Southeast
Food in focus as NHL team helps feed hungry residents through goals scored
When the Florida Panthers take the ice at Amerant Bank Arena on Wednesday night against the Toronto Maple Leafs, they’ll be aiming to score more than just goals.
They’re also seeking to cross-check food insecurity in South Florida.
The defending Stanley Cup champions have partnered with a Florida-based health insurance company and an area nonprofit to help feed hungry residents in the region. Billed as “Goals for Food,” the partnership between the NHL team and Florida Blue contributes 650 meals for every goal scored by a Panthers player at home during the regular season.
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Harvest Drive, a South Florida nonprofit based in the county where the Panthers play, coordinates the distribution of meals in the community.
“There’s just no words to tell you how great it’s been going,” Harvest Drive founder Renee Herman told Fox News Digital. “It’s just amazing.”
The Florida Panthers are cross-checking hunger by donating 650 meals each time a goal is scored at home this season. (Florida Panthers; Eliot J. Schechter/NHLI via Getty Images)
The Panthers have been partners with Harvest Drive for years, but they only began tying their performance on the ice to food donations last season during the team’s run to its first-ever Stanley Cup crown.
The Panthers scored 168 goals at home during the 2023-24 season – amounting to 109,200 meals – and have totaled 40 so far this season. That’s 26,000 meals and counting.
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Last week was Harvest Drive’s busiest of the year. Volunteers from Harvest Drive and the Panthers served about 2,400 families ahead of Thanksgiving.
Families referred to Harvest Drive by school social workers and other agencies don’t just receive a turkey, Herman said.
“They get full perishables” — including milk and pie, plus a $30 Walmart gift card, she added.
A volunteer wearing a shirt celebrating the Panthers’ Stanley Cup win is seen sorting collected food as part of the “Goals for Food” program. (Florida Panthers)
It’s “everything that you need to complete your dinner,” Herman said.
“So, it’s not just getting a turkey and they leave,” she continued. “They get everything.”
‘Hunger is a 12-month thing’
Although there is increased awareness of food insecurity during the holidays, the Panthers wanted to do something that was sustainable throughout the year.
Hence, the Goals for Food program.
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“The reality is hunger is a 12-month thing,” John Colombo, vice president of the Florida Panthers Foundation, told Fox News Digital.
Aside from the goals program, the Panthers hosted a food packing and distribution event in August coordinated by Harvest Drive. Volunteers collected 22,000 pounds of food to benefit 1,000 families.
The team also hosted a food drive for fans to donate non-perishable items before its Nov. 7 home game – a 6-2 victory over the Nashville Predators. The Panthers’ six goals were the most scored at Amerant Bank Arena this season — resulting in 3,900 donated meals.
The Panthers scored a season-high six goals at home against the Predators on Nov. 7, resulting in 3,900 donated meals. (Joel Auerbach/Getty Images)
Why 650 per goal? It was a number that the Panthers, Florida Blue and Harvest Drive believed would make a difference.
“That’s a lot of meals for one single goal,” Colombo said.
“We can’t control wins and losses on the ice, but we can control how we partner in the community.”
The Panthers, Colombo said, are “really lucky” to be able to work with Harvest Drive because of its direct link to South Florida schools.
“These kids, every two weeks, go home with meals in their car when they get picked up from school,” Colombo said.
He said the food goes “right from our donors, right into the hands of social workers that are going right into the cars of these kids [who] really need the food.”
A “Goals for Food” volunteer loads bags of food into the back of a vehicle. (Florida Panthers)
Other NHL organizations have been doing their part to help feed the hungry this Thanksgiving.
Players from the Carolina Hurricanes and Nashville Predators recently distributed turkeys to local families in need — while the Buffalo Sabres provided vouchers for future game tickets in exchange for turkey donations during an area food drive.
“We’re selling hockey in the middle of the Everglades,” Colombo said, recognizing that the team is “a little different” from some of its peers in the NHL. That starts in the community, he suggested.
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“We can’t control wins and losses on the ice, but we can control how we are as a partner in the community,” Colombo said.
“And I think that’s always been our goal here.”
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Southeast
GOP Rep Nancy Mace introduces ‘Death Penalty for Child Rapists Act’
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Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., has introduced a bill to authorize the death penalty as a potential punishment for the sexual abuse of children.
“We have zero mercy for child rapists. Those who prey on our most vulnerable deserve the harshest consequence we can deliver,” Mace said in a statement.
The proposal is aptly called the “Death Penalty for Child Rapists Act.”
Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., announces she will run for South Carolina governor during a press conference at the Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina, on Aug. 4, 2025. (Tracy Glantz/The State/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
“No predator should be allowed to walk away from the most unthinkable crimes against children,” Mace noted.
“This bill is simple. Rape a child and you don’t get a second chance, you get the death penalty. We will never apologize for protecting America’s children,” Mace added.
The bill would put capital punishment on the table as an option to punish those who sexually abuse children.
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Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., attends the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 20, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
“INTRODUCING: The Death Penalty for Child Rapists Act to amend Title 18 to authorize the death penalty for aggravated sexual abuse, sexual abuse of a minor and abusive sexual contact offenses against children. It will also amend the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) to authorize the death penalty for the rape of a child,” she said in a post on X.
“We’ve spent months fighting to expose Jeffrey Epstein’s network of powerful predators. We’ve demanded accountability and pushed for transparency. Now we’re making sure anyone who rapes a child faces the ultimate consequence,” she noted.
Mace has served in the U.S. House of Representatives since early 2021.
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She is one of the candidates currently running in the South Carolina Republican gubernatorial primary.
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Southeast
Virginia Democrats talk affordability — and vote to nearly triple their own pay
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The Virginia State Senate and its Democratic majority may have voted to nearly triple their pay if a provision inserted into their final budget survives the House reconciliation process and reaches Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s desk.
The development comes as Spanberger has centered her campaign on “affordability,” with Richmond Democrats echoing that they are working to improve their constituents’ personal finances.
Virginia’s legislature itself was founded as a part-time, gentleman’s chamber, where lawmakers would return to their day jobs when Richmond wasn’t holding session.
Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger signs executive orders. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Proponents of raising the current 1988-established salary of $18,000 for senators and $17,640 for delegates say the structure restricts who can afford to serve as a lawmaker today. Lawmakers also qualify for a $237 per diem, mileage reimbursements, and coverage of office, meeting and other expenses.
Senators’ new salary would be $50,000.
Republicans were quick to criticize the final budget, with the Virginia Senate Minority Caucus saying in a statement that “teachers got a 3% raise, but Democrats give themselves 300%.” The actual increase would be closer to 178%, though one could say the new salary would be 300% of the original.
“The affordability hoax just gets worse and worse,” the caucus said, adding that the chamber’s majority killed a repeal of the car tax — something GOP gubernatorial nominee Winsome Sears ran on — while increasing the state budget by $1 billion overall.
Sen. Mark Obenshain, R-Rockingham, told WVTF it is the “wrong time” to address lawmaker pay.
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“It’s supposed to be affordability for working families across Virginia, not members of the General Assembly,” he said.
Virginia’s legislature — the oldest continuous legislative body in the New World — has been making laws since its inception as the House of Burgesses in Colonial Williamsburg, where Spanberger gave the Democratic Party’s State of the Union response.
In her speech, she claimed President Donald Trump is the one “enriching himself, his family and his friends” and said Republicans are the ones “making your life more expensive.”
“I traveled to every corner of Virginia, and I heard the same pressing concern everywhere: costs are too high. In housing, healthcare, energy, and childcare,” she said.
“Americans deserve to know that their leaders are focused on addressing the problems that keep them up at night.”
“Democrats across the country are laser-focused on affordability — in our nation’s capital and in state capitals and communities across America,” Spanberger said Tuesday.
The pay raise could be moot if the Democrat-controlled House of Delegates does not amend its own budget proposal to include the provision.
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The House’s budget includes $137 million for expanded childcare access, a minimum wage increase to $13.75 in 2027 and $15 in 2029, and a $20 million appropriation for state employees’ and home health care workers’ collective bargaining, according to Washington’s ABC affiliate.
Fox News Digital reached out to the governor, as well as the House and Senate minority leaders, for further comment.
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Southeast
Virginia murder suspect in bus stop stabbing had lengthy criminal history, multiple dropped charges
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A Virginia murder suspect accused of fatally stabbing a woman at a bus stop earlier this week has a lengthy criminal history filled with multiple arrests, but was let back onto the streets nearly every time.
Abdul Jalloh, 32, is charged with the Monday night killing of Stephanie Minter, 41, of Fredericksburg, at a bus stop shelter, the Fairfax County Police Department said.
Minter was found by officers with stab wounds to her upper body and pronounced dead at the scene, police said.
Abdul Jalloh, 32, is accused of killing Stephanie Minter, 41, at a Virginia bus stop. (Fairfax County Police Department; provided)
Jalloh, 32, who was seen on surveillance cameras exiting the bus with Minter at Richmond Highway and Arlington Drive, was arrested the next day.
He was arrested at a liquor store after an employee called 911. At the time, officers arrested him for allegedly shoplifting. Investigators linked him to the murder a day later.
Authorities were still trying to determine a motive for the killing and what led to the deadly stabbing.
A search of online court records revealed Jalloh has more than a dozen arrests in northern Virginia, including on charges of petty larceny and malicious wounding.
In most of the cases, prosecutors dropped the charges, FOX D.C. reported.
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Abdul Jalloh seen on a bus in Virginia. (Fairfax County Police Department)
Laura Birnbaum, the chief of staff for Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano, said Jalloh was known to the district attorney’s office and was “acutely aware of the risk he posed to the community.”
“That is why we convicted the defendant of a 2023 malicious wounding charge, and have since made every effort to hold him accountable each subsequent time that he has come in contact with the criminal justice system, including asking him to be held in custody whenever possible,” Birnbaum said.
“Unfortunately, the defendant in this case also had a history of selecting victims with no fixed address – some of the most vulnerable members of our community,” she added. “In multiple cases, we were unable to move forward with prosecution because victims could not be located or contacted.”
Stephanie Minter, 41, was killed on Monday after getting off of a bus in Virginia. (Provided)
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An obituary for Minter described her as a “happy, jolly” person.
“A beam of light in dark places,” the obituary states.
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