locals and visitors to exercise caution in the Gulf waters, as “rip currents pop up unexpectedly and can happen on even the nicest days.”

As of Saturday morning, the National Weather Service’s rip current risk forecast for Florida’s Gulf beaches remained high, citing “life-threatening rip currents” and a 2-foot surf that is “dangerous for all levels of swimmers.”

The incident comes at a time of heightened awareness around beach safety. A Pennsylvania couple drowned at Stuart Beach on Florida’s Hutchinson Island on Thursday after getting caught in a rip current, and two teenagers went missing at Jacob Riis Park in Queens, New York, on Friday after a large wave overtook them.

The U.S. Coast Guard announced Saturday that it suspended its operation looking for the missing teens after searching more than 600 square miles off of New Jersey and New York.

“The decision to suspend a search is always difficult and weighs heavily on all involved,” said Jonathan Andrechik, commander of the Coast Guard’s New York sector. “Our crews, along with our partner agencies, have conducted an exhaustive search.”

As of June 9, the National Weather Service has counted at least 11 fatalities as a result of rip currents.

Madison Lambert contributed.

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William Timothy, 43, pleaded guilty Tuesday and as part of a plea deal agreed to immediately resign from the border protection agency, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida said.

Timothy stole a total of around $18,700 from 18 passengers at Naples Airport between the middle of last year and early this year.

In one May 24, 2023, instance mentioned in the plea deal, Timothy stole $2,200 while counting cash during an inspection of a person arriving from the Bahamas.

There are 17 cases and 18 passengers listed in the plea agreement. As part of the deal, Timothy will have to pay restitution, the document says.

An attorney listed as representing Timothy did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

He pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Fort Myers on Tuesday to one count of officer or employee of the United States converting property of another, which by law carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

A plea agreement reached last month does not specify a sentence guideline range, but prosecutors agreed to recommend some downward adjustments if conditions are met.

A sentencing date had not been set as of Tuesday.

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The discovery was made around noon on Saturday, when “mariners in a private vessel found a package containing approximately 21 individually wrapped kilograms of suspected cocaine” about seven miles off of Islamorada, the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office said.

The sheriff’s office turned the drugs, wrapped in black packaging with an image of a bald eagle mid-flight, over to the U.S. Border Patrol.

Video shared by Samuel Briggs II, the acting chief patrol agent of the U.S. Border Patrol, shows authorities wheeling the drugs away.

Briggs said he appreciated the support of the good Samaritans who turned in the cocaine.

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Tara Alexis Sykes was taken into custody on Friday and charged with attempted murder while engaged in aggravated child abuse, the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office said in a Facebook post on Monday.

An arrest report alleged that Sykes communicated with her 10-year-old daughter on the online gaming platform Roblox and instructed the girl “on various methods to kill the infant.” The court documents said Sykes is related to the 2-month-old.

“Sykes instructed the 10-year-old to drown the infant in the bathtub, burn the infant with scalding water, and drop the infant on the floor to kill the infant,” the sheriff’s office said.

On Thursday, the sheriff’s office was contacted by Gulf Coast Kids House about a 2-month-old infant who had suffered serious injuries after being dropped on the kitchen floor by the 10-year-old. Gulf Coast Kids House is a child advocacy center where forensic interviews and medical exams of children suspected of abuse are conducted.

The arrest report alleged that the 10-year-old picked up the infant “after he became fussy and was walking into the kitchen with him to find an adult” when the baby fell. The foster father picked up the baby and took him to the hospital where doctors said he had a skull fracture.

Morgan Lewis, a spokesperson with the sheriff’s office, said the 2-month-old is expected to survive.

The 10-year-old allegedly said during a forensic interview that she dropped the baby “on the floor at the direction of her mother,” the arrest report stated. The girl said she was “terrified of her mother and felt that if she did not follow through with the instructions, Sykes would harm or kill her as well,” the report said.

An investigation into the incident also revealed that Sykes had allegedly instructed the 10-year-old on “how to kill the adults the 10-year-old was temporarily living with by cutting their throats with a knife while they slept and burning their house by dousing bed sheets with aerosol spray and setting them on fire,” the sheriff’s office said.

The 10-year-old allegedly doused the sheets but was not able to carry out the instructions, according to authorities.

Sheriff Chip W. Simmons said he was “truly disturbed” by the allegations “and the thought that anyone could think like this, let alone instruct these acts to be carried out.”

“I have been in Law Enforcement for over 40 years and have never seen anything quite like this,” he said in a statement. “There is something really wrong with her.”

Sykes is being held without bond. The sheriff’s office spokesperson said they do not foresee the 10-year-old being charged. The case remains under investigation.

This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News:

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Both incidents occurred in Walton County — which is in the Florida Panhandle — and not near a boat, but officials are unclear how far the attacks happened from the land, said McKenzie McClintock, the South Walton Fire District PIO.

The two incidents took place about 4 miles apart within about 90 minutes, South Walton Fire District Chief Ryan Crawford said. There were three victims in total.

It’s “extremely unusual” for two bite incidents to occur in one afternoon, Crawford said during an evening news briefing.

A 45-year-old woman was injured in the first “reported shark incident.” It took place in the water around 1:20 p.m. in Watersound, in the area of Founders Way in Watersound Beach, Crawford and the Walton County Sheriff’s Office said.

Crawford said the woman was swimming with her husband past the first sandbar when the bite occurred.

“She received significant trauma to the midsection, the pelvic area, as well as amputation of her left lower arm,” Crawford said.

The woman was transported to a medical center in critical condition, Crawford said.

Following the first attack, the beaches in the surrounding areas flew double red flags to indicate the risk, the sheriff’s office said. The Gulf in the Walton County area was also closed to the public at that time.

Soon after, at 2:56 p.m., the sheriff’s office and fire department responded to a second shark incident at Sandy Shores Court area off Seacrest Beach in Walton County.

California Jun 2

Southern California beach closed after shark bites man during group swim

Florida May 28

This US state was the shark-attack capital of the world in 2023

There were two victims in that attack, Crawford said: Two females between the ages of 15 and 17.

They were with a group of friends “just inside the first sandbar,” Crawford said, which makes the location “very similar” to the first attack.

The first victim had “significant injuries” to one upper and one lower extremity, Crawford said. She was transported to a trauma center in critical condition.

The second victim had “flesh wounds” to her right foot and is in stable condition, Crawford said.

Walton County Sheriff Mike Atkinson said both women in critical condition have a “fighting chance,” thanks to quick responses from nearby citizens as well as first responders.

After the second attack, officials closed the water to the public in all of Walton County.

McClintock said officials do not know what kind of shark bit both victims, but there are often sharks in this water.

Officials on Friday said they needed some time before they let people return to the water and added that they will likely reassess the situation Saturday.

Officials have reached out to experts at Mote Marine, out of Sarasota, Florida, Atkinson said, to see if there is anything “anomalous” about the dual attacks, although he said he doesn’t think there is.

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The incident happened late Monday night at the lobby of the Martin County Jail when 40-year-old Joseph Leedy drove his car through the entrance, the sheriff’s office said.

Surveillance videos released by the sheriff’s office showed the Toyota sedan slamming into the front doors.

Leedy got out of the car wearing a women’s blouse and no pants, then poured motor oil on the floor and said he wanted to set it on fire, authorities said.

He also made “homicidal statements” about police officers, said he wanted to “kill everyone” and threw rubber snakes on the floor, authorities said.

“While our deputies were interacting with him, he kept saying things like, ‘The devil told me to kill everyone.’ And he kept sharing his disdain for President Donald Trump,” Chief Deputy John Budensiek said at a news conference Tuesday, according to WPTV.

Leedy fought with deputies and fire rescue before he was Tased. He was eventually restrained and taken to a hospital.

Budensiek said paramedics gave Leedy “multiple doses of ketamine” to calm him down, but it “did not sedate him.”

He was later booked into the jail on charges of aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer and criminal mischief.

Officials said no one was in the lobby at the time of the crash, but the incident caused thousands of dollars in damage.

Budensiek said authorities believe Leedy was under the influence of a controlled substance but they’re awaiting blood test results.

“The medication that a normal person would be sedated by was not affecting him at all. So that does lead us to believe he has built up a tolerance to different types of drugs,” Budensiek said.

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