A man who crashed his plane in the Florida Panhandle in an apparent attempt to fake his death was sentenced Wednesday to more than four years in federal prison, officials said. Marcus Schrenker, 38, of McCordsville, Indiana, pleaded guilty in June to charges of destruction of an aircraft and causing the Coast Guard to respond when no help is needed. He was sentenced to 51 months in prison Wednesday, said a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office in the ...

The son of a Florida couple known for adopting special-needs children was in his parents' room when they were slain in a home invasion last month, according to documents released by prosecutors. A nurse who works with special-needs children interviewed the boy, who has autism and speech issues, regarding the deaths of Byrd and Melanie Billings. The nurse told police that the child said "two bad men" were wearing black masks when they knocked on the door. They woke Byrd ...

A Disney stunt performer died Monday night after suffering an injury during a rehearsal, company and local officials said. Walt Disney World spokeswoman Zoraya Suarez said the performer was injured while performing a tumbling roll for the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular at Disney's Hollywood Studios, part of the Orlando, Florida, theme park. It was the third fatal incident at the park in less than two months. Earlier this month, a performer was injured in a pirate show and later ...

Tropical Storm Claudette made landfall in the Florida Panhandle early Monday. The storm hit near the eastern end of Santa Rosa Island, just southeast of Fort Walton Beach in Florida, about 1:15 a.m. ET, the National Weather Service said. Claudette is expected to move through the Panhandle and into southern Alabama, CNN meteorologist Jacqui Jeras said. Even before Claudette made landfall, the storm's outer bands pounded the area with heavy rain, with officials warning that some coastal areas had the ...

Tropical Storm Claudette was on course late Sunday afternoon to hit the Florida Panhandle in the evening, and the storm's outer rain bands already were pushing into the area. At 5 p.m. ET, the center of Claudette, with maximum sustained winds near 50 mph, was in the Gulf of Mexico about 40 miles west-southwest of Apalachicola, Florida, and about 120 miles southeast of Pensacola, the National Hurricane Center said. It was moving northwest at about 14 mph. A tropical ...

A warning was issued overnight for a potential tropical storm that may hit the Florida-Alabama border Sunday. It formed in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, according to the National Hurricane Center. A tropical storm warning means that weather conditions will deteriorate in the next 24 hours. The system, still a tropical depression, was about 125 miles south-southeast of Apalachicola, Florida, at 8 a.m. ET, according to the center. It was expected to reach tropical storm strength by Sunday afternoon. ...

Few things have peeved Latin America more than Washington's hypocrisy regarding coups. Overthrowing our friends at gunpoint is bad, the traditional U.S. line seemed to go, but toppling our foes — even the democratically elected ones — is O.K. So it surprised Latin Americans when U.S. President Barack Obama condemned the June 28 military ouster of leftist Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, a critic of the U.S., and called for his return to office. "We respect the universal principle that ...

A Florida jury awarded a 92-year-old man $1.9 million in compensatory damages for the death of his wife, a former two-pack-a-day Marlboro smoker who started when she was 16 and died in her 70s, attorneys said Thursday. The jury of five women and one man deliberated for slightly more than a day before deciding on the amount, attorneys for both sides said. The jurors put the total award at $5.3 million but found that Philip Morris USA was only 36.5 ...

A Bedouin who was just a boy when a U.S. Navy pilot's plane crashed in the Iraqi desert in 1991 was the key to finding his remains more than 18 years after he was killed, the Pentagon says. The new details of the final hunt for U.S. Navy pilot Scott Speicher, who was lost over Iraq on the opening night of the Gulf War in January 1991, were released by the Pentagon Friday. Two sites were searched by U.S. troops ...

If you're not already underwater on your mortgage, there's a decent chance you will be. According to a new report from Deutsche Bank, up to 25 million American homeowners could eventually owe more than their house is worth. That would account for 48% of all mortgage holders. This isn't the first time we've heard exceptional numbers on upside-down borrowers. First American CoreLogic figures there were already 11 ...