The Silver Springs Shores Branch of the Boys & Girls Club of Marion County was burglarized twice this year. The latest happened over the weekend.

CEO April Savarese said it’s difficult to find out who did it because they don’t have any surveillance video.

Savarese said thieves broke in and stole 10 laptops, computers the kids use to do school work.

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“It’s frustrating, but it really hurts my heart to know that people are taking away, not just from kids, but from kids who need it the most,” said Savarese. “When we take away those tools we use to foster that growth and academic success, it impacts them greatly.”

Savarese said the thieves also got away with the club’s PlayStation 3 game system. She said the laptops were recently replaced after the club was burglarized back in February. Their club van was also stolen in that first burglary and later recovered. She said the organization has been struggling financially, losing donors because of the pandemic.

“It’s no secret we have had some financial challenges, especially this year with COVID and to know that we don’t have a lush reserve account to turn to, to replace everything. It saddens me that really who’s suffering ... our kids,” said Savarese.

The Silver Springs Shores branch of the Boys & Girls Club serves about 100 members in the community, many of the kids from low-income families. Savarese said despite the loss of resources, they will continue to be a safe haven for kids in Marion County.

“We’re all very hurt that this has happened, but we also have a very resilient staff and group of membership and they’re like ‘we’ll figure it out,’” said Savarese.

They are hoping through this season of giving, the community will come together to help replace the items that were stolen.

Click here https://bgcofmarion.com/contribute/ or call (352) 690-7519.

Two busy coronavirus testing sites in Orange County closed its line hours early Wednesday as cars lined up around the location to get tested for the virus ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday.

The testing site at Barnett Park operated by Orange County Health Services experienced an increased interest before the Thanksgiving holiday, officials said. Cars could be seen lining up early Tuesday.

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Maura McCray, a local teacher, was in line around 10 a.m. and had been waiting for four hours when she spoke to News 6.

“I’m just doing it to be safe and make sure my parents are safe when I go see them,” she said, adding “just to make sure I’m safe and we are both in school I want to make sure I’m taking the best precautions that I can.”

To complete testing by 5 p.m., officials closed the site early to any new people seeking tests. Those inline by 2:30 p.m. were able to get tested.

The site normally closes at 5 p.m.

“There are ample supplies for testing,” health services said in a tweet. “All residents still in line will be tested.”

Testing sites around Central Florida saw an increased demand all week leading up to the holiday as people prepared to travel or host family and friends for Thanksgiving, despite warnings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as well as local health officials to avoid large gatherings and to stay home.

Amanda Salisbury, of Winter Garden, was in line with her daughter before the testing site opened around 8:30 a.m. Her whole family was rapid tested this morning after waiting in line, only to get a call when they got home they needed to come back because her daughter’s results came back invalid.

“The state called the minute we got back to Winter Garden and they said, ‘Come back to this line’ - so we have been in line since,” she said.

Many people in line said the wait was cutting into their Thanksgiving meal prep.

“We would be cooking but instead we are out here getting tested,” Darious Wilson, who had been waiting for three hours, said.

Wilson was also getting testing ahead of the holiday to be safe around his family.

“We don’t want to spread nothing we want to make sure before,” Wilson said. “That’s the main reason for the test going to see family.”

The state run virus testing site at the Orange County Convention Center also stopped accepting new people in line early on Wednesday. Officials closed the gates around 4 p.m. The site won’t reopen until 9 a.m. Friday.

The Florida Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected requests by Attorney General Ashley Moody’s office to reinstate death sentences for two convicted murderers, ruling that earlier orders required the men to receive new sentencing hearings.

Justices issued opinions in cases from Orange and Duval counties that are expected to have broader ramifications: Defense attorneys said the decisions could apply to about 100 inmates.

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The opinions dealt with attempts to reinstate death sentences of Bessman Okafor, who was convicted for killing 19-year-old Alex Zaldivar in Orange County, and Michael James Jackson, who was convicted in two 2005 murders in Duval County.

Moody’s office went to the Supreme Court after justices in January backed away from a major 2016 ruling that included a requirement of unanimous jury recommendations before defendants could receive the death penalty.

Death sentences of Okafor and Jackson were tossed out because of the 2016 ruling, and new sentencing hearings were ordered --- though the hearings have not been held.

Moody’s office contended that the January Supreme Court decision backing away from the 2016 ruling should lead to reinstating the original death sentences instead of holding new sentencing hearings. But the Supreme Court on Wednesday said orders granting resentencing could not be undone.

“We hold that our judgment vacating Okafor’s death sentence is final, that neither we nor the trial court can lawfully reinstate that sentence, and that resentencing is therefore required,” justices wrote in the Okafor case. “In reaching this conclusion, we acknowledge the burden that resentencing proceedings will place on the victims of Okafor’s crimes. We also acknowledge the consequences for the victims in similar cases that will be governed by our decision here. Nonetheless, our holding is compelled by applicable law.”

All seven justices agreed with the results Wednesday, though Justice Jorge Labarga did not fully sign on to opinions shared by the others.

The circumstances in the cases of Okafor and Jackson were somewhat different. But, for example, the Supreme Court vacated Okafor’s sentence after the 2016 ruling because a jury had recommended by an 11-1 vote that he be executed for the murder of Alex Zaldivar during a home-invasion robbery.

Meanwhile, a circuit judge granted Jackson’s 2017 request for a new sentencing proceeding after the 2016 Supreme Court ruling, which was in a case known as Hurst v. State. Prosecutors did not appeal the decision at the time, but Moody’s office in February went to the Supreme Court to try to get the death sentence reinstated.

After the Supreme Court rejected the requests Wednesday, Pete Mills, chair of the Death Penalty Steering Committee of the Florida Public Defender Association, said the “decisions boiled down to issues involving timing and finality.”

“In Jackson, death sentences were vacated or set aside by the trial court and the state never appealed that final order. Because of the Florida Supreme Court’s rules, the state is time-barred from attempting to overturn the decision now,” Mills, an assistant public defender in the 10th Judicial Circuit, said in an email. “The time limits apply to both the defense and the state. The state’s time to appeal expired long ago.”

Mills and Maria DeLiberato, an attorney who represented Jackson at the Supreme Court, said the opinions could affect about 100 cases that involve resentencing.

Wednesday’s opinions were rooted in a series of major death-penalty developments that began in early 2016 when the U.S. Supreme Court found Florida’s death-penalty system unconstitutional because it gave too much authority to judges, instead of juries, in imposing death sentences.

The Florida Supreme Court in October 2016, in the Hurst v. State decision, interpreted and applied the U.S. Supreme Court ruling. The state court required unanimous jury recommendations before death sentences could be imposed and dealt with a critical issue of jurors finding what are known as “aggravating factors” that can justify death sentences.

The state Supreme Court subsequently said its decision in Hurst v. State should be applied retroactively to cases going back to 2002. That created a need to hold new sentencing hearings for many inmates in death-penalty cases.

In the meantime, the Legislature also changed state laws to essentially comply with the U.S. Supreme ruling, including requiring unanimous jury recommendations before death sentences are imposed.

The state Supreme Court, however, has issued a series of decisions this year --- including the January decision to back away from Hurst v. State --- that have undone earlier criminal and death-penalty rulings. Those changes came after the court became more conservative in 2019 following the retirements of longtime justices Barbara Pariente, R. Fred Lewis and Peggy Quince, who had been part of a generally liberal majority.

Okafor and Jackson could still face the death penalty when new sentencing hearings are held. The law passed to comply with the 2016 U.S. Supreme Court ruling remains in effect, which means, in part, that unanimous jury recommendations would be needed before Okafor and Jackson could be sentenced to death.

“Under today’s decision, Mr. Jackson, Mr. Okafor and approximately 100 other individuals cannot be resentenced to death unless and until a jury renders a unanimous verdict,” DeLiberato said in a text message Wednesday. “While the Florida Supreme Court’s decision in Poole (the January decision that backed away from Hurst v. State) stripped away important constitutional protections, the Court acknowledged today that the Legislature has recognized that Florida’s previous outlier status in allowing non-unanimous recommendations in death penalty cases will not continue.”

In the Okafor opinion, the Supreme Court said Moody’s office “argues that it is unreasonable and unjust to require the trial court to resentence Okafor now that Poole has removed the constitutional basis” for vacating Okafor’s original death sentence.

“We acknowledge the force of the state’s argument,” the opinion said. “Most importantly, we appreciate the substantial burden that resentencing will place on the victims of Okafor’s crimes. And we realize that resentencing in a capital case is time-consuming and costly, all at the public’s expense. These considerations, however compelling, do not give us license to exceed the legal constraints on our authority.”

President Donald Trump pardoned former national security adviser Michael Flynn on Wednesday, taking direct aim in the final days of his administration at a Russia investigation that he has long insisted was motivated by political bias.

“It is my Great Honor to announce that General Michael T. Flynn has been granted a Full Pardon,” Trump tweeted. “Congratulations to @GenFlynn and his wonderful family, I know you will now have a truly fantastic Thanksgiving!”

Flynn is the second Trump associate convicted in the Russia probe to be granted clemency by the president. Trump commuted the sentence of longtime confidant Roger Stone just days before he was to report to prison. It is part of a broader effort to undo the results of an investigation that for years has shadowed his administration and yielded criminal charges against a half dozen associates.

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The action voids the criminal case against Flynn just as a federal judge was weighing, skeptically, whether to grant a Justice Department request to dismiss the prosecution despite Flynn’s own guilty plea to lying to the FBI about his Russia contacts.

The move, coming as Trump winds down his single term, is likely to energize supporters who have taken up the case as a cause celebre and rallied around the retired Army lieutenant general as the victim of what they assert is an unfair prosecution. Trump himself has repeatedly spoken warmly about Flynn, even though special counsel Robert Mueller’s prosecutors once praised him as a model cooperator in their probe into ties between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign.

House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler said the pardon was undeserved and unprincipled.

“The President’s enablers have constructed an elaborate narrative in which Trump and Flynn are victims and the Constitution is subject to the whims of the president,” the Democratic congressman said in a statement. “Americans soundly rejected this nonsense when they voted out President Trump. "

The pardon is the final step in a case defined by twists and turns over the last year after the Justice Department abruptly move to dismiss the case, insisting that Flynn should have never been interviewed by the FBI in the first place, only to have U.S. District Justice Emmet Sullivan refuse the request and appoint a former judge to argue against the federal government’s position.

In the months since, a three-judge panel’s decision ordering Sullivan to dismiss the case was overturned by the full appeals court, which sent the matter back to Sullivan. At a hearing in September, Flynn lawyer Sidney Powell told the judge that she had discussed the Flynn case with Trump but also said she did not want a pardon — presumably because she wanted him to be vindicated in the courts.

Powell emerged separately in recent weeks as a public face of the Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of his election loss to President-elect Joe Biden, but the Trump legal team ultimately distanced itself from her after she advanced a series of uncorroborated conspiracy claims.

The pardon spares Flynn the possibility of any prison sentence, which Sullivan could potentially have imposed had he ultimately decided to reject the Justice Department’s dismissal request. That request was made in May after a review of the case by a federal prosecutor from St. Louis who had been specially appointed by Attorney General William Barr.

Flynn acknowledged lying during the FBI interview by saying he had not discussed with the then-Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, sanctions that had just been imposed on Russia for election interference by the outgoing Obama administration. During that conversation, Flynn urged Kislyak for Russia to be “even-keeled” in response to the punitive measures, and assured him “we can have a better conversation” about relations between the two countries after Trump became president.

The conversation alarmed the FBI, which at the time was investigating whether the Trump campaign and Russia had coordinated to sway the election’s outcome. In addition, White House officials were stating publicly that Flynn and Kislyak had not discussed sanctions.

But last May, the Justice Department abruptly reversed its position in the case. It said the FBI had no basis to interview Flynn about Kislyak, then the Russian ambassador to the United States, and that any statements he may have made were not relevant to the FBI’s broader counterintelligence probe. It cited internal FBI notes showing that agents had planned to close out their investigation into Flynn weeks earlier.

Flynn was ousted from his position in February 2017 after news broke that he had indeed discussed sanctions with Kislyak and that former Obama administration officials had warned the White House that he could be vulnerable to blackmail.

Flynn, of Middletown, Rhode Island, was among the first of the president’s aides to admit guilt in Mueller’s investigation and cooperated extensively for months. He provided such extensive cooperation that prosecutors did not recommend any prison time and suggested that they would be fine with probation.

But on the morning he was to have been sentenced, after a stern rebuke about his behavior from Sullivan, Flynn asked for the hearing to be cut short so that he could continue cooperating and earn credit toward a more lenient sentence.

After that, though, he hired new attorneys — including Powell, a conservative commentator and outspoken critic of Mueller’s investigation — who took a far more confrontational stance to the government.

The lawyers accused prosecutors of withholding documents and evidence they said was favorable to the case and repeatedly noted that one of the two agents who interviewed Flynn was fired from the FBI for having sent derogatory text messages about Trump during the 2016 campaign.