The Tampa Bay Lightning will face the Pittsburg Penguins in the Eastern Conference Final of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Individual game tickets for the games at the Amalie Arena go on sale to the general public today at 2 o’clock. The first game in the best of seven series will be tomorrow night in Pittsburgh at 8 o’clock. The first game in Tampa will be next week Wednesday.
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SANFORD, Fla. (AP) – The pistol former neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman used in the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin is going up for auction online. Zimmerman says he had just gotten the pistol back from the U.S. Justice Department, which took it after Zimmerman was acquitted in Martin’s 2012 shooting death. Zimmerman told the station he’s selling the gun because “it’s time to move past the firearm.” The auction listing on GunBroker.com lists the gun as a 9 mm Kel-Tec PF-9 pistol. The auction begins Thursday at 11 a.m. EDT and the bidding starts at $5,000.
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MIAMI (AP) – Relatives of the victims of the crash of ValuJet Flight 592 gathered Wednesday in the Florida Everglades to mark the 20th anniversary of their deaths. The May 11, 1996, crash killed 110 passengers and crew aboard the Atlanta-bound plane. Some family members dropped roses into the wetlands near the remote crash site, west of Miami.
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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) – Fresh off a stinging rebuke by the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature, the state’s economic development agency is going to move ahead with a plan to lay off roughly a third of its employees. The Enterprise Florida board meeting yesterday in Naples agreed to begin streamlining the operations of the 20-year outfit that is responsible for trying to lure companies to the state.
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NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. (AP) – Closing arguments have concluded in the trial of a Florida woman charged in the death of her 5-year-old son 25 years ago. Prosecutors say Michelle Lodzinski killed the boy and dumped his body in a ditch, then went to a carnival and concocted a story about his being abducted. The defense says there’s no forensic evidence tying Lodzinski to the site where Timothy’s body was found.
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St. Pete police are warning about Smash N Grab burglaries. Since May 5, we’ve had 14 cases of smash- and- grab vehicle burglaries. The suspects have been going to recreation centers, parks, and shopping centers all over the city, and smashing out vehicle windows to steal purses, phones, laptops, etc. left in plain view. While detectives work to find the suspects, they want to alert the public and are asking everyone to secure their personal items in the trunk of the car.
These thefts have occurred at:
Walter Fuller Park, Northwest Rec Center, Lake Vista Park, Maximo Park, Fossil Park, Tyrone Mall, Best Buy, 6600 22nd Ave N., Bealls, 7899 9th St. N.
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Donald Trump, the likely GOP presidential nominee and House speaker Paul Ryan sit down face-to-face for the first time, a week after Ryan stunned his party by refusing to back the billionaire for the White House.
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MIAMI (AP) _ Federal prosecutors say 22 people have been charged with $13 million in food stamp fraud centered at a Miami-area flea market. U.S. Attorney Wifredo Ferrer said Wednesday the scheme used electronic benefit cards at locations authorized to accept Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits. The cards would be swiped in exchange for cash payments far less than the amount the store owners would bill to the program. Most of the fraudulent retailers were located at the Opa-locka Hialeah Flea Market, but they also include a fish delivery business and a convenience store. Ferrer says many locations actually sell no food. Those arrested face maximum prison terms of 20 years for each count of wire fraud and wire fraud conspiracy, as well as five years for food stamp fraud.
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PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) – So many kids are being deprived of unstructured play time during the school day that a doctor’s note is just one method parents around the country have used to go over the heads of teachers and principals who can’t find time to schedule recess. Other parents are calling for government-mandated recess. School boards around the country and lawmakers in Rhode Island, Florida and New Jersey have all debated recess requirements this year.
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JUPITER, Fla. (AP) _ Parents of two teen fishermen who went missing in a storm off Florida have been hoping that an iPhone recovered from their boat’s wreckage eight months later could hold clues about what happened. Blu Stephanos says Apple could not retrieve any data because his son’s phone is damaged beyond repair. But the mother of the other teen isn’t giving up. Pamela Cohen says in a statement that Apple is willing to turn the phone owned by Austin Stephanos over to outside experts who would try to recover the data. Austin and Perry Cohen, both 14, disappeared last July after their 19-foot boat
overturned during a storm off the coast of Jupiter, Florida. Their boat was finally found in March, floating near Bermuda, and recovered by a Norwegian cargo ship.
