Catching you up on overnight happenings, and what you need to know today.
10News WTSP
The latest Tampa Bay-area radar
10News WTSP
The latest 7-day forecast
• Light showers are possible Thursday morning as a cold front moves through and highs reach the mid-70s, according to 10Weather WTSP
• As you head out for your morning commute, check out our live blog for the latest traffic updates and road conditions across Tampa Bay.
• Today is opening day at the Florida State Fair with Gov. Rick Scott and other dignitaries in attendance. Follow Richard Danielson at @Danielson_Times for updates from the governor’s visit. The Citizen of the Year will also be announced. If you plan to get something deep-fried this week, ride the Ferris wheel on the Midway or see pigs race, check out our guide here for highlights.
• For some, it was art. For others, a public nuisance. Very soon, however, the well-known fixture off Interstate 4 will cease to exist. "Airstream Ranch," the popular and controversial display of RVs lodged in the ground is being torn down. Check out the latest photos here.
• Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson is about to face intense pressure from a well-funded conservative coalition to vote for President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, a decision that will likely resonate into Nelson’s 2018 re-election campaign. Proponents are targeting Nelson and nine other senators from states Trump won in November who are also up for re-election — an effort that will include advertising and mailers, petitions and phone banks.
• The Pinellas County Construction Licensing Board isn’t done with former executive director Rodney Fischer just yet. The governing board is set to meet at 1:30 p.m. to discuss what to do with Fischer’s request that he be paid $66,000 in unused vacation time. Follow Mark Puente at @MarkPuente for updates.
• After Cindy Evers received an inheritance from her father and sold a service business she and her husband owned in Tampa, she considered retirement. But the idea was fleeting. Instead, the lifelong animal lover decided to start a business that catered to her passion. See how she puts off retirement for a low-cost animal clinic in Zephyrhills.
• Kendrick Morris, who as a teenager raped a Brandon day care worker and later did the same to a young woman at the Bloomingdale Regional Public Library, will be resentenced today. Morris, 25, was originally sentenced to 65 years in prison for the crimes, but the sentence was thrown into question after the U.S. and Florida Supreme Courts barred lengthy sentences for juveniles without a meaningful chance of release. His defense will ask for a reduced term of years. Prosecutors will ask for life. The resentencing hearing is scheduled to begin at 8:30 a.m. Follow Dan Sullivan for updates.
• A federal judge recommended early last week that the lawsuit brought by Cambridge Christian High School in Tampa against the Florida High School Athletic Association over public prayer at a state championship football game be dismissed. Joe Henderson says the 36-page recommendation didn’t get a lot of attention, probably because it was so predictable. U,S. Magistrate Amanda Arnold Sansone said as much when she based her ruling on something known as Rule 12(b)(6). For those who didn’t go to law school, it boiled down to her opinion that (paraphrasing here): Cambridge, you have no shot. The opinion can be appealed, but the judge rates the odds of success of that as basically non-existent. The law is clear.
• More than any individual, Byrne Litschgi, an attorney and developer who died Jan. 31 at 96, was responsible for transforming wide swaths of downtown Tampa, many current and former city leaders say. Read more about the impact Litschgi had across the city.
• The Rays are planning to install new artificial turf at Tropicana Field that they expect will feel, play and look better. Marc Topkin has the details.
• The New York consultants have come and gone, the redevelopment plan has been delivered and now the city’s elected officials are tasked with figuring out how to turn a $55 million vision for the downtown Clearwater waterfront into reality. The makeover as presented could take 10 years, and portions of development on the bluff will require voter approval.
• The St. Petersburg City Council is set to meet at 10:30 a.m. and then again at 3 p.m. Follow Charlie Frago at @CharlieFrago for updates.
• It’s time to plan your weekend and there’s a lot to choose from on our Weekend Planner page from the nighttime Gasparilla parade in Ybor to our writers and critics picking the top concerts, stage shows, art events and family fun for the weekend. A bonus this week is our roundup of date night ideas for every price point.
• George Saunders’s new novel, Lincoln in the Bardo, is just such a book, Collette Bancroft writes. (Read her review here). Saunders’ innovative short stories and novellas have been winning prizes and garnering critical praise (and a MacArthur "genius" award for the author) since he began publishing in the mid 1990s, but this is his first novel. Saunders will be at the Tampa Theatre to talk about Lincoln in the Bardo on Feb. 18. In a phone interview, he talked about its origin, its unusual structure and the star-studded audiobook version, with a cast of 166 different voices.
• What does the world need now? Let Dionne Warwick, who is performing Sunday at the Mahaffey Theater, tell you in this interview.
• Here are the top things to do today in Tampa Bay including Rock ‘n’ roll Hall of Famer Smokey Robinson and the author of the best-seller Homecoming giving a free talk at USF.
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