It’s Wednesday, March 10th - and NBC 6 has the top stories for the day.
No. 1 - At the direction of the federal government, any retailers participating in the Federal Retail Pharmacy Program are required to prioritize all K-12, child care teachers and personnel for vaccine appointments until further notice.
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Among those elegible are:
- Teachers, school staff and child care workers who work in pre-primary, primary and secondary schools, as well as Head Start and Early Head Start programs. This includes teachers, staff and bus drivers.
- Those who work as or for licensed child care providers, including center-based and family care providers.
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Publix is set to follow this new directive during its next available COVID‑19 vaccine scheduling opportunity on Wednesday starting at 7 a.m.
No. 2 - Five South Florida inmates beat up an accused child killer as he slept because “of the nature of his pending charges," authorities said in a police report.
All five have been charged with battery by a detainee for the March 1 attack on Jorge Barahona at the Miami-Dade County jail. Barahona, 53, suffered bruises on his face, a nosebleed and a small cut on his nose, according to arrest reports. Barahona is accused of killing his adopted 10-year-old daughter Nubia Barahona in February 2011, after investigators said he tortured her and her twin brother Victor for months. The child's body was found on Valentine's Day 2011, soaked with chemicals in the back of her father's truck along an interstate in Palm Beach County.
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No. 3 - The Miami Heat said Tuesday night that Meyers Leonard will be away from the team indefinitely, sharply criticizing his use of an anti-Semitic slur while playing a video game that was being livestreamed.
Leonard apologized for using the term, insisting he did not know what it meant when he used it Monday. The Heat learned of the matter Tuesday, and Leonard's future with the team is now in serious doubt. The team also said it will cooperate with the NBA's investigation. Leonard acknowledged that he used the term Monday, and said he did not know what it meant at that time. In his apology, posted on social media, he said "my ignorance about its history and how offensive it is to the Jewish community is absolutely not an excuse and I was just wrong."
No. 4 - Pastor Ronae Cambridge has been operating a food pantry at Glory Temple in Liberty City for two decades. During the pandemic, they went from serving 400 families per week to 800 families per week.
The pastor says in December and January it became very difficult to secure donations from food banks. Farm Share, a food bank in Florida, says during the months leading up to the holidays they saw a 600% increase in demand for food, and they had to increase their production by 250%. According to Feeding South Florida, the country is experiencing a "commodity cliff," where “food banks across the country are seeing more than a 50% reduction in food supply due to the expiration of the CARES Act funding and USDA's trade mitigation commodity programs.” To hear how those running food banks are trying to help, click here for the story from NBC 6 reporter Laura Rodriguez.
No. 5 - It’s been almost a full year since public schools in South Florida shut down.
A lot has happened since then. Everyone learned what the term “distance learning” meant as teachers instructed from home and students learned, or in some cases, failed to learn, from home. Drive-thru graduations became a thing. The pandemic stunned the education system all over the country, forcing school districts to adapt to the new reality. To hear how both Broward and Miami-Dade counties have adjusted to the “new normal”, click here for the story from NBC 6 education reporter Ari Odzer.
No. 6 - Weatherwise, South Florida will continue to feel the breeze with seasonable temperatures sticking around through the end of the work week. Keep your NBC 6 app handy for push alerts on any severe weather as well as First Alert Doppler 6000.
