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By CEDAR ATTANASIO and MARK THIESSEN Associated Press
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Chunk, a towering brown bear with a broken jaw, swept the competition Tuesday in the popular Fat Bear Week contest — his first win after narrowly finishing in second place three previous years.
The annual online competition allows viewers to follow 12 bears in Alaska’s Katmai National Park and Preserve on live webcams and cast ballots in a bracket-style, single-elimination tournament that lasts a week. Chunk — known officially as Bear 32 — beat out Bear 856, who doesn’t have a nickname, in the final bracket, according to totals posted on the organizers’ website.
Chunk’s weight was estimated at 1,200 pounds by contest organizers. While they do not weigh individual bears during the contest because of safety concerns, Chunk and others have had their density scanned to bolster weight estimates in the past using laser technology called LIDAR.
“Despite his broken jaw, he remains one of the biggest, baddest bears at Brooks River,” said Mike Fitz, a naturalist for explore.org. Fitz said Chunk likely hurt his jaw in a fight with another bear.
The contest is wildly popular. This year it attracted over 1.5 million votes from fans who watched the ursines gorge on a record run of fall salmon as they fished in the Brooks River about 300 miles (483 kilometers) from Anchorage.
It is the largest glut of salmon in the living memories of the bears or the humans who have been running the Fat Bear Week contest since 2014, according to Katmai Conservancy spokesperson Naomi Boak.
That abundance “decreased conflict in the river since salmon were readily available,” Boak said in an email. In Tuesday’s announcement, Katmai National Park ranger Sarah Bruce estimated around 200,000 salmon made their way up Brooks River.
In leaner years, the toughest bears jockey for the best fishing spots at Brooks Falls, where the salmon converge in a bottleneck and leap from the water as they fight their way upstream to spawn.
This year, Brooks Falls fishing spots were often empty as bears hunted up and down stream. There was even room for humans to fish. At one point Monday, one of the Explore.org live cameras showed two people calmly casting fishing rods along the river even as brown bears plodded upstream and downstream from them.
Voters in the online contest could review before and after photos of the bears, lean at the start of summer and fattened at the end. The bears are not actually weighed — that would be too dangerous and difficult — and some fans choose their favorite based on looks or backstory.
The live cameras at Brooks Falls captured the moments in 2024 when mother bear 128 Grazer ’s cub slipped over the waterfall and floated into the fishing spot occupied by Chunk, who attacked and injured the cub. Grazer fought Chunk, but the cub ultimately died. After the dramatic fight, voting fans handed Grazer a victory over Chunk.
Fat Bear Week was started in 2014 as an interactive way to inform the public about brown bears, the coastal cousins of grizzlies. They spend summers catching and eating as many salmon as possible so they can fatten up for hibernation in Alaska’s cold, lean winters.
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Attanasio reported from Seattle.
By MARY CLARE JALONICK, LISA MASCARO and STEPHEN GROVES Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Democrats have voted down a Republican bill to keep funding the government, putting it on a near certain path to a shutdown after midnight Wednesday for the first time in nearly seven years.
The Senate rejected the legislation as Democrats are making good on their threat to close the government if President Donald Trump and Republicans won’t accede to their health care demands. The 55-45 vote on a bill to extend federal funding for seven weeks fell short of the 60 needed to end a filibuster and pass the legislation.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Republicans are trying to “bully” Democrats by refusing to negotiate on an extension of expanded Affordable Care Act tax credits that expire at the end of the year.
“We hope they sit down with us and talk,” Schumer said after the vote. “Otherwise, it’s the Republicans will be driving us straight towards a shutdown tonight at midnight. The American people will blame them for bringing the federal government to a halt.”
The failure of Congress to keep the government open means that hundreds of thousands of federal workers could be furloughed or laid off. After the vote, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget issued a memo saying “affected agencies should now execute their plans for an orderly shutdown.”
Threatening retribution to Democrats, Trump said Tuesday that a shutdown could include “cutting vast numbers of people out, cutting things that they like, cutting programs that they like.”
Trump and his fellow Republicans said they won’t entertain any changes to the legislation, arguing that it’s a stripped-down, “clean” bill that should be noncontroversial. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said “we can reopen it tomorrow” if enough Democrats break party lines.
The last shutdown was in Trump’s first term, from December 2018 to January 2019, when he demanded that Congress give him money for his U.S.-Mexico border wall. Trump retreated after 35 days — the longest shutdown ever — amid intensifying airport delays and missed paydays for federal workers.
While partisan stalemates over government spending are a frequent occurrence in Washington, the current impasse comes as Democrats see a rare opportunity to use their leverage to achieve policy goals and as their base voters are spoiling for a fight with Trump. Republicans who hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate needed at least eight votes from Democrats after Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky opposed the bill.
Democratic Sens. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and Independent Sen. Angus King of Maine voted with Republicans to keep the government open — giving Republicans hope that there might be five more who will eventually come around and help end a shutdown.
After the vote, King warned against “permanent damage” as Trump and his administration have threatened mass layoffs.
“Instead of fighting Trump we’re actually empowering him, which is what finally drove my decision,” King said.
Thune predicted Democratic support for the GOP bill will increase “when they realize that this is playing a losing hand.”
The stakes are huge for federal workers across the country as the White House told agencies last week that they should consider “a reduction in force” for many federal programs if the government shuts down. That means that workers who are not deemed essential could be fired instead of just furloughed.
Either way, most would not get paid. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated in a letter to Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst on Tuesday that around 750,000 federal workers could be furloughed each day once a shutdown begins.
Federal agencies were already preparing. On the home page of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, a large pop up ad reads, “The Radical Left are going to shut down the government and inflict massive pain on the American people.”
Democrats want to negotiate an extension of the health subsidies immediately as people are beginning to receive notices of premium increases for the next year. Millions of people who purchase health insurance through the Affordable Care Act could face higher costs as expanded subsidies first put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic expire.
Democrats have also demanded that Republicans reverse the Medicaid cuts that were enacted as a part of Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” this summer and for the White House to promise it will not move to rescind spending passed by Congress.
“We are not going to support a partisan Republican spending bill that continues to gut the health care of everyday Americans,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said.
Thune pressed Democrats to vote for the funding bill and take up the debate on tax credits later. Some Republicans are open to extending the tax credits, but many are strongly opposed to it.
In rare, pointed back-and-forth with Schumer on the Senate floor Tuesday morning, Thune said Republicans “are happy to fix the ACA issue” and have offered to negotiate with Democrats — if they will vote to keep the government open until Nov. 21.
Democrats are in an uncomfortable position for a party that has long denounced shutdowns as pointless and destructive, and it’s unclear how or when a shutdown will end. But party activists and lawmakers have argued that Democrats need to do something to stand up to Trump.
“The level of appeasement that Trump demands never ends,” said Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt. “We’ve seen that with universities, with law firms, with prosecutors. So is there a point where you just have to stand up to him? I think there is.”
Some groups called for Schumer’s resignation in March after he and nine other Democrats voted to break a filibuster and allow a Republican-led funding bill to advance to a final vote.
Schumer said then that he voted to keep the government open because a shutdown would have made things worse as Trump’s administration was slashing government jobs. He says things have now changed, including the passage this summer of the massive GOP tax cut bill that reduced Medicaid.
A bipartisan meeting at the White House on Monday was Trump’s first with all four leaders in Congress since retaking the White House for his second term. Schumer said the group “had candid, frank discussions” about health care.
But Trump did not appear to be ready for serious talks. Hours later, he posted a fake video of Schumer and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries taken from footage of their real press conference outside of the White House after the meeting. In the altered video, a voiceover that sounds like Schumer’s voice makes fun of Democrats and Jeffries stands beside him with a cartoon sombrero and mustache. Mexican music plays in the background.
At a news conference on the Capitol steps Tuesday morning, Jeffries said it was a “racist and fake AI video.”
Schumer said that less than a day before a shutdown, Trump was trolling on the internet “like a 10-year-old.”
“It’s only the president who can do this,” Schumer said. “We know he runs the show here.”
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Associated Press writers Seung Min Kim, Kevin Freking, Matthew Brown, Darlene Superville and Joey Cappelletti in Washington contributed to this report.
By JEFF AMY Associated Press
ATLANTA (AP) — The wait continues for Georgia farmers who need more aid after Hurricane Helene, even as state and federal officials in other states announce agreements.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture and Georgia Agriculture Commissioner Tyler Harper on Tuesday announced Georgia farmers will receive $531 million, on the same day that federal and state officials announced $38 million in additional aid for South Carolina farmers.
But unlike in South Carolina, as well as earlier announcements in Florida, North Carolina and Virginia, Georgia’s aid amount wasn’t accompanied by a finalized agreement on how the state is going to hand out the block grant.
Matthew Agvent, a spokesperson for the Republican Harper, said Georgia officials are “ironing out administrative details in the agreement with USDA while we also finalize the state’s work plan.” He didn’t estimate when a final agreement might be signed. Agvent said Tuesday’s announcement is significant, though, because it means state and federal officials have agreed on how much money should be spent to provide aid to farmers for different kinds of crops. Agvent called that “the vast majority of the negotiation process.”
“This funding is absolutely essential to help our farm families bounce back from Hurricane Helene, and our team invested hundreds of hours into the negotiation process to secure the maximum possible amount of federal funding for our state and our producers,” Harper said in a statement, citing the “urgency of the situation.” U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said in her statement that aid was being delivered “in record time.”
Harper, a strong supporter of President Donald Trump, has been facing questions about when money would begin flowing around the anniversary of Helene’s Sept. 26, 2024, landfall. Georgia officials previously said they had hoped to finalize their agreement in May or June.
The delays are frustrating Georgia farmers, who have operated for a year without making up losses not covered by insurance or other assistance programs. Some farmers have dipped into savings to pay for losses. Others have unpaid debts from last year, and couldn’t borrow as much to plant 2025 crops. A few have sold equipment or land to generate cash. The financial stress comes as farmers face low prices for some crops even as the price of farming has risen.
Vann Wooten, a farmer in south Georgia’s Jefferson Davis County, told WJCL-TV last week that he’s stopped raising chickens and refocused on cattle and produce after the storm demolished his chicken houses, causing $2 million in damage. Georgia officials have said destruction to the state-leading poultry industry is one of the biggest targets for additional aid.
“We still haven’t gotten nothing. We still haven’t even got a word,“ Wooten, also a county commissioner, told the television station. “We got a promise. But nothing on paper.”
Delays came even though state and federal officials promised the process would move quickly, unlike after 2018’s Hurricane Michael, when assistance to farmers got held up because of a dispute between Trump and Democrats over additional aid for Puerto Rico. Then, Georgia officials didn’t start taking applications for grants until March 2020 after the October 2018 storm.
The September storm cut a swath from Florida’s Big Bend across eastern Georgia and upstate South Carolina before causing historic flooding in western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee.
Helene is the seventh-most expensive disaster in the United States since 1980, causing an estimated $78 billion in damage and 219 deaths.
Officials have estimated that Helene caused billions in property and economic damage to agriculture, including $5.5 billion in Georgia and $4.9 billion in North Carolina.
Federal agriculture officials have said they are working with 14 different states to negotiate block grants following a $100 billion package passed by Congress in December. In July, they announced completed agreements for $676 million in relief for Florida farmers covering losses from not only Helene but also Hurricanes Idalia, Debby and Milton. They also announced $61 million in relief for Virginia farmers that month. Earlier this month, they also announced a $221 million aid program for North Carolina. In all those cases, like with Tuesday’s South Carolina announcement, those included final deals on distribution.
By TOM MURPHY and MICHELLE L. PRICE Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Drugmaker Pfizer has agreed to lower drug costs under a deal struck with the Trump administration, President Donald Trump said Tuesday, as he promised similar deals with other drugmakers facing a threat of tariffs.
The announcement, which Trump made with Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla at the White House, came as the Republican president has for months sought to lower drug costs. It also came as Washington faced a federal government shutdown at midnight amid a standoff between Democrats and Republicans over health care and its costs.
Under the agreement, New York-based Pfizer will charge most-favored-nation pricing to Medicaid and guarantee that pricing on newly launched drugs, Trump said. That involves matching the lowest price offered in other developed nations.
“I can’t tell you how big this is,” the president said.
“I think,” Bourla said, “today we are turning the tide and we are reversing an unfair situation.”
Trump has been talking for months about the need to lower drug prices. In May, he issued an executive order that gave drugmakers 30 days to electively lower prices or face new limits on what the government will pay.
To persuade them to strike deals, Trump said he threatened to impose tariffs — a favorite tool of his to use as leverage across all areas of government — but that move could raise drug prices.
It’s unclear how the new policy will affect patients in Medicaid, the state and federally funded program for people with low incomes. They often pay a nominal co-payment of a few dollars to fill their prescriptions, but lower prices could help state budgets that fund the programs.
Lower drug prices also will help patients who have no insurance coverage and little leverage to negotiate better deals on what they pay.
“This is something that most people said was not doable,” Trump said Tuesday.
One thing that is not doable, however, was Trump’s repeated claim that it would cut drug prices by more than 100%, “14, 15, 1,600% reductions in some cases,” he said.
A 100% reduction would make the drugs free. Cuts greater than that would essentially mean people are paid to take the drugs.
Trump said he’s making deals with other drugmakers, and “they’re all coming in over the next week.”
Besides committing to lowering costs, Trump said, Pfizer agreed to spend $70 billion in domestic manufacturing facilities, becoming the latest in a string of major drugmakers to announce plans to build production in the United States.
The White House did not immediately release details about the investment, but Pfizer said in a statement that the outlay would be dedicated to U.S. research, development and capital projects in the next few years.
Trump, for months, has spoken of a need to boost U.S. drug manufacturing.
Consumers are not expected to start seeing lower prices under the deal until 2026, according to senior administration officials who were not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The administration is also working on setting up a website they plan to call TrumpRX that would allow people to buy drugs directly from manufacturers, the officials said. They did not have details about it but said it was expected to be set up early next year.
Pfizer Inc. is one of the largest U.S. drugmakers. It produces the COVID-19 vaccine Comirnaty and the treatment Paxlovid. Its products also include several cancer drugs, the blood thinner Eliquis and the pneumonia vaccine Prevnar.
Trump sent letters in late July to executives at 17 pharmaceutical companies about changes he would like to see. Copies of the letters posted on social media note that U.S. prices for brand-name drugs can be up to three times higher than averages elsewhere.
The letters called for drugmakers to commit by Monday to offering what Pfizer agreed to: most-favored-nation pricing to Medicaid and new medications.
Trump also asked drugmakers to offer the lower pricing levels for drugs sold directly to consumers and businesses.
Trump has claimed that the U.S., with its higher drug prices, subsidizes care in other countries.
Drugmakers in the past couple of years have started launching websites to connect customers directly with some products like Lilly’s obesity treatment Zepbound or the blood thinner Eliquis from Pfizer and Bristol-Myers Squibb. That comes as patients have grown more comfortable with receiving care virtually after the practice exploded in popularity during the coronavirus pandemic.
Drug prices for patients in the U.S. can depend on a number of factors, including the competition a treatment faces and insurance coverage. Most people have coverage through work, the individual insurance market or government programs like Medicaid and Medicare, which shield them from much of the cost.
While Trump was focusing on drug costs on Tuesday, Democrats were focused on reversing Medicaid cuts in the sweeping law he signed this summer.
They were pushing for that reversal to be included in a measure to fund the government in the short term, along with an extension of tax cuts that make health insurance premiums more affordable for people who purchase coverage through Affordable Care Act marketplaces.
Republicans have said they won’t negotiate.
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Murphy reported from Indianapolis.
By GARY D. ROBERTSON Associated Press
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A pair of northeastern North Carolina legislative districts can remain intact, a federal judge ruled Tuesday, rejecting Black voters’ claims that state Republicans illegally manipulated the boundaries to prevent them from electing their favored candidates.
Ruling after a trial held nearly eight months ago, U.S. District Judge James Dever sided with GOP legislative leaders who were sued in November 2023 over two state Senate districts in a statewide map the General Assembly approved weeks earlier.
The two plaintiffs — one of them now a Democratic state House member — argued that the lines violated Section 2 of the U.S. Voting Rights Act through race-based discrimination, and that the lawmakers should have created a majority-Black district instead.
The lines cover close to 20 counties that include a region known as the “Black Belt,” where the African American population is significant — reaching a majority in some counties — and politically cohesive. Last November, white Republicans were elected to the two district seats.
The partisan makeup of the Senate is critical for the prospects of both parties. Republicans currently hold 30 of the 50 seats — the minimum required for a veto-proof majority. Senate Democrats could uphold Gov. Josh Stein’s vetoes with one more seat.
In a 126-page order, Dever wrote that plaintiffs Moses Matthews and Rep. Rodney Pierce lacked standing to challenge one Senate district because neither lived in that district. Otherwise, he said, they failed to provide enough evidence to prove that the lines diluted Black voting power.
Dever said that Republican lawmakers did not have access to racial data in their mapping computers in part because North Carolina redistricting litigation during the 2010s determined that racially polarized voting in the state was not legally significant.
He noted that 2024 elections based on statewide House and Senate maps approved in 2023 resulted in African American candidates winning 38 of the 170 seats — a proportion in line with the state’s Black population, he wrote.
“This case does not involve the General Assembly engaging in race-based districting or the odious practice of sorting voters based on race,” Dever wrote, citing a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling. He said the case record demonstrates northeastern North Carolina communities include Black voting blocs that form coalitions with other racial and ethnic groups to elect their favored candidates.
“Black voters in northeast North Carolina and throughout North Carolina have elected candidates of their choice (both white and black) with remarkable frequency and success for decades,” wrote Dever, who was nominated to the bench by President George W. Bush. ”Plaintiffs ignore the progress that North Carolina has made over the past 60 years and seek to use Section 2 to sort voters by race in order to squeeze one more Democratic Senate district into the map.”
An attorney for Pierce and Matthews didn’t immediately respond Tuesday to an email seeking comment on the ruling, which could be appealed to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In 2024, both Dever and a 4th District panel declined to block the use of the two districts while the case went to trial.
Republican state Senate leader Phil Berger said on X that the court on Tuesday confirmed that the General Assembly “was right not to use race in its redistricting process” and that the Voting Rights Act “can’t be weaponized to make up for the shortcomings of the Democratic Party.”
The northeastern North Carolina Senate districts also are being challenged within a broader redistricting case that remains before a panel of three federal judges. The trial, which involved two lawsuits alleging racial gerrymandering in a handful of U.S. House and state Senate districts, concluded in July. No ruling has yet been entered. Candidate filing begins in December for General Assembly primary elections scheduled in March.
Kitty talks about the Foundation of Hope with the organization’s Associate Executive Director, Jennifer Gibson and the Marketing and Communications Director, Chris Boyd.
The 37th Annual Walk for Hope is October 12 from 9 a.m. – 2 p.m. at the Angus Barn.
This recipe is quick, easy, and delicious! It’s a great source of protein and goes well with apples, sweet potato, or even chips.
1. Combine ingredients
In a small bowl, mix the Greek yogurt, honey, cinnamon and vanilla extract together thoroughly. Add mini chocolate chips if you’d like.
2. Serve and enjoy!
Serve the dip cold with apple slices, sweet potatoes, granola, or any other dipper or topping of your choice.
A great pleasure in life is doing what others say you can’t.
By DÁNICA COTO Associated Press
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Authorities in the Bahamas closed most schools on Monday as Tropical Storm Imelda dropped heavy rain in the northern Caribbean, including over Cuba where two people died as a result of the storm.
The storm was located about 120 miles (190 kilometers) north of Great Abaco Island of the Bahamas, which is still recovering from Hurricane Dorian after it slammed into parts of the Bahamas as a devastating Category 5 hurricane in 2019.
Imelda had maximum sustained winds of 65 mph (100 kph) and was moving north at 9 mph (15 kph). It was forecast to become a hurricane on Tuesday morning and spin out to open ocean, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami.
A tropical storm warning was in effect for parts of the extreme northwestern Bahamas, including Great Abaco, Grand Bahama Island and the surrounding keys. Power outages were reported in some areas, with authorities closing government offices on affected islands and issuing mandatory evacuation orders for some islands over the weekend.
Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero said late Monday that two people died after Imelda impacted eastern Cuba. On his X account, Marrero said the two people died in Santiago de Cuba province, but he didn’t give any details.
Earlier, state media reported that 60-year-old Luis Mario Pérez Coiterio had died in Santiago de Cuba following landslides in that area.
In Santiago de Cuba, flooding and landslides cut off 17 communities, according to the official newspaper Granma. More than 24,000 people live in those communities.
In Guantánamo, another impacted province, more than 18,000 people have been evacuated, according to reports from the state-run Caribe television channel.
Imelda was expected to drop 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 centimeters) of rain across the northwest Bahamas through Tuesday, and 2 to 4 inches (5 to 10 centimeters) across eastern Cuba.
Meanwhile, Hurricane Humberto, a Category 4 storm, churned in open waters nearby, which forecasters said would cause Imelda to abruptly turn to the east-northeast, away from the southeastern United States coast.
“This is really what’s going to be saving the United States from really seeing catastrophic rainfall,” said Alex DaSilva, lead hurricane expert for AccuWeather, a private U.S. weather forecasting company.
DaSilva said the two storms would draw closer and start rotating counterclockwise around each other in what’s known as the Fujiwhara effect.
“It’s a very rare phenomenon overall in the Atlantic basin,” he said.
Humberto had maximum sustained winds of 140 mph (220 kph). It was located about 295 miles (475 kilometers) southwest of Bermuda, moving north-northwest at 13 mph (20 kph). A hurricane watch was in effect for Bermuda.
“This is going to be no threat to the United States,” DaSilva said.
Moisture from Imelda was expected to move up the Carolinas, with heavy rain forecast through Tuesday morning. The heaviest rains will be limited to the coastline, from Charleston in South Carolina to Wilmington in North Carolina, while Charlotte and Raleigh might receive only 1 to 2 inches (3 to 5 centimeters) of rain, he said.
The Carolinas might see wind gusts of 40 mph, but only along the coastline, DaSilva said, as he warned of dangerous surf and heavy rip currents all week.
South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster said authorities were prepositioning search and rescue crews over the weekend.
In North Carolina, Gov. Josh Stein declared a state of emergency even before Imelda formed, while authorities on Tybee Island off the coast of Georgia handed out free sandbags to residents.
Even though Imelda was not making landfall in Florida, its impact was still felt.
At the Loggerhead Marinelife Center in Juno Beach, crews found a couple of turtle hatchlings that rough surf had tossed ashore.
“We actually had two washbacks come in over the weekend,” said Justin Perrault, the center’s vice president of research. “We may get more as the day goes along.”
He said typically beachgoers will see a hatchling resting in the seaweed and call the center for help.
Farther south in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Carl Alexandre exercised at the beach on Monday. He said he was grateful the storm was not heading toward South Florida, but that he would pray for those in the Bahamas.
“It’s great that we’re not having one as of right now,” Alexandre said. “And now we get to run in the Florida sun.”
Authorities in Bermuda hoped neither of the two storms would be a direct hit later in the week, though they were forecast to, at least, come close, with Imelda possibly passing within 15 miles (24 kilometers) as the season’s soon-to-be fourth hurricane, Da Silva said.
“It’s going to be a double whammy for Bermuda, Humberto first and Imelda following close behind,” Da Silva said.
Michael Weeks, Bermuda’s national security minister, urged residents to prepare, warning that there have been “some near misses this season regarding severe storms.”
“Hurricane Humberto is a dangerous storm, and with another system developing to our south, every household in Bermuda should take the necessary steps to be prepared,” he said.
Flights to and from the islands in the Bahamas were canceled, with airports expected to reopen after weather conditions improve.
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Associated Press videographers Milexsy Durán in Havana, Cody Jackson in Juno Beach, Daniel Kozin in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and writer Jeff Martin in Atlanta contributed to this report.