WYNNHAVEN BEACH - A 62-year-old man from this Florida Panhandle community died from complications related to West Nile virus, health officials say.
The death, confirmed this week, is Florida's sixth this year from the mosquito-borne disease. Only two people died from the virus in Florida last year and none in 2001.
Following his family's wishes, Okaloosa County health officials declined to identify the victim.
Wynnhaven Beach is about 5 miles west of Fort Walton Beach.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says 8,567 people in the United States have tested positive for the West Nile virus in 2003 and 199 died. Colorado has been the hardest hit, with 2,477 cases and 45 deaths.
Florida has had 65 confirmed cases in 2003. Four of the deaths have been in the Panhandle.
The disease can cause a fatal swelling of the brain, but many people experience mild or no symptoms. The elderly and people with weakened immune systems are at highest risk.
Symptoms include fever, headache, body aches and sometimes a rash and swollen lymph glands.
Silicone injection death brings 30-year sentence
FORT LAUDERDALE - A man convicted of killing a Miami woman by injecting her with silicone during an underground "pumping party" in Miramar was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
Mark Hawkins, 39, of Greenville, S.C., had been found guilty of third-degree murder and illegally practicing medicine in the March 2001 death of Vera Lawrence, 53.
Prosecutors said Hawkins and Donnie Hendrix, 34, traveled several Southern states offering cut-rate cosmetic surgery and body enhancement procedures.
"I find that you have engaged in incredibly high-risk behavior and it was done entirely for money," Broward Circuit Judge Peter Weinstein told Hawkins before sentencing him to the maximum penalty Wednesday.
Hendrix, who was acquitted of the most serious charges against her, is serving five years in prison.
Mother runs through fire in home to save daughter
MIRAMAR - A mother ran through a burning townhouse to rescue her sleeping 2-year-old daughter, dropping her out a second-story window before jumping herself.
Residents were fleeing the Thanksgiving morning blaze when the woman realized her daughter was still upstairs.
"I saw the flames coming up the stairs, and I said "Forget it, I don't care,' " Giselle Trespalacios, who dropped her daughter into neighbors' arms, told WSVN-TV.
The mother, child and three others escaped with minor injuries, officials said.
