Lauren Peace

Across Tampa Bay, rental cars are in high demand as a new storm tracks toward the region and residents work to evacuate.

Across the Pinellas County, residents repeated the same sentiment: They’d never seen water so high.

Music therapist Rachel Beverly helps soothe patients with song on difficult days.

Across Tampa Bay, hefty upfront costs continue to bar families from housing they could otherwise afford.

Limited accommodations and disrupted routines leave families struggling to patch together childcare.

Editor’s note: This story includes discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know is considering suicide, help is available. Resources are listed at the bottom of this story. For the most part, Cori Lint was happy.She worked days as a software engineer and nights as a part-time cellist, filling her free hours with inline skating and gardening and long talks with friends. But a few days a month, Lint’s mood would tank. Panic attacks came on suddenly. Suicidal thoughts did, too.She had been di…

A mom worries she won’t have enough food to get her kids through the week.A father wishes he could cook healthy meals but can’t afford the groceries.A teacher sees hungry, unfocused kids in class who aren’t getting the nutrients they need.Each of these examples was submitted by Tampa Bay residents in a statewide survey from No Kid Hungry Florida, which works to increase access to food for children. In the Sunshine State, 1 in 5 kids face food insecurity: limited access to food that would meet th…

It started with $800 and a dream.The year was 1936, Florida was under the rule of Jim Crow and Black people were barred from most schools, restaurants, theaters and pools.But Chester and Corrine Gooden — sweethearts from Ocala — had come into some money and were wanting land of their own.They bought 10 acres of citrus grove on the outskirts of Largo, then a new city in Pinellas County, and built a home, a business and, eventually, a community. The neighborhood, called Ridgecrest, bloomed.This we…

Erica Fresh was 18 the first time she attended a funeral with an open casket. She remembers looking at her cousin’s lifeless body and feeling heavy with dread.“I had these horrible nightmares that night,” said Fresh, now a 38-year-old Dunedin resident. “I thought to myself, ‘Nope, that is not what I want to happen to me.’”Customs around death are changing in the U.S. Just 30 years ago, traditional burials accounted for almost 80% of all end-of-life arrangements.Today, that number has dropped to…

Floridians seeking relief from dental pain will have a chance to get it — without breaking the budget — at a Florida Dental Association Foundation event hosted in Lakeland at the end of the month.The two-day event, called Mission of Mercy, will take place on Friday, May 31, and Saturday, June 1, at the RP Funding Center at 701 W. Lime St. Doors will open at 7 a.m., and patients will be seen on a first-come, first-served basis. Care will be offered until about 6 p.m. each day, but registration wi…

Funerals are often large and unanticipated expenses that can leave families scrambling for money and plans at a time of immense grief.Last year, the average cost of a full-service cremation in the U.S. was around $6,300, while the average burial cost was $8,300.Experts in the “death care” industry say it’s important to have conversations with your loved ones about how they’d like to be honored, long before the day arrives. Doing so will help the people you leave behind celebrate your life withou…

Christina Nall sat in the hospital parking lot gasping for air.Four hours earlier, her father, Bill Burke had been alive. He’d eaten Golden Grahams for breakfast and wrapped his grandkids in tight hugs before school.He was putting on his shoes to leave the house when Nall, 33, found him slouched over on the couch. Doctors said it was a blood clot. He was 56 years old.Now, outside the Zephyrhills hospital, a fog of grief hung over Nall as the funeral director’s words cut into her. To get her dad…

Stephanie Hayes sparkles (often figuratively, sometimes literally).Over two decades with the Tampa Bay Times, Hayes has wowed readers with her deep reporting, moving prose and unparalleled range. Last week, for those qualities, she was recognized with the Paul C. Tash Journalist of the Year Award.The award, in its second year, is “bestowed annually to a single journalist at the Times Publishing Co. who best exemplifies the integrity, high journalistic standards and service to readers that were t…

Larry Gesick couldn’t hear his alarm, so when it went off at 5 a.m., his wife nudged him awake. A half hour later, he was out the door — green polo tucked in, lunch cooler in hand.While neighbors slept, Gesick ambled to his car, guided by street lamps and moonlight.He is 77 years old, a Vietnam veteran and a great-grandfather to two. He’s also part of the fastest growing age group in the labor force: people 75 and older.On that early morning in March, he was on his way to Publix for work.America…

It’s a rite of passage in Florida.You’re out at the park with your friends, ooh-ing and aah-ing over a brood of ducklings when an egret swoops in and snatches one like a Dorito.Chomp, Chomp! It’s gone. You shriek.Now — nature lovers be warned — it’s the little alligators’ turn.At preserves and swampy parks around Tampa Bay, dozens of juvenile crocodilians, likely born last summer, are attracting the attention of binocular-clad spectators.At Boyd Hill in St. Petersburg, they lie in shallow waters…

OCALA — Fire Capt. Jesse Blaire steered his SUV through the mobile home park until he spotted the little beige house with white trim and radioed to let dispatchers know he’d arrived.There, Shawnice Slaughter waited on the steps, wiping sleep from her eyes.“Good morning, Shawnice,” Blaire said. “How are you feeling today?”“I’ve been good, I’ve been good,” Slaughter said. “Much better.”Three days earlier, Blaire — a paramedic who leads the fire department’s emergency medical team — met Slaughter a…

Ed Pena has heard it dozens of times.On a Saturday at the soccer field, amid the sounds of whistles and cheers and cleats thumping mud ― there comes an F-bomb sailing through the air, aimed directly at him.“I’ve been cursed out, I’ve had my car keyed,” Pena said. “It didn’t used to be this way.”As one of Florida’s longest-tenured soccer officials, he’s seen it all: Parents shouting profanities at players, fueled by thermoses full of alcohol. Coaches chasing officials to their vehicles, spitting…

Pinellas Park police detectives have charged a man with murder who they say sold fentanyl to two people who died of drug overdoses in April 2022.James Peoples III, 33, faces two counts of first-degree murder, police said, in connection with the deaths of two Irish men: Luke Comiskey, 31, and Kane Mitchell, 32. Comiskey and Mitchell were found dead on April 23, 2022 in their apartment on Grand Avenue, authorities said. “The devastating consequences of fentanyl abuse are clear in this heartbreakin…

Hillsborough deputies arrested a man wanted by the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office in the killings of two people near Largo, authorities said Saturday.James McKinley Barber Jr., 28, is facing two charges of first-degree murder, deputies said, connected to an investigation at 7981 Smoketree Court in Pinellas County.The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office had issued a statement Friday night asking for help in locating Barber.Deputies did not immediately provide information about the victims or furth…

Less than 24 hours after Taylor Swift surprised fans with the announcement of her forthcoming 11th studio album during an acceptance speech at the Grammys, a social media share of the tracklist has Sunshine State residents reeling.The album — titled “THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT” — will include a track titled “Florida!!!” featuring English artist Florence & The Machine.Swift announced her newest era when accepting the Grammy for best pop vocal album on Feb. 4.The announcement came as a surprise…