Florida officials have requested that the Federal Emergency Management Agency declare a major disaster, which could make local government and individuals eligible for federal assistance. FEMA has not yet approved such a declaration.

Dailey told local news outlets that the city is working with President Joe Biden’s administration and FEMA so it can be reimbursed for storm response and individuals can get aid.

“That’s where we can be the most impactful as a community and a government, is working with FEMA,” Dailey told WTXL-TV.

Dailey said the total cost to the city will increase as city workers continue cleaning up debris.

The National Weather Service says six tornadoes struck the Florida Panhandle and Alabama on May 10, including three that hit parts of Tallahassee. Officials say that by some measures, the damage is worse than recent hurricanes in the area.

Two people died in the storms from injuries caused by falling trees, a 47-year-old woman and a 17-year-old girl.

The storm damaged Florida A&M University, Florida State University and other schools.

Volunteers continue to help residents clear debris and make repairs. Members of the Tallahassee Rotary Club on Saturday helped remove a tree from the roof of one home and cover the hole with a tarp.

“She had a limb straight through, like an 8-foot limb straight through her roof and we were able to pull that out,” Alasdair Roe, a member of the Rotary Club, told WTXL-TV.

Leon County commissioners voted to distribute $1 million in aid to help people and businesses in areas of the county outside Tallahassee who were affected by the storms and not covered by insurance. The program is providing up to $3,500 per household and up to $10,000 per business.

However, leaders have rejected a proposal by a Leon County commissioner to give $300 rebates on electric bills from Tallahassee’s city utility and the Talquin Electric cooperative to people who experienced lengthy power outages. They told WCTV-TV that such a move wouldn’t be legal.

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Crump said in a statement released Wednesday that Okaloosa County Sheriff’s deputies responding to a disturbance call at the apartment complex in Fort Walton Beach burst into the wrong unit and fatally shot Senior Airman Roger Fortson when they saw he was armed with a gun. Fortson was home alone and on a Facetime call with a friend when deputies arrived at his door, Crump said.

Fortson was based at the Special Operations Wing at Hurlburt Field.

According to Crump, the woman, whom the attorney didn’t identify, said Fortson heard a knock at the door. He asked who was there but didn’t get a response. A few minutes later, Fortson heard a louder knock but didn’t see anyone when he looked through the peephole, Crump said, citing the woman’s account.

The woman said Fortson was concerned and went to retrieve his gun, which Crump said was legally owned.

As Fortson walked back through his living room, deputies burst through the door, saw that Fortson was armed and shot him six times, according to Crump’s statement. The woman said Fortson was on the ground, saying, “I can’t breathe,” after he was shot, Crump said.

Fortson died at a hospital, officials said. The deputy involved in the shooting was placed on administrative leave pending an investigation.

The woman said Fortson wasn’t causing a disturbance during their Facetime call and believes that the deputies must have had the wrong apartment, Crump’s statement said.

“The circumstances surrounding Roger’s death raise serious questions that demand immediate answers from authorities, especially considering the alarming witness statement that the police entered the wrong apartment,” Crump said.

“We are calling for transparency in the investigation into Roger’s death and the immediate release of body cam video to the family,” Crump said. “His family and the public deserve to know what occurred in the moments leading up to this tragedy.”

Crump is a nationally known attorney based in Tallahassee, Florida. He has been involved in multiple high-profile law enforcement shooting cases involving Black people, including those of Ahmaud Arbery, Trayvon Martin, Tyre Nichols, George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, who was also killed in her home during a no-knock police raid that targeted her ex-boyfriend in 2020.

On Wednesday, when he released a statement about Fortson’s death, Crump was in Ohio for the funeral of Frank Tyson, a 53-year-old who died in police custody on April 18.

The Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office didn’t immediately respond to an email or voicemail from The Associated Press seeking comment about Crump’s statements. But Sheriff Eric Aden posted a statement on Facebook on Wednesday afternoon expressing sadness about the shooting.

“At this time, we humbly ask for our community’s patience as we work to understand the facts that resulted in this tragic event,” Aden said.

The sheriff’s office said in a statement last week that a deputy responding to a call of a disturbance in progress at the apartment complex reacted in self-defense after encountering an armed man. The office did not offer details on what kind of disturbance deputies were responding to or who called them.

The sheriff’s office also declined to immediately identify the responding deputies or their races. Officials said earlier this week that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the local State Attorney’s Office will investigate the shooting.

FDLE spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger told The Associated Press on Wednesday that it is highly unlikely the agency will have any further comment until the investigation is complete.

Fortson was assigned to the 4th Special Operations Squadron as a special missions aviator, where one of his roles as a member of the squadron’s AC-130J Ghostrider aircrew was to load the gunship’s 30mm and 105mm cannons during missions.

Fortson’s death draws striking similarities to other Black people killed in recent years by police in their homes, in circumstances that involved officers responding to the wrong address or responding to service calls with wanton uses of deadly force.

In 2018, a white former Dallas police offer fatally shot Botham Jean, an unarmed Black man, after mistaking his apartment for her own. Amber Guyger, the former officer, was found guilty of murder the following year and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

In 2019, a white former Fort Worth, Texas, officer fatally shot Atatiana Jefferson through a rear window of her home after responding to a nonemergency call reporting that Jefferson’s front door was open. Aaron Dean, the former officer, was found guilty of manslaughter in 2022 and was sentenced to nearly 12 years in prison.

Crump has represented families in both cases as part of his ongoing effort to force accountability for the killings of Black people at the hands of police.

“What I’m trying to do, as much as I can, even sometimes singlehandedly, is increase the value of Black life,” Crump told The Associated Press in 2021 following the conviction a former Minneapolis officer in the murder of George Floyd.

In November 2023, an Okaloosa County Sheriff’s deputy mistook the sound of an acorn hitting his patrol vehicle for a gunshot and fired multiple times at the SUV where a handcuffed Black man was sitting in the backseat. Sheriff’s officials said the man, who was being questioned about stealing his girlfriend’s car, was not injured. He was taken into custody, but released without being charged. The officer who initiated the shooting resigned.

Fort Walton Beach is between Panama City Beach and Pensacola in the Florida Panhandle.

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Biden’s campaign events at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa placed the president in the epicenter of the latest battle over abortion restrictions. The state’s six-week abortion ban is poised to go into effect May 1 at the same time that Florida voters are gearing up for a ballot measure that would enshrine abortion rights in the state’s constitution. Biden said that millions of women are facing “pain and cruelty.”

“But it’s not inevitable. We can stop it. When you vote, we can stop it,” he said.

The president is seeking to capitalize on the unceasing momentum against abortion restrictions nationwide to not only buoy his reelection bid in battleground states he won in 2020, but also to go on the offensive against Trump in states that the presumptive Republican nominee won four years ago. One of those states is Florida, where Biden lost to Trump by 3.3 percentage points.

On Tuesday, he chronicled increasing medical concerns for women in the two years since the Supreme Court ended federal abortion protections.

“There was one person who was responsible for this nightmare,” Biden said. “And he’s acknowledged it and he brags about it — Donald Trump.”

Biden said Trump, who has publicly waffled on his abortion views, and of late has said abortion is a matter for states to decide, is concerned voters will now hold him accountable.

“Folks, the bad news for Trump is that we are going to hold him accountable,” Biden said.

At the same time, advocates on the ground say support for abortion access cuts across parties. They’re intent on making the issue as nonpartisan as possible as they work to scrounge up at least 60% support from voters for the ballot initiative.

That could mean in some cases, Florida voters would split their tickets, backing GOP candidates while supporting the abortion measure.

“I think that normal people are aware that a candidate campaign is really different than a ballot initiative,” said Lauren Brenzel, campaign director for Floridians Protecting Freedom, which gathered signatures to put the abortion question before voters. “You can vote for your preferred candidate of any political party and still not agree with them on every single issue.”

Brenzel continued, “This gives voters an opportunity to have their message heard on one policy platform.”

On the same day the Florida Supreme Court ruled that the ballot measure could go before voters, it also upheld the state’s 15-week abortion ban. That subsequently cleared the way for the new ban on the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy, which is often before women know they are pregnant, to go into effect next week.

Organizers of the abortion ballot measure say they collected nearly 1.5 million signatures to put the issue before voters, although the state stopped counting at just under a million. Roughly 891,500 signatures were required. Of the total number of signatures, about 35% were from either registered Republican voters or those not affiliated with a party, organizers said.

State Rep. Anna Eskamani, a Democrat, said if the abortion ballot initiative becomes branded as a partisan effort, “it just makes it more challenging to reach 60%.” Eskamani, who worked at Planned Parenthood before running for political office, said she is encouraging the Biden administration to focus broadly on the impact of a six-week ban and let the ballot measure speak for itself.

“At the end of the day, the ballot initiative is going to be a multimillion-dollar campaign that stands very strongly on its own,” Eskamani said.

Trump’s campaign did not respond to a question on whether the former president, a Florida voter, would oppose or support the ballot measure. In an NBC interview last September, Trump called Florida’s six-week ban “terrible.” But he has repeatedly highlighted the three conservative-leaning justices he chose for the high court who cleared the way to overturn Roe vs. Wade.

Republicans were dismissive of the Biden campaign and the broader Democratic Party’s efforts to use abortion as a political cudgel, arguing that other issues will matter more with voters in November.

“Biden must have forgotten that thousands of Americans have fled from extremist Democrat policies to prosperous and pro-life states like Florida,” said Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley.

Still, Trump and other Republicans are aware that voter backlash against increasing restrictions could be a serious liability this fall.

Abortion-rights supporters have won every time the issue has been put before voters, including in solidly conservative states such as Kansas, Kentucky and Ohio. Last month, a Democrat in a suburban state House district in Alabama flipped the seat from Republican control by campaigning on abortion rights, weeks after in vitro fertilization services had been paused in the state.

Nikki Fried, the chairwoman of the state Democratic Party, said Florida will be a competitive state on the presidential level “because of the extremism that has come out of Florida.” No Democrat has won the state on the presidential level since 2012, but state party officials have found some glimmers of political change in vastly smaller races, such as the open Jacksonville mayor’s race last May that saw a Democrat win in what was once a solidly Republican city.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, said at a news conference before the visit that the abortion amendment was written in a way to deliberately mislead voters, an argument that the state Supreme Court disagreed with when it approved the ballot language.

“All I can tell you is Floridians are not buying what Joe Biden is selling and in November we’re going to play an instrumental role in sending him back to Delaware where he belongs,” he said.

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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced what it calls an “emergency response” focused on the Florida Keys starting next week. A NOAA news release called the effort unprecedented.

“If the opportunity presents itself, this would be the first attempt ever to rescue and rehabilitate smalltooth sawfish from the wild,” said Adam Brame, NOAA Fisheries’ sawfish recovery coordinator.

Sawfish, related to rays, skates and sharks, are named for their elongated, flat snout that contains a row of teeth on each side. They can live for decades and grow quite large, some as long as 16 feet (about 5 meters). They were once found all along the Gulf of Mexico and southern Atlantic coasts in the U.S., but now are mainly in southwestern Florida and the Keys island chain as their habitats shrink. A related species is found off Australia.

Since late January, state wildlife officials have been documenting what they call an “unusual mortality event” that has affected about 109 sawfish and killed at least 28 of them. There have been reports of abnormal behavior, such as the fish seen spinning or whirling in the water. Other species of fish also appear to have been affected.

“We suspect that total mortalities are greater, since sawfish are negatively buoyant and thus unlikely to float after death,” Brame said.

Officials haven’t isolated a cause. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission reported Wednesday that sawfish necropsies have not revealed any pathogen or bacterial infections, nor problems with low water oxygen levels or contaminants such as chemicals, or toxic red tide. Water testing is continuing.

It’s also not clear if the deaths and odd behaviors are related to a lengthy summer heat wave in Florida waters experts say was driven by climate change. The superheated waters caused other marine damage, such a coral bleaching and deaths of other ocean species.

The wildlife agencies are working with three organizations that will rehabilitate sawfish that are rescued. One of them, Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium, said in a news release that even relatively small numbers of sawfish deaths could have a major impact on the population, listed as endangered since 2003.

“We have quarantine facilities ready to accommodate rescued sawfish where they would be under observation by qualified personnel under specific care and release guidelines,” said Kathryn Flowers, Mote Postdoctoral Research Fellow and lead scientist on the sawfish issue. “Attempts to solve this mystery call for robust collaboration.”

Brame said the effort depends on tips and sightings from the public of dead or distressed sawfish so rescuers know where to look for them. NOAA has a tipline at 844-4-Sawfish and FWC has an email, sawfish@fwc.com.

In recent years, threatened manatees also suffered a major die-off in Florida waters as pollution killed much of their seagrass food source. State and federal officials fed tons of lettuce to manatees that gathered in winter outside a power plant for two years, and the manatee numbers have rebounded some with 555 deaths recorded in 2023 compared with a record 1,100 in 2021.

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The autistic girl wandered away from her home Monday evening and was quickly reported missing, Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister said.

The thermal camera captured images of the little girl walking through ankle-deep water.

“Hey, I think I got her in the woods,” a deputy in the helicopter told deputies on the ground. “She might be able to hear her name if you call her. She might be about 80 feet in front of you.”

A body camera recording showed the moment the deputies made contact with the child.

A deputy called her name and held up his arms. The little girl also held her arms up and walked toward him. He quickly picked the child up.

“Let’s get you out of the water. I’ll get you to everyone,” he told her as they walked back through the woods.

“Their quick action saved the day, turning a potential tragedy into a hopeful reunion,” the sheriff said. “Their dedication shows what service and protection are all about here at the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office.”

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Lt. Laura Anderson told news stations this week that a nonintrusive archaeological survey performed over the past two years at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa identified 58 probable graves and 63 possible graves. The base also deployed search teams to go over the area with ground penetrating radar and cadaver dogs.

It plans to look at an area to the north of the main cemetery area this year for any additional evidence of graves, Anderson said.

“That’s essentially so we can make sure that we’re not forgetting anybody,” she told WFTS-TV.

The Tampa Bay History Center notified MacDill officials about the possible Black cemetery in 2019, and the base hosted a memorial service in 2021, dedicating a memorial on site to those buried there.

The headstones at the Port Tampa Cemetery were removed during construction of the base in the late 1930s, but the bodies remained there, the Tampa Bay Times reported in 2021. The area must stay free of vertical structures for aircraft safety, so it has not been developed.

Officials said they will continue to work with the community to determine how to best document the site and to pay respect to the people buried there.

“We know obviously there was wrong done in the past, but we’re working together with our community members,” Anderson said. “We want to make what was wrong right.”

Yvette Lewis, president of the NAACP Hillsborough County branch, told WFTS-TV base officials have gone “above and beyond” in resolving the concerns of community members. But she would like to see additional efforts to memorialize the site and make sure its story is told correctly.

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The plane took off later “after the issue was addressed,” the airline said Thursday.

The plane involved was an Airbus A319. Last week, a plug that takes the place of a door on some Boeing Max 9 jetliners blew off an Alaska Airlines plane shortly after takeoff from Portland, Oregon.

An spokesperson for the Tampa airport said the initial report to emergency dispatchers was that the plane diverted because a door indicator light turned on. Fire crews met the plane.

A United spokesperson said the flight, from Sarasota, Florida, to Chicago, diverted to Tampa “as a precaution … to address a possible mechanical issue. The flight landed safely and later re-departed after the issue was addressed.”

The plane carried 123 passengers and five crew members and was airborne for less than an hour, according to data from tracking service FlightAware.

The diversion was reported earlier by WFLA-TV.

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Andrew Warren said in a video posted to social media that he still planned to continue his legal battle challenging his suspension as state attorney in the Tampa area even if he won’t seek re-election.

At the time of the suspension in 2022, DeSantis, who is running for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, accused Warren of neglect of duty and incompetence after the Democratic state attorney signed statements, along with other prosecutors across the U.S., opposing criminal charges against abortion providers or women seeking abortions. Warren also said he wouldn’t prosecute people for providing gender-affirming health care, and his office’s policies didn’t charge people with some minor crimes.

Florida had a 15-week abortion ban at the time, and DeSantis last year signed into law a ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. DeSantis also championed legislation that banned transgender minors from receiving puberty blockers, but a federal judge has blocked portions of the new law.

DeSantis appointed Republican Suzy Lopez to replace Warren in August 2022. She is now the only person running for that office.

If he ran again, won and then was suspended again, it would create too much uncertainty for the office, so he decided to “take one for the team and not run,” Warren said Monday.

“I have been planning to run for re-election since the day I was suspended, but the governor has made clear that he does not care about the will of the voters or our democracy, and that he is willing to break state and federal law to keep me from serving as state attorney,” Warren said. “I care about the State Attorney’s Office and this community too much to have that cloud of uncertainty hanging over us.”

Warren’s suspension was the first one made by the Republican governor involving Democratic state attorneys in two of Florida’s most populous metro areas. Last year, DeSantis suspended Monique Worrell, who was the state attorney for the Orlando area. Worrell is challenging the decision before the Florida Supreme Court.

Last year, the Florida Supreme Court refused to reinstate Warren, saying he had waited too long to file a petition.

Warren also challenged his removal in federal court, where he said that DeSantis punished him for being a dissenting voice, violating his constitutional right to free speech, and nullifying the election that brought Warren to office. U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle, in dismissing Warren’s lawsuit, wrote that federal law prevents him from returning to the prosecutor to office. Warren has appealed that decision.

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The Hillsborough County deputies were answering a call from a woman who said her adult son was acting irrationally and she was afraid of him, Sheriff Chad Chronister said at a news conference. The 28-year-old man was sitting in a running car outside his home in the Tampa suburb of Brandon and took off when the deputies tried to make contact with him.

The driver returned a short time later, sped up and rammed the deputies, pinning them against a patrol vehicle, the sheriff said. Both suffered severe leg injuries but are expected to survive.

“There is no other way to describe this other than an ambush,” Chronister said. “He chose today to use his car as a weapon. They didn’t have a chance to get out of the way.”

The deputies were identified as Carlos Brito, 39, and 31-year-old Manny Santos. Chronister said the suspect got out of the car after slamming into the deputies and attempted to enter his house, but another deputy who had arrived at the scene subdued him.

The man is charged with the attempted murder of law enforcement officers. Chronister said the man previously was arrested for three felonies and 14 misdemeanors, and that he had previously expressed hostility toward law enforcement.

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At least two shooters opened fire just before 3 a.m. on the 1600 block of East 7th Avenue in the Ybor City area, Tampa Police Chief Lee Bercaw said during a press conference at the scene.

The fight occurred in an area with several bars and clubs, and there were large numbers of late night revelers in the area at the time, Bercaw said. Police were not immediately sure if the people involved in the fight were inside any of the bars before the shooting.

Tampa police spokeswoman Jonee Lewis said “hundreds” of people were out on the streets as numerous nightspots closed early Sunday. She said one person was detained but no charges were immediately filed. “They’re being questioned and we’ll go from there,” Lewis said.

Police have not released the names of those killed, but Emmitt Wilson said his 14-year-old son, Elijah, was one of the fatalities. Wilson came to the scene Sunday after getting a call that his son was a victim.

“It’s madness to me. I don’t even feel like I’m here right now,” Wilson said. “I hope the investigators do their job and find out who killed my son.”

Video posted online shows people, many in Halloween costumes, drinking and talking on the street when about a dozen shots ring out followed seconds later by about eight more, creating a stampede. Some people topple over metal tables and take cover behind them. Video from the aftermath shows police officers treating several people lying wounded on the ground.

“It was a disturbance or a fight between two groups. And in this fight between two groups we had hundreds of innocent people involved that were in the way,” Bercaw said.

He did not provide details of the injuries suffered by the victims taken to area hospitals.

Police are still investigating the reason for the fight between the two groups, he said.

Tampa Mayor Jane Castor, a former city police chief, said the problem isn’t a lack of policing, but the easy access to guns.

“Yet again, a senseless loss of life by those choosing to settle a dispute with firearms. Lives lost and others forever changed. To what end? The Tampa Police Department had 50 officers deployed in the area at the time, so this is not a law enforcement issue. Bad decisions made in a split second and the proliferation of readily available guns are responsible for these almost daily incidents,” she said in a statement.

On Sunday morning, the scene of the shooting was quiet — with few businesses open yet, as officers had the area blocked off. Roosters that roam the historic Ybor City streets wandered among empty cups, beer bottles and shoes left behind.

A witch costume sat in the street.

Two young women who came to the scene Sunday morning said they decided not to go to Ybor City the night before because of the crowds.

“We know how Ybor gets,” said Minna Cohen, a 23-year-old recent University of Tampa graduate. “A lot of crime happens here often. You sometimes know not to go to certain places.”

Her friend, 21-year-old Carolina Londoner, said when the bars all close in the early morning hours the streets are packed and unruly.

“When everyone comes together it gets messy, and it’s that way all night,” she said.

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