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Here's a piece of advice for crooks: If you're going to break into someone's house, know whose house you're breaking into. Lee County deputies said Josue Ortiz picked the wrong house, which he found out when the homeowner beat him using his Jiu-Jitsu skills. Brian Burch said he was just trying to protect his stuff from a brazen thief. "I was holding him down," Burch said. "Once I had him, he wasn't going anywhere." Burch is skilled in the martial art of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. "I wrestled before. I've trained for the last two and a half years." On Tuesday, when...

Calling them gay slurs and taunting, “You live in Trump country now,” a drunken scooter rider attacked two Key West men who were on bicycles riding home on Duval Street early Thursday, police said. Kevin Seymour, 38, and Kevin Paul Taylor, 49, said it was a drunken tourist who followed them as they rode south on Duval Street “calling us f-----s and a slew of other anti-gay remarks,” according to a police report.

A Florida woman who “became upset” when a man was “in the way” of her car hit and injured the man with her vehicle before fleeing the scene, police said. According to the Daytona Beach News-Journal, Amanda Weaver, 28, of DeLand, was allegedly speeding in her silver Kia on Monday when she hit 19-year-old Anderson Cantres from Deltona. A man walking with Cantres at the time of the incident said Weaver became frustrated she had to wait for a pickup truck to back up, screaming profanities at the driver before speeding around the truck and toward Cantres. Weaver’s Kia Soul...

An Ocala man made at least 10 explosive devices in hopes of blowing up Targets along the East Coast in an elaborate and deadly scheme to buy cheap stocks of the company, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Mark Charles Barnett, 48, was charged with possession or a possession of a destructive device affecting commerce by a previously convicted felon. He faces a maximum of 10 years in federal prison. Barnett concocted a plan to place explosives disguised as food items in Target stores along the East Coast from Florida to New York, thinking the plot would cause stock...

Authorities say an Islamorada woman was arrested Sunday for kidnapping her ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend. According to Monroe County Sheriff's Office, the incident happened on Jan. 27, when 51-year-old Laura Bauler entered the new girlfriend's home without permission. MCSO says the woman was in bed when Bauler forced her out at knifepoint. Bauler then tied a kitchen towel over her mouth and tied a rope around her neck, all the time threatening to kill her with the knife she was holding. Police say Bauler drove the victim to the motel, forced her into a closet, and then later into a bathtub....

[snip] A South Florida man is so annoyed by “robocalls” from Miramar High that he’s suing the school district. In a federal lawsuit filed this week, Willie Willis — who does not have a child attending the Broward County school — claims more than two dozen of the automated calls since September have caused him a “significant amount of anxiety, frustration and annoyance.” Pre-recorded phone calls using an artificial voice are standard for school districts, which use them to quickly inform parents about developments on campus. In Willis’ case, the calls were made to inform him that a student, unnamed...

The officers of Florida’s Jacksonville Police Department may find a burger joint’s food mouthwatering — but in the wrong way. Police Chief Patrick Dooley sent an internal warning letter to his department Monday after he was notified by the owner of a local restaurant called Cruisers Grill of an alleged disturbing practice by employees targeting police. “It has come to my attention that the owner of Cruisers has given indications that his employees in the past or will in the future spit saliva in the food of law enforcement,” read the letter, obtained by Action News Jax, with the subject...

A commercial fisherman in Florida made a costly mistake that could land him in prison for life. Thomas Breeding, a 32-year-old boat captain, was out fishing in the Gulf of Mexico when he came across a mysterious package floating in the water. Inside the package was 45 pounds of cocaine. Breeding reportedly said he knew the right thing was to turn it over to the police, but Breeding decided to go a different route. Instead of doing what he knew was right, Breeding gave the package – worth $500,000 to $620,000 on the street, says AL.com – to four other...

No link, but just watched the local news.... the station just spent about SEVEN minutes bashing Trump, then had a 15 second response from Governor Rick Scott who is SUPPORTING Trump. Fake news.

The tribesmen have removed 13 pythons in just over a week, including a 16-foot-long femaleFlorida wildlife officials have recruited tribesmen from India in the state's ongoing hunt for Burmese pythons. Irula tribesmen are well-known in southern India for their snake-catching. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission hopes they'll reveal something that has long eluded researchers: a reliable way to track and spot the tan, splotchy snakes that all but disappear in the Everglades. One of the commission's exotic species experts, Kristen Sommers, said in a statement Monday that the state hopes the tribesmen can teach people in Florida some...

Multiple videos that captured a large group of women brawling in a Florida neighborhood have led to criminal charges after they quickly went viral. The cellphone videos showed the group of women fighting near several homes in Leesburg around 4.30pm on Monday. Neighbors said the fight attracted a huge crowd just minutes after people began posting about it on social media. At least 50 people surrounded the group of girls as they threw punches, pulled each other's hair and tore at one another's clothes.

There was this guy, I think his name is Kevin Krohn. He was jailed, I think, for issuing threats to Donald Trump last August. I jokingly sent him a Facebook message telling him to hang in there, because I would hire him. I was just trolling the idiot because of what he did to himself in losing his job. He sent me his resume over Facebook and I now feel bad fir trolling him because he's in difficult straits.

JANUARY 20--Angered that her pregnant sister refused to return a weave, a Florida woman allegedly pummeled her sibling, according to cops who arrested the accused assailant on a felony battery charge. Police allege that Aryanna Ieasha Reed, 25, battered her sister Tyteahni, 24, during a confrontation Saturday afternoon at the victim’s Jacksonville apartment. As detailed in a police report, Tyteahni told investigators that Reed had called her to demand the return of the hairpiece, which Reed had given to her sister as a Christmas present. When Tyteahni refused to return the weave, Aryanna “came to the victim’s apartment and confronted...

In the first full study of Florida’s ballots since the election ended, The Miami Herald and USA Today reported George W. Bush would have widened his 537-vote victory to a 1,665-vote margin if the recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court would have been allowed to continue, using standards that would have allowed even faintly dimpled “undervotes” — ballots the voter has noticeably indented but had not punched all the way through — to be counted. The study, conducted by the accounting firm of BDO Seidman, counted over 60,000 votes in Florida’s 67 counties, tabulating separate vote totals in several...

WATCH Authorities Investigating Video of Dog Chained to Crate on Florida Highway (video) Authorities in Florida have launched an investigation after a video emerged on Facebook of a dog chained to the top of a crate being towed by an SUV driving at least 70 mph. Palm Coast resident Brenna Cronin, 24, shot the video Wednesday afternoon in Flagler County as she and her boyfriend were driving southbound on I-95 toward Daytona Beach. In the video, a dog is seen standing on top of the crate, which contained at least one other animal, while a Chevrolet Tahoe pulls the trailer...

A judge dropped charges Wednesday against a Miam-Dade Fire captain who was arrested for pointing a gun at a police officer. Nicholas Marian, 55, was granted Stand Your Ground immunity in a bizarre encounter with a Miami Shores police officer. Fellow firefighters who had been rallying behind Marian were at the courthouse celebrating the ruling. The fire captain was arrested in March of 2016 for drawing his shot gun at an officer who knocked on his front door. Police responded to Marian's home after getting a complaint about an erratic driver in the neighborhood. Marian's pick-up truck matched the description...

A 36-year-old Florida woman faces an aggravated assault charge after police say she threatened her brother with a dagger for eating Polish dumplings at their mother's home. The Palm Beach Post reports the siblings started arguing late Tuesday after Mandy Rounds' brother ate the plate of dumplings, also known as pierogis. The fight spilled outside the Jupiter home. A police report says Rounds threatened to cut the dumplings out of her brother's stomach before stabbing the large dagger

A Florida woman was arrested after authorities say she beat her boyfriend with a wooden plank with nails in it during an argument over an engagement ring. Enrevie Hinayon Bendejo, 25, was arrested Monday on a charge of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, the Nassau County Sheriff's Office said. Bendejo remained behind bars on $5,000 bond Thursday, jail records showed. No attorney information was immediately available. Deputies arrested Bendejo, of Fernandina Beach, after responding to reports of a fight between a man and a woman, The Florida Times-Union reported. When deputies arrived they found Bendejo walking away from the...

A Florida pet owner trying to put a sweater on a pit bull angered the dog, which attacked three family members — one seriously — police said Friday. According to Tampa police, 52-year-old Brenda Guerrero, tried to put a sweater on the pit bull mix named Scarface on Friday afternoon, but the dog attacked her, WTSP reported. Her husband, 46-year-old Ismael Guerrero, attempted to pull the dog off his wife when the animal began attacking him, WTSP reported. Antoine Harris, 22, also intervened, stabbing the dog in the head and neck.

South Florida’s most aggressive invasive species has found a new way to grab headlines: slither atop a research platform in Biscayne Bay. Last month, a kayaker spied a 9-foot Burmese python wrapped around part of a platform more than a half mile offshore in Biscayne National Park usually inhabited by sunning cormorants. The sighting was a first for the park and another worrisome sign that the state’s out-of-control pythons are getting more adept at inhabiting the state’s salty fringes. In September, state wildlife biologists confirmed for the first time that the snakes are now breeding in the Keys.