It’s Friday, April 23rd - and NBC 6 has the top stories for the day.
No. 1 - A private investigator believes 22-year-old Noemi Bolivar - who Hollywood Police say has been missing for months - could still be alive.
Joe Carrillo, who has searched for and found missing people for years, sparked activity on the "Bring Noemi Home" Facebook page, saying last month Bolivar initiated a text conversation with three friends, said nothing, and then mysteriously powered down her phone. The disappearance of Bolivar, who was last seen Feb. 11, has gripped her tight-knit Mormon community in Hollywood. After weeks of looking for clues, Carillo thinks Bolivar struggled with her faith and may have wanted to get away.
No. 2 - A man arrested following the disappearance of a young mother in South Florida is no longer facing a federal kidnapping charge but is now facing a new state charge in the case.
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Shannon Ryan, 39, was arrested this past August following an FBI investigation into the disappearance of 21-year-old Leila Cavett. Ryan, a self-described witch and chakra master, had been accused of taking Cavett's 2-year-old son, Kamdyn, but court records released Wednesday showed the federal kidnapping charge against Ryan was dropped. Broward County jail records showed Ryan now faces a state charge of child neglect without great bodily harm. Miramar Police said Thursday that they filed the charges, but gave no other information.
No. 3 - The indictment and arrest of the Broward County Public Schools superintendent and the School Board’s attorney Wednesday will be the only shoes to drop from the statewide grand jury’s investigation, because its term is over.
So beyond a perjury charge for Robert Runcie, a charge of leaking grand jury information for Barbara Myrick, and multiple charges against former chief information officer for the school district, Anthony Hunter, there will be no more indictments. The School Board announced it will discuss the fates of Runcie and Myrick during its already scheduled workshop meeting on Tuesday. After a decade in charge, the indictment has left Runcie’s future at the district in jeopardy. For more, click here for the story from NBC 6 reporter Ari Odzer.
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No. 4 – Broward Health is becoming the latest provider to suspend community vaccinations starting Friday, the decision coming after the health provider distributed more than 100,000 doses of the vaccine and saying the move came due to recent low demand.
In South Florida, there is a new challenge on the vaccine front — over the past week, there’s been a decline in demand. Experts say the rush to get the vaccine is not where it should be. So far over 4 million Floridians are fully vaccinated, but that’s still not enough to reach herd immunity - and COVID hospitalizations are up in South Florida. For more on what experts are saying, click here for the story from NBC 6 reporter Amanda Plasencia.
No. 5 - Nearly three weeks after he first came under fire for being at an illegal party in Allapattah that violated the COVID-19 curfew and protocols, Miami City Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla sat down NBC 6 Thursday to say the party was mostly permitted.
"They were missing the certificate of occupancy, and they're also missing the business reply tax from the city of Miami, so they have two and they're missing two," he said, showing us the permits that proved the venue actually could sell alcohol. But Diaz de la Portilla said the venue just couldn't produce those permits that night, even though they had them. To hear why else he said there was no violations, click here for the story from NBC 6 reporter Alyssa Hyman.
No. 6 - The use of PPE has been a necessity for our wellbeing since the COVID-19 pandemic started, but sadly, not everyone is keen to discard them properly, and these actions are having a severe impact on our oceans.
At the beach, this has become the new normal, with an ever-increasing number of masks washing ashore constantly. A lot of the trash that people with the foundation find on the ground traditionally ends up in the sewers, canals, and eventually ends up in our oceans, said Jayson Koch, vice president of Surfrider Miami. In their endeavor to preserve the oceans, Surfrider Miami launched the Blue Water Task Force, which tests water quality along the coast from Broward County to Key Biscayne every week. For more on their efforts, click here for the story from NBC 6 and Telemundo 51 meteorologist Ariel Rodriguez.
