News & Notes

Relax, it's likely not flu, but don't avoid needle

Something may be going around, but it's probably not the flu - at least not yet. We're having a light year so far. Don't relax. Florida flu season usually doesn't peak until February or March. Doctors' prescription? Get your flu shot. In Florida, about 90 percent of flu shots are dispensed by private doctors. In the Tampa Bay area, one of the largest private practices, Doctor's Walk-In Clinics, still had a few thousand doses last week.

The top dog is gone, and coyotes are back

The leader of the dog pack is dead. And the roving band of feral canines that briefly closed a Pinellas County park has lost its spunk and dispersed. Wall Springs Park, shuttered for a bit last month in north Pinellas, is safe again. Since then, county animal control officers hunted down and shot five of the dogs, including the pack's elusive leader, a 60-pound male Rottweiler, who died snarling. And now this: No longer intimidated by wild dogs, the coyotes are back.

Apparently, using icicle as weapon isn't insane

He killed a man with a sword. And when police arrived, he confronted them with a plastic icicle - a holiday decoration. It took a jury only 90 minutes last week to convict Ronnie M. Williams, a 30-year-old St. Petersburg man, of murder in the 4-year-old crime. Williams will go to prison for life for stabbing Michael B. Moody, 42. His insanity defense failed.

Cuffed teen extends her 15 minutes of fame

The 13-year-old Clearwater girl who was handcuffed on a school bus is going nationwide this morning. Ashley Marie Mitchell will appear on the Today show sometime between 7:30 and 8 a.m. A videotape shows a police officer boarding the bus after another student threw a hard object out the window. A car that swerved to avoid the object nearly struck the officer riding his police motorcycle. Ashley, a student at Safety Harbor Middle School, stands and shouts that she wasn't involved. The officer then marches her to the front and handcuffs her to a railing.

That other bay area is healthiest for men

Men, listen up. The healthiest American city for you is in the bay area - unfortunately, it's the San Francisco bay area, according to a list in Men's Health . St. Petersburg comes in No. 62, right behind Cincinnati. Tampa does even worse: No. 82, one spot below Buffalo, N.Y. Have any editors for Men's Health been to Buffalo lately? Shoveling snow can kill you.

New building, fine, but FSU wants it cheaper

A judge has ordered mediation in a lawsuit between Florida State University and professor Robert Holton, who developed a synthetic form of the cancer drug Taxol. They both want a new chemistry building. But FSU says a $67-million world-class center for research in synthetic organic chemistry, Holton's specialty, is too much even with the $11-million he has given.

Tampa Bay headlines

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