The parents of slain students Luke Hoyer, 15, Alaina Petty, 14, and Meadow Pollack, 18, each reached $50 million settlements with Nikolas Cruz while wounded student Maddy Wilford agreed to a $40 million settlement, according to recently filed court records.

“The chief rationale for the judgment amounts is simply in the event that the killer ever comes into possession of money, we could execute on the judgments and obtain it, thus preventing him from buying any creature comforts,” their attorney, David Brill, said Thursday.

Cruz, 25, is serving 34 consecutive life sentences at an undisclosed prison after avoiding a death sentence during a 2022 penalty trial. He pleaded guilty in 2021 to 17 counts of first-degree murder and 17 counts of attempted first-degree murder.

In addition to the 14 students slain, three staff members also died in the shooting and 16 other people were wounded along with Wilford.

Florida law already prohibits inmates from keeping any proceeds related to their crimes, including any writings or artwork they might produce in prison. But Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer, when sentencing Cruz, also ordered that any money placed in his prison commissary account be seized to pay restitution to the victims and their families and all court and investigation costs.

A groan, a crunch of concrete, and dust. Demolition begins on the Parkland classroom building where 17 died in a massacre

In total, that would be tens of millions of dollars.

Cruz reached an agreement in June wherein he signed over the rights to his name and likeness to former student Anthony Borges, the most seriously wounded survivor. Cruz cannot give interviews without his permission. Borges also has the right to an annuity Cruz received before the killings that could be worth $400,000.

Brill has challenged that settlement, saying he had a verbal agreement with Borges’ attorney that their clients would split any proceeds that might come from the annuity and donate it to charities of their choice. A court hearing on that dispute is scheduled for next month.

The families of most of the slain and some of the wounded previously settled lawsuits against the Broward County school district and the FBI for errors that allowed the Feb. 14, 2018, shooting to take place.

A lawsuit by families and survivors against fired Broward Sheriff’s Deputy Scot Peterson and the sheriff’s office for his alleged failure to pursue Cruz remains pending. No trial date has been set. Peterson was acquitted last year on criminal charges.

PARKLAND, Fla. (AP) — The three-story building where 17 people died in the 2018 mass shooting at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School looms over campus behind a screened fence, a horrific and constant reminder to students, teachers, the victims’ families and passersby.

But now after serving as evidence at the murderer’s trial, the building’s destruction starts Friday as crews begin bringing it down piece by piece — implosion would have damaged nearby structures. The demolition had been scheduled to begin Thursday morning, but heavy rain and flooding in South Florida led officials to postpone the project until Friday.

Officials plan to complete the weekslong project before the school’s 3,300 students return in August from summer vacation. Most were in elementary school when the shooting happened.

“Whenever I would walk past it, it was just kind of eerie,” said Aisha Hashmi, who graduated this month. She was in sixth grade in February 2018, but her older siblings were on campus.

She said when the wind blew back the fence’s screening, students would get a glimpse through windows into the empty classrooms and corridors. “It is heartbreaking to see and then have to go sit in your English class.”

The victims’ families have been invited to witness the first blows to the building and hammer off a piece if they wish. They have divergent views about the demolition.

“I want the building gone,” said Lori Alhadeff, whose 14-year-old daughter Alyssa died there. Alhadeff was elected to the Broward County school board after the massacre and now serves as its chair. “It’s one more step in the healing process for me and my family. My son still goes to school there, and he has to walk past that building where his sister died.”

But other parents, like Max Schachter and Tony Montalto, hoped the building would be preserved. Over the last year, they, Alhadeff and others have led Vice President Kamala Harris, members of Congress, school officials, police officers and about 500 other invitees from around the country on tours of it. They mostly demonstrated how improved safety measures like bullet-resistant glass in door windows, a better alarm system and doors that lock from the inside could have saved lives.

Those who have taken the tour have called it gut-wrenching as something of a time capsule of Feb. 14, 2018, with bullet-pocked walls and bloodstained floors. Textbooks and laptops sat open on desks, and wilted Valentine’s Day flowers, deflated balloons and abandoned teddy bears were scattered amid broken glass. Those objects have now been removed.

Schachter, whose 14-year-old son Alex died, said that while each tour was “excruciatingly painful,” he believes the safety improvements that visitors implemented elsewhere made keeping the building worthwhile.

For example, Utah’s Legislature approved a multimillion-dollar school safety program this year after lawmakers visited and met with Parkland families. It called for installing panic buttons, threat-reporting software and better security at school entrances. That law and another were criticized by some for allowing and incentivizing school employees to carry firearms on campus.

“We have museums and we have (historic) sites that that have stood for individuals to learn and to understand what happened,” Schachter said.

Broward is not alone in taking down a school building after a mass shooting. In Connecticut, Sandy Hook Elementary School was torn down after the 2012 shooting and replaced. In Texas, officials closed Robb Elementary in Uvalde after the 2022 shooting there and plan to demolish it. Colorado’s Columbine High had its library demolished after the 1999 shooting.

The Broward school board has not decided what the building will be replaced with. Teachers suggested a practice field for the band, Junior ROTC and other groups, connected by a landscaped pathway to a nearby memorial that was erected a few years ago. Several of the students killed belonged to the band or JROTC.

Montalto, whose 14-year-old daughter Gina died in the shooting, would like to see a memorial take over the space, replacing the earlier one, which he said was supposed to be temporary.

“We are part of the community, too,” he said.

The building, erected about 20 years ago, couldn’t be demolished earlier because prosecutors had jurors tour it during the shooter’s 2022 penalty trial. The jurors were warned it would be emotionally difficult, and at least one left the building in tears.

The murderer had a long history of bizarre and sometimes violent behavior that spurred numerous home visits by Broward sheriff’s deputies. He was spared the death penalty, receiving a sentence of life without parole.

Prosecutors also wanted jurors to tour part of the building during last year’s trial of Scot Peterson, the on-campus sheriff’s deputy who was accused of child abuse for failing to enter it and confront the shooter. He told investigators that because of echoes, he couldn’t pinpoint the shooter’s location. The judge rejected the prosecution’s request as too prejudicial and unnecessary.

Peterson was acquitted, but the families and survivors are still suing him and the Broward Sheriff’s Office.

When the destruction of the building starts Friday, “I’m going to be thinking about all of the failures from that day that contributed to the Parkland murderer coming on that campus, Valentine’s Day 2018, and murdering Alex and 16 others,” Schachter said.

___

Associated Press writer Hannah Schoenbaum contributed reporting from Salt Lake City.

Firefighters and police officers arrived at the building just west of Interstate 95 near downtown Miami after receiving calls about a fire around 8:15 a.m., and began rescuing residents from the building’s balconies, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez said during a news conference.

Suarez said arriving first responders also found a man with gunshot wounds at the scene. He was taken to a hospital, where he was in critical condition. Officials said the shooting is part of an active investigation. They offered few other details, other than calling it an “isolated incident.”

A suspect in the shooting was in custody but neither charges he might face nor his name have been released, news outlets reported. Police did not immediately return a telephone call or respond to an email seeking confirmation of the arrest and further details.

Three firefighters were transported to Jackson Memorial Hospital due to heat exhaustion and were in stable condition, Suarez said during a news conference. Two have since been discharged, said Lt. Pete Sanchez, a spokesperson with the City of Miami-Fire Rescue. In addition, at least one resident was being treated for smoke inhalation, he said.

The gunshot victim, whose name has not been released, was listed as critical, Sanchez said.

Atlantic Housing Management, the company that manages Temple Court apartments, said in a statement that one of their employees was found shot inside the complex.

“We are still determining the cause of these events, and we are checking for other injuries. Police are investigating, and we will help in whatever ways we can,” the management company’s statement said. “We are grieved by all that has happened today, and our thoughts and prayers are with our team member and his family and residents of the Temple Court community.”

News helicopters showed flames rising from the building along with large plumes of smoke several hours after the fire started. At least two ladder trucks were pouring water and foam onto the building.

The apartment complex consists of one-bedroom and studio units near the Miami River.

“It was a wood-frame structure which explains the intensity,” Sanchez said.

As of early evening, Sanchez said the fire “was under control and no longer spreading, but it still needs to be extinguished.”

Residents from the building, many of them elderly, were taken to a staging area where they were offered food and any medications they needed, Suarez said. He added that at least 20 people had been processed and were rehoused with family, and some 20 more were expected.

“Our hope is we will be able to place them in permanent housing as quickly as possible,” he said. “Obviously people are very emotional. They might not be able to get anything that was in those units. Some are worried about their pets. It’s been very upsetting, very traumatic.”

Suarez urged those who would like to help those impacted by the fire to contact the American Red Cross.

Smoke from the fire was also drifting over Interstate 95, and much of downtown Miami.

It was not immediately known whether anyone was injured in the fire.

Frisaro reported from Fort Lauderdale.

Stanley Woodward, a lawyer for Walt Nauta, said prosecutors had targeted his client for prosecution after he refused to cooperate against Trump in the investigation. Nauta was charged alongside Trump last year in a federal case accusing them of conspiring to conceal boxes of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s estate in Palm Beach.

The defense lawyer also said a prosecutor in the case had warned him earlier in the investigation that he needed to be careful or he would “mess up” his bid for a Washington, D.C., judgeship, a comment Woodward interpreted as designed to get him to pressure Nauta to assist the inquiry.

But David Harbach, a prosecutor with Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith’s team, which brought the case, called Woodward’s allegations “garbage” and “fantasy.” He said the statements attributed to his colleague, Jay Bratt, had been taken out of context. Woodward said he would be willing to testify under oath about the exchange.

The encounter laid bare the simmering tensions between the two sides in a case that has been mired in delays and slowed by legal disputes that the Trump-appointed judge, Aileen Cannon, has yet to resolve. The case, among four criminal prosecutions against Trump, had been set for trial on May 20 but Cannon canceled the trial date earlier this month.

Woodward conceded to Cannon that there was insufficient evidence to dismiss the indictment on grounds of vindictive prosecution. But he said there was enough for her to order prosecutors to turn over all communication they had about Nauta to see if hostility existed.

He said he believed his client was only being prosecuted because he refused to testify against Trump and because he asserted his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination by refusing to testify a second time before a grand jury.

“There was a campaign to get Mr. Nauta to cooperate in the first federal prosecution of a former president of the United States and when he refused, they prosecuted him,” Woodward told the judge. “That’s a violation of his constitutional rights.”

Prosecutor Harbach pushed back on Woodward’s arguments, saying it was common for defendants to be offered better treatment if they cooperate,

“There is not a single bit of evidence of animus toward Mr. Nauta,” Harbach said,

Trump was not present for the hearing. The GOP presumptive presidential nominee for 2024 has pleaded not guilty and denied any wrongdoing.

The arguments came one day after a newly unsealed motion revealed that defense lawyers are seeking to exclude evidence from the boxes of records that FBI agents seized during an August 2022 search of Mar-a-Lago.

The defense lawyers asserted in the motion that the search was unconstitutional and illegal and the FBI affidavit filed in justification of it was tainted by misrepresentations.

Smith’s team rejected each of those accusations and defended the investigative approach as “measured” and “graduated.” It said the search warrant was obtained after investigators collected surveillance video showing what it said was a concerted effort to conceal the boxes of classified documents inside the property.

“The warrant was supported by a detailed affidavit that established probable cause and did not omit any material information. And the warrant provided ample guidance to the FBI agents who conducted the search. Trump identifies no plausible basis to suppress the fruits of that search,” prosecutors wrote.

The defense motion was filed in February but was made public on Tuesday, along with hundreds of pages of documents from the investigation that were filed to the case docket in Florida.

Those include a previously sealed opinion last year from the then-chief judge of the federal court in Washington, which said that Trump’s lawyers, months after the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago, had turned over four additional documents with classification markings that were found in Trump’s bedroom.

That March 2023 opinion from U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell directed a former lead lawyer for Trump in the case to abide by a grand jury subpoena and to turn over materials to investigators, rejecting defense arguments that their cooperation was prohibited by attorney-client privilege and concluding that prosecutors had made a “prima facie” showing that Trump had committed a crime.

Tucker reported from Washington.

Jury selection is scheduled to begin Monday in the sentencing trial after numerous delays caused by the pandemic, legal wrangling and attorney illness.

Xaver pleaded guilty last year to five counts of first-degree murder for the Jan. 23, 2019, massacre at the SunTrust Bank in Sebring, about 84 miles (135 kilometers) southeast of Tampa. The trial only will decide Xaver’s sentence. Opening statements are expected in two weeks, with the trial lasting about two months.

His victims included customer Cynthia Watson, 65, who had been married less than a month; bank teller coordinator Marisol Lopez, 55, who was a mother of two; banker trainee Ana Pinon-Williams, a 38-year-old mother of seven; bank teller Debra Cook, a 54-year-old mother of two and a grandmother; and banker Jessica Montague, 31, a mother of one and stepmother of four.

Michael Cook said he hopes his wife’s killer gets the death penalty and described being very frustrated by the years of delays. The trial was set to begin at least two other times, but was postponed.

“I have purposely not asked too many questions because I don’t want to get more frustrated and angry,” Cook said. He plans to attend the trial.

Lead prosecutor Paul Wallace and lead defense attorney Jane McNeill both declined to comment. Prosecutors are expected to argue Xaver deserves the death penalty because the killings were cold, cruel, heinous and planned. Xaver’s attorneys are expected to cite what they have described as his years-long mental health problems as they seek leniency.

Under a new Florida law, for Xaver to receive the death penalty the jury’s vote only has to be 8-4 for execution instead of unanimous. It was enacted after the 2018 Parkland high school shooter could not be sentenced to death for murdering 17 people despite a 9-3 jury vote.

Sebring is a city of about 11,000 residents and known internationally for its annual 12 Hours of Sebring endurance auto race. Agriculture, tourism and retirees drive its economy.

Xaver moved to Sebring in 2018 from near South Bend, Indiana. In 2014, his high school principal contacted police after Xaver told others he was having dreams about hurting his classmates. His mother promised to get him psychological help.

He joined the Army in 2016. A former girlfriend, who met him at a mental hospital where they were patients, told police he said joining the military was a “way to kill people and get away with it.” The Army discharged him after three months. In 2017, a Michigan woman reported him after he sent her text messages suggesting he might commit “suicide by cop” or take hostages.

Despite his psychological problems and dismissal from the Army, Florida hired Xaver as a guard trainee in November 2018 at a prison near Sebring. He quit two months later, which was two weeks before the shootings. His employment file shows no disciplinary issues. He had applied to be a Sebring police officer seven months before the murders but wasn’t hired.

On the day before he quit working at the prison, Xaver legally purchased a 9 mm handgun and bullets. Later he bought a bullet-resistant vest.

About five hours before the murders, Xaver began a long, intermittent text message conversation with a girlfriend in Connecticut, telling her “this is the best day of my life” but refusing to say why.

Fifteen minutes before the shootings, he texted her, “I’m dying today,”

Then from the bank parking lot he texted, “I’m taking a few people with me because I’ve always wanted to kill people so I am going to try it and see how it goes. Watch for me on the news.”

He then entered the bank, a sweatshirt covering his vest. Security video shows him smiling as he approaches Lopez, according to police reports. They briefly speak, before he pulls his gun and points it at her and the other women. He orders them against the wall before telling Lopez to lock the doors.

When she returns, he orders the women onto the floor face down. After shooting them, he calls police on his cellphone.

He had been in the bank less than four minutes.

Police spoke with Xaver for about an hour before a SWAT team broke into the bank. He surrendered a short time later and confessed in a taped interview with detectives. That statement has not been released, but will be played at the trial along with the security video.

Shortly after the shooting, the bank was torn down. The site is now a park with a memorial to the victims.

Bryan Maclean Howard, 41, pleaded not guilty to driving under the influence-manslaughter and remained jailed without bond for Tuesday’s crash. The Florida Highway Patrol says he drove his 2001 Ford pickup into the center line on a two-lane road and struck the bus, causing it to veer off the road, strike a tree and flip over.

The seasonal farmworkers were on their way early in the morning to harvest watermelon at Cannon Farms in Dunnellon about 80 miles (130km) northwest of Orlando in north-central Florida’s Marion County, a rural area of rolling hills with numerous horse farms and abundant fruit and vegetable fields.

The Mexican consulate in Orlando was working to support the victims, meeting with some at a hotel in Gainesville. Many were taken to AdventHealth Ocala hospital. Six of the injured were in serious condition and three others were critical, the Mexican government said in a statement.

According to Howard’s arrest report, troopers say he had bloodshot and watery eyes and slurred speech after the crash, which he said he didn’t remember.

He told an FHP investigator that he had crashed his mother’s car into a tree while avoiding an animal a few days earlier, and that on Monday night he had taken two anti-seizure drugs and medication for high blood pressure in addition to smoking marijuana oil. He said he woke up about five hours later and was driving to a methadone clinic where he receives daily medication for a chipped vertebrae, according to the affidavit.

Howard then failed several sobriety tests and was arrested, the FHP said.

Responding to a judge by teleconference from jail on Wednesday, he said he’s a self-employed painter and drywall installer with $700 in the bank, no other assets and no dependents. Howard’s head was bandaged and he wore a protective gown typically given to inmates on suicide watch. The judge denied bond, appointed a public defender and set his next court appearance for next month.

Howard’s parents did not immediately respond to a Wednesday phone message seeking comment, and the Marion County public defender’s office declined comment.

Marion County court records show Howard has had at least three crashes and numerous traffic tickets dating back to 2006, including one citation for crossing the center line. His license has been suspended at least three times, the latest in 2021 for getting too many citations within a year. In 2013, he was convicted of grand theft. A year later, his probation was revoked after he tested positive for cocaine.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Wednesday morning that 44 Mexican farmworkers were on the bus, hired by a Mexican-American farmer to work on the watermelon farm under H-2A visas. Florida farms use about 50,000 H-2A workers each year, more than any other state, according to the Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association.

Six of the dead have been identified: Evarado Ventura Hernández, 30; Cristian Salazar Villeda, 24; Alfredo Tovar Sánchez, 20; Isaías Miranda Pascal, 21; José Heriberto Fraga Acosta, 27; and Manuel Pérez Ríos, 46.

Andres Sequera, a director of mission and ministry for AdventHealth hospitals, said chaplains were visiting the injured workers, and they “were in good spirits for what they have been through.”

“We were able to provide support, presence, prayer when it was asked of us,” Sequera told reporters.

Cannon Farms, a family-owned operation that sends the melons to grocery stores across the U.S. and Canada, said it would stay closed through Wednesday.

“Thank you to all who have reached out and offered condolences, help and prayers” for the people hurt in the crash, Cannon Farms said in a Facebook post. It said the bus was operated by Olvera Trucking Harvesting Corp.

No one answered the phone at Olvera Trucking after the crash. The company recently advertised for a temporary driver who would bus workers to watermelon fields and then operate harvesting equipment, at $14.77 an hour.

A Labor Department document shows Olvera also applied for 43 H-2A workers to harvest watermelons at Cannon Farms this month, again at a base rate of $14.77 an hour, with promises of housing and transportation to and from the fields.

The H-2A program allows U.S. employers or agents who meet certain regulatory requirements to bring foreign nationals into the country to fill temporary agricultural jobs. Getting to and from the fields can be hazardous: Federal statistics show vehicle crashes were the leading cause of job-related deaths among farmworkers in 2022, the latest year available. They accounted for 81 of 171 fatalities.

It was not immediately known if Olvera’s vehicle, which the highway patrol described as a “retired” school bus, had seat belts.

The Labor Department announced new seat belt requirements for employer vehicles used for farmworkers on temporary visas, among other worker protections that take effect June 28. Florida law already requires seat belts for farmworker transport using vehicles weighing less than 10,000 pounds. The Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association has called the new federal seat belt requirement “impractical.”

Advocacy groups called for stricter laws and enforcement to protect farmworkers, while a GoFundMe campaign organized by the Farmworker Association of Florida to support accident victims and their families had raised more than $48,000 by Wednesday afternoon.

Spencer reported from Fort Lauderdale. Contributors include Adriana Gómez Licón in Miami and Amy Taxin in Santa Ana, Calif.

Bryan Maclean Howard, 41, faces eight counts of DUI-Manslaughter, the FHP said in a statement. No further details were released, including what substance allegedly left Howard impaired.

Troopers said he was driving the 2001 Ford Ranger when it crossed into the center line on State Road 40, a straight but somewhat hilly two-lane road that passes through horse farms. The truck sideswiped the bus, causing it to veer off the road at about 6:40 a.m. It crashed through a fence and into a tree before overturning. In addition to the eight killed, at least 40 were injured.

It was not immediately known if Howard has an attorney, and no phone numbers for family members could be found. According to state records, Howard has previous arrests for driving with a suspended license, leaving the scene of an accident and marijuana possession.

The accident happened in Marion County, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) north of Orlando. The workers had been headed to Cannon Farms in Dunnellon, which has been harvesting watermelons. The bus ended up on its side, with its windows smashed and its emergency rear door and top hatch open. The truck came to a stop at the side of the road, with its air bag blown and extensive damage to the driver’s side.

Federal statistics show that vehicle crashes were the leading cause of job-related deaths among farmworkers in 2022, the latest year available. They accounted for 81 of 171 fatalities. It was not immediately not known if the bus had seat belts.

Authorities in several states have been pushing for greater regulations for the safety of farmworkers, who are overwhelmingly migrants. It is unknown if all the workers on the bus were migrants. The Mexican consulate in Orlando said it was making help available to any of the workers who are from its country.

The Labor Department announced new seat belt requirements for employer vehicles used for farmworkers on temporary visas, among other worker protections that take effect June 28. The Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association called the seat belt requirement “impractical.”

State law requires seat belts for farmworker transport using smaller vehicles, weighing less than 10,000 pounds.

“We will be closed today out of respect to the losses and injuries endured early this morning in the accident that took place to the Olvera Trucking Harvesting Corp.,” Cannon Farms announced on its Facebook page. “Please pray with us for the families and the loved ones involved in this tragic accident. We appreciate your understanding at this difficult time.”

Cannon Farms describes itself as a family-owned operation that has farmed its land for more than 100 years. The company now focuses on peanuts and watermelons, which it sends to grocery stores across the U.S. and Canada. It is about 8 miles (13 kilometers) from the crash site.

No one answered the phone at Olvera Trucking on Tuesday afternoon. The company recently advertised for a temporary driver who would bus workers to watermelon fields and then operate harvesting equipment. The pay was $14.77 an hour.

A Labor Department document shows Olvera recently applied for 43 H-2A workers to harvest watermelons at Cannon Farms this month. The company again offered a base rate of $14.77 an hour, with promises of housing and transportation to and from the fields.

The H-2A program allows U.S. employers or agents who meet certain regulatory requirements to bring foreign nationals into the country to fill temporary agricultural jobs. Florida farms employ more H-2A workers than any other state, about 50,000 a year, according to the Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association.

Guatemala’s government initially said some of its citizens were involved in the crash but retracted that Tuesday night, saying a report on an accident from the consulate in Chicago had been confused with the Florida crash. Goldin López de Bonilla, spokesperson for the Foreign Affairs Ministry, said the Central American nation was still waiting to hear whether any of its citizens were involved in the Florida crash.

Alicia Bárcena, Mexico’s foreign relations secretary, said via the social media platform X, “I am sorry to report that a tragic automotive accident happened in Florida with Mexican agricultural workers involved.”

The Mexican Consulate in Orlando was on the scene, she said, to provide support.

Andres Sequera, a director of mission and ministry for AdventHealth hospitals, told reporters that the injured workers who could be visited by chaplains “were in good spirits for what they have been through.”

“We were able to provide support, presence, prayer when it was asked of us,” he said.

A GoFundMe campaign organized by the Farmworker Association of Florida to support accident victims and their families had raised about $5,000 of a $50,000 goal by Tuesday evening.

“Farmworkers tend to be forgotten, but it’s important not to forget farmworkers, especially during such difficult times,” the post said.

Two groups that advocate for farmworkers issued statements calling for stricter laws to protect them from harm.

“It is too easy to dismiss this as just another accident,” said Asia Clermont, Florida director for the League of United Latin American Citizens. “Florida must take every possible step to protect its essential workers, who are human beings and the backbone of the state’s economy.”

Ty Joplin of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers said transportation laws for farmworkers are often unenforced.

“While accidents will happen, protecting workers while transporting them with mandatory and enforceable safety provisions, like seat belts and safety inspections, can reduce injuries and deaths,” he said.

Spencer reported from Fort Lauderdale. Associated Press writer Sonia Pérez D. in Guatemala City contributed.

This article has been updated to make clear the Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association stance on a Department of Labor seatbelt requirement for employer vehicles used for farmworkers on temporary visas. While the association had asked in a public comment that the overall rulemaking changes by the federal government be withdrawn, on the seatbelt requirement, the association merely said it was impractical from a compliance perspective.

This article has been updated to correct the spelling of Andres Sequera’s last name and the city of Dunnellon. It has also been updated with Guatemala retracting a statement about some of its citizens being involved in the crash, with the country saying an accident in Chicago was confused with the one in Florida.

Florida Power & Light is conducting its annual mock hurricane drill this week, simulating how it would respond if a hurricane struck the state and devastated the power grid. Hurricane Benito, with 135 mph winds, did not really hit on Wednesday, but it was imagined to be even stronger than real hurricanes Idalia and Ian, which seriously damaged portions of the state over the past two years.

Ian was one of the worst disasters ever to strike Florida, killing 150 people as it hit the Gulf Coast near Fort Myers in 2022, leaving millions without power. If Benito were a real storm, it likely would cause worse damage, as its imaginary path took it over the state’s most-populated area.

FPL’s territory covers almost Florida’s entire Atlantic Coast, much of its Gulf Coast south of Tampa and the far western Panhandle, where about 12 million people, or 55% of the population, reside.

“Every day we don’t have a storm is a day we are preparing for one,” said Ed DeVarona, FPL’s vice president of power delivery.

The National Hurricane Center is predicting the upcoming Atlantic and Gulf season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30, will exceed the yearly average of seven tropical storms and seven hurricanes, and that three of the storms will be major. Not all hurricanes make landfall.

In Thursday’s drill, a computer simulated power outages. Crews working at FPL’s emergency operations center had to assess the fake damage and dispatch imaginary crews to make repairs.

FPL officials said making assessments has gotten easier over the past decade.

Instead of relying on customers to report outages and then sending crews to drive through the area to pinpoint the damage, sensors now tell FPL immediately where there are blackouts and locate the cause.

Drones are used to examine lines. These improvements lessen the time crews spend on each repair, meaning they can get more done in a day.

Also, more lines are underground and most above-ground wires are anchored by metal or concrete poles, not wood. That means fewer major repairs are needed.

“I can honestly say that each of these tools … make it easier for line workers like myself,” said Mike Ochoa, a senior line specialist.

BOCA RATON, Fla. (AP) — Harold Terens and his fiancee Jeanne Swerlin kissed and held hands like high school sweethearts as they discussed their upcoming wedding in France, a country the World War II veteran first visited as a 20-year-old U.S. Army Air Forces corporal shortly after D-Day.

Terens, a gregarious and energetic 100-year-old, will be honored in June by the French as part of the 80th anniversary celebration of their country’s liberation from the Nazis. Then he plans to marry the sprightly 96-year-old Swerlin in a town near the beaches where U.S. troops landed.

“I love this girl — she is quite special,” said Terens, who has been dating Swerlin since 2021. To demonstrate their fondness for dancing, they had Siri play “Uptown Funk” by Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars and then jumped, twisted and gyrated like teens at homecoming.

“He’s an amazing guy, amazing,” Swerlin said. “He loves me so much and he says it.”

“And my god, he’s the greatest kisser,” she said.

The couple, who are each widowed, grew up in New York City: she in Brooklyn, he in the Bronx. They laugh at how differently they experienced World War II. She was in high school and dated soldiers who gave her war souvenirs like dog tags, knives and even a gun, trying to impress.

Terens enlisted in 1942 and shipped to Great Britain the following year, attached to a four-pilot P-47 Thunderbolt fighter squadron as their radio repair technician. Terens said his original pilots all died in the war.

“I loved all those guys. Young men. The average age was 26,” he said.

On D-Day — June 6, 1944 — Terens helped repair planes returning from France so they could rejoin the battle. He said half his company’s pilots died that day.

Terens went to France 12 days later, helping transport freshly captured Germans and just-freed American POWs back to England. To him, the Germans seemed happy because they would survive the war. The Americans, however, had been brutalized by their Nazi captors over months and even years.

“They were in a stupor,” he said.

He then went on a secret mission — even he didn’t know his destination. His planes hopscotched North Africa before eventually landing in Tehran. There, he survived a robbery that left him naked in the desert and fearing death until an American military police patrol happened by.

He learned the details of his covert mission when he was deposited at a Soviet airfield in Ukraine. As part of a new strategy, American bombers would fly from Britain to attack Axis targets in Eastern Europe. They didn’t have enough fuel to return so they would fly to the USSR. Terens’ job was to get the crews fed and the injured treated before they flew their refueled planes home.

Terens soon contracted dysentery, which almost killed him. In another close call, a British barkeep refused to serve him past the mandatory closing time despite his pleadings for just one more drink. Moments after he was kicked out, a German rocket destroyed the pub.

Following the Nazi surrender in May 1945, Terens again helped transport freed Allied prisoners to England before he shipped back to the U.S. a month later.

He married his wife Thelma in 1948 and they had two daughters and a son. He became a U.S. vice president for a British conglomerate. They moved from New York to Florida in 2006 after Thelma retired as a French teacher; she died in 2018 after 70 years of marriage. He has eight grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.

Swerlin married at 21 and was a full-time mom to two girls and a boy before being widowed in her 40s. Her second husband died after 18 years of marriage. She then lived with Sol Katz for 25 years before his death in 2019. She has seven grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

It was Katz’s daughter, Joanne Schosheim, who introduced her to Terens in 2021.

She met Terens when her children attended camp with his grandchildren years ago and remained friends. She and a friend thought the two might hit it off, so invited them to lunch.

“She gave my dad such joy,” Schosheim said of Swerlin. “I didn’t want her to be lonely.”

But after Thelma’s death, Terens wasn’t interested in other women and barely noticed Swerlin.

“I didn’t even look at her. I didn’t even talk to her,” he said.

“I looked at him. He looked at me,” Swerlin said, but “it was like nothing.”

Even so, Terens’ buddy Stanley Eisenberg took them to dinner the next night. Eisenberg wanted to see who his friend had dismissed.

It was love at second sight.

“I had never seen him lit up like that,” Eisenberg said.

Terens couldn’t talk or eat, and that’s not like him.

“I said, ‘You’re in love,’” Eisenberg said. “He said, ‘I don’t know. I’ve never had these feelings before.’”

After that date, Swerlin said, Terens “didn’t give me a chance” to turn him down. At 94, she also was in love.

“He was introducing me to the whole world, ‘I want you to meet my girl, my sweetheart,’ and I didn’t even know him more than two days,” she said, laughing. “Being in love is not just for the young. We get butterflies just like everybody else.”

Terens proposed a few months ago, kneeling to give Swerlin a ring.

“She got hysterical” with delight, he said.

“I thought I’d have to help him up, but he’s so macho,” she said.

The couple and their families will head to Paris in late May, where Terens and a handful of surviving World War II veterans will be honored. Of the 16 million American WWII veterans, only 120,000 remain, the government says.

It will be Terens’ fourth D-Day celebration in France. He received a medal from President Emmanuel Macron five years ago.

The families then will travel to the town of Carentan-les-Marais, where the couple plan to be married June 8 by Mayor Jean-Pierre Lhonneur in a chapel built in the 1600s. Lhonneur said because of the American sacrifice on D-Day, more U.S. flags fly in the area than French.

“Normandy is the 51st state,” he said.

Lhonneur explained legally he is only allowed to marry town residents, but he thinks the local prosecutor will let him make an exception.

“It will be a pleasure for us,” the mayor said.

___

AP writer John Leicester in Le Pecq, France, contributed to this report.

Dr. Joseph Ladapo, nationally known for his outspoken skepticism toward the COVID-19 vaccine, sent a letter this week to parents at Manatee Bay Elementary School near Fort Lauderdale after six students contracted the highly contagious and potentially deadly virus. Such outbreaks are rare in the United States, though reported cases have spiked from 58 for all of 2023 to 35 already this year.

The letter notes that when a school has a measles outbreak, it is “normally recommended” that unvaccinated students who haven’t previously had the disease be kept home for three weeks “because of the high likelihood” they will be infected.

But the letter then says the state won’t turn that recommendation into a mandate, at least for now. The Broward County school district said Friday that 33 of Manatee Bay’s 1,067 students don’t have at least one shot of the two-dose measles vaccine. The vaccine also covers mumps and rubella and is highly effective against measles even after one dose. The school is in Weston, an upper-middle class and wealthy suburb, with a median household annual income of more than $120,000.

“Due to the high immunity rate in the community, as well as the burden on families and educational cost of healthy children missing school, (the state health department) is deferring to parents or guardians to make decisions about school attendance,” Ladapo wrote. He was appointed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis in September 2021 because of their mutual opposition to COVID-19 vaccine and mask mandates and school closures.

His wording contradicts Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations, which tell school officials that unvaccinated children “must be excluded” for three weeks. States are not required to follow those recommendations, however.

Sixth measles case confirmed at Broward elementary school. Here’s how to protect yourself from the highly contagious virus

That failure to bar unvaccinated children is sparking criticism from doctors in Florida and around the country, including the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Dr. Rana Alissa, the academy’s Florida vice president, said Friday that the state should follow the CDC guidelines “for the safety of our kids.” Allowing unvaccinated children to attend during the outbreak not only endangers them, but others who might have compromised immune systems and could later catch it from them, she said.

“When you have an outbreak, to contain it you have to follow the public health and safety recommendations, not give people a choice,” she said. “Frankly, giving people a choice is what got us here.”

Jodie Guest, an epidemiologist at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health, said the CDC’s guidelines “are based on decades of iterative science” but false information about the measles vaccine’s dangers is spreading. The vaccine in extremely rare circumstances can cause seizures that are not permanent or life-threatening, the CDC says.

“We have a pandemic of science disinformation,” she said.

Ladapo’s office did not respond Friday to a phone call seeking a response to the criticism.

The school district says any decisions about the mandatory exclusion of unvaccinated students rests solely with the health department. Spokesperson John Sullivan would not say if the six ill children are unvaccinated, citing privacy concerns.

Florida law requires that students be vaccinated for measles and several other contagious diseases, but they can be exempted by their doctor for medical reasons or by their parents if they affirm the shots conflict with the family’s “religious tenets and practices.” Officials are not allowed to seek specific information about those beliefs.

Measles spreads when infected people exhale, cough and sneeze the viruses — it can linger in the air and on surfaces for two hours, infecting numerous people. An infected person can be contagious for four days before symptoms appear, including the telltale rash, fever, cough, runny nose and watery eyes.

Vaccinated people rarely catch the disease and if they do, their symptoms are less severe and they are less contagious, the CDC says.

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Besides the unvaccinated students, those most at risk to the disease include infants who are too young for the shots; adults and children with compromised immune systems from such diseases as cancer and HIV; and pregnant women, whose fetuses might be adversely affected.

While most people who catch measles recover without significant problems, an unvaccinated person who catches measles has about a 20% chance of being hospitalized, the CDC says.

About 5% of infected children get pneumonia and about 1 in every 1,000 will develop brain swelling, which can cause deafness or intellectual disability. Between 1 and 3 of every 1,000 infected children who weren’t vaccinated will die from the disease, the CDC says.

Before measles vaccinations began in 1963, more than 400,000 Americans annually caught the disease. The numbers dropped dramatically to 47,000 cases in 1970 and 13,000 in 1980. After a bump to 27,000 in 1990, the number of reported infections in 2000 was less than 100.

But then there was a jump to 1,200 cases in 2019 before the COVID-19 lockdowns of 2020 and 2021 caused the numbers to again fall.

AP Public Health Reporter Devi Shastri in Milwaukee contributed to this report.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.