Ex-NFL player Chris Payton-Jones dead at 30 after horror Florida car accident

FORMER NFL player Chris Payton-Jones has died in a horror car crash at the age of 30.
The football star passed away following the incident on Saturday night, when the car he was driving was involved in a head-on smash.
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Steelers host massive DT Darrell Jackson for Top 30 visit

With just over two weeks to the 2026 NFL Draft, the Pittsburgh Steelers are wrapping up their Top 30 visits. On Tuesday, the Steelers had a trio of players in for a visit including Washington wide receiver Denzel Boston and Florida State defensive tackle Darrell Jackson Jr.
Jackson is a prototypical 3-4 combo defensive lineman. At Florida State, he lined up as a defensive tackle and slid out as an end, depending on the situation. Jackson measures up at 6-foot-6 and 313 pounds with an elite wingspan and hands.
At this point in his c

Why Fernando Mendoza will not be attending 2026 NFL Draft: Probable No. 1 pick to skip trip to...

Why Fernando Mendoza will not be attending 2026 NFL Draft: Probable No. 1 pick to skip trip to Pittsburgh originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza said he will not be in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for the 2026 NFL Draft, per Adam Schefter. Instead, the presumptive No. 1 overall pick will be in his hometown of Miami, Florida, with friends.
Mendoza is coming off a Heisman-winning season at Indiana

Democrats seek upset in Marjorie Taylor Greene's former Georgia seat

Democrats have repeatedly overperformed in surprising places this year, including President Donald Trump's own Florida state senate district, but the heights of their forecasted "blue wave" will be tested April 7 in a Georgia congressional seat formerly held by Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Democrats long-shot hopes there are pinned on Shawn Harris, a retired brigadier Army general, who believes the rough economy, unpopular war with Iran and Trump's dipping approval numbers makes this ripe for a political upset, despite the dis

Could gas prices get even higher in Tampa Bay? Experts say yes.

Gas pricesare high and it could get worse, experts say, which could also create a major drag onFlorida’s economy.
It all depends on what happens in the Strait of Hormuz, economists say, a narrow waterway between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman through which about 20 million barrels of oil are carried each day — representing about a fifth of the world’s oil supply.
Since the U.S. and Israel launched strikes in Iran in late February, the country has blocked transportation through the strait, backing up thousands of vessel

Florida attorney general says NFL must get rid of Rooney Rule

Florida's attorney general is challenging the Rooney Rule and calling on the NFL to suspend it or face possible civil rights action.
James Uthmeier sent a letter to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell on Wednesday to express concern that the Rooney Rule -- which requires teams to interview external minority candidates for specific positions -- is "blatant race and ****** discrimination" and that hiring decisions should be based on merit only.
"NFL fans in Florida don't care what color their coach's skin is," Uthmeier wrote. "They c

Nearly 700 NFL players have been born outside the US: See the data

The NFL is set to host the on-field portion of its 2026 International Player Pathway Pro Day on March 30 in Ashburn, Virginia. Last year, the IPP shared its pro day with the University of South Florida. This year, the event is being held in combination with the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Showcase.
The NFL has a long history of internationally-born players — since the league’s inception in 1920, 699 players from 84 countries outside of the United States have played in the NFL.
The United States’ northern n

February finale: ***** eX wraps up month with three Starlink launches this week

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In what has become hardly a leap for the company, ***** eX concluded its Starlink satellite launches for February 2026 with a trio of flights this week.
On Tuesday (Feb. 24) at 6:04 p.m. EST (2304 GMT), a Falcon 9 lifted the first 29 satellites into low Earth orbit from ***** e Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral ***** e Force Station in Florida. The next day, 25 more Starlink units were sent ***** e

2028 Georgia offensive tackle schedules Tennessee football visit

Tennessee is recruiting toward its 2028 football signing class.
Four-star offensive tackle Kweli Fielder will visit Tennessee on March 21, according to Tom Loy of 247Sports. He will also visit Florida, Auburn, Virginia Tech, Ohio State, Georgia and South Carolina.
The 6-foot-4, 310-pound prospect is from Carrollton High School in Carrollton, Georgia. 247Sports ranks him as the No. 3 offensive tackle in the class and the No. 2 player in Georgia.
Tennessee offered Fielder a scholarship on Jan. 23, 2025. The 2028 prospect's vi

Best-case, worst-case scenarios for Luis Robert Jr. with Mets this year

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — As the calendar approached February, Luis Robert Jr. was ready to embark on his pilgrimage back to Arizona.
The 28-year-old outfielder had begun to prepare for his seventh major league trip to the Cactus League with the White Sox when he learned that his new destination was Florida in a little less than a month.
Robert was set to switch cities for the first time when he was traded to the Mets in late January.
"I was excited. I was nervous," Robert said Tuesday through Mets interpreter Alan Suri

Epstein was invited to gatherings with a dozen members of Congress years after...

In January 2011, Jeffrey Epstein received an email inviting him to join a freshman congressman for breakfast at a luxury hotel in midtown Manhattan.
The billionaire pedophile was promised the chance to rub shoulders with Rep. Allen West, a “rising star” Florida Republican, whose district encompassed Epstein’s Palm Beach mansion.
“You will have the opportunity to explore his views on a variety of issues including spending, the national debt, taxes, education, the economy, Islam, Israel, among others,” the let

SpaceX, NASA mission arrives at ISS, relieving bare-bones astronaut crew

A ****** eX capsule carrying four astronauts arrived at the International ****** e Station on Saturday, bringing the orbiting laboratory back to full staff a month after a previous crew made an emergency exit due to a medical concern, leaving behind a skeleton crew.
The mission, called Crew-12, lifted off at around 5:17 a.m. ET Friday from Cape Canaveral ****** e Force Station in Florida. The ****** ecraft spent more than 30 hours free-flying through ****** e, slowly making its way to an ideal docking position with th

Daytona 500 viewer's guide

The 68th Daytona 500 will officially kick off the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season on Sunday. The iconic race at the 2.5-mile oval in Daytona Beach, Florida, begins at 1:30 p.m. ET (moved up an hour due to weather in the forecast) and will be televised on Fox.
Here’s everything you need to know ahead of the race, as NASCAR has made significant changes to its championship format ahead of the season.
William Byron is attempting to be the first driver to win three consecutive Daytona 500s.
Just six drivers have won at least three Daytona 500s and none of them ever wo

Elon Musk has vowed that **** eX's gigantic Starship rocket is on the cusp of its 2026 debut from South Texas.
And later this year, plans are still in the works to launch Starship before the end of the year on its long-awaited maiden voyage from Florida.
In a Jan. 26 post on social media site X, which Musk owns, the world's richest man teased that the world's largest rocket was just six weeks away from its next launch. If Musk's timeline bears out, that would mean that Starship's next flight test could be on track for early March.
Starship, which stands more than 400 feet tall when fully st

Bracing for a weekend cold snap in Florida, NASA delayed a dress rehearsal fueling test for its Artemis II moon rocket, moving it from Saturday to Monday, and pushed the long-awaited launch back at least two days to no earlier than 11:20 p.m. EST on Feb. 8.
At the same time, NASA is gearing up to launch a fresh crew to the International ******* e Station to replace the four Crew 11 fliers who cut their mission short and returned to Earth on Jan. 15 due to a medical issue with an unidentified crew member.
Crew 12, launching atop a ******* eX Falcon 9 rocket, will be ready to blast off as earl

Who's up for a late-night rocket launch? A rocket from Florida is scheduled to lift off Tuesday night.
Using its Falcon 9, ****** eX plans to send a Lockheed Martin-built GPS satellite into orbit.
Though rockets here launch from NASA's Kennedy ****** e Center or Cape Canaveral ****** e Force Station, people from Volusia County can sometimes see this phenomenon.
Weather permitting and depending on cloud cover and trajectory, a rocket launch from Florida’s ****** e Coast could be visible as far north as Jacksonville Beach and as far south as West Palm Beach.
When there’s a launch window in t

Their eyes were watching. Some knew something was wrong. Others were slow to realize. Soon everyone came to grief.
Forty years ago ***** e Shuttle Challenger climbed into the clear amid blue skies over Cape Canaveral. The nation’s youth watched on TVs across the nation and from school playgrounds across Central Florida.
Christa McAuliffe was to be the first teacher in ***** e.
But the streak of the rocket’s plume did not look right.
“We definitely didn’t know what happened at the time, but you could feel the energy of the teachers,” said Elizabeth Wisner Stroz, now 51, then an 11-year-old

Their eyes were watching. Some knew something was wrong. Others were slow to realize. Soon everyone came to grief.
Forty years ago **** e Shuttle Challenger climbed into the clear amid blue skies over Cape Canaveral. The nation’s youth watched on TVs across the nation and from school playgrounds across Central Florida.
Christa McAuliffe was to be the first teacher in **** e.
But the streak of the rocket’s plume did not look right.
“We definitely didn’t know what happened at the time, but you could feel the energy of the teachers,” said Elizabeth Wisner Stroz, now 51, then an 11-year-old in

Trump says progress made in Ukraine talks but 'thorny issues' remain

Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky said progress had been made to end the Ukraine war during Florida talks but the US leader added "one or two very thorny issues" remained.
While both the US and Ukrainian presidents described the talks as "great", Trump reiterated that a key sticking point was the question of territory. Russia has previously demanded that Ukraine hand over more land.
Addressing reporters at Mar-a-Lago, Zelensky said they had come to an agreement on "90%" of a 20-point peace plan, while Trump said a secu

Pelicans eye the sky as rocket takes wing in Photo of the Week

It could've been just another shot of a rocket rising, something Malcolm Denemark, FLORIDA TODAY senior photographer, has been behind the camera for again and again in a record-breaking year for launches in Brevard.
The bird, however, is the word in this Photo of the Week, which pictures pelicans viewing the Dec. 2 launch of a ***** eX Falcon 9 rocket carrying a load of Starlink satellites.
Turned out the birds' choice of a landing spot, at just the right time, gave Denemark a shot that took wing.
"It would have been a routin

Maggots may be the key to more accurately determining when people died, according to Florida researchers, pointing to the genetic makeup of larvae.
The findings build on previous methods that investigators have used to determine when people died. Currently, investigators rely on the outer appearance of maggots and the presence of eggs on decomposing bodies to estimate people's death dates.
However, researchers at Miami’s Florida International University (FIU) have found that by observing maggots’ genes and metabolic changes, investigators can better estimate when people died.
Calling the di

A Russian cosmonaut was recently booted from an upcoming NASA and ******* eX mission to the International ******* e Station that will launch from Florida.
Russia's ******* e agency confirmed the ******* efarer's removal and replacement on the mission, known as Crew-12, but did not provide a reason. However, multiple reports have suggested the move could have been related to an alleged national security violation during training in the United States.
The news represents another recent blow to Russia's ******* eflight program after the launch pad the nation uses is Kazakhstan was damaged in a

Boy, 5, sneaks out alone for Chick-fil-A. His 1st question had police laughing.

Before the sun was fully up and long before the rest of his family stirred, William, a 5-year-old boy in Jacksonville, Florida, quietly climbed out of bed and decided his parents deserved a little more sleep. He felt hungry, and rather than wake anyone, the preschooler settled on a plan that made perfect sense to him: he would take himself out for breakfast.
Moments later he slipped out of the house, through a gate, and padded barefoot down the block to the nearby Chick-fil-A he knew from weekend outings.
In b

Trump says he'll release MRI results; he doesn't know what part of his body was scanned

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Sunday that he would release the results of his MRI test that he received in October.
“If you want to have it released, I’ll release it,” the president said during an exchange with reporters as he traveled back to Washington from Florida.
He said the results of the MRI were “perfect.”
The White House has so far declined to detail why Trump had an MRI during his physical last month, or on what part of his body.
The press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, has sa

Two of Donald Trump’s allies met Sunday with top Ukrainian officials in Florida as the Trump administration seeks to convince Ukraine’s government to accept a peace plan many saw as clearly tilted towards Russia’s war demands.
A delegation of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s advisers and top officials met with lead U.S. negotiators Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Miami on Sunday ahead of a trip to meet with Russian leaders, including Vladimir Putin, on Tuesday.
On the agenda is the 28-point peace plan proposed by the U.S. this month, which has draw

Auburn football hires USF's Alex Golesh as next head coach
The Montgomery Advertiser

This story has been updated to include quotes and new information.
AUBURN — Alex Golesh has been hired as Auburn football's next head coach, the program announced Sunday, Nov. 30, coming from South Florida to succeed Hugh Freeze on the Plains.
Golesh, 41, signed a six-year deal to come to become the 33rd head coach in Auburn history, according to multiple reports. Contract figures have yet to be released.
“Auburn Football is one of the proudest, most tradition-rich programs in all of college football an

By Karen Roman
Imviva Biotech said it will present its progress in allogenic cell therapy candidates in two oral presentations and five poster presentations at the 67th American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting, to be held on December 6-9, 2025, in Orlando, Florida.
The presentation will feature the company’s CAR-T cell therapy for multiple hematological conditions including severe aplastic anemia and acute lymphoblastic leukemia, called CTD402 and CTA311, the company stated.
“We will share the breadth and depth of our ANSWER platform, which addresses many limitations encountered

Space Coast hits 100th launch of 2025 as pace accelerates

The Brief
The ***** e Coast logged its 100th launch of the year with ***** eX’s latest Starlink mission, reflecting a rapidly growing flight cadence.
Experts say reusable rockets are driving the surge, with some boosters flying up to 30 times.
As more companies enter the market, officials expect even more launches and job growth across Florida.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The ***** e Coast is on track for a record-setting year, with Thursday night’s ***** eX mission marking the 100th launch from Florida in 2025.

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Trump plans to open California and Florida coasts to oil drilling for 1st time in decades

The Trump administration is proposing to open federal waters off the entire coastline of California to drilling, as well as an area off the coast of Florida. Neither state’s waters have been open to new drilling for decades.
President Donald Trump’s Interior Department released a five-year offshore drilling plan on Thursday that would open up vast parts of California’s coastline to drilling, which hasn’t happened in that state since the late 1960s. The Department is also proposing new oil drilling in

On a quiet Thursday night with 41 days left in 2025, Florida's 100th orbital rocket of the year took off from Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy ****** e Center.
The ****** eX rocket launch, which was carrying a Starlink mission, signaled volumes of what is to come for the ****** e Coast.
“We are breaking records across the board,” Col. Brian Chatman, commander of ****** e Launch Delta 45, told FLORIDA TODAY. “100 launches is a complete game changer on the ****** e Coast. We’re identifying efficiencies, getting additional mass to orbit — it couldn’t be a more exciting time to be out here.”
The 10:39