Florida Panhandle

In Baltimore County Reisterstown man, 2 others killed when jet crashes in Fla. MARIANNA, Fla. -- A Reisterstown man and two others were killed yesterday when their Lear jet crashed while attempting to land at Marianna Municipal Airport in the Florida Panhandle. Killed were Timothy R. Hannon, 20, of the 200 block of Log House Way in Reisterstown; William L. Wilson, 38, of Ormond Beach, Fla.; and Matthew A. Spangler, 31, of Cottage Grove, Minn. A spokesman for the Marianna Police Department said the plane was attempting to land about 9: 30 a.m. CDT after a cross-state flight from Opa-Locka when it crashed into trees before sliding onto a road at a federal prison.

ORLANDO, Fla. - Gulf Coast residents were put on alert yesterday as two tropical storms headed toward Louisiana, setting a record - and potentially ominous - pace for the young 2005 hurricane season. Tropical Storm Cindy was expected to hit the north-central Gulf Coast early today. The National Weather Service issued a tropical-storm warning from Intracoastal City, La., east to Destin, Fla. A more-threatening Tropical Storm Dennis, meanwhile, formed yesterday about 1,000 miles southeast of Key West in the Caribbean Sea. It was expected to strengthen into a Category 1 hurricane that could skirt Florida's southwest tip before slipping into the Gulf early next week.

NEW YORK - He stopped for ice about an hour after the bars closed Friday night; a couple of bags from the Royal Farm Store at Ponca and O'Donnell streets just two red lights away from the ramp to I-95 north and Gotham. The convenience store clerk, who'd seen and heard just about everything on the late shift, had never witnessed this: A middle-aged man asking for tongs in the middle of the night while a posse of Chesapeake Bay blue crabs scuttled along the sidewalk outside. Nope. No tongs for Peter Walsh, artist, self-taught scholar and long-time Baltimorean with two bushels of live Chesapeake Bay blue crabs in the trunk of a rented Toyota.

PANAMA CITY, Fla. -- From an adoring audience of black Baptists in Orlando to an enthusiastic crowd that breached the conservative sea walls of Panama City in the Florida panhandle, President Clinton celebrated encouraging economic news yesterday as he completed a two-day offensive in the Sunshine State.On a day that the nation's unemployment rate fell to 5.1 percent of the work force, Clinton declared, "This country is moving in the right direction. We're on the right track for the 21st century."

MIAMI - The West Nile virus that first appeared in North America when it struck New York two years ago has reached as far south as Florida, federal and state health officials say. The virus was discovered this month in a dead crow in the Florida Panhandle in what health officials saw as a troubling development in the migratory pattern of the virus. Its appearance in Florida does not fit the state-by-state migration pattern of the virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

TAMPA, Fla. - With the onset of the 2005 hurricane season little more than two weeks away, meteorologists warned yesterday that conditions in the Atlantic were again ripe for spawning tropical storms that could slam into Florida or other parts of the Eastern United States or Gulf Coast with potentially devastating and deadly consequences. Last season, Florida was hit by four hurricanes in six weeks, an unprecedented succession of natural disasters that was blamed for 123 deaths and more than $42 billion in property damage in the state.

POMPANO BEACH, Fla. -- Olive Preito was a geriatric miracle at the state retirement office: The long-time public school teacher had turned 107 in January and was still going strong, cashing her monthly pension checks at a military surplus store in Pompano Beach.She was so active that she never was around when state workers called her apartment last spring. She was at the doctor's office, in bed or simply not at home, relatives said.What Olive Preito really was, was dead. Since 1950.So, who was cashing the checks?

WASHINGTON -- With political anxiety on Capitol Hill rising along with gasoline prices, the Senate voted yesterday to open a large section of the Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas drilling. The bill, approved 71-25, must be reconciled with a broader House measure that would relax the decades-long ban on drilling in most coastal waters, including along the Pacific coast. Senators from both parties, attuned to constituents' ire over high fuel costs, were eager to pass energy legislation before heading home for the summer recess.

In this second straight season of dismay for the Navy football team, John Skaggs has stood out like a beacon on a foggy night. The sophomore from the Florida panhandle has the fourth-best punting average in the nation and is in line for the Ray Guy Award, which goes to the top collegiate punter. Skaggs seems a tad embarrassed by his sudden success, one of the highlights in this 0-6 Navy season. "I'm very surprised," said Skaggs, a left-footed kicker who is averaging 45.7 yards per punt.

CARNOUSTIE, Scotland -- On an often-gorgeous day rife with often un-gorgeous golf, it took a steady hand to keep his wits and the lead. That would be Sergio Garcia, who, at 27, is playing in his 36th major tournament. He left the premises yesterday with the same two-shot lead he had brought along for his 9 a.m. tee time. His even-par 71 lacked the sparkle of his first-round 65, but with most of the players below him plunging even more precipitously, and with Tiger Woods' deficit swelling from four shots to seven, the 71 began to look shiny.