Fl - Latest Popular Stories, Instablogs Community

State: Panhandle center can't hold mentally ill

AP — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 21:04:40 +0000

A medical center that allowed a patient to escape twice before he killed a sheriff’s deputy has been ordered to stop admitting the mentally ill who have been involuntarily...

Tropical Storm Dolly forms in western Caribbean

AP — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 16:02:20 +0000

Tropical Storm Dolly has formed in the western Caribbean sea.The National Hurricane center has issued a tropical storm warning for the Yucatan peninsula from the Border of Campeche, Mexico.At 11:45 a.m. EDT, the center of the storm was about 270...

French man pleads guilty in art theft case

AP — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 15:56:34 +0000

A French man pleaded guilty Thursday to attempting to sell four valuable paintings that were stolen last year from a French art museum in a brazen robbery by masked, armed thieves.Bernard Jean Ternus, 56, admitted that he conspired to sell the...

Project to dissect cocoa genome, protect crop

AP — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 04:02:20 +0000

Government scientists are launching a five-year project Thursday aimed at safeguarding the world’s chocolate supply by dissecting the genome of the cocoa bean.A U.S. Department of Agriculture team based here, funded with more than $10 million...

Officials: 4 people dead, 2 deputies injured in shootings

AP — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 21:22:13 +0000

Four people were killed and two sheriff’s deputies were seriously wounded in two separate, but related shootings Saturday morning, authorities said.The events unfolded when three people were shot on the back porch of a residence in the...

Florida gets tougher physical education standards

AP — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 18:18:44 +0000

Gov. Charlie Crist has signed a bill requiring Florida elementary schools to provide 30 minutes of continuous exercise daily for their students.The bill signed into law Monday also requires middle schools offer a daily physical education class...

Boy band creator Pearlman sentenced to 25 years' prison

AP — Wed, 21 May 2008 20:46:50 +0000

Lou Pearlman, the man made famous for creating the Backstreet Boys and ‘N Sync, was sentenced Wednesday to 25 years in federal prison for engineering a decades-long scam that bilked thousands of investors out of their life savings.It was the...

Man questioned on potential links to Boca Raton mall murders

AP — Fri, 09 May 2008 19:42:38 +0000

Police questioned a man arrested Friday at a Miami-area mall for possible links to the murders of a mother and daughter at a Boca Raton mall.A shopper at the Aventura Mall north of Miami tipped police that she saw a man fitting the description of...

Police: Woman who ran D.C. escort service kills self in Fla.

AP — Thu, 01 May 2008 19:49:07 +0000

A 52-year-old woman convicted of running a high-end Washington prostitution ring that snagged Republican Sen. David Vitter killed herself Thursday, police said, weeks after her trial ended on charges that she said she would never go to prison...