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Your Florida Daily: Missing Daytona Beach teen found safe, manatees prompt 911 calls

Plus: How the Dry Tortugas got their name

Barbora Zdanska, 14 (Copyright 2023 by WKMG ClickOrlando - All rights reserved.)

A Volusia County teen has been found safe Tuesday, hours after the Florida Department of Law Enforcement issued an Amber Alert.

Investigators have not said where the teen was found.

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Police said Barbora Zdanska, 14, was seen getting into a blue minivan along Boynton Boulevard in Daytona Beach. Investigators said Zdanska later left a message with a relative saying she had been kidnapped.

That minivan was found in Clay County.

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It’s believed the van belongs to a boyfriend or one of his family members and Daytona Beach police tell News 6 “the owner of the van is being cooperative and admitted she drove to Daytona to pick the female up, but dropped her off at a house in Jacksonville.”

FILE - Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a visit to the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science on April 21, 2023, in Key Biscayne, Fla. Harris will be the first woman to deliver a commencement speech at a West Point graduation ceremony, White House officials said. Vice President Harris will deliver the keynote address on May 27 at the U.S. Military Academy for the Class of 2023. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell, File) (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

Vice President Kamala Harris is visiting Florida to speak at a religious convention in Orlando today.

Harris has been critical of the state’s new education standards for its African American History curriculum — specifically instruction that enslaved people were able to use specialized skills they learned like farming or carpentry for personal benefit once free.

Ahead of the Vice President’s second Florida visit in recent weeks, Gov. Ron DeSantis wrote a letter to Harris inviting her to talk about her criticisms of the new education standards.

State leaders have pushed back on the criticisms pointing out that the standards require that Florida schools teach about important historical black figures and match the curriculum of the College Board.

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FILE - A group of manatees are pictured in a canal where discharge from a nearby Florida Power & Light plant warms the water in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Dec. 28, 2010. Manatee deaths dropped in 2022 from a record high the year before, but Florida wildlife officials said Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2023, that chronic starvation caused by water pollution remains a major concern. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File) (Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

Please stop calling 911 over mating manatees.

That is the message from the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office in a video posted on social media.

After getting 911 calls from citizens who believed the manatees were in distress, the agency wants people to know they were actually mating.

Experts said manatees often mate in herds near the shore.

Keep in mind, it is illegal to touch a manatee and if you see a solo manatee that is in distress, you should contact FWC.

Random Florida Fact

The Dry Tortugas are remote islands west of the Florida Keys featuring one of the world’s largest coastal brick fortresses.

Juan Ponce de Leon first stumbled upon this stretch of islands in 1513.

The story goes Ponce de Leon survived by living off of the many sea turtles on the islands.

“Dry” was later added to the name to warn mariners of the lack of fresh water.

The Dry Tortugas was also the site of hundreds of shipwrecks and to this day, a collection of sunken treasures still lies beneath the waters.


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