Tornado hits Florida county, downing trees and power lines

A Taco Bell employee in Florida was brought to tears when he was given a massive tip this week.  Joe DeCicco, 70, has been working at a Taco Bell in South Daytona, Fla., for the last 20 years, according to local TV station WESH 2. On Friday, DeCicco -- known in the drive-thru as "Taco Bell Joe" -- received a $6,095 check from a local group.

A fire that swept through a trio of barns at a Florida chicken farm Thursday has left 250,000 chickens dead, reports say.  The blaze erupted at Cal-Maine Foods in Dade City overnight – and its cause was not immediately clear.   Firefighters that responded to the scene were hampered by the explosion of propane tanks on site, the Tampa Bay Times reports.   Each barn that was burned by the fire contained around 80,000 chickens, the newspaper added.  Officials told WFLA that 250,000 chickens were

Florida is turning to the dogs to help solve its Burmese python problem.  The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) has been training dogs to track down pythons for more than a month. Last week, one of the dogs had its first successful find.  Truman, a black Labrador retriever, found an 8-foot python in the Rocky Glades Public Small Game Hunting Area in Miami-Dade County on Dec.

A tornado ripped through three Florida communities Wednesday as snow buffeted the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern states in a flurry of wild weather, according to local reports. The "large, extremely dangerous tornado" ripped across Pinellas, Hillsborough and Polk counties, beginning just before 4 p.m.

A freak accident involving a falling window killed a Florida burglar, according to a report. It happened Saturday during the attempted burglary of a home in Lehigh Acres, NBC 2 Fort Myers reported.

A Florida man was arrested Wednesday in the 1998 kidnapping and rape of a 22-year-old woman after DNA collected from a discarded cigarette last month linked him to the case, investigators said. James Byrd, now 60, was arrested in Marion County on charges of armed kidnapping and sexual battery in the 22-year-old case, Tampa police said.

A prison guard in South Florida was arrested after allegedly accepting payment and agreeing to traffic an undisclosed amount of cocaine into a correctional facility outside of Miami. Dade Correctional Institution Sergeant Travis Thompson has been charged with one count of Cocaine Trafficking, a first-degree felony, Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle announced Saturday.

 Serena Williams  and her husband  Alexis Ohanian  found a way for their daughter  Olympia Ohanian   to have her first snow day.The tennis pro posted a video Friday sledding down a mini snow hill with her family. You could tell the snow was fake by the fact that there was only one perfectly placed mountain of snow on a bed of healthy green Florida grass.

Don't mess with Gunner and Richard Wilbanks. The Florida puppy who was rescued from the jaws of an alligator by his fearless owner has been named a Deputy Dog by the local sheriff's office.

A restaurant in Florida will pay tens of thousands of dollars in back wages to its employees over alleged minimum wage and overtime violations, according to the U.S.

The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office this week went the extra mile to help some kids stuck at home because of the coronavirus pandemic.  Deputies from West Boynton Beach on Tuesday stopped by a few homes to deliver school meals to kids doing virtual schooling.  The sheriff’s office said that they were inspired to delivery the food after hearing from a few kids that the thing they miss most from school is lunch. Many of the families are dependent on school lunches, the sheriff’s office said.

: The American Conservative Union says it will hold the 2021 Conservative Political Action Conference in person amid the coronavirus pandemic. And for the first time ever, the largest and most influential annual gathering of conservatives that’s best known as CPAC, will be held far from the nation’s capital.

Florida investigators are seeking the killers who kidnapped, tortured, and fatally shot two truckers in Miami-Dade over the weekend.   Police said the assailants kidnapped Osmar Oliva, 50, who owned Oliva Delivery Corp., and Johan Gonzalez Quesada, 26, then tied their hands and tortured them for hours in the back of a moving-type truck before shooting them in the head and leaving them in a yard in Opa-locka, which is near Miami, the Miami Herald reported.

Damaging winds and a brief tornado are possible across South Florida and the Keys late Sunday through early Monday morning, according to the National Weather Service. “Disturbance over the Gulf of Mexico is forecast to move across the #FloridaKeys and South Florida later tonight through tomorrow morning, bringing scattered showers and a few thunderstorms,” tweeted the National Weather Service Key West on Sunday.

A Florida man who allegedly shot a burglar as he apparently begged for his life is facing an attempted murder charge. Corthoris Jenkins, 28, was playing video games in his North-Miami Dade apartment Tuesday when Xavier West allegedly broke into the efficiency unit, the Miami Herald reported.

Bodycam footage shows Florida deputies pointing guns at a young man as they convince him to drop a Samurai sword. On Tuesday night, in Callaway, three members of the Bay County Sheriff's Office convinced the man to put down the sword and get on the ground before handcuffing him.

Florida Georgia Line fans can begin counting down the days to a new album.

The mother of a Florida teenager who was shot and killed by a sheriff’s deputy this month was wounded at his burial service Saturday. Quasheda Pierce, 39, was hit when a shot rang out at Riverview Memorial Gardens in Cocoa, where 18-year-old Sincere Pierce was being laid to rest just over two weeks after he and another teen were shot dead by a Brevard County Sheriff’s deputy.

A Florida man who was trying to give away a car that belonged to his late grandmother ended up coming to another man's rescue, according to a report. “1997 Ford Crown Victoria - white - around 100k miles, almost all driven by grandma,” Cory Schneider posted on Reddit last week.