🏠 News From Your Neighborhood
Florida
Live winter storm updates: Tallahassee coated in 2 inches of sleet mixed with snow
A historic winter storm that dumped snow and sleet on a wide swath of the Gulf Coast left Tallahassee covered in a blanket of the frozen stuff Wednesday morning.
The National Weather Service in Tallahassee recorded 1.9 inches of mostly sleet at its office on the campus of Florida State University.
Forecasters said it was too early to tell whether the ice and snow would approach or beat Tallahassee’s all-time snowfall record of 2.8 inches set in 1958.
Here are updates from the path of the winter storm:
The Tallahassee Police Department is urging people to stay off the roads, which were slick and icy Wednesday morning.
The city never saw widespread official road closures. The most notable was a brief shutdown of a stretch of Thomasville Road in northeast Tallahassee and a longer-term closure of the Capital Circle flyover leading to Interstate 10.
But city and police officials warned that all roads should be considered dangerous.
“Snowy, icy roads and continued freezing temps have created EXTREMELY dangerous roadway conditions,” the city said in a post on X/Twitter. “TPD urges residents to stay off the roads for their safety and for the safety of emergency responders.”
The city said emergency crews worked overnight to address issues and will continue working through the day.
“Road clearing crews spread more than 40 tons of sand over roadways including 25 bridges,” the city said. “As work continues, please stay off the roads. They are not safe for travel.”
Tallahassee appeared to have gotten mostly sleet, with some snow mixed in, from the winter storm system — the result of a powerful Arctic air mass that invaded the Deep South colliding with slightly warmer air from the Gulf of Mexico.
“Definitely, the vast majority of it was sleet,” said David Reese, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Tallahassee. “We may have had a couple of minutes periodically through the night that was pure snow. And there was a little bit of time periods last night and early this morning where it was a combination of freezing rain and sleet. So very, very icy.”
Reese said slightly warmer air — perhaps a degree above freezing — moved in over Tallahassee as part of a low pressure system that interacted with Arctic air already in place.
“By warmer, I’m talking 33 degrees,” Reese said. “I mean that’s really all it takes — hey you get snow or you get sleet. If it had been 32 or or less, it would have been at least mixed in with a fair amount of more snow.”
He said snowfall totals across southern Alabama and Georgia, where the air was much colder, ranged from 6 to 8 inches. Parts of the Florida Panhandle got as much as 5 inches of snow.
With a coating of ice on trees and power lines, the city of Tallahassee said it restored power to 10 circuits and about 12,000 customers overnight.
The city’s online power outage map showed about 557 customers without power as of about 7:55 a.m.
“Crews are actively working and will continue to work through the day,” the city said in a mass text to customers. “Additional outages could occur.”
Talquin Electrical Cooperative continued to struggle with widespread outages Wednesday morning in Wakulla County and southern and eastern Leon County, where freezing rain brought down lines. About 11% of the grid was offline at 8:15 a.m, with about half of customers in the dark in the Shadeville and Chaires areas.
Florida
Traffic stop goes viral after Florida deputy accuses driver missing right hand of holding phone
PALM BEACH COUNTY, Fla. — Video of a traffic stop in Palm Beach County is going viral over an awkward exchange between the driver and a deputy who accused her of holding a phone while driving.
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“You drove past me holding a phone with your right hand, manipulating that phone,” the deputy tells 36-year-old Kathleen “Katie” Thomas.
“Obviously not,” Thomas says while laughing and holding up her right arm, showing that she’s missing her right hand.
“So you wanna call this a day?” she asks.
“I don’t want to call this a day. You had a hand up, manipulating,” the deputy responds.
“You just said my right hand,” Thomas counters.
“Well, I thought I saw your right hand,” the deputy says.
“So you didn’t,” Thomas responds.
Thomas posted the bodycam footage on Instagram and TikTok where it gained millions of likes.
In the video, although she shows the deputy she doesn’t have a right hand, the deputy doubled down.
“I’m asking you now; did you or not have your phone in your hand?” the deputy asks.
“I did not,” Thomas responds.
“You did not have your phone in your hand?” the deputy asks again.
“I did not,” Thomas responds.
“Hand to God, you didn’t have a phone in your hand?” the deputy asks.
“Hand to God,” Thomas says.
Court records show Thomas was given a $116 citation despite the presented evidence, but it was later dismissed at the request of the deputy involved.
Copyright 2026 by WPLG Local10.com – All rights reserved.
Florida
Blue Origin New Glenn rocket explodes on launch pad in Florida
A Blue Origin New Glenn rocket exploded Thursday night on a launch pad at Cape Canaveral in Florida.
The explosion occurred at about 9 p.m. ET. Blue Origin said there were no injuries from the incident.
“We experienced an anomaly during today’s hotfire test,” Blue Origin said in a statement. “All personnel have been accounted for. We will provide updates as we learn more.”
Cape Canaveral Space Force Station also confirmed in a separate statement that “all personnel have been accounted for and there were no injuries/fatalities.”
Blue Origin was scheduled to fuel the rocket Thursday evening ahead of a planned test firing of the rocket’s engines.
Blue Origin, which is owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, successfully launched its third New Glenn rocket last month.
This rocket was being prepared for the fourth New Glenn mission as soon as June 4 to launch 48 satellites for Amazon’s Leo internet service, which competes with Elon Musk’s Starlink.
The 48 satellites were not aboard the rocket during the test. It was not immediately clear how much damage the launch pad and ground equipment sustained, or how long it might take to repair it.
Space Launch Complex 36, where the explosion occurred, is the only launch pad equipped to launch New Glenn rockets.
The New Glenn rocket is key to Blue Origin’s and NASA’s moon base plans, and the explosion will likely be a setback. Next year, the New Glenn is supposed to launch another Blue Moon lander as part of the Artemis III mission in low Earth orbit.
In a social media post, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman wrote, “Spaceflight is unforgiving, and developing new heavy-lift launch capability is extraordinarily difficult. We will work with our partners to support a thorough investigation of this anomaly, assess near-term mission impacts, and get back to launching rockets.”
The New Glenn rocket had just been cleared on May 22 to return to flight after being grounded by the Federal Aviation Administration after an anomaly with the second stage during an April 19 launch.
In a statement Thursday, the FAA said it was aware that the rocket had “experienced an anomaly during a static fire test on the pad in Cape Canaveral, Florida,” adding that the “test was not within the scope of FAA licensed activities.”
The FAA also noted that “there was no impact to air traffic” from the explosion.
Bezos wrote on X Thursday night, “It’s too early to know the root cause but we’re already working to find it. Very rough day, but we’ll rebuild whatever needs rebuilding and get back to flying. It’s worth it.”
Musk wrote: “Sorry to see this, I hope you recover quickly.”
Florida
Florida to pay Sumrall’s assistants a combined $11.2M in 2026
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Florida coach Jon Sumrall’s assistants will make a combined $11.2 million in 2026, a significant investment for a program desperate to win more often.
Offensive coordinator Buster Faulkner tops the list after signing a three-year, $6.6 million contract to leave Georgia Tech and join Sumrall in Gainesville. Faulker will get $2.1 million in 2026 – the first $2 million coordinator in school history – and has a $100,000 raise set for each of the next two years.
Only six college offensive coordinators were paid $2 million or more in 2025, according to CBS Sports. Fifteen defensive coordinators topped $2 million.
Florida defensive coordinator Brad White signed a three-year, $5.85 million deal that starts at $1.85 million and also includes a $100,000 raise in 2027 and 2028.
The Gators released the contracts Thursday in response to a public records request.
Sumrall signed a six-year, $44.7 million contract last year that averages $7.45 million annually. The Gators will dole out more than $20 million to Sumrall, his staff of 15 assistants and a front office led by new general manager Dave Caldwell.
Four of the assistants are scheduled to earn at least $1 million during their deals.
Defensive line coach Gerald Chapman and offensive line coach Phil Trautwine will join Faulker and White in the seven-figure club. Chapman, the lone holdover from former Florida coach Billy Napier’s staff, will make $950,000 this year and $1 million in 2027. Trautwine, meanwhile, starts at $750,000 and jumps to $1 million. Both signed two-year deals.
Their salaries show Sumrall’s commitment to rebuilding the team along both lines of scrimmage in the powerhouse Southeastern Conference.
Napier’s 12-man coaching staff was paid a combined $7.5 million in 2025. The Gators posted three losing seasons in Napier’s four years.
The rest of Sumrall’s staff range between making $350,000 and $600,000 annually, all of them on two-year contracts.
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