1 dead, another seriously injured in an accident on Saturday in South Hall

Mary Angela Bell, 39, of Buford, was driving a Hyundai Santa Fe on Spout Springs Road near Williams Road at about 12:15 p.m. when she crossed the center line and met Cohen’s Odyssey in the driver’s side, according to Georgia State Patrol Post commander DA Rathel.

Bell suffered serious injuries and was rushed to Northeast Georgia Medical Center, Rathel said.

Rathel said both drivers had been properly restrained.

“Although there was no suspicion of alcohol and drugs, a voluntary blood sample was drawn from (Bell),” Rathel wrote in an email.

The Specialized Crash Reconstruction Team is supporting the investigation and charges are pending.

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Ex-Miami-Dade Court Overseer Accused of $ 100,000 Filing Fee and Fund theft – NBC 6 South Florida

A former supervisor of the Miami-Dade bailiff was arrested after authorities said he stole more than $ 100,000 in filing fees and deposit funds over a two-year period.

Tyrone Derise Smith, Jr., 35, has been charged with over $ 100,000 in grand theft and over $ 50,000 in organized fraud, both first degree crimes, according to the Miami-Dade District Attorney.

Smith served in the New Laws Division of the Family Courts Department for nearly 11 years until he resigned on June 4, 2018.

Miami-Dade corrections

Tyrone Derise Smith Jr.

After Smith’s resignation, an internal review was initiated after the discovery of a lack of funds, the prosecutor said.

Prosecutors said a man had complained that his civil lawsuit had not been brought through the court and a search of the court’s database revealed that he had not paid the filing fee.

The man insisted that he paid the fee in cash and had a receipt with him as evidence, but investigators discovered that the receipt was forged.

The issue led to an audit of all Smith’s transactions between August 2016 and April 2018, which revealed 201 cases Smith handled that appeared in the database as filed cases but showed no filing fees charged, prosecutors said.

The filing fees, all of which were paid in cash, came to $ 80,817, and some of the customers also had the fake receipts, prosecutors said.

Investigators searched Smith’s work computer and found a saved form that could provide the same fake receipt, prosecutors said.

Between filing fees and more than $ 28,000 in deposits that had been stolen, the total financial loss for the State of Florida and the Miami-Dade bailiff was $ 108,938.16, prosecutors said.

Smith was sent to jail and no legal information was available.

“When government employees steal, they are not only grabbing the public’s money, they are also wasting the public’s trust in their local government,” Miami-Dade prosecutor Katherine Fernandez Rundle said in a statement. “Such actions betray our community and can never be accepted or tolerated.”

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Styx is coming to Tallahassee in February 2022

TALLAHASSEE, Florida (WCTV) – Legendary rock band Styx is heading to Tallahassee for their world tour in February 2022. The concert is scheduled for Tuesday, February 22, 2022 at 7 p.m. at the Donald L. Tucker Civic Center.

Tickets will be on sale on Friday, December 17, 2021, at the box office and on the Tucker Center website.

For the concert, Styx will draw from more than four decades of burning chart hits, happy singalongs and hard driving deep cuts, according to the press release.

The group of six is ​​entering its second decade with an average of more than 100 shows per year, the press release said.

Styx’s latest studio album, “Crash of the Crown,” according to the release contains themes of hope, survival and prosperity. The recording was written before the coronavirus pandemic and was recorded during the troubled times, the press release said.

The band’s 17th album was released on June 18, 2021 and is available on vinyl, CD and digital platforms.

“There were absolutely no obstacles to our approach to creating this album,” said singer and guitarist Tommy Shaw. “And everything came out exactly as we wanted to hear it.”

For updates on Tucker Center events, follow the venue’s Facebook and Twitter pages.

Copyright 2021 WCTV. All rights reserved.

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Naples Pier pelicans could be protected with new fishing rules

Members of the Naples City Council will vote on Wednesday whether to approve changes to the fishing rules at Naples Pier to protect pelicans.

Proposed changes include regulating the possession of large hooks and bait, closing the pier for fishing every day between 11pm and 5am, banning unsupervised fishing, and starting a pilot program that will run the pier from January to May would be closed to fishing every Sunday next year.

The Arx Wildlife Hospital in the Conservancy of Southwest Florida first proposed a range of solutions to the Naples City Council in June to reduce the number of injured pelicans caught with fishing gear on the city’s landmark.

“I just want you to know that all we have tried is a very balanced approach, based on a lot of research and a lot of data, that also appears to be similar to communities across the state of Florida,” Rob Moher, president and Conservancy CEO said at the June meeting.

Similar news:Protect the Pelicans: Board recommends changes to the fishing rules at Naples Pier. Now the council has to decide

Continue reading:Conservancy of Southwest Florida aims to protect pelicans from fishing gear on Naples Pier

The conservancy reported that nearly 200 pelicans were brought to the wildlife hospital in 2020 after becoming tangled in fishing gear.

“Our budget cannot support this number of injured animals,” Joanna Fitzgerald, director of the Arx Wildlife Hospital, told council members in June. “Over $ 70,000 is being donated by the Conservancy to rehabilitate injured animals – and that’s really just pelic counts. This does not include any other species. “

The council sent the matter to the Community Services Advisory Committee in September to clarify the fuller details of the proposed changes, and the Naples Police Department suggested other changes to help officials comply with the municipal ordinances on the pier regardless of the efforts of the Enforce Conservancy. Both efforts have been combined so that the Council can vote on Wednesday.

Between August 1, 2017 and November 11, 2021, the Naples Police Department reported 11 incidents related to fishing violations at the Naples Pier, according to the Department. Violations at the pier included using oversized fish hooks or reels, catching sharks, using triplets, feeding birds, and using multiple fishing rods.

Some of the police reports find birds and pelicans entangled in equipment that violates city law.

Southwest Florida Fishing Report:Quieter conditions for redfish, pompano, and more

More:Southwest Florida Fishing Report: Snapper, Gag Point Action On The Rise

At the Advisory Board meeting, citizens expressed concern about the proposed changes.

In a letter to the board of directors, W. Andrew Jack urged the council to keep pier fishing times intact, support the expansion of the Conservancy’s Pelican Patrol operation, and encourage stakeholder collaboration.

“These collaborations were designed to increase education and awareness – especially for first-time visitors – to reduce the risks to the pelicans while enjoying the unique fishing opportunities on the pier,” wrote Jack.

The city funds Pelican Patrol seven days a week to help birds injured by fishing gear.

In November, Councilor Ted Blankenship spoke out against the all-day fishing closure at the pier and supported the new language of the regulation. He suggested leaving the ordinance in force first and reconsidering the all-day closure if the number of injured pelicans remains high.

“I think that’s a step too far,” he said. “The ordinance is fine with me, but the idea of ​​closing the pier one day a week is premature in my opinion.”

From the past:Limited fishing times and more? Suggested fishing rules at Naples Pier are of public interest

Councilor Raymond Christman said he was an initial skeptic about the full-day shutdown, but conversations with Pelican Patrol officials changed his mind.

“This overall package here, including closing the pier one day a week for fishing, really is an excellent compromise that brings people with different views together,” he said.

If the city council passes the amendments to the ordinance, Naples Police Lieutenant Michael O’Reilly said officials will start an education initiative at the pier before handing out written warnings.

Once the changes were made public, he said first-time offenders would be fined $ 100, with each subsequent offense adding an additional $ 100.

Members of the public can speak for three minutes at the Wednesday meeting at City Hall after filling out a form in the back of the council chamber and placing it in the speaker request box near the podium.

Karl Schneider is a reporter for the Naples Daily News. You can reach him at kschneider@gannett.com. Follow on Twitter @karlstartswithk

See similar https://www.naplesnews.com/story/news/local/2021/12/13/naples-pier-pelicans-could-get-protection-new-fishing-rules-florida/6448287001/

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Tornado outbreak kills Tallahassee father and son, another father is missing

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) – Friday night’s disastrous tornado outbreak left a Tallahassee family in mourning and searching for a loved one.

According to Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, a tornado tore through Tiptonville, Tennessee on Friday night, killing two people who were staying at Cypress Point Resort.

WCTV learned that the father and son were killed, according to another family member from Tallahassee.

Ashleigh Hall lives in Houston but returns to live with her family in the capital.

Hall said her father, Jamie Antonio Hall, is still missing after the storm.

Hall said a group of at least six or seven people went to west Tennessee on a duck hunt.

Her father’s brother-in-law and nephew were killed in the storm, she said. Now she hopes that her father will be found soon.

“Please keep our family prayers as we go through this terrible time,” she told WCTV on Sunday morning.

She said her father’s phone wasn’t working. Hall’s brother is working with search parties in Tennessee to find his father.

Copyright 2021 WCTV. All rights reserved.

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What should happen if abortion returns to the states? An expert explains

To say there’s a lot riding on the U.S. Supreme Court’s eventual ruling in a case challenging Mississippi’s restrictive abortion ban is a galactic understatement.

If, as currently appears the case, the court effectively topples Roe v. Wade, the 1973 precedent that declared a constitutional right to abortion, and without a uniform federal statute making abortion the law of the land, regulation of abortion would return to the states — a nightmare scenario if ever there was one.

As many as two-dozen states could move to ban abortion if the high court gives them the green light, The Chicago Tribune reports.

Experts believe some states, such as California and Pennsylvania, would become havens for people seeking reproductive care, while others would become reproductive healthcare deserts, putting the health of millions of pregnant people at risk.

But, according to one Pennsylvania attorney, the practical realities of abortion rights reverting to the states are much more complicated and more nuanced.

In an op-Ed published Monday by the Legal Intelligencer, an industry trade paper, attorney Howard J. Bashman, an appellate lawyer from Willow Grove, argues that a decision overturning Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, its 1992 adjunct, “will present numerous issues of fairness rarely encountered in the judicial process.”

If it does toss Roe, Bashman argues that the justices should confront these fairness issues “head-on” by “[decreeing] that all laws having the effect of outlawing or restricting abortion in a manner contrary to Roe and Casey that were in effect when Dobbs is decided will remain unenforceable because they were contrary to governing precedent when enacted.”

And the nation’s highest court should go one better by “[specifying] that the earliest any law having the effect of outlawing or restricting abortion in a manner contrary to Roe and Casey would be allowed to take effect is after all the legislators who voted to enact that law, and the governor of the state who signed the law, were elected to their positions after the court’s ruling in Dobbs had issued,” Bashman wrote.

So, for instance, since voters choose the entire U.S. Senate over six years, with a third of seats on the ballot every two years, the earliest that the federal government could pass a law “having the effect of outlawing or restricting abortion in a manner contrary to Roe and Casey would be in 2029.”

Under such an approach, Bashman continued, Mississippi’s existing law would be declared unconstitutional, and the state could not move on a new statute until its entire state House and Senate were re-elected after any high court ruling.

Undertaking such an action would be unprecedented, but would recognize that the high court has traditionally moved to expand individual rights, rather than “sometimes expanding and other times contracting.”

Unspoken in Bashman’s piece is the reality that such an action also would turn already contentious legislative, gubernatorial, congressional, and U.S. Senate races into the political equivalent of demolition derbies, as the Big Two parties, and their voters, mobilized by a seismic issue, vied for control of statehouses and the halls of Congress.

*That’s particularly true of battleground states, such as Pennsylvania, which was determinative to President Joe Biden’s 2020 win, and helped hand the U.S. House to Democrats in 2018.

For the last seven years, Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor, Tom Wolf, and his veto pen, have stood as a bulwark against repeated Republican attacks on abortion access. Wolf, who has served the constitutional maximum of two terms, will leave office in January 2023.

State Attorney General Josh Shapiro, currently the only Democrat running for the party’s nomination, has vowed to continue that policy, upping the ante in an already competitive contest for an open seat.

The fight for retiring Republican U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa.’s soon-to-be open seat already is attracting national attention. One of the leading Democratic contenders, Valerie Arkoosh, a physician from Montgomery County, has called on the narrowly divided Senate to vote on a previously approved U.S. House bill that would legalize abortion nationwide.

The kind of action Bashman suggests, in GOP gubernatorial and U.S. Senate fields filled with anti-choice candidates would raise the stakes to thermonuclear levels.

In his op-Ed, however, Bashman, again remaining silent on the political implications of such an action, says he doesn’t see any other way for the court to proceed.

“Ordinarily, the court will merely postpone those issues for another day,” he wrote. “But here, if the court in fact decides to overrule Roe and Casey, the best course is for the court to address those issues head-on in a manner that is most fair to all concerned.”

That conclusion will most certainly not cheer people who can get pregnant, and their supporters, but it does give them a fighting chance.

(*This column was updated at 2 p.m., on Thursday, 12/9/21 to include additional analysis on abortion rights and electoral politics)

This commentary was originally published by the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, an affiliate of the nonprofit States Newsroom, which includes the Florida Phoenix.

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Here Are The Safest Hospitals In Tampa Bay • St. Pete Catalyst

The non-profit Leapfrog Group analyzes thousands of hospitals in the United States and ranks them based on patient safety measures. It has published its latest round of evaluations.

the Jumping frog Group also announced top hospitals across the country for patient safety, and awards went to St. Petersburg-based Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital and AdventHealth.

AdventHealth, based in Altamonte Springs, has multiple locations across Tampa Bay. The Carrollwood, Dade City, and Zephyrhills locations received the Top General Hospital award. The AdventHealth Tampa and AdventHealth Wesley Chapel campuses received the Top Teaching Hospital award.

AdventHealth has received multiple awards from Leapfrog for its best results in patient safety in the past and consistently received an A.

This is the first year Johns Hopkins All Children’s is on the list, and it is the only children’s hospital from the Tampa Bay area to be on the list.

“Even with the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic, our great team remained focused on our mission and commitment to provide quality, safe care to children in our community and beyond,” said Angela Green, vice president of the hospital and lead patient safety – and quality officer, it says in a statement.

The testimony

The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade is the only hospital rating that focuses solely on hospital safety. It prints out the letters A, B, C, D, or F to show how safe hospitals are.

Grades are determined based on several measures ranging from items left in patients to preventable staph infections and death.

The only Florida hospital to receive an F rating was the Halifax Health Medical Center in Port Orange.

The full list of grades for Florida hospitals can be found here.

Here’s a highlight of the performance of some Tampa Bay hospitals, according to Leapfrog Group:

Tampa General Hospital

Grade: B for autumn 2021; previously rated B in spring 2021

Factors: Overall, the hospital performed above average in the prevention of infections such as blood infections, but below average in the prevention of staph and sepsis infections after operations. TGH underperformed when it came to leaving items on patients; however, it has performed well in preventing deaths from serious treatable complications. The hospital underperformed in preventing blood clots, but did well in preventing air or gas bubbles in the blood. The hospital received a perfect score for effective leadership.

Mease Countryside Hospital

Grade: A for autumn 2021; previously rated A in spring 2021

Factors: The hospital prevented staph infection, which can be controlled by thorough hand washing by doctors and nurses, as well as cleaning hospital rooms and medical equipment. The hospital underperformed when an object was accidentally left in a patient’s body during surgery. It also performed below average for deaths from serious treatable complications. The hospital performed above average in preventing dangerous blood clots. It received top marks for the avoidance of air and gas bubbles in the blood, for the effective guidance in avoiding errors, for the care of intensive care patients by sufficiently qualified nursing staff and specially trained doctors.

Mease Dunedin Hospital

Grade: A for autumn 2021; previously rated A in spring 2021

Factors: The hospital did above average for preventing surgical problems, including measures such as leaving objects with the patient, accidental cuts and tears, and causing severe breathing problems. The hospital received an average score in the Patient Safety category, which lists potential complications and harmful events that can occur after a procedure or surgery. The hospital scored above average in the category of practices for error prevention, including ordering medication, washing hands and communicating with patients. It received top marks for effective management to avoid errors, sufficient qualified nursing staff and the care of the intensive care unit by specially trained doctors.

St. Antonius Hospital

Grade: A for autumn 2021; previously rated A in spring 2021

Factors: It received a near-perfect score in the prevention of infection, except for preventing dangerous infections in the blood. The hospital got a perfect score for avoiding leaving objects with patients, avoiding serious breathing problems, and accidental cuts and tears. The hospital underperformed in preventing death from treatable complications, postoperative kidney damage, blood loss, and other interventions. The hospital had a mix of scoring in the Safety Issues category, listing issues such as dangerous blood clots, air or gas bubbles in the blood, and falls. It received almost the best possible score for mistake prevention practices such as hand washing and communication between employees.

Bayfront Health St. Petersburg

Note: C for autumn 2021; previously received a D in spring 2021

Factors: The hospital performed well in preventing postoperative sepsis infections and blood infections; however, it performed below average in preventing staph and surgical site infections after colon surgery. The hospital got a perfect score for not leaving items with patients. It performed below average for deaths from treatable serious complications. In the safety concern category, the hospital underperforms in preventing dangerous blood clots, patient falls, and other measures. It has performed above average in preventing air or gas bubbles in the blood. Overall, the hospital scores above average in the category of practices for error prevention, which includes measures such as hand washing and ordering medication.

Largo Medical Center

Grade: B for autumn 2021; previously rated A in spring 2021

Factors: The hospital achieved above-average performance in infection prevention, with the exception of prevention of blood infections and postoperative sepsis infections. The hospital received mixed ratings for surgery issues, safety issues, error prevention practices, and communication and leadership among staff. The hospital got a perfect score for not leaving objects with patients and a perfect score for not leaving any air bubbles or gases in the blood.

St. Petersburg General Hospital

Note: C for autumn 2021; previously rated B in spring 2021

Factors: In the infection prevention category, the hospital scores below average overall. Avoidable infections include staph infections, infections in the blood, sepsis infections after surgery, and others. In terms of communication between employees and effective management, the hospital performed below average overall. The hospital performed well in avoiding other safety issues such as avoiding patient falls, dangerous bedsores, and collapsed lungs.

Northside Hospital

Grade: B for autumn 2021; previously rated A in spring 2021

Factors: The hospital underperformed in preventing staph and sepsis infections after surgery; however, it has performed above average in preventing blood infections and other possible infections. The hospital got a perfect score for not leaving items with patients. It has also performed above average in preventing accidental cuts and tears and blood leakage. However, it received a below-average score for kidney damage after surgery and patients with severe breathing problems that may occur after surgery.

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