Florida

MIAMI (AP) — Opposition lawmakers in Venezuela quietly agreed to pay themselves $5,000 a month when they readied special $100 bonuses for doctors and nurses battling the coronavirus — a large payout for a nation where most workers are scraping by on couple of dollars a month, according to people involved in the process.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA and SpaceX have picked May 27 for resuming astronaut launches from the U.S. after nine years of complete Russian dependence.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine announced the launch date Friday. Astronauts haven’t launched into orbit from the U.S. since NASA’s last space shuttle flight in 2011. SpaceX aims to end the drought by sending two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station.

“On May 27, @NASA will once again launch American astronauts on American rockets from American soil!” Bridenstine tweeted.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Apollo 13′s astronauts never gave a thought to their mission number as they blasted off for the moon 50 years ago. Even when their oxygen tank ruptured two days later — on April 13.

Jim Lovell and Fred Haise insist they’re not superstitious. They even use 13 in their email addresses.

As mission commander Lovell sees it, he’s incredibly lucky. Not only did he survive NASA’s most harrowing moonshot, he’s around to mark its golden anniversary.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — Another cruise ship with coronavirus victims on board, including two fatalities, docked in Florida on Saturday.

Princess Cruises spokeswoman Negin Kamali said in an email that the Coral Princess ship was docking in Miami. The ship with 1,020 passengers and 878 crew members had been in limbo for days awaiting permission to dock.

As of Thursday, Kamali said seven passengers and five crew members had tested positive for the coronavirus.

MIAMI (AP) — President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that Navy ships are being moved toward Venezuela as his administration beefs up counter-narcotics operations in the Caribbean following a U.S. drug indictment against Nicolás Maduro.

The announcement came at the start of the daily White House press briefing to discuss the coronavirus pandemic, which has left much of the country in lock-down and which the government warns could cause 100,000 to 240,000 deaths.

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — After a prolonged standoff, Florida state troopers arrested a Georgia man accused of fatally shooting three people in his child’s mother’s family and kidnapping his child, authorities said Wednesday.

Caesar Zamien Lamar Crockett Jr. safely handed his 2-year-old son over to authorities after a crash near Tampa. He then stayed in his vehicle for several hours in a standoff with law enforcement before he eventually surrendered without incident, officials said.

MIAMI (AP) — The Trump administration is prepared to lift crippling sanctions on Venezuela in support of a new proposal to form a transitional government requiring both Nicolas Maduro and opposition leader Juan Guaidó to step aside in favor of a five-person governing council, U.S. officials said.

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Census Day — the date used to reference where a person lives for the once-a-decade count — arrived Wednesday with a nation almost paralyzed by the spread of the novel coronavirus. But census officials vowed the job would be completed by its year-end deadline.

MIAMI (AP) — As a cruise ship stranded at sea with dozens sick and four dead makes for Florida, passengers who have been confined to their rooms for more than a week are anxious for relief, hoping Gov. Ron DeSantis will change his mind and allow them to disembark despite confirmed coronavirus cases aboard.

MIAMI (AP) — A retired Venezuelan army general indicted alongside Nicolás Maduro has surrendered in Colombia and is being taken by Drug Enforcement Administration agents to New York for arraignment, four people familiar with the situation said Friday.