2024's severe weather season worst since 2011 as an active start to the year leads to multiple tornado deaths.

A fired Florida sheriff's deputy accused of planting drugs on suspects told a jury he is innocent.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Legislation seeking to put in place a means of providing restitution for victims of the infamous Dozier School for Boys in Marianna has hit a snag in both chambers. Victims of the reform school came to the State Capitol on Wednesday in hopes of drumming up support for the effort. The state has already formally apologized for the atrocities that occurred at the Dozier School for Boys, a reform school run by the state for a century. MORE | Florida’s Dozier School For Boys: A True Horror StoryNow the victims are asking the state to back its words up with action. In 2013 an excavation of the reform school led to the discovery of the remains of 40 boys.

The bill approved 6-1 by the Senate Criminal Justice Committee would allow former inmates at the Dozier School for Boys in Marianna and the Florida School for Boys at Okeechobee to receive state certification that they were victims of physical, mental or sexual abuse. The Dozier reform school opened in 1900 and was closed in 2011. The Florida Legislature formally apologized in 2017 for the physical and sexual abuse alleged to have been committed at the Dozier School for Boys throughout its century-long history. But the bill sponsor said the remains of 40 boys uncovered on the school grounds in 2013 tell a different story. Memorials for the Dozier victims on the school grounds and at the State Capitol are in the process of being designed and built.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – One lucky lottery player in Jacksonville won $1 million from the Saturday, Jan. 23 Powerball drawing. The winning ticket was sold at the 7-Eleven located at 902 Margaret Street in Jacksonville. The winning tickets matched all five of the white ball numbers but did not match the Powerball number. The other winning ticket’s were sold in Melbourne, Marianna, Clermont, Cutler Bay and North Port. Florida Powerball winners have 180 days from the date of the drawing to claim their prize.

MARIANNA, Fla. - No additional human remains were discovered as forensic experts completed a review of 27 sites around a shuttered Northwest Florida reform school where the remains of more than 50 people were unearthed in 2015. More than 500 former Dozier students have alleged brutal beatings, mental abuse and sexual abuse at the school, which closed in 2011 after 111 years of operation. In 2017, the Florida House and Senate passed resolutions formally apologizing for the abuse of juveniles sent to Dozier and a related facility in Okeechobee. The resolutions acknowledged that treatment of boys sent to the facilities was cruel, unjust and "a violation of human decency." Secretary of State Laurel Lee said in a statement that her department is committed to seeing the entirety of the investigation through.News Service of Florida

The only way to really know is to excavate so that's what we're doing and we'll see what it is." In 2017, the Florida House and Senate passed resolutions formally apologizing for the abuse of juveniles sent to Dozier and a related facility in Okeechobee. The resolutions accompanied a law that required the state to turn over about 360 acres, containing the Dozier sites North Campus, South Campus and Boot Hill Cemetery, to Jackson County. Rick Scott steered $5.8 million to Jackson County to redevelop the Dozier campus into a regional distribution and manufacturing center. Community leaders hope the Dozier property can eventually be repurposed for new industries to move to the area.