Florida

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Chaos reigned in the home where Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz grew up, testimony in his ongoing penalty trial has shown.

He and his half-brother Zachary tormented their adoptive, widowed mother, Lynda. By the time Cruz reached middle school in the early 2010s, the pair took their fists and baseball bats to the walls, leaving gaping holes. They destroyed televisions and carved gashes in furniture, witnesses said.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA’s new moon rocket sprang another dangerous fuel leak Saturday, forcing launch controllers to call off their second attempt this week to send a crew capsule into lunar orbit with test dummies. The inaugural flight is now off for weeks, if not months.

The previous try on Monday at launching the 322-foot (98-meter) Space Launch System rocket, the most powerful ever built by NASA, was also troubled by hydrogen leaks, though they were smaller. That was on top of leaks detected during countdown drills earlier in the year.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA’s new moon rocket sprang another dangerous fuel leak Saturday, forcing launch controllers to call off their second attempt to send a crew capsule into lunar orbit with test dummies.

The first attempt earlier in the week was also marred by escaping hydrogen, but those leaks were elsewhere on the 322-foot (98-meter) rocket, the most powerful ever built by NASA.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA aimed for a Saturday launch of its new moon rocket, after fixing fuel leaks and working around a bad engine sensor that foiled the first try.

The inaugural flight of the 322-foot rocket — the most powerful ever built by NASA — was delayed late in the countdown Monday. The Kennedy Space Center clocks started ticking again as managers expressed confidence in their plan and forecasters gave favorable weather odds.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — A federal judge awaited arguments Thursday on whether to appoint an outside legal expert to review government records seized by the FBI last month in a search of former President Donald Trump’s Florida home.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA will try again Saturday to launch its new moon rocket on a test flight, after engine trouble halted the first countdown this week.

Managers said Tuesday they are changing fueling procedures to deal with the issue. A bad sensor also could be to blame for Monday’s scrapped launch, they noted.

The 322-foot (98-meter) rocket — the most powerful ever built by NASA — remains on its pad at Kennedy Space Center with an empty crew capsule on top.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida sued federal health officials on Wednesday, accusing them of stalling the state’s plan to import lower-cost prescription drugs from Canada.

Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis announced the lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and Food and Drug Administration at a news conference.

MIAMI (AP) — One Cuban man endured a trek through eight countries that lasted more than a month. Another man paid a small fortune for a furtive speedboat trip. A third decided to risk a perilous passage aboard a homemade raft rather than stay a moment longer on the island.

Cubans are fleeing their country in the largest numbers in more than four decades, choosing to stake their lives and futures on a dangerous journey to the United States by air, land and sea to escape economic and political woes.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA called off the launch of its mighty new moon rocket on its debut flight with three test dummies aboard Monday after a last-minute cascade of problems culminating in unexplained trouble related to an engine.

The next launch attempt will not take place until Friday at the earliest and could be delayed until mid-September or later.

The mission will be the first flight in NASA’s Artemis project, a quest to put astronauts back on the moon for the first time since the Apollo program ended 50 years ago.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA’s new moon rocket remained on track to blast off on a crucial test flight Monday, despite a series of lightning strikes at the launch pad.

The 322-foot (98-meter) Space Launch System rocket is the most powerful ever built by NASA. It’s poised to send an empty crew capsule into lunar orbit, a half-century after NASA’s Apollo program, which landed 12 astronauts on the moon.