LAKELAND - A Florida Southern College student found dead in his apartment Saturday night from an apparent spleen injury might have suffered the injury while participating in a fraternity event at the college, Lakeland police said today. ...more

January 28, 2008

Tracy L. Traver stood behind three men who forced their way into a man's home, beat him and stole two garbage bags filled with Christmas gifts from his living room floor, Hillsborough County deputies say. ...more

December 27, 2007

How can I stop Windows from reminding me that deleting a desktop shortcut doesn't get rid of the program? I figured that out a long time ago. ...more

December 24, 2007

SEBRING — Maybe it was because he was in great shape. Maybe it was Darrel Smith's helmet that made the difference and saved his life after a car struck his bike in August. Perhaps, Smith thought, it was the thousands of prayers given for him from other park rangers, his fellow bicyclists and the entire community. In a little more than three months, Smith came out of a month-long medically induced coma, regained 20 pounds of lost muscle and just last Thursday took a two-mile ride on his tricycle for the first time since the accident. "Yes, it hurt like hell... I got nine pieces of stainless steel (in me) right now. Two of them are cables," he said, showing his right hip. His smile and his beaming optimism goes against the grain of the aches he described. Smith's trainer, Keith A. Bowyer Jr., thinks it was Smith's drive that got him where he is now. Smith's hoping by Friday that he will get back on his job at Highlands Hammock State Park. By Christmas, Smith's hoping he can try out a bicycle. ...more

December 11, 2007

A 20-year-old Palm Harbor man engaged in sexual activities with a 13-year-old girl in an apartment complex restroom Sunday, according to the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office. ...more

December 10, 2007

SEBRING — By the time Gary Christopher Ingmire Jr. gets out of prison, his victim will be 94 years old and the con artist will owe her some serious money. Judge Peter Estrada sentenced Ingmire, 27, of Sebring, to 15 years in prison Thursday morning at the Highlands County Courthouse, on a count of scheming to defraud more than $50,000, for borrowing money from a 79-year-old Sebring woman over a two-and-a-half-year period. "A crime against an elderly person is not only a crime against the person," said Estrada as he was rendering Ingmire's sentence. "It's a crime against society." ...more

October 26, 2007

Interview with Al "Coffee" McDaniel ...more

October 12, 2007

For some people, potty training is a breeze. I once met a mom who told me that her daughter just decided at 20 months that she wanted to go on the potty and that was it. I think I had a more typical experience. I had to hunker down for a full week until my eldest would go on the potty, and it took a couple more weeks to get her out of diapers during the day, followed by a month or two before she could wake up dry. For me, it was a lot of work. ...more

October 11, 2007

SEBRING — A Sebring man remained in Highlands County Jail on a no-bond hold, after reportedly molesting a 4-year-old child who he baby sat for the last year. Kendrick Matthew Clarke, 20, of 1030 E.O. Douglas Ave., was charged with sexual assault by a person older than 18 years old on a person less than 12 years of age (a capital felony) and child abuse, cruelty toward a child without great harm (a third-degree felony). On Sept. 12, the child's mother called the sheriff's office explaining that Clarke, an acquaintance, periodically took care of her child. ...more

October 2, 2007

A Clearwater teenager was arrested early Saturday on charges that he shot a female acquaintance in the head while she was driving, authorities said. ...more

October 1, 2007