PINELLAS COUNTY

A man hit the jackpot in Florida after playing a lottery scratch-off game, Lottery officials announced this week.

A now-31-year-old man from the Tampa Bay area claimed to be 16 when he began an online relationship with a then-14-year-old girl from Miami-Dade County back in 2020, culminating in three sexual encounters with the still-underage girl three years later in South Florida, according to police.

Miami Marlins right-hander Sandy Alcantara, for the second time under first-year skipper Skip Schumaker, tossed a complete game, going the distance in a 7-1 victory Wednesday afternoon against the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field.

A Florida man claimed a $1 million prize playing the 50X The Cash scratch-off game, the Florida Lottery confirmed Wednesday.

An early morning fire on Thursday killed nearly all the animals at a wildlife center in Florida, officials said.

A Florida man who shot a rifle at his pool cleaner after mistaking the man for an intruder will not face charges, officials said.

The Miami-Dade Police Department’s Homicide Bureau Cold Case Unit is assisting Largo police, who recently arrested a plastic surgeon in connection with the murder of an attorney.

A South Florida surgeon was arrested over the weekend on a murder charge, and the victim in the case is a lawyer reportedly connected to a lawsuit he filed years ago.

An employee of a Florida coffee shop is accused of taking his workplace’s name a bit too literally.

Attorney Christopher Reynolds is facing charges in Pinellas County after he vanished for months, as detectives accused him of stealing from clients.

A Florida man accused in 2020 of plotting terror attacks in the U.S. has pleaded guilty to attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State extremist group.

The ungainly yet graceful wood stork, which was on the brink of extinction in 1984, has recovered sufficiently in Florida and other Southern states that U.S. wildlife officials on Tuesday proposed removing the wading bird from the endangered species list.

More than six dozen threatened manatees are currently in rehabilitation centers in Florida and elsewhere amid a chronic starvation problem caused by water pollution, wildlife officials said Wednesday.

A Florida man is facing charges after police said he assaulted a police horse.

Human traffickers coerced eight Cuban migrants into prostitution in Florida, so they could each pay their $60,000 debt to the smugglers who helped them to cross the U.S.-Mexico border, according to Hillsborough Sheriff Chad Chronister.

A Florida teenager has died and two others remain in the hospital following a high-speed crash in a stolen Maserati, deputies said.

As Hurricane Ian continues to gain strength, residents were asked to evacuate the Tampa Bay area on Tuesday.

It’s been over a century since a major storm like Hurricane Ian has struck the Tampa Bay area, which blossomed from a few hundred thousand people in 1921 to more than 3 million today.

Police in west central Florida arrested a man and woman accused of murdering a 3-year-old girl in their care, inflicting gruesome injuries all over her body.

A Florida woman has been arrested for continuously making harassing phone calls to police.

Police arrested a west central Florida man accused of threatening a landscaper and his daughter with an assault rifle over a parking dispute last month.

A Pinellas County doctor is facing trafficking charges for allegedly writing and selling prescriptions for codeine and oxycodone.

Security video released by the Uhuru Movement shows the driver of a white sedan pulling up outside the group’s St. Petersburg headquarters on Saturday morning.

A Florida deputy was fired Tuesday after superiors accused him of trying to hide his “incompetence” by creating a fake drug report using information pulled from the license plate of a random vehicle parked at a Walmart store.

Even before a gunman opened fire at an annual LGBTQ Pride festival in Norway, police officials in a Florida city that hosts one of the largest Pride celebrations in the southeast U.S. were gearing up for “all hands on deck” to make sure the three days of festivities went off safely.

Police say a man found dead in a Florida lake while searching for Frisbees and other flying discs was missing three limbs after a likely encounter with alligators.

Officials have identified a man believed to have been killed by an alligator while searching for frisbees at a lake in the Tampa Bay area.

A possible alligator attack was responsible for the death of a 47-year-old man in the Tampa Bay area Tuesday, according to police.

A Florida man faces animal cruelty and domestic battery charges after police say he buried his father’s dog alive.

A Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office deputy has lost her job after officials say she was arrested for driving under the influence.

The deputy ran over a 23-year-old woman who was lying on her back.

A Florida man is facing charges after police say he allegedly trapped a male minor in a gym locker room and kissed him against his will.

Martin County Sheriff’s detectives have arrested a man they say was targeting girls in the Treasure Coast area on social media for sex.

An 80-year-old Pinellas County man is facing charges for allegedly exploiting an 88-year-old man in a business deal.

A Florida Highway Patrol trooper who risked her life to stop a wrong way driver on a Tampa roadway, talked about her experience on Thursday.

A Florida Highway Patrol Officer is being called a hero, after she used her patrol car to stop a suspected drunk driver.

A Pinellas County man is facing several charges of lewd and lascivious acts with minors.

A 70-year-old man has been accused of slamming a child to the ground at a playground after yelling that kids were making too much noise.

Ron DeSantis held a news conference Wednesday afternoon at a school in Pinellas County, where he announced that he is asking the Florida legislature to approve setting aside $216 million from the ESSER Fund to go toward bonuses for principals and full-time teachers at public schools throughout the state. If approved, principals and Pre-K through 12th grade teachers would each receive a $1,000 bonus with the third-round funds provided to the state from the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund. “The past year included so much uncertainty for our state’s students, parents and educators,” DeSantis said. “In Florida, we knew how important it was for our students to return to school, and our principals and teachers answered the call. The governor said ESSER Funds are also being distributed at the local level and he urged local leaders to do even more for educators in their communities.

That’s when he turned around to see a massive alligator, between 7 and 9 feet long, on the lanai of his Pinellas County home. He says the alligator had gotten stuck under an end table right next to the pool. Tim Kelly had quite the surprise Friday morning when he heard growling while getting his morning cup of coffee. As he and his wife waited for the FWC to arrive, the alligator was able to free himself from the coffee table and splashed right into the pool. “We were just sitting here having coffee just watching him swim around in the pool,” he recalls.

PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. – A 74-year-old man was found dead after police say he drowned while searching for his golf ball at a country club in Florida. According to officials from the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office, the tragedy took place at the East Lake Woodlands Country Club, Sunday morning, where 74-year-old Hermilo Jazmines was playing golf with a friend. “Jazmines ‘teed off near the third hole’ and ‘was last seen looking for his ball near the green,’” says the sheriff’s office. They later dispatched their dive team, which “located Jazmines submerged in the water near his putter.”AdJazmines was pronounced dead at the scene. In a press release released by the sheriff’s office, friends of the golfer say he enjoyed searching the golf course for lost balls.

Authorities say a hacker gained access to Oldsmar's water treatment plant in an unsuccessful attempt to taint the water supply with a caustic chemical. A local sheriff's startling announcement Monday that the water supply of Oldsmar, population 15,000, was briefly in jeopardy last week exhibited uncharacteristic transparency. Ad“I deal with a lot of municipal water utilities for small, medium and large-sized cities. The nation's 151,000 public water systems lack the financial fortification of the corporate owners of nuclear power plants and electrical utilities. Although such incidents have been relatively few, that does not mean the risk is low and that most water systems are secure.

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. – A day after Pinellas County authorities reported a cyber intruder’s failed attempt to poison the water on Friday at a plant near Tampa, officials in Miami-Dade and Broward counties said water treatment plants in South Florida are safe. A. Selcuk Uluagac leads Florida International University’s Cyber-Physical Systems Security Lab. AdThe Miami-Dade Water and Sewer Department produces 320 million gallons a day of drinking water and serves nearly 2.3 million residents and thousands of tourists. In Broward County, there is a similar system of checks and balances. “Those chemicals are added manually.”Alan Garcia, the director of the Broward County Water and Wastewater Services, said the public has absolutely nothing to worry about.

Authorities say a hacker gained access to Oldsmar's water treatment plant in an unsuccessful attempt to taint the water supply with a caustic chemical. A local sheriff's startling announcement Monday that the water supply of Oldsmar, population 15,000, was briefly in jeopardy last week exhibited uncharacteristic transparency. Ad“I deal with a lot of municipal water utilities for small, medium and large-sized cities. The nation's 151,000 public water systems lack the financial fortification of the corporate owners of nuclear power plants and electrical utilities. Although such incidents have been relatively few that does not mean the risk is low and that most water systems are secure.

In this screen shot from a YouTube video posted by the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office, Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri speaks during a news conference as Oldsmar, Fla., Mayor Eric Seidel, left, listens, Monday, Feb. 8, 2021, in Oldsmar, Fla. Authorities say a hacker gained access to Oldsmar's water treatment plant in an unsuccessful attempt to taint the water supply with a caustic chemical. AdIn May, Israel’s cyber chief s aid the country had thwarted a major cyber attack a month earlier against its water systems, an assault widely attributed to its archenemy Iran. The FBI, along with the Secret Service and the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office are investigating the case. AdRussian state-backed hackers have in recent years penetrated some U.S. industrial control systems, including the power grid and manufacturing plants while Iranian hackers were caught seizing control of a suburban New York dam in 2013.

CHAMPIONSGATE, Fla. - School disturbances on campuses, whether by total strangers or those familiar to students, are becoming far too normal. That is according to the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Safety Commission. "The incidents are going to happen, there's no question they're going to happen," said Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri. The commission, formed after the Parkland mass shooting in February 2018, is still working to reduce vulnerabilities in school safety and response tactics. The rise in school threats remains one of the biggest issues the commission is working to remedy.

BELLEAIR BLUFFS, Fla. - Authorities say a man chased down and killed another man inside the victims home after the two had been arguing and making threats for days. The Pinellas County Sheriffs Office said in a news release that David Murray Biggs, 22, was charged with first-degree murder. Detectives said Biggs and Darius Johnson, 24, had been arguing for the last couple of days. Murray Biggs drove to Johnsons home on Saturday, and the two began arguing outside. Johnson ran inside his home, but Biggs followed, forcing his way inside to continue shooting.

BELLEAIR BLUFFS, Fla. - Authorities say a man chased down and killed another man inside the victims home after the two had been arguing and making threats for days. The Pinellas County Sheriffs Office said in a news release that 22-year-old David Murray Biggs was charged with first-degree murder. Detectives say Biggs and 24-year-old Darius Johnson had been arguing for the last couple of days. Murray Biggs drove to Johnsons home on Saturday, and the two began arguing outside. Johnson ran inside his home, but Biggs followed, forcing his way inside to continue shooting.

COCONUT CREEK, Fla. – The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety commission has 16 members and four ex-officio members. Here is the list:COMMISSION CHAIR: Pinellas County Sheriff Bob GualtieriVICTIMS' FATHERSRyan Petty is the father of Alaina Petty. He played an integral role in insuring that the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act moved through the Florida Legislature. He has met with local, state, and federal officials after his daughter's death. He has advocated for school safety improvements and has urged members of the Florida Legislature to enact effective legislation.