From texting friends to using smart phones to Tweet or update Facebook pages.

“These days’ people are texting almost more than they are talking on the phone,” said U.S. Marshal Barry Golden.

Now the U.S. Marshals would like people to use their cell-phones to help others.  They’ve come up with a way for people to send texts to them anonymously which will help them catch the bad guys.

“It allows the public to text in a tip of a fugitive from our website or wanted fugitive list,” Golden said.

You won’t have to call authorities anymore; your good deed will be at your finger tips.

“The good thing about it they will remain totally anonymous,” Golden Said.

The Marshal’s service hopes getting the word out on the street about the new program will hopefully get the criminals off the streets.

“We’re trying to familiarize the public with usmarshals.gov where people can go on and view the fugitives that are wanted throughout the state of Florida,” Golden said.

It’s also useful for investigators. They now have direct contact with tipsters possibly leading to quicker arrests.

“They can describe where he is, what’s he’s doing, what he’s driving,” Golden said.  “If we have four million eyes out their looking for a fugitive, that’s a great tool.”

Anyone with information regarding the whereabouts of a known fugitive can simply text “TIP411″ or “847411″ and enter the key word “USMFL”.

On Thursday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicted a less active season than years past and forecast that we would see a near normal hurricane season.

NOAA forecasters said there was a good chance (70%) we’ll see nine to 15 named storms of which four to eight will strengthen into hurricanes. Up to three of those are expected to be major hurricanes with top winds of 111 mph or more. Based on the period 1981-2010, an average season produces 12 named storms with six hurricanes, including three major hurricanes. The seasonal outlook does not predict how many storms will hit land.

“Regardless of the outlook, it’s vital for anyone living or vacationing in hurricane-prone locations to be prepared. We have a stark reminder this year with the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Andrew,” said NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco.

On August 24th, 1992 Andrew, a Category 5 hurricane which devastated parts of South Florida, was the first storm in a late-starting season that produced only six named storms.

NOAA officials said factors favoring storm development include the overall conditions associated with the Atlantic high-activity era that began in 1995 and near-average sea surface temperatures across much of the tropical Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea.

However there are also two factors now in place which could limit storm development if they persist. One is a strong wind shear which can inhibit hurricane formation and the other is cooler sea surface temperatures in the far eastern Atlantic.

“Another potentially competing climate factor would be El Niño if it develops by late summer to early fall. In that case, conditions could be less conducive for hurricane formation and intensification during the peak months (August-October) of the season, possibly shifting the activity toward the lower end of the predicted range,” said Gerry Bell, Ph.D., lead seasonal hurricane forecaster at NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center.

Lubchenco added that this year NOAA has enhanced two of its computer models which will give more accurate forecasts about a storm’s intensity at landfall and extend the forecast period beyond five days.

Click Here for the CBS Miami Tropics page, with an interactive hurricane tracker, maps, historic tracks, models, and tropical weather resources.

The Miami Beach Police Department is beefing up security, while the city faces a lawsuit for negligence stemming from last year’s highly-publicized shooting that left one person dead and four others hit in the chaos.

The shooting took place around 4 a.m. on May 30, after police say Raymond Herisse tried to hit them with his car. Police said they thought he was armed and dangerous. Cops opened fire near 14th St. and Collins Ave., in a barrage of bullets captured on camera and posted on YouTube, which was then repeatedly played on TV newscasts.

Records show police fired more than 115 rounds. Herisse was killed.

Two bullets hit 25-year-old Sarah Garcia from Naples. She ended up in a wheelchair for months and hasn’t been able to return to her job. She filed the negligence suit against the city.

Thursday, another lawsuit is expected to filed by four other victims of the shooting. They joined together to file a public-records lawsuit demanding ballistics results and other key evidence. The lawsuit accuses the agencies involved of deliberately withholding the records in an effort to cover up responsibility.

The plaintiffs want to know whether a gun found in Herisse’s car was ever fired.

In the year since the shooting, police haven’t released any records about who fired the shots that hit the bystanders.

The Miami Beach Police Department is investigating the incident, which involved seven officers from Miami Beach and four from Hialeah. The department has turned evidence over to the state attorney’s office, which will decide whether the officers should be criminally prosecuted.

The plaintiffs, all of whom say they sustained permanent injuries, ultimately want compensation for their medical bills, pain and suffering.

Meantime, the city is working to make sure this weekend’s Memorial Day festivities remain fun and safe for everyone while launching the most aggressive crowd control plan ever done.

It includes the use of 600 officers, a DUI checkpoint entering the beach and scanning every license plate pulling onto the island.

The moves have drawn criticism that the beach will become a police state, unlike any other major event that they have had.

Miami Beach police expect to arrest as many as 2,000 people this weekend. It’s not a quota, said Police Chief Raymond Martinez, it’s simply a higher number than usual due to the stricter rules this year.

Miami Beach wants to minimize the impact for residents so certain streets will be open for local residents only.

Those road closures start Friday May 25th and will remain closed until Tuesday May 29th.

Here is the list of road closures:

• Ocean Drive will be shut down to vehicular traffic from 5th to 15th Street from 7:00 a.m. Friday to 7:00 a.m. Tuesday.
• Collins Avenue will be northbound traffic only between 5th to 15th Street from 7:00 a.m. Friday to 7:00 a.m. Tuesday.
• Washington Avenue will be southbound traffic only between 5th to 15th Street from 7:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights.
• Proof of Residency will be required to enter the following residential areas:
• North of 5th Street to Lincoln Road from Washington Avenue west to Alton Road
• South of 5th Street to Government Cut
• Dade Blvd to 41st Street and Pine Tree Drive

A Traffic Loop will be activated Friday through Sunday from 7:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. The Traffic Loop will send traffic north on Collins Avenue and South on Washington Avenue. Ocean Drive will be completely closed off to vehicular traffic.

Proof of residency will be required to enter the residential areas north of 5th Street – 11th Street from Washington Avenue west to Alton Road.

A DUI check point will be operational from Friday night-Saturday morning. There will be DUI saturation and enforcement throughout the remainder of the weekend.

The police department is also erecting 4 surveillance towers with video equipment where officers can rewind and view video. The cameras, which can see up to a mile, will be perched on four towers stationed in Lummus Park, on Collins Avenue and on the east end of the Lincoln Road Mall.

Police will also be using license tag readers for the first time along the Julia Tuttle and MacArthur Causeways, checking for expired registration, stolen vehicles and wanted vehicles. Vehicles with tags that kick back violations to police will be stopped.

Pairs of police will be stationed up and down Fifth Street, Ocean Drive, Collins and Washington Avenues.

The Venetian Causeway will be open only to Miami and Miami Beach residents, although restricted access will be based on the honor system.

The City will also continue using Goodwill Ambassadors. The program was started more than a decade ago, after the huge crowds attracted by what was then known as “Hip Hop Weekend” angered and intimidated residents, and led to what many called excessive police response and hundreds of arrests.

Goodwill Ambassadors, all wearing red shirts, assist with crowd control issues, distribute courtesy litterbags and safety brochures, report service issues that need immediate attention and answer visitors’ questions.

Police say they hope the new tactics and equipment will control the crowds that come to town not just for club events but for the jam-packed, non-sanctioned street parties on Ocean Drive and Collins Avenue that have come to define the weekend since 2001.

Joaquin Amador Serrapio Jr., 20, found that out the hard way.  On Wednesday he pleaded guilty to onea count of threatening to kill or harm the president.  Now he could be looking at up to five years in prison when he’s sentenced 22^nd.

Serrapio’s attorney, Alan Ross, said it is likely that he will get less time.

A second year music business major at Miami-Dade College, who also fronts for a rock band group called the J. Valor Band, used the band’s Facebook page to post a pair of threats against the president.

The threatening comments were made around the time Obama visited South Florida in February to deliver a speech at the University of Miami and attend two fundraisers.

The first post was made on Feb. 21, it read: “Who wants to help me assassinate Obummer while hes at UM this week?”

A second post, on Feb. 23 read: “If anyones going to UM to see Obama today, get ur phones out and record. Cause at any moment im gonna put a bullet through his head and u don’t wanna miss that! Youtube!” the message said.

“He wanted to get a reaction from political supporters of President Obama,” Ross said.

An anonymous call was made to the Coral Gables Police Department and the Secret Service dispatched two agents to Serrapio’s home.

They found an iPad with one of the Facebook postings on it and a cell phone with a text message from one of Serrapio’s friends who was knew the trouble Serrapio could face.

“LOL you can get in trouble for sayin’ that”, the text message said.

Serrapio’s replied that he was simply “challenging” the Secret Services.

“I wanna kill atleast two of them when they get here,” he said in that text.

During the search the only weapons that were found in Serrapio’s possession were two pellet guns.

(TM and © Copyright 2012 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2012 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

NEW YORK (AP) — The Devils turned a stellar first nine minutes and an opportunistic final five into a stirring victory over the Rangers that moved New Jersey within one win of a trip to the Stanley Cup finals.

Suddenly, No. 1 seed New York is on the brink — again.

No one would have guessed when Travis Zajac scored 9:49 in to give the Devils a three-goal lead that they would be desperately looking for one more late in the third to hold off the Rangers, who had fought back to tie and appeared to have every bit of the momentum.

But the game, and perhaps the entire Eastern Conference finals, changed in the blink of an eye when Ryan Carter put the Devils in front to stay.

Carter snapped a tie with 4:24 left, and New Jersey survived en route to a 5-3 victory over New York after blowing a three-goal lead in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference finals on Wednesday night.

The rugged fourth-line forward, who had only four goals and four assists in 72 games with Florida and New Jersey, already has three goals in the playoffs, including two in the East finals.

The Devils, who led 3-0 before the first period was half over, have a 3-2 edge in the series and can advance to face the Los Angeles Kings in the finals with a win at home on Friday night. If the Rangers can stay alive, Game 7 would be back in Madison Square Garden Sunday.

“It’s a good feeling,” goalie Martin Brodeur said of the Devils’ status. “We worked really hard to get in that position. (There’s been) a lot of unsung heroes and guys producing at different times. Players are playing well. We’ve just got to keep going.

“Nothing is done yet.”

The Devils seemed primed for an easy win when Stephen Gionta and Patrik Elias scored within the first 4:13. Travis Zajac made it 3-0 before the Rangers woke up and began chipping away.

Brandon Prust brought New York within 3-1 before the first period was over, and Ryan Callahan made it a one-goal game in the first minute of the second. The Garden really rocked when Marian Gaborik tied it at 3 just 17 seconds into the third.

But the comeback was for naught. Carter put the Devils back in front, and Zach Parise sealed it with an empty-net goal.

“I thought,” Rangers coach John Tortorella said, “we probably played our best game of the series.”

Once Gaborik tied it with an unassisted goal that ricocheted in off the skate of Brodeur, it appeared the Rangers would ride the comeback all the way to one of the most stirring wins in team history — one that would rival victories over New Jersey in the classic 1994 East finals when the Rangers erased a 3-2 series hole behind Mark Messier’s guarantee.

Carter made sure it wouldn’t happen.

“You have to (keep it together) this time of year,” Gionta said. “You have to have a short memory. Fortunately we did and came out with the victory.”

Ilya Kovalchuk knocked Michael Del Zotto off the puck in the right corner, and Gionta sent a pass in front to Carter — who had just charged in front from the bench — for a quick shot that beat Henrik Lundqvist.

“A great play by Kovy to separate their (defensemen) from the puck,” Carter said. “Gio scooped the puck up, took a look and made a fantastic pass to me. All I had to was redirect it.”

New Jersey was outshot 28-17 overall and had only six shots in the third period, but two of them went in. Now the Devils are on the verge of their first Cup finals appearance since they won their third title in 2003.

Brodeur, the backbone of every New Jersey title, kept his focus throughout the third when he was loudly taunted with chants of “Mar-ty, Mar-ty” after New York got even.

“It was a mistake,” Brodeur said of Gaborik’s goal. “I’m pretty happy that the boys bounced back and made this a win for us. It would have been tough and people would have blamed that mishandle.”

The Rangers were ultimately done in by another terrible start. For the 13th straight game in these playoffs, the team that scored first in New York’s contests has gone on to win. The Rangers had been on a pattern of win-one, lose-one, but now they are on the verge of elimination with their second two-game losing streak in a series this year.

The only time the Rangers have won two straight in a playoff series is when they overcame a 3-2 hole in the first round and knocked out Ottawa. They have faced elimination three times already this postseason.

“We have to. There is no other way around it,” Lundqvist said of the Rangers’ comeback chances. “We have to bring all the good things we did and keep doing them in the next game. We played really well in the second and third period.”

They couldn’t say the same about the first.

“It’s different when you go down 3-0. You don’t have a whole lot to lose,” Rangers forward Brian Boyle said. “It was good nonetheless. Now it’s 3-2. Now we have to win two. That’s the bottom line.”

The Rangers burned their timeout early, and Devils coach Peter DeBoer spent his with 10:17 left. Parise implored his teammates on the bench to, `Come on boys.’ and the messages from the coach and the captain did the trick.

New Jersey surely never thought it would be in this kind of fight after storming in front early.

“It wasn’t pretty by any means, what we did tonight,” Parise said. “But we’re going home with a 3-2 lead.”

Not only didn’t the Rangers have the strong start they craved and insisted they needed, they were practically run out of their building less than 10 minutes in.

The same problems that plagued New York in its 4-1 loss in Game 4, when the Devils jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first period, cropped up again in front of the home fans that grew frustrated and angry early.

Gionta got the Devils going 2:43 in when he gathered a rebound of Mark Fayne’s shot right in front of Lundqvist, steadied himself without any pressure from the defense, and slipped in his third goal of the playoffs to start the barrage.

Elias made it 2-0 just 1:30 later on New Jersey’s fourth shot of the night.

After Kovalchuk fumbled the puck just inside the blue line, he dived to keep it from leaving the Rangers’ zone. The puck eventually came to Adam Henrique at the right point for a shot that was stopped by Lundqvist. Elias got it in front and scored his fourth.

Tortorella used his timeout then, but it made little difference. He appeared to be calm as he moved back and forth behind the bench while talking to his players. Whatever the message was didn’t sink in.

The Devils shrugged off a few scoring chances by the Rangers, and padded their lead again.

Just 5:26 after Elias’ goal, Zajac made it 3-0 with his seventh of the playoffs. Bryce Salvador wiped out Rangers defenseman Ryan McDonagh in the New Jersey end and started the play going the other way. Zajac got a clean shot from just inside the right circle that sailed past Lundqvist and beat him inside the left post at 9:49.

The tide began to turn the Rangers’ way the rest of the period as they allowed only one shot the rest of the period and began cutting into the deficit.

Prust, making his return following a one-game suspension for an elbow he delivered to the head of Devils defenseman Anton Volchenkov in Game 3, showed off a bit of scoring touch when he converted on a breakaway with 4:19 left in the first.

The Rangers outshot the Devils 9-6 in the lopsided first period, but continued their sudden defensive dominance well into the second. Then they cut the Devils’ lead down to a goal just 32 seconds into the second.

Brandon Dubinsky, back from a foot injury, fired a shot from the left point that was deflected in front and caromed toward the left corner. Artem Anisimov flung the puck back toward the crease and it struck the left skate of the driving Callahan and got past Brodeur. The goal stood up after a brief video review.

New Jersey didn’t record its first shot of the period, and its second since its third goal, until Henrique put a puck in on Lundqvist at 6:23.

Lundqvist, who had stopped 94 percent of the shots he faced in the playoffs before Wednesday, made just 12 saves. The Rangers allowed five goals one game after allowing four for the first time in this postseason.

To make the finals now, New York will have to win a third consecutive seven-game series. The Rangers have already played 19 postseason games.

“We have to have a short memory,” McDonagh said. “We’ve been in this position before in this playoffs and we found a way to get it done. We don’t want to look ahead. We have to win two games, but we just have to focus on winning one.”

Notes: Dubinsky had been sidelined since he was injured in the Rangers’ victory over Ottawa in Game 7 of the first round. He sat out all seven games of the second round against Washington and the first four against New Jersey. John Mitchell was scratched to make room in the lineup. Prust’s return forced D Steve Eminger to sit out after he played the two previous games. … Kovalchuk has 10 assists in the postseason. … Prust scored his first career NHL playoff goal in his 23rd game. … The game was played on the 18-year anniversary of Game 5 of the 1994 Eastern Conference finals, in which the Devils won, 4-1, took a 3-2 series lead, and prompted the Messier guarantee the following day.

(Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

New York, on the brink of elimination, headed to New Jersey for Game 6.

The comparisons to 1994 were apparent before this series even started — now it’s near a crescendo. All that’s missing is a guarantee from the Rangers captain.

Just don’t tell that to the Devils.

“We won’t worry about it,” forward Patrik Elias said. “Who cares what happened way back then?”

The Devils are concerned with 2012, not what happened in a different millennium, when Rangers great Mark Messier delivered — and came through on — his stunning guarantee.

“That’s 15, 20 years ago. I don’t care,” said captain Zach Parise.

Meanwhile, Parise & Co. never could have imagined they would have a three-goal lead on New York less than 10 minutes into Game 5 of the Eastern Conference finals at hostile Madison Square Garden. Their shock was even greater when that advantage was gone, and they were suddenly locked in a tie game in the opening minute of the third period.

In the end, it all worked out for the Devils, who got another surprising goal from fourth-line forward Ryan Carter in the closing minutes and escaped with a win that put New Jersey on the verge of a spot in the Stanley Cup finals.

Carter’s third goal of the playoffs with 4:24 remaining was the difference in the Devils’ 5-3 victory over New York on Wednesday night. The Devils have a 3-2 edge in the series, but if the top-seeded Rangers can stay alive on Friday night in New Jersey, Game 7 would be back in Madison Square Garden on Sunday.

“It’s a good feeling,” goalie Martin Brodeur said of the Devils’ status. “We worked really hard to get in that position. (There’s been) a lot of unsung heroes and guys producing at different times. Players are playing well. We’ve just got to keep going.

“Nothing is done yet.”

If the Rangers fall short, their best season in years will come to a crashing end and the Devils will move on to face the Western champion Los Angeles Kings. New York hasn’t been to the finals since 1994, when the Rangers knocked out New Jersey in the semis and then beat Vancouver for the title.

The Devils are one win away from playing for the Cup one season after their run of 13 straight postseason appearances was snapped. New Jersey went to the finals four times between 1995 and 2003 and won three championships.

“It’s a great position to be in,” Elias said. “Hopefully, we can play a better game at home. Hopefully, we’ll be the team that dictates the energy and the pace out there.”

When Travis Zajac scored 9:49 in to make it 3-0, the Devils seemed ready to cruise to victory. But the Rangers roared back and appeared to have every bit of the momentum.

Then the game, and perhaps the entire series, changed in the blink of an eye when Carter put the Devils in front to stay. Parise added an empty-net goal to make sure the Rangers had no chance for another comeback.

Carter had only four goals and four assists in 72 regular-season games with Florida and New Jersey. He has two goals in the East finals.

“They’ve been great the whole playoffs,” Elias said of the fourth line. “It’s not always the top guys who win you hockey games.”

Stephen Gionta and Elias scored within the first 4:13 before Zajac made it 3-0. Then the Rangers woke up.

Brandon Prust brought New York within 3-1 before the first period was over, and Ryan Callahan made it a one-goal game in the first minute of the second. The Garden really rocked when Marian Gaborik tied it at 3 just 17 seconds into the third.

But the comeback was for naught.

“We probably played our best game of the series,” Rangers coach John Tortorella said.

Once Gaborik tied it with an unassisted goal that ricocheted in off Brodeur’s skate, it appeared the Rangers would ride the comeback all the way to one of the most stirring wins in team history — one that would rival victories over New Jersey in the classic 1994 East finals when the Rangers erased a 3-2 series hole behind Mark Messier’s guarantee.

Carter made sure it wouldn’t happen.

“You have to (keep it together) this time of year,” Gionta said. “You have to have a short memory. Fortunately we did and came out with the victory.”

New Jersey was outshot 28-17 overall and had only six shots in the third period, but two went in.

Brodeur, the backbone of every New Jersey title, kept his focus throughout the third when he was loudly taunted with chants of “Mar-ty, Mar-ty” after New York got even.

“It was a mistake,” Brodeur said of Gaborik’s goal. “I’m pretty happy that the boys bounced back and made this a win for us. It would have been tough and people would have blamed that mishandle.”

The Rangers were ultimately done in by another terrible start. They had been on a pattern of win-one, lose-one, but now they are on the verge of elimination with their second two-game losing streak in a series this year.

The only time the Rangers have won two straight in a playoff series this postseason is when they overcame a 3-2 hole in the first round and knocked out Ottawa.

“We have to bring all the good things we did and keep doing them in the next game,” Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist said. “We played really well in the second and third period.”

They couldn’t say the same about the first.

“It’s different when you go down 3-0. You don’t have a whole lot to lose,” Rangers forward Brian Boyle said. “It was good nonetheless. Now it’s 3-2. Now we have to win two. That’s the bottom line.”

The Rangers burned their timeout early, and Devils coach Peter DeBoer spent his with 10:17 left. Parise implored his teammates on the bench — “Come on boys!” — and the messages from the coach and the captain did the trick.

“It wasn’t pretty by any means,” Parise said. “But we’re going home with a 3-2 lead.”

Not only didn’t the Rangers have the strong start they craved and insisted they needed, they were practically run out of their building.

The same problems that plagued New York in its 4-1 loss in Game 4, when the Devils jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first period, cropped up again in front of the frustrated fans.

Gionta got the Devils going 2:43 in, and Elias made it 2-0 1:30 later on New Jersey’s fourth shot.

Tortorella used his timeout, but it made little difference. He appeared to be calm as he moved back and forth behind the bench while talking to his players. Whatever the message was it didn’t sink in.

The Devils shrugged off a few scoring chances by the Rangers, and padded their lead again.

Just 5:26 after Elias’ goal, Zajac made it 3-0 with his seventh of the playoffs. Zajac got a clean shot from just inside the right circle that beat Lundqvist inside the left post.

The tide began to turn the Rangers’ way, and they allowed only one shot the rest of the period.

Prust, making his return following a one-game suspension for an elbow he delivered to the head of Devils defenseman Anton Volchenkov in Game 3, showed off a bit of scoring touch when he converted on a breakaway with 4:19 left in the first to make it 3-1.

The Rangers outshot the Devils 9-6 in the lopsided period, but continued their sudden defensive dominance well into the second. Then they cut the Devils’ lead to a goal just 32 seconds into the second.

New Jersey didn’t record its first shot of the period, and its second since its third goal, until Adam Henrique put a puck in on Lundqvist at 6:23.

Lundqvist, who had stopped 94 percent of the shots he faced in the playoffs before Wednesday, made just 12 saves. The Rangers allowed five goals one game after giving up four for the first time in this postseason.

To make the finals, New York will have to win a third consecutive seven-game series.

“We have to have a short memory,” Rangers defenseman Ryan McDonagh said. “We’ve been in this position before in this playoffs and we found a way to get it done. We don’t want to look ahead. We have to win two games, but we just have to focus on winning one.”

What’s your prediction for Game 6? Sound off in the comments below!

(TM and Copyright 2012 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2011 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

No team has won consecutive games in a series where neither team has played well enough to seize control.

Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen and Rajon Rondo could be playing their last game together Saturday night if they can’t find a way to hang onto the ball and put away a Sixers team that won’t quit.

Former 76ers All-Star Allen Iverson earned a roaring standing ovation when he presented the game ball. By the end, the fans were on their feet for Holiday, Brand and Andre Iguodala.

(© Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

According to the latest Quinnipiac University poll, Representative Mack leads former Senator George LeMieux and Mike McCallister by 33 and 32 points respectively. Mack received 40 percent of the support among registered Republicans to LeMieux’s 7 percent and McCallister’s 8 percent.

Still, there’s plenty of room for each candidate to move up and down ahead of August’s primary. Forty-one percent of registered Republicans said they were not sure which candidate they were going to support.

But Senator Nelson can’t get comfortable either. The poll found Nelson is currently trailing Mack by a 42-41 percent margin, which was inside the margin of error for the poll, making it a statistical dead heat.

Nelson trailed among male voters by eight percent and among white voters by 13 percent to Mack. Nelson also trailed Mack among Hispanic voters by an eight percent margin. But, a plurality of voters said they approved of Nelson’s handling of job as Senator.

Half of all Republican voters said they haven’t heard enough about Mack to have an opinion of him.

The same poll found that Governor Rick Scott had negative numbers among voters, but his numbers have improved since January. Forty-six percent disapprove of Scott’s job performance while 41 percent approve.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission will release its annual childhood drowning report Thursday at the Fort Lauderdale Aquatic Complex, home to the International Swimming Hall of Fame.

The report presents estimates of deaths and injuries associated with pools, spas and hot tubs, and it coincides with a national campaign that aims to reduce the number of similar events.

The “Pool Safely” campaign is focusing this year on increasing swimming education in black and Hispanic communities.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, black children between the ages of 5 and 14 are three times more likely to drown than white children of the same age range. Meanwhile, research by the USA Swimming Foundation indicates that up to 70 percent of black and Hispanic children cannot swim.

Citing that research, safety commission chairman Inez Tenenbaum said “there’s no question” that not knowing how to swim contributes to the deaths of minority children who drown in pools and in natural bodies of water such as lakes, streams or the ocean.

“We are focusing on minority children because the data show they are most at risk for drowning,” she said in a telephone interview.

“It’s a cultural issue, because many of the African-American and Hispanic children have parents and grandparents who never learned to swim,” Tenenbaum added.

The safety commission is working with the Y, the American Red Cross, public schools and other community organizations to boost access to free swimming lessons.

In its report, the agency has found that:

• An annual average of 390 pool- and spa-related deaths involving children younger than 15 were reported from 2007 to 2009. About 73 percent of those deaths occurred at a residential location, and three-quarters of the reported deaths involved children under the age of 5.
• Of the estimated annual average of 5,200 pool- or spa-related injuries involving children younger than 15 from 2009 through 2011, approximately 51 percent occurred at a residential location.
• Portable pools accounted for an annual average of 40 deaths involving children younger than 15.
• Children between the ages of 1 and 3 represented 66 percent of the estimated injuries for 2009 through 2011 and 67 percent of the reported fatalities for 2007 through 2009.
• No deaths caused by entrapment, when the suction in a pool or hot tub traps a swimmer underwater, were reported in 2011. Seven entrapment injuries were reported last year.

According to the report, more than half of the reported deaths involving children under the age of 5 could be attributed to a lapse in adult supervision. Also, more boys were treated for pool- or spa-related injuries than girls.

“These numbers are consistent, and it has been long known that drowning is the number one cause of death in children younger than 5,” Tenenbaum said.

Tenenbaum noted that swimming is a featured activity in first lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move!” fitness initiative, and she encouraged parents who don’t know how to swim to make swimming lessons a family activity.

At Thursday’s announcement, Tenenbaum will be joined by representatives from the National Drowning Prevention Alliance, USA Swimming and the Josh Project, a non-profit which teaches minority children to swim.

(TM and © Copyright 2012 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2012 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

According to the poll, Hispanic voters approve of the job President Obama is doing in handling the economy by a 54-38 percent margin. The numbers are similar on foreign policy where 53 percent give Obama thumbs up on his handling of foreign affairs.

When pollsters asked Hispanic voters about whether they had positive or negative views of political parties and leaders, Democrats again came out ahead. Fifty-eight percent said they had either a somewhat positive or very positive view of President Obama. Fifty-one percent had a similar view of the Democratic Party.

On the flip side, 40 percent said they had a somewhat negative or very negative view of the Republican Party and another 35 percent said they had a similar view of Romney.

Nearly six in 10 Hispanic voters said they would prefer a Democratically-controlled Congress, while just 30 percent want Republicans to control the next Congress. Plus, if the election were held today, 61 percent of Hispanic voters said they’d vote for Obama compared to 27 percent who would vote for Mitt Romney.

Still, only 50 percent of those surveyed voted in the 2008 election. That means if Democrats want to win, they will have to put together a massive get out the vote campaign among Hispanic voters. If they successfully do that, it could swing many elections in favor of the Democratic Party.

While the last three days of rain has been an inconvenience for most people, for some in Doral and Sweetwater it’s really taken its toll.

In Doral, business owner Eric Schigiel said much of the area around his business is underwater.

“All of our employees had their cars flooded and damaged,” said Schigiel, “It’s sad that just normal working people have their cars get ruined.”

Schigiel owns Opus Stone on Northwest 77th Court and he said he’s he lost as much as $60,000 in business due to the flooding.

Cesar Chaigas of USA Tile and Marble trucked employees in to work.

“Most of them parked at a shopping center a few blocks away and we sent one of our semis to pick them up bring them over here,” he explained.

Although customers couldn’t get to the parking lots, he said his employees had to take phone and email orders.

Miami-Dade Commissioner Pepe Diaz visited the area to see what the county and city of Doral could do to help the local businesses, but said it’s not an easy problem to fix.

“This area’s got a lot of private roads. This was built when our code wasn’t as strong as it is now,” Diaz said.

Water managers started draining the C-4 Canal during heavy rainfall last week. Prior to Tuesday’s rain, the canal was at 3.7 feet above sea level which is the lowest they go. But in a six hour period on Tuesday, the water climbed to 5.2 feet above sea level, just slightly less than the 6 foot level when water starts overflowing from canals.

Crews opened a 900-acre impoundment area just east of Krome Avenue and 8th Street around 1:00 a.m. Wednesday. The C-4 Impound Area can hold a billion gallons of water in an emergency. Over a 12 hour period they moved roughly 200 million gallons of water into the Impound Area to bring the C-4 Canal down.

“It’s a lot of water. A lot of water. And it’s hard to move that kind of water locally,” said Michael Gallagher from the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD).

This is only the 5th time they’ve used the Impound Area since it was built in 2005.

SFWMD officials said the system performed perfectly but Doral may have taken longer to drain because the water must travel through city and county secondary canals. They said there may have been debris blocking drainage systems or the rain simply fell too hard too fast.

Quote of the Day:
“I never did given anybody hell. I just told the truth and they thought it was hell.” – former President Harry S. Truman

Miami Heat: (@ Indiana Pacers, 8:00 p.m.)
Sometimes, I think the Heat are intentionally trying to make this road to the Finals more difficult than it should be.
Udonis Haslem was suspended for Game 6 for his flagrant foul in Game 5 and Dexter Pittman was suspended for his flagrant foul in Game 5, which was dserved.
Haslem’s foul was a lot less than Pittman’s, still, he brought the suspension on himself.
When he walked away looking like he was proud of his foul on Hansbrough, that sealed the penalty.
Pittman’s foul was payback and he was the designated thug that night.
So what do the Heat do now?
Good question.
They’re down to a rotation of Joel Anthony, Ronny Turiaf, and Shane Battier at the power forward and center positions.
I’m not worried about Battier, but when he and Turiaf need to come off, the Heat have three options.
1. Go small and make the Pacers run with them.
2. Slide LeBron down to the power forward position and make him guard David West/Tyler Hansbrough
3. Put Eddy Curry in and let him bang down low with Roy Hibbert
Well, if he was in shape, I’d say put Curry in and let him bang and hack away at Hibbert.
If he gave you 8-10 good minutes, it’d be a victory.
Plus, it’d allow you to keep LeBron on one of Indy’s better players, if West isn’t in the game.
Still, Udonis should have known better of how to hack the poop out of someone without getting suspended.
Here’s the possible good news for the Heat.
West’s knee isn’t 100 percent and while Danny Granger will get the painkillers and give it a go, his ankle is WAY less than 100 percent.
He’s not likely to be able to keep up in an up and down game like the Heat want to play.
So what do the Heat have to do tonight?
They have to get Battier and Chalmers going early and often.
They need to get Joel slamming the defensive glass early and often.
Then turn it over to D-Wade and LeBron in the second half and ride them for all their worth.
If Battier, Chalmers and Mike Miller all struggle from the field, the Heat are toast unless Wade and LeBron can score 80 points together.
What’s my pick?
I think Battier will come through shooting again and I think the injury to Granger will hurt Indiana, but it’s going to be a nail-biter.
Heat – 89 Pacers – 87

Miami Marlins: (vs. San Francisco Giants, 7:00 p.m.)
Ouch Big Z, what was that?
After being one of the Marlins’ best pitchers up to last night, Carlos Zambrano got shelled as the Rockies knocked off the red hot Marlins.
Zambrano’s velocity was down in the game as well….ruh-roh.
Guillen said he was worried about the velocity, but Zambrano was trying to guide the ball instead of just letting loose with his fastball.
Hey, but Z did get an RBI in the game, so he’s got that going for him.
The loss dropped Miami to 16-6 in May as the Fish get ready to welcome in the Giants for a four-game series.
The last time the Marlins and Giants played was at the beginning of May and the Marlins swept the G-men in San Fran.
The Giants are going to send Vogelsong out to face Anibal Sanchez.
Vogelsong is 2-0 with a 0.84 ERA in his last three appearances. Anibal is 0-2 with a 2.14 ERA during the same span.

Miami Dolphins:
As the Fins continue offseason training activities, head coach took a few minutes to talk to ESPN Wednesday night.
He said he’s very happy with his quarterback situation.
He also said that Fins fans hoping for a starting quarterback to be named early will have to wait.
Philbin said Week 3 of the preseason is when he’ll know who his starter is in 2012.
If I had to handicap it, here’s my guess.
If Garrard is fully healthy, he’s going to start.
Matt Moore will likely back him up.
Tannehill will be the understudy but if Garrard falters mid-season, he’ll vault over Moore or Garrard and get some starts as the season wears on.
That’s just an educated guess, but from everything I’ve read, Garrard has been sharp early.
He’s injury prone though, and Moore did play well down the stretch last season, so we’ll see.
I’m actually thinking if the Fins struggle and are not playoff bound by mid-season it will be a good thing.
Tannehill can come in and take over and the Fins can see what they have to build on.
The last thing you want is Garrard or Moore to play extremely well and get the Fins to the playoffs or to the cusp of the playoffs.
Then, you’d have a full fledged quarterback controversy heading into an offseason.

Follow me on Twitter @timkephart33

A Flood Watch remains in effect for most of Miami-Dade County until 8:00 p.m. due to the standing water in Doral, Sweetwater and surrounding communities and the potential for scattered storms throughout the day.

There is a potential for more flooding Thursday.

GALLERY: SOGGY MESS IN SOUTH FLORIDA

The storm chance remains high due to deep tropical moisture to our South and East associated with a trough of low pressure the CBS4 Storm Team is tracking in the tropics.

The elongated area of low pressure extends from the Northwestern Caribbean across Western Cuba and in the Florida straits. The National Hurricane Center said this disorganized area of showers and thunderstorms has a low chance, a 20% chance, of developing into a Tropical or Subtropical Cyclone during the next 48 hours as it moves Northeastward across the Bahamas and into the Southwestern Atlantic ocean.

Currently, the system lacks a well-defined center of circulation and upper level winds and environmental conditions are not expected to be conducive for significant development during the next day or so.

Regardless of development, where this area of moisture ends up will determine how stormy it will be across South Florida on Friday and into Memorial Day weekend.

Some of the models currently indicate the moisture moving to our East Friday into Saturday and that would mean a mix of warm sun and some spotty storms. The moisture could move back towards South Florida Sunday into Monday increasing our chance for storms for the second half of the holiday weekend.

Highs will remain in the upper 80s the next few days.

Click here for CBSMiami.com’s Zoom Radar.

The unmanned SpaceX Dragon capsule flew within 1 1/2 miles of the orbiting lab as it performed a practice lap and checkout of its communication and navigation systems.

Officials at NASA and the SpaceX company said the rendezvous went well, although the test results still were being analyzed. The historic linkup is on track for Friday.

It is the first U.S. vessel to visit the space station since NASA’s shuttles retired last summer — and the first private spacecraft to ever attempt a delivery. The Dragon is carrying 1,000 pounds of provisions.

The space station astronauts struggled with bad computer monitors and camera trouble as the Dragon zoomed toward them, but the problem did not hold up the operation. Indeed, all of the tests appeared to go well.

The astronauts successfully turned on Dragon’s strobe light by remote control, but could not see it because of the sun glare and distance of several miles. The Dragon finally popped into camera view about 10 minutes later, appearing as a bright speck of light against the blackness of space, near the Earth’s blue horizon. The two solar wings were clearly visible as the Dragon drew closer.

“Can nicely see the vehicle,” Dutch spaceman Andre Kuipers said.

SpaceX’s near-term objective is to help stockpile the space station, joining Russia, Europe and Japan in resupply duties. In three or four more years, however, the California-based company run by the billionaire who co-founded PayPal, Elon Musk, hopes to be launching station astronauts.

It is the cornerstone of President Barack Obama’s strategy for NASA: turning over orbital flights to private business so the space agency can concentrate on destinations farther afield, like asteroids and Mars.

Obama called Musk on Wednesday, a day after Dragon’s flawless launch from Cape Canaveral, Fla., aboard the company’s Falcon 9 rocket.

GALLERY: First-Of-Its-Kind Spaceship Blasts Off For Int’l Space Station

“The President just called to say congrats. Caller ID was blocked, so at first I thought it was a telemarketer,” Musk said via Twitter early Thursday. He ended his tweet with a smiley emoticon.

Musk monitored Thursday’s operation from the SpaceX Mission Control in Hawthorne, Calif., where the company is based.

On Friday, two of the space station’s six astronauts, Kuipers and Donald Pettit, will use the space station’s robot arm to grab the Dragon and attach it to the complex. The crew will have a week to unload the contents before releasing the spacecraft for re-entry. It is the only supply ship designed to return to Earth with experiments and equipment; the others burn up in the atmosphere.

The space shuttles used to be the primary means of getting things to and from the space station. Discovery is now a museum relic, with Endeavour and Atlantis soon to follow.

Aboard the incoming Dragon — 19 feet tall and 12 feet across — is food, clothes, batteries and other space station gear.

The space station and Dragon will be visible to Earthlings in select locations in the pre-dawn hours Friday, while flying tandem just prior to their linkup 250 miles above the planet. Among the many U.S. cities with viewing opportunities if skies are clear: New York, Los Angeles, Washington, Chicago and Jacksonville, Fla.

(TM and © Copyright 2012 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2012 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

Not only will Vice President Joe Biden deliver the keynote address, but the graduation ceremony will be held in the new Marlins Park, becoming the first school to hold its commencement in the shiny, new stadium.

“It’s going to be an unforgettable experience. Not many people can say the Vice President of the United States talked at your graduation,” senior Felipe Lozano said.

Biden will give the commencement speech during the graduation ceremony on June 4th.

“It’s a good story I can tell to family and friends throughout the rest of my life,” senior Philip Goldstein said.

School officials said the ceremony was originally set for June 3rd at the University of Miami’s Bank United Center, but Biden was only available on June 4th, when the facility was not available.
So Broward County’s largest high school booked Marlins Park for the 2012 graduation.

Of course, the new venue came with a much higher price tag. The cost is $17,000– or $6,000 more than the original venue.

The money will pay for the closed roof, air conditioning, ushers, ticket takers and security guards.

An anonymous private donor is paying for the $6,000 price difference.

“They have Biden the VP of the United States, but they also have Marlin Stadium which has never been open to any graduation so they are first on a couple of things,” Principal Charles Scott Neely said.

“I’m sure he’ll give a great speech and let us know what the real world is like since that’s what we’re heading off to,” said senior Elinor Tiape.

So why Cypress Bay High? Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz happens to oversee the district. She also happens to be the Chairwoman for the Democratic National Committee.

Whatever the reason, though, students are pumped.

“I think it’s an amazing honor. It’s definitely a testament to excellence of Cypress Bay,” Lozano said.

About 7,500 people are expected to attend the graduation ceremony. Cypress Bay has 4,210 students.

The stage will be on the field and students will sit in the stands behind home plate.

Even so, Troy Tulowitzki rated their 8-4 victory Wednesday over the Miami Marlins as significant.

“It’s just a big win for us,” he said. “It might sound stupid, but it was real big.”

Tulowitzki homered and drove in four runs to help Alex White earn his first victory this year, and the Rockies snapped a six-game losing streak.

White (1-3) had lost six consecutive starts since September. He gave up four runs in six innings.

The Rockies had lost 16 of 20 games in May. When they fell behind 3-0 in the second inning against Carlos Zambrano, they were on the verge of being swept for the second series in a row.

“If we go into an off day with two sweeps in a row, it’s tough to take,” Tulowitzki said. “Heads start to spin a little bit — ‘Jeez, this is going real bad.’ At least we look at our last game as a win. Is it where we want to be? No, but at least it’s a step in the right direction.”

The Rockies’ comeback came after they blew early leads of 4-0 and 3-0 in the first two games of the series.

“This game is crazy,” Marlins manager Ozzie Guillen said. “I love baseball. Pretty nice, huh? We’re up by three with Carlos on the mound, I’ve got a smile on my face.”

The Rockies’ 3-4 hitters led the rally. Carlos Gonzalez had two hits and two RBIs. Tulowitzki doubled home a run in the fourth and hit a tiebreaking three-run homer in the fifth off Zambrano (2-3).

Tulowitzki hiked his average to a still-modest .268.

“I told him the stranger that’s hitting behind me is starting to look like Troy Tulowitzki,” Gonzalez said. “That’s what everybody’s been waiting for. I’m not even worried about him because I know he’s going to get hot and going to take care of us.”

Jose Reyes had two RBI singles for the Marlins. They managed only one baserunner in the final 5 1-3 innings, and Rafael Betancourt pitched a perfect ninth.

“This is the first time in several days when I had the chance to use the bullpen the way I wanted to,” Rockies manager Jim Tracy said.

Zambrano allowed just five hits but seven runs in five innings. He walked three, and each led to a run.

“I didn’t have my best stuff,” he said. “The Rockies came in with a six-game losing streak. They were hungry today, and I was the bite.”

The result snapped a three-game winning streak for the Marlins, who began the night with the best record in the majors since May 1.

The Rockies trailed 4-3 before scoring four runs off Zambrano in the fifth. Ramon Hernandez led off with a walk, and consecutive singles by Marco Scutaro and Gonzalez scored the tying run.

Tulowitzki followed with his sixth homer for a 7-4 lead. With that one pitch, Zambrano gave up as many runs as he had allowed in his previous four starts combined.

Gonzalez hit a two-out RBI triple in the seventh.

“We’re going to score runs when those two guys in the middle of the order start putting things together,” Tracy said. “Then we have the opportunity of putting points on the board — some serious points on the board.”

Miami’s Giancarlo Stanton began the night with a career average of .349 against Colorado, but he went 0 for 4 with three strikeouts. Hanley Ramirez went 0 for 2 with runners in scoring position and is batting .208 in those situations this year.

White gave up eight hits but only one walk. He improved his career road ERA to 6.80 in eight starts.

“I can’t beat myself,” he said. “I can’t put guys on base. That’s how I get in trouble. I had to trust my stuff and get it in the strike zone.”

(© Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

Officer Nelia Real was off-duty and headed home on the Turnpike on May 10th when she saw a car crash near the Hollywood Boulevard exit. When she stopped to help, gunman David Bradley shot her. She hadn’t even gotten out of her cruiser when the gunman’s bullet pierced her window and struck her in the jaw.

worldnow id=7323681 width=385 height=288 type=video]

Bradley then opened fire of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Gabriel Martinez, who was also off-duty and on his way home. Martinez also stopped when he saw the wreck and was shot in the arm as he tried to confront Bradley.

Bradley had been involved in a carjacking and robbery in Pembroke Pines before he crashed a stolen vehicle on the Turnpike and began firing at the officers.

The violent crime spree ended when Bradley, who walked past startled, grid-locked motorists, shot and killed himself.

Back in January of last year, Zimmerman spoke at a Sanford community forum and blasted the police department. But in his criticism, he also revealed that he rode alone with officers.

“I also had the opportunity to take ride-alongs with the City of Sanford Police Department and what I saw was disgusting,” Zimmerman said in January 2011.

A few months ago, Sanford Police said Zimmerman did not have any relationship with the department. In the recording obtained by CBS4′s news partners at The Miami Herald, Zimmerman suggests the officer was lazy.

“The officer showed me his favorite hiding spots for taking naps … he took two lunch breaks and attended a going-away party for one of his fellow officers,” said Zimmerman.

Sanford Police say they can’t find any record showing Zimmerman rode with police.

Zimmerman made the public statement soon after another video went viral. It reportedly shows the son of a police officer punching a homeless black man and at least one other person. Sanford Police did not arrest him that night.

“The law is written in black and white. It should not and cannot be enforced in the gray for those that are in the thin blue line,” said Zimmerman.

Meanwhile, new surveillance video from the Sanford Police Department shows Zimmerman walking freely, without an escort, through the station.

Zimmerman faces a second-degree murder charge for the death of Trayvon Martin.

Late Wednesday, prosecutors filed a motion asking the judge to seal the rest of the evidence in the case.

Sean Beard’s doctor says the 26-year-old suffered kidney failure after smoking Spice — also known as synthetic marijuana — and was in the intensive care unit at Broward Health Medical Center for a week, fighting to survive.

Beard and his mother are using the experience as an opportunity to warn others about the drug.

“It’s definitely something that shouldn’t be on the market,” Beard told CBS 4′s Carey Codd.

Beard looks beat up — he has bloodshot eyes and bruises under his eyes. His can barely speak above a whisper. But he says one look at him should convince people to stay far away from synthetic marijuana.

“Here I am now,” Beard said from his hospital bed. “Look at me. If you want to look like me, go for it. Go to the store, go buy this (stuff).”

Beard, who was able to return home on Wednesday evening, says he bought the drug at a Sunrise gas station and admits he used it for months after battling a drug addiction. Beard says he thought it was fine to use the product since it was sold in stores.

After her son’s brush with death Gail Beard wants to warn other parents about this drug.

“It’s horrible,” she said. “I think it needs to be taken off the market completely never to be seen again.”

Gail Beard said after her son’s incident she purchased a packet of the product herself.  She said she was surprised at the colorful, fun-looking packaging.

“It looks like it’s something for kids,” she said. “It’s like a bubble gum wrapper.”

State legislators, federal drug investigators and law enforcement officers agree with the Beard’s. There have been laws in Florida passed banning some of the substances in fake pot. However, experts like toxicologist Chip Walls say the manufacturers have been able to stay ahead of the authorities by slightly altering the ingredients to keep the drug legal.

“Trouble is they’re changing (the ingredients) as fast as the government is putting them on a controlled substance list,” Walls said in an earlier interview.

Poison control experts add that they’ve seen a drastic increase in the amount of people becoming sick on the drug both in Florida and nationwide.

Another way the product stays on store shelves, authorities say, is that the packages contain a warning on the package that it’s not for human consumption. But medical experts say young people are using it and in some cases are becoming psychotic, violently ill and suicidal.

“This is deadly,” said Doctor Parham Eftekhari, Beard’s kidney specialist. “Studies need to be done on this. I think this needs to be closely investigated because (Beard) is not the only patient in the hospital suffering some kind of damage.”

A couple of South Florida cities — including Sunrise — have banned the sale of fake pot. State legislators also toughened the laws on possessing the drug by banning many of the substances used to make it.

However, experts say they are keeping a close eye on the drug to see if new variations of the drug warrant additional bans.

A Flood Watch remains in effect for Miami-Dade County until Thursday.

Additional rain in already flooded areas like Doral and Sweetwater could make the situation much worse because the saturated ground simply won’t be able to absorb any more water.

It was a bad day for businesses. Many in Doral had three feet of water in their parking lots.

Eric Schigiel owns Opus Stone on Northwest 77th Court, and told us he lost as much as $60,000 in business due to the flooding. He said he had to bring employees to work on a flatbed truck. He added, “All of our employees had their cars flooded and watered in and damaged, so it’s sad that just normal working people have their cars get ruined.”

Cesar Chaigas of USA Tile and Marble also trucked employees in. “Most of them parked at a shopping center a few blocks away and we sent one of our semis to pick them up bring them over here,” he explained. Although customers couldn’t get to the parking lots, he said his employees had to take phone and email orders.

The morning commute proved challenging in Doral as rain water collected and created new canals.

“It’s crazy, I need a boat to get around,” said Diana Counard.

“The truck is no problem. I can go through water,” said driver Joe Triana.

While some trucks did just that, Carmen Camano was not so lucky. She dialed 911 in a panic after her truck started to float.

“Thank God we are okay,” said Camano. “We were coming to buy us some tiles and all the sudden when I made a left the water was okay. But then it just ran so much water it stopped the engine. We kept calling and calling because we got so nervous. The water kept coming in and then the car was going from side to side. Semi-trucks were going by and my car was pulling under them, under the semi. It was so scary.” She explained her car became a boat. “I didn’t have control.”

Tow truck driver Adel Cirrilo, who was very busy on Wednesday, took CBS4’s David Sutta for a ride.

“I don’t want to damage my truck but I’ve got help some people out. That water is pretty much four feet,” said Cirrilo.

While rescuing the stranded, odd things floated by, like a fork lift. He said he’s never seen it this bad.

“Not down here. I saw it down South when Andrew passed,” said Cirrilo referring to Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

Water managers with the South Florida Water Management District worked hard to deal with the overflow of water.

Water managers started draining the C-4 Canal during heavy rainfall last week. Prior to Tuesday’s rain, the canal was at 3.7 feet above sea level which is the lowest they go. But in a six hour period on Tuesday, the water climbed to 5.2 feet above sea level, just slightly less than the 6 foot level when water starts overflowing from canals.

Crews opened a 900-acre impoundment area just east of Krome Avenue and 8^{th Street around 1:00 a.m. Wednesday. The C-4 Impound Area can hold a billion gallons of water in an emergency. After moving roughly 200 million gallons of water into the Impound Area in a 12-hour period, the C-4 Canal is now back at 3.8 feet.}

^{“It’s a lot of water. A lot of water. And it’s hard to move that kind of water locally,” said Michael Gallagher from the SFWMD.}

^{This is only the 5th time they’ve used the Impound Area since it was built in 2005. The pumps were turned off Wednesday afternoon.}

^{SFWMD officials said the system performed perfectly but Doral may have taken longer to drain because the water must travel through city and county secondary canals. They said there may have been debris blocking drainage systems or the rain simply fell to hard to fast. SFWMD moves on average about three inches of rain over six hours. Tuesday, three times that came in.}

^{“I don’t know where the finger should be pointed. I just know that our system did what it was intended to do,” stated Gallagher.}

Slideshow: Rain, Rain Go Away

On Tuesday, Miami broke a rainfall record. The NWS said they recorded 9.7 inches of rain for the day which broke the old record of 3.44 inches set back in 1901.

Stormy weather is expected to continue into Thursday as moisture and unstable air remain over South Florida.

It is a parasite that multiplies inside a cat and has already infected 60 million Americans.

Max the cat from Miami Lakes could be a carrier.

“I do love my cats. I am obsessed with my cats,” said Anna Carabeo who admits Max is a part of her family. “They are. They totally are and you think about them all the time.”

The bad news for Carabeo is that Max could be the carrier of a tiny parasite called Toxoplasma Gondii, which if passed on to humans can control our brain.

The parasite reproduces inside a cat’s intestines. Infected cats then excrete millions of microscopic eggs called Oocysts in the soil, in water, and in the cat litter.

That’s why pregnant women are told not to handle litter boxes.  People who are infected with the parasite and show no signs.

“So it’s our immune system that really helps to control the parasite keep it in check,” said Dr. Patricia Conrad.

But now there’s growing evidence, the parasite can creep into your brain, and manipulate your behavior and cause schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.

The work of Czech scientist Dr. Jaroslav Flegr takes it a step further.

Flegr discovered how people infected with the parasite develop subtle personality changes.  The organism appears to slow down reaction times and cause individuals to take more risks like crossing the street even when there is a car coming.

“I must admit I was very surprised,” said Dr. Flegr.

But why would a parasite steer you into oncoming traffic, potentially killing you?

“It wants to survive and it’s very good at it,” said Dr. Conrad who is an expert in Toxoplasma at the U.C. Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. Her team studies the parasite in wild and domestic animals.

Conrad said since the parasite ultimately needs to get back into a cat to reproduce, studies show how it performs a pretty nifty trick. If mice are infected with Toxo the parasite goes to their brain and it alters their behavior.

So, instead of running away from cats, mice will flock to cat urine. The cat then eats the mouse and the parasite gets back into the cat and reproduces.

So how does that affect us?

Once upon a time we were potential prey for bigger cats which might explain why the parasite slows us down. It wants to get back into a bigger cat.

In the meantime, as a precaution, should we get rid of cats like Max?

“No, no, they are way too cute,” said Carabeo.

Experts say to protect yourself and your cat, all you have to do is keep the cat indoors.

If you have an outdoor cat, make sure it is fed very well and gets regular checkups.

Haslem was suspended for Game 6 of the Miami-Indiana Eastern Conference semifinal series, a matchup where emotions boiled over in a runaway Heat victory on Tuesday night. The NBA also said Miami reserve center Dexter Pittman will miss three games in response to his flagrant foul against Indiana backup guard Lance Stephenson in the final seconds of Game 5.

Indiana’s Tyler Hansbrough was not suspended, although the league upgraded his foul against Miami’s Dwyane Wade to a flagrant-2 on Wednesday — which, if called that way during Game 5, would have brought an automatic ejection. Hansbrough struck Wade in the head, opening a cut over his right eye. Moments later, Haslem committed a flagrant foul against Hansbrough, clearly in response to the play against Wade.

So while Haslem sits Thursday, Hansbrough may play.

“It’s very disappointing, obviously,” Miami forward Shane Battier said Wednesday night. “But we’re a resilient group. … The verdict process is a mystery to players, and so we don’t get caught up in it. We can’t control it. We know the NBA’s going to do what they feel they need to do and we need to live with the consequences. So it’s really out of our hands, not worth getting riled up. We’re going to put together an effort that will make Udonis and Dexter proud.”

The Heat lead the series 3-2, after a 115-83 win Tuesday night in a game that had the three flagrant fouls on the court, accusations of dirty play afterward and finally with Pacers team president Larry Bird telling The Indianapolis Star that his team was “soft” in Game 5.

“I agree with his assessment. We did play soft,” Indiana’s Danny Granger said Wednesday. “We got smacked around. We got beat up, we got bullied, and we really didn’t respond well.”

Countered Miami’s LeBron James, the NBA’s reigning MVP: “He’s just trying to amp them up. That’s all. That’s all it is. He knows his team isn’t soft. But with them, with their backs against the wall at this point, he knows what he’s doing. He’s not the executive of the year for no reason.”

Pittman logged only six minutes in the playoffs anyway, his presence in the postseason barely noticed until he laid out Stephenson — who made at least one choke sign toward James earlier in the series — with a forearm to the chin and shoulder areas.

“Hard fouls are part of the playoffs,” Indiana coach Frank Vogel said Wednesday. “Fouls to the head have no place in this game, not by us, not by Miami, not by any other team in any other series. With all the concussion research that’s been going on over the last few years it’s a very serious matter and it just doesn’t have any place in the game.”

Wade sounded somewhat amused that Granger — who’s been whistled for three technicals in the series — was one of the Pacers suggesting Haslem and Pittman should be suspended. Wade and Granger have had words during the series.

“We’re not in here crying about the fouls,” Wade said. “They fouled us. … We’re moving on to Game 6. We’re not going to worry about what happened in Game 5. For us, it’s about moving forward.”

The Pacers may move forward without Granger, who sprained his left ankle in Game 5.

Granger was in flip-flops when Wednesday’s practice ended, saying he was on painkillers and anti-inflammatory medication. Stephenson, who had X-rays taken to rule out any fractures to his collarbone or shoulder areas, did not practice.

“In my mind, I’m going to play,” Granger said. “Elimination game, I have to play.”

Vogel sounded concerned, but optimistic.

“Very much hoping he’ll be available tomorrow,” Vogel said. “He’s a gamer. I’m thinking he’ll play. But his ankle’s pretty bad, so we’ll see.”

Vogel called Miami floppers before the series started, and it’s been gritty throughout. The teams combined to shoot 66 free throws in Game 1, and there have been a combined nine technicals and flagrants called in the four games since. Tension also increased after cameras caught Stephenson making a choke sign during Indiana’s Game 3 victory, and Juwan Howard confronting him about his antics before Game 4.

“It’s been a physical series, started by them,” Wade said.

And James said he doesn’t expect things to cool down when the Pacers try to save their season in Game 6.

“I always feel like in a playoff series or certain regular-season games that a team may be trying to go for me,” James said. “It’s happened. I’m not saying guys are playing dirty, but certain guys say, ‘You know, if you hard-foul LeBron, get him off the ball, he’ll stop being aggressive and things like that.’ I know when it’s happening and I see when it’s about to happen. I’m always in protect mode. I’ve been hard-fouled a lot.”

James said one of those situations happened in Game 5. Indiana forward David West — who left Tuesday’s game with what the team called a sprained knee, though he insisted Wednesday he was not hurt — took exception to a play where he was knocked backward, saying a Heat player fell into his knee. On that play, replays showed West was boxed out by Battier, but it appeared no one hit West in the knee area.

Not long afterward, West fouled James, who said he saw it coming.

“He was the one on the floor and I was the one still standing,” James said. “So I started laughing at that. But he tried to get me.”

West said on Wednesday that if Indiana wants to force a Game 7 in Miami, it simply needs to play better on both ends than it did on Tuesday night.

“You’ve just got to stand your ground. I think that’s the biggest thing,” West said. “It was unfortunate, the play at the end of the game on Lance. But we’ve just got to deal with it, man up, handle it — like I said, the best way you can, within the rules.”

(© 2012 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

CBS4 News Anchor Shannon Hori joined a group of South Floridians who recently traveled to Port-Au-Prince, to get a first-hand look at how this tiny hospital is helping to provide needed care.

One of the patients she met was Nicholas Claudy.

Claudy fell off a bus and almost paralyzed a few weeks ago. One of the medical volunteers for Project Medishare said that his spine was broken in a way that any wrong turn could leave him paralyzed. For that reason he had to be kept still for three weeks.

He was cared for in the new spinal cord injury unit at Hospital Bernard Mevs Project Medishare. One of the two South Florida doctors behind the hospital is Dr. Barth Green. He’s a surgeon for spinal cord injuries and one of the founders of the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis but his passion is Haiti.

Ten years ago Dr. Green performed surgery on Haitian resident Pasha Vorbe who was shot in Port-Au-Prince. He had to go to Miami for surgery. Pasha said he never expected a South Florida surgeon would teach him so much about his own country.

“I don’t regret being quadriplegic today because I got a chance to meet him and he showed us a way of living better,” Pasha said.

Pasha and his wife Angele are now volunteers in Haiti for Project Medishare. Unlike most Haitians, they are financially secure and could afford to move elsewhere. They said that’s not an option.

“I would feel like I would be giving up. Giving up on Haiti. Giving up on everything,” Angele said. “And that would be worse than anything I could think.”

At the hospital, Shannon also met a boy named John Sica. He had hydrocephalus, also known as water on the brain. There are many children in Haiti with hydrocephalus because of the high rate of malnutrition.

Dr. Green’s daughter, Jenna Green, is the organization’s development director.

“The leading cause of death an hour away from South Florida is dirty water and malnutrition for children. And there’s so much difference we can make,” explained Jenna.

In the children’s unit at the hospital, Shannon met 7-year old Eveline Bellevue whose heart was failing. She was on a ventilator and desperately needed heart surgery that doctors in Haiti couldn’t do. Project Medishare volunteers were trying to get her passport and find a hospital in the United States to perform the surgery. Sadly, Eveline didn’t make it through the night.

They can’t all be saved. But there are success stories. Like that of Nicholas Claudy, the man nearly paralyzed. Doctors didn’t know if he would walk again but after a successful surgery, he did walk. On his own, to thank the medical team taking care of him.

Most of the patients don’t have insurance. There is a waiver system in place but Project Medishare mostly counts on the generosity of donors.

Click here if you’d like more information about Project Medishare. You can donate time, or money. All of it is appreciated.

Others live in obscurity, not getting the recognition they deserve for making our lives much easier.

Eugene Polley is one of those.  The native Chicagoan died at 96 this week.  I’d never heard of him, but he’s responsible for something most of you are holding in your hands right now.

In 1955, the Zenith engineer invented the Flashmatic, the first wireless television remote control.  It looked like a big green hair dryer, using light to control a TV.

The Flashmatic had some problems, so other, sound-based remotes became more popular, until decades later, when Polley’s approach won out.

Nicknamed “Zapper,” he not only changed the way we watch television, but television itself.

Once we weren’t forced to get off our butts to change the channel, TV programs and commercials had adjust to hold our attention and stop us from zapping.

Without him, there we would be no couch potatoes.  So tonight, we should all stay on our couches and raise our remotes to honor the man who made that possible.

“The purpose of what I’m doing is to give the voters of this community an opportunity to make a choice,” Braman told CBS4’s Jim DeFede Wednesday. “They haven’t had that opportunity simply because the system’s been rigged.”

Braman says incumbents already have an unfair advantage as lobbyists and special interests finance their campaigns. Challengers rarely can raise the money needed to get elected

“What I’m doing still will not equal the combined resources of these four incumbents,” Braman said.

Braman slate includes Miami Garden Mayor Shirley Gibson over Commissioner Barbara Jordan; Alison Austin against Commissioner Audrey Edmonson, Alice Pena over Commissioner Dennis Moss and state Representative Luis Garcia against Commissioner Bruno Barreiro.

“If [voters] decide to vote for the incumbent commissioners, so be it,” Braman said. “If they decide they want real change” they’ll vote for someone new.

Braman said none of the people he is supporting will be beholden to him.

“We haven’t asked them to sign any pledge or anything like that,” Braman said. “But all of them are committed to meaningful charter reform in the community; they are all committed to doing away with the slush funds each of the commissioners have. They are interested in giving reform a chance.”

The incumbent commissioners are expected to blast Braman throughout the election and try to make it seem that he is bullying voters. Braman said he is prepared for the attacks and expects to become an issue in the campaign.

“Barbara Jordan is not going to debate the issues with Mayor Gibson,” Braman said. “And Audrey Edmonson is not going to debate the issues. And Dennis Moss and Bruno Barreiro are not going to debate the issues. They are going to focus attention on me. If they focus attention on me, that’s fine. I’m proud of my record in this community and what I’ve done.”

Braman has formed two political action committees — Change Miami-Dade Now and Vote For A New Miami-Dade. He said he expects to spend between $500,000 and $600,000 to help his defeat the four incumbents.

At the opening of Wednesday’s proceedings, defense attorney Al Milian accused prosecutors of colluding with Dr. Bruce Hyma overnight and demanded a mistrial. Milian said prosecutors violated the rules which say witnesses may not discuss their testimony outside of the courtroom. An angry Milian also accused Hyma of miraculously locating tissue samples that had been “lost” at the ME’s office. The slides showed no damage to Lina Kaufman’s heart.

The defense claims Lina had a bad heart and the day she died, she had a heart attack in the bathroom and collapsed, her neck ended up draped over a magazine rack.

The judge denied the motion for a mistrial.

State prosecutors then began their redirect of Hyma in which they focused on his earlier testimony that there was no medical evidence that she had a bad heart and the magazine basket could not have inflicted the deep injuries to her neck. Hyman said scratches on Lina Kaufman’s neck were consistent with her trying to claw someone’s hands from around her throat.

During the defense’s turn at re-cross examination, Hyma testified that the “missing” slides were not really missing just difficult to find amid the myriad of evidence. He said he found them last night. In calling for a mistrial, Milian said Hyma may have committed perjury through his conflicting testimony about the slides. In an earlier sworn statement, Hyma had stated that the slides were lost.

Afternoon testimony included a Miami-Dade CSI technician who testified that Lina Kaufman’s blood and DNA were found under her finger nails which suggested that scratches on her neck were the result of her attempt to claw something from around her throat.

Also taking the stand was a physicist called by the state who said it would have been physically impossible for Lina to fall off the toilet, her neck landing on a magazine rack, as the defense has claimed.

Adam Kaufman claims he woke up November 7th and found Lina unconscious in the bathroom, her neck draped over a magazine rack.

Hyma testified earlier this week that the deep strangulation bruising found on Kaufman’s neck could not have been caused by the flimsy magazine holder. On cross-examination, however, he conceded that he never examined the magazine rack.

During questioning on Monday, Hyma said it took 18 months to rule Kaufman’s death a murder because he wanted to get it right, rather than fast. Hyma said it appeared from the start that Lina Kaufman was murdered. He said that part of the delay was due to toxicology and other testing, including an extraordinary neurological examination of Lina Kaufman’s brain.

On cross-examination, the defense tried to show the M.E. and police were under pressure to make a call and they made the wrong call. Defense attorneys have said that’s because the medical examiner couldn’t figure out what killed her and in the end got it wrong.

Kaufman, who is charged with second degree murder, could be sentenced to life in prison if he is convicted.

Students at Southwood Middle School in Palmetto Bay walked one-mile around the school in remembrance of their classmate who died in April. They chanted, “We love Kaely,” during the touching tribute to their classmate.

“It’s very touching, ya know, she was very loved. Kaely was very loved by a lot of kids, you can see that here today,” said Kaely’s mom Angie Camacho.

The Southwood PTSA teamed up with Mothers Against Drunk Driving to host the event.

“It’s wonderful, it’s a really great feeling to see the community come together,” said Angie Camacho. “Principal Leal, the PTSA, Helen Witty from MADD put this together in a short period of time. We’re so grateful.”

Witty, whose 16-year-old daughter was killed by a drunk driver in 2000, delivered a speech to Camacho’s 8th grade class last October in which she shared her daughter’s story and warned about the dangers of driving drunk.

Witty told CBS4’s Peter D’Oench that each student participating in the walk-a-thon had raised at least $5 through pledges.

“Even more important than that,” she said, “was the message that this event is sending and the awareness that is being raised.”

“It’s gonna bring much awareness to the tragedy that we are going through and hopefully save a lot of lives with these kids and they’re going to think twice in the future about doing something so stupid,” said Angie during the walk. “Drinking and driving is not a cool thing and I think it starts here in their younger years and this is sending a great message.”

The Camacho family walked around the school three different times as students from the 6^th, 7^th and 8^th grades started their walks at different times throughout the morning. D’Oench observed that all grades had spirited marches, chanting “We love Kaely” and “Here we go Kaely, here we go.”

The largest group came from 8^th grade—the grade that Kaely was in at the time of her death.

“We cherish everything the community is doing for us and for Kaely and most importantly for people in the future,” said Kaely’s dad Kirk Camacho. “Kids are our future. I think it’s going to help that we teach these kids at a young age what not to do to avoid these tragedies.”

Kirk Camacho was driving his minivan the morning of April 13th with his daughters Kaely and Bree Ann in the vehicle when Sandor Guillen slammed into them at U.S.1 and SW 184th Street in Southwest Miami-Dade.

Police said Guillen was driving 100 mph on the Miami-Dade busway. He has pleaded not guilty to DUI Manslaughter. Police said he had a blood alcohol level three times over the legal limit.

Kaely’s older sister also took part in Wednesday’s Walk for Kaely.

“I’m here to support my sister. She’s bringing all these people together and I’m just here to help them stay together,” said Kaely’s sister Bree Ann. “Look at all these people. It’s overwhelming but in such a fantastic way that I can’t even describe it to you. It feels so good. I know she’s here in all of our hearts.”

She was like a sister to me,” said Zoe Norat, Kaely’s cousin. I think that everyone needs to know how serious drunk driving is.”

“I’m here to support my little sister’s best friend and my best friend’s little sister and to show awareness of how drunk driving is not cool and you need to stop,” said Carly Yeomans.

Each student raised money to support Mothers Against Drunk Driving and its programs.

At a ceremony after the walk-a-thon, Southwood Middle School Principal, Deborah Leal, announced that a thousand students had taken part in the event, meaning that thousands of dollars had been raised for M.A.D.D.

A tribute by the school’s Magnet Dancers moved students to tears.

“I just wish she could be here with us and I love her and I miss her,” said 8th grader and magnet dancer Azsha Hampton. “I miss her laugh and her smile. I just miss her.”

And as they vow to never forget Kaely Camacho, a tree was planted by the school in her memory and a page of this year’s yearbook was devoted to her.`

After Tuesday and Wednesday’s torrential rains, many got stuck on flooded streets thinking they could make it.

They thought wrong.

The key to avoid getting stuck is not to drive through deep water in the first place or allow it to get up to the level of your engine.

If, however, you get stuck in deep water and stall out, don’t try to restart the engine without first getting it checked out by a mechanic or you could make the situation even worse.

“When the level of water gets above the air filter it gets sucked up and does what’s called a hydrolock to the engine. It’s pretty bad, costing up in the thousands (to repair),” .said Chris Barres of Maroone Chevrolet.

If you were one of those people got stuck on a flooded road, you could soon be facing big bucks to get back in the drivers’ seat and get your engine running normally again.

That’s because newer cars and trucks are increasingly dependent on electronics and circuit boards to make them run better and get better fuel mileage. But it turns out water and circuit boards don’t mix. The newer the vehicle, the more prone it is to water damage.

So what can you do to minimize damage and not be hit with even higher repair bills?

If you drove through high water and the engine stalled out, don’t restart it. Have it towed to a garage to be checked out by a competent mechanic.

If you’re lucky, you may just need to have the spark plugs changed, replace all the filters and operating fluids that may have been contaminated by high water.

If the engine was “hydrolocked”, sucked up a lot of water and kept running before finally stopping, it may have suffered serious internal damage.

Luckily, most water related problems can be fixed for just a few hundred bucks.

“Those repairs can cost $300-$500 opposed to an entire engine that can cost $6000-$8000,” said Barres.

Water damage is not covered by most new car warranties. But it may be covered under your car insurance policy.

If you think your car’s engine may be seriously damaged and require extensive repairs, contact your insurance agent before having any work done and save all your towing or garage bills which may also be covered by your insurance.

The students were taken to Plantation General Hospital for evaluation, according to Broward Schools spokesperson Marcy Smith.  They were treated and the students were released to their parents.  Their teacher was taken to Florida Medical Center.

A hazardous materials team responded to the school and determined the classroom that the students and teacher were in is safe.  As a precautionary measure, the other students were moved to another classroom.

A code yellow lockdown, which means limited movement throughout the school, has been lifted and the school has resumed normal operations.

One of the students who developed the rash told CBS4 that he as handling some sort of mineral rock and banged it on a table.  He said a bunch of powder came out of it and went airborne.  He said he and his classmates didn’t notice anything until they went to their next class.  That’s when the itching began.

While officials haven’t figured out what caused the strange rash, they say there is no danger to any other students.

“The students, who were all 6th graders, had a red and itchy sensation on their wrists. The teacher felt the same thing on her face. They were all transported to local hospitals as a precaution. Broward Sheriff Fire Rescue has responded to the scene and were quickly able to determine that there was no hazard in the room,” said BSO’s Dani Moschella.

Just last week, a similar situation took place at McArthur High School in Hollywood where a dozen students and two teachers developed a mysterious rash on Wednesday, May 16th. The students and teachers who developed rashes were taken to Memorial Regional Hospital where they went through a decontamination process. As their rashes cleared they were released and allowed to take their clothing home in plastic bags. Health officials still haven’t determined what caused the swelling and itching.

Instead, water filled the parking lots and the roads around parts of Doral leaving countless cars stranded and businesses trying to pick up the pieces. Some businesses may have lost merchandise in the flood waters spawned after a storm dumped around 9 inches of rain on the area.

“How can you come into a showroom when you have to wade through water,” asked Randy Webb who works on 79th Avenue.

Employees at USA Tile and Marble could only get to work by using a truck.

“Most of them parked at a shopping center a few blocks away and we sent one of our semis to pick them up and bring them over here,” said Cesar Chaigas of USA Tile and Marble.

Miami-Dade Commissioner Pepe Diaz visited the area to see what the county and city of Doral could do to help the local businesses, but said it’s not an easy problem to fix.

“This area’s got a lot of private roads. This was built when our code wasn’t as strong as it is now,” Diaz said.

Nevertheless, businesses are now left to work with the city and county to try and get things cleaned up. They’re just hoping the water will dry up before their business does.

“We have no customers. How do customers get in here and make purchases,” asked Webb. “It affects the bottom line.”

“Then I got some bad weather that should be coming later on, hopefully, that won’t happen and we’re really praying for that,” said Diaz.

The shooting left Geraldo Quesada, 41, in critical condition at Jackson Memorial Hospital.

Police believe Quesada was shot in the chest during a home invasion that went bad. After he was shot, police said Quesada stumbled out to the hallway and collapsed at the end of the hallway in a pool of his own blood.

Greenberg is being sought for questioning, but isn’t a suspect in the shooting. She also has an open bench warrant out for prostitution.

Quesada’s ex girlfriend, Cristina Buanco, who is also the mother of two of his five children, told CBS4, “He’s a great provider. He’s a great father. He didn’t deserve what happened to him. We just want to find the person who did this and we hope he (Quesada) is going to be ok. We just want him to come home to his children. We feel terrible about what happened.”

Quesada has no criminal history that CBS4 has been told about. His ex-wife said she was too upset to speak about the shooting. She and other family members are with Quesada at Jackson Memorial Hospital.

Police have a limited description of the suspect.

They say he is a latin male in his mid 20s, about five foot eight inches tall and was last seen wearing a black shirt and jeans.

If you have any information about the shooting or the whereabouts of Greenberg, call Miami-Dade Crimestoppers at (305) 471—TIPS (8477).

It began last February when Home Depot employees flagged a number of online orders which were scheduled to be picked up at South Florida store. As Home Depot investigators looked into the matter and began contacting the credit card holders to validate the purchase, they realized the purchases were fraudulent.

Their observation led to three-month investigation by the Broward Sheriff’s Office Organized Retail Crime unit.

Working closely with the loss prevention departments from several national and local businesses and the U. S. Secret Service, BSO detectives arrested 24-year old Jumoke Williams of Lauderhill in May.

Williams made a business out of placing orders online and falsifying everything needed in order to retrieve the merchandise, according to sheriff’s investigators.

He then sold the merchandise, which ranged from drills and generators to computers and comforters, at pawn shops or on the street.

During the course of the investigation, Williams reportedly made at least 15 fraudulent transactions at six local businesses. He reportedly used at least five different aliases and stolen credit cards from at least a dozen unsuspecting people.

During a search of Williams’ home, investigators found dozens of credit cards, gift cards, personal IDs and tax information of potential victims.

Williams faces a slew of charges including credit card fraud, organized scheme to defraud, criminal use of personal identification information and grand theft.

The National Retail Federation estimates retail fraud accounts for $30 billion a year in losses to retailers. In Florida, it accounts for $106 million a year in lost tax revenue.

During the game, Pacers forward Tyler Hansbrough committed a flagrant foul against Heat star Dwyane Wade. A few minutes later, the Heat’s Udonis Haslem committed a flagrant foul against Hansbrough.

The worst foul of the night was by the Heat’s Dexter Pittman who threw a forearm into the chest and throat of Lance Stephenson. Of all the hard fouls, Pittman is the most likely to receive a suspension for his foul.

The Pacers agreed with Bird’s observation that they played soft in Game 5.

“I agree with his assessment. We did play soft,” said Pacers forward Danny Granger. “We got smacked around. We got beat up, we got bullied, and we really didn’t respond well.”

Granger continued, “I think he just called out what everyone else saw. We played a soft game. We didn’t play with the playoff intensity that we needed to win.”

Granger himself didn’t finish Game 5 after leaving with a sprained ankle in the third quarter. He joined power forward David West on the sideline, who also suffered a sprained knee. The Pacers hope both will be available Thursday night in Game 6.

For the Heat, they believed that Bird’s comments were just a way to try and spark the Pacers as they return home to Indianapolis for Game 6 against the Heat.

“He’s just trying to amp them up. That’s all. That’s all it is,” said Heat star LeBron James. “He knows his team isn’t soft. But with them, with their backs against the wall at this point, he knows what he’s doing. He’s not the executive of the year for no reason.”

The series started out on a sour note when Pacers coach Frank Vogel called the Heat “floppers,” meaning they try to sell fouls that may not necessarily be a foul. Granger has been whistled for three technical fouls and Stephenson made a choking gesture towards LeBron earlier in the series.

Granger spent part of Tuesday saying both Haslem and Pittman should be suspended for their fouls. It was a point D-Wade found almost amusing.

“We’re not in here crying about the fouls,” Wade said. “They fouled us. We’re moving on to Game 6. We’re not going to worry about what happened in Game 5. For us, it’s about moving forward.”

Losing Pittman wouldn’t be a big blow to the Heat. On the other hand, losing Haslem for one or two games could be the difference between the Heat moving on or going home. Haslem has just recently discovered his jump shot again and is filling the gap left by the absence of Chris Bosh.

As for Bosh, the Heat haven’t given any indication that he will be able to return for the current series, or an additional series, should the Heat advance to the Eastern Conference Finals.

Still, Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra said all of the talking about fouls and flopping was irrelevant to the task at hand.

“All the chatter and all the stuff, it’ll still end up being decided between the lines,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “And it’ll be decided by the rules of the game.”

Both teams are traveling to Indiana Wednesday in preparation for Game 6 in Indianapolis Thursday night. If the series goes to a seventh game, it will be held in the AmericanAirlines Arena on Saturday night at 8 p.m.

(TM and © Copyright 2012 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2012 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

Police say Heriberto Delgado, 73, admitted to asking the 11 year old girl to open her legs while he touched the outside of her thigh.

The victim alleges Delgado touched her genitals through her clothing.

After his reported admission, Delgado was arrested and charged with one count of Lewd & Lascivious molestation. He made an initial appearance in court Wednesday morning where he was denied bond.

Justin Bieber has announced details about this new tour that will bring him to Miami in January.

His “Believe” Tour will begin September 29^th in Glendale, Arizona and wind its way through more than 45 cities before wrapping up at the AmericanAirlines Arena in Miami on January 26^th.

One dollar from each ticket will be donated to Pencils of Promise, a charity which works to build schools and increase educational opportunities in the developing world. The goal is to build 15 schools around the world for needy children. Details at www.pencilsofpromise.com.

As part of the “Believe” Tour, U.S. and Canadian residents ordering tickets online will have the opportunity to pre-order a digital copy of Justin Bieber’s BELIEVE album with every ticket purchased. The album will be released on June 19^th.

Tickets for his concert tour go on sale June 2^nd.

That claim was part of deposition material released Wednesday as the state attorneys office prepares to try the case against band members it claims were responsible for Champion’s death on a bus following an Orlando football game.

Champion, 26, had asked all season to go through the hazing ritual known as “crossing over,” defendant Jonathan Boyce said. Multiple witnesses say the ordeal involved the participant going from the front to the back of the bus while others beat the person.

“It’s a respect thing, you know,” Boyce told detectives. “Well, he was wanting to do it all … all season.”

“Had they not killed him, perhaps he could defend the statement, but because they killed him, he cannot,” said attorney Christopher Chestnut, who represents Champion’s parents, in a meeting with reporters in Atlanta Wednesday afternoon.

“Robert was not a violent person, and for someone to say he would do hazing, I’m saying no,” said his mother, Pam Champion.

Champion died last November after enduring hazing by other band members outside a hotel in Orlando where FAMU had played its archrival in football. His death revealed a culture of hazing in the famed band, which has performed at Super Bowls and presidential inauguration parades. An autopsy concluded Champion suffered blunt trauma blows to his body and died from shock caused by severe bleeding.

Champion’s parents said at a news conference Wednesday that they are having a hard time believing that their son volunteered to be hazed.

“He was murdered on that bus, and no one signs up for that,” Pam Champion said.

Attorney Chestnut said the school has shown no leadership in getting to the bottom of the hazing problem. He thinks the bandmates charged with hazing should face murder charges, but blames the University for not controlling the whole problem.

“I think this is an institutional problem, and thats what we’re here to say,” he said. “The students certainly made a mistake, but these are young people who subscribe to a culture that most of them all their live all they ever wanted to do was wear that band uniform, and they’d do whatever it took to wear it.”

“This is murder. This was a planned event. There was a conspiracy to harm someone,” he said. “They should be charged appropriately.”

Prosecutors in Orlando have more than 1,500 pages of evidence against the 13 people charged in Champion’s death last year. Eleven defendants are charged with a third-degree felony and two are charged with misdemeanors.

Drum major Keon Hollis told detectives he went through the same hazing ritual as Champion the night he died. He said there were at least 15 people on the bus.

He said Champion was the next person to be hazed after him. He said Champion seemed fine immediately afterward, but said he was thirsty. Hollis said he gave Champion some water.

Champion soon collapsed and later died.

Another hazing ritual called “the hot seat” involved getting kicked and beaten with drumsticks and bass drum mallets while covered with a blanket on a band bus called, “Bus C,” band member Marc Baron told investigators. Baron isn’t charged and wasn’t on the bus the weekend Champion died.

Depositions offered clues to the defenses the defendants will use.

Boyce and another defendant, Shawn Turner, claimed they tried to help Champion get off the bus by pulling him through the gauntlet of band members.

“So I grab him to try to keep everybody off him, and I grab him and I’m pulling him and I’m pulling him,” Boyce told detectives. “People are kicking him so I stopped them from kicking him and I put my body around his body.”

Defendant Aaron Golson denied getting on the bus where the hazing took place. He said he got a ride back from the game with a friend.

“I don’t know anything that happened with Robert,” Golson said.

Golson also told detectives that Champion wasn’t into the hazing rituals.

“Man, I’m shock(ed) if that happens,” Golson said when told that Champion chose to get on the bus to be hazed.

Another defendant, Caleb Jackson, at first told detectives that he wasn’t on the bus when Champion was beaten but then changed his story when he was told that hotel video surveillance showed him getting off the bus. At the time of Champion’s death, Jackson was on probation for a felony battery charge.

“I love Robert like a brother, more than ya’ll, any, everybody in this band loves this man like a brother, you know what I’m saying,” Jackson said.

FAMU’s famed Marching 100 band was suspended shortly after the incident, and officials have said it will remain sidelined at least through the 2012-2013 school year.

The school also tried to fire band director Julian White. White’s dismissal was placed on hold while the criminal investigation unfolded, but he insisted that he did nothing wrong and fought for months to get reinstated. He announced his retirement earlier this month.

Under a policy in place for years before Champion’s death, band members attended a mandatory anti-hazing workshop and sign a pledge saying they will not participate in hazing or submit to it. Violators were supposed to be kicked out of the band.

“There has been a mismanagement of this situation from Day 1,” said attorney Chestnut. “This institution has protected the villians and not the victims. “

(TM and © Copyright 2012 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2012 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

The annual Tow and Go program provides a confidential ride and tow home from free of charge to anyone who may have had too much to drink. AAA said the program’s call volume increased more than 75 percent in 2011 compared to 2010 from intoxicated drivers in need of a safe ride home during the Memorial Day Weekend.

“Ideally people will choose a designated driver before they go out to socialize, but if they don’t, programs like these exist to give them another chance to make the right decision and hand over their keys,” said AAA spokeswoman Joanna Newton.

“Whether heading home from a beach or pool party, a barbeque or just dining out with friends, arranging a safe ride with Tow to Go, will help get everyone home safely,” said Anheuser-Busch vice president Kathy Casso.

You don’t even have to be a AAA member. The number to call is 1-800-AAA-HELP (4357). The free tows will be available May 25th through May 28th.

AAA notes that the program is designed to be used as a last resort and is offered based on availability of AAA service technicians and tow trucks.

The folks at AAA A recommend you pre-program their number, or a cab company’s number, into your phone ahead of time just in case.

Since 1998, the program has kept more than 18,000 drunk drivers off the roads and saved twice as many lives since it was designed to protect everyone on the roads, not just the intoxicated driver.

His parents are Rioux and J.J. Rioux is 8-years-old and J.J. is 35. Both were born at the Seaquarium which makes the baby a third generation Seaquarium dolphin.

Rioux gave birth on Mother’s Day, May 13th, to a healthy male dolphin in the Top Deck Pool.

GALLERY: Dolphin Born At Seaquarium On Mother’s Day

The new baby is the first for mom Rioux.

On average, a dolphin calf will weigh anywhere between 35-45 lbs. and is 3 1/2 to 4 feet long.

According to the Associated Press’ Tim Reynolds, LeBron received the most votes for the NBA’s All-Defensive first-team. LeBron, who was named the NBA’s MVP last week, was selected for the first-team by NBA coaches.

Joining LeBron on the NBA’s first-team All-Defensive team were forward Serge Ibaka, guard Chris Paul, guard Tony Allen, and center Dwight Howard, according to Yahoo! Sports’ Adrian Wojnarowski.

In media voting for the NBA Defensive Player of the Year, LeBron finished fourth.

During a morning speech on the campus of Texas Tech University, Del Conte said that the once left for dead Big XII Conference “now has schools like Florida State, Clemson, and Miami trying to get in,” according to redraidersports.com.

Del Conte also appeared on a sports talk radio show later and said, “Let’s not rush into anything. We know expansion has to happen. It may not be for a while. We are in the catbird seat right now,” according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

While Florida State’s interest in the Big XII has been public knowledge, Del Conte’s words were the first official confirmation on the record that FSU had looked to get into the Big XII. But the addition of Miami may catch Hurricanes fans off guard.

When FSU and UM entered the Atlantic Coast Conference, the ACC was looking to boost its football reputation and at the time FSU and UM were two key programs.

But as both programs began to decline, so did the ACC’s importance on the national college football scene. It was evident for several years and the rest of the league, outside of Virginia Tech, never raised its level of play to FSU and UM’s reputation.

Since the schools joined the ACC, FSU remains the only team from the conference to play for the national championship in the BCS era.

FSU officials have denied any interest in the Big XII, but the chairman of the board and former players have said the school should very much listen to what the Big XII has to offer.

From the Big XII’s point of view, adding FSU and UM would be a coup that could seriously undercut the reigning college football powerhouse conference, the SEC. The Big XII would have a geographic footprint that could secure Florida television revenue and the fertile Florida recruiting grounds for Big XII schools.

For FSU and UM, they would join a conference that is considered one of the power conferences in the country and routinely a top football and men’s basketball conference. Plus, both schools would get more national exposure through television deals and get access to Texas recruiting.

Many FSU fans have made no secret that they are ready to leave the ACC behind. Clemson has long been joined to FSU in any expansion talk. But, if Del Conte is accurate, losing Florida State, Clemson and Miami would be a death blow in football to the ACC.

The ACC would then have to seriously consider raiding the Big East Conference again for teams to try to secure a spot as a power conference.

The Big XII, which was left for dead twice in the past few years, has now become the big dog on the block in college football that everyone seems to want. Whether any schools successfully convince the Big XII to expand is another ballgame.

The Big XII currently has 10 members including West Virginia and TCU. With a college football final four coming in just a year, the conference has no real need to expand and may actually be better off without having to stage a championship game.

But, as with everything else in the college realignment dance, it’s all about money.