not getting the most money. good evening i'm jennifer leigh. >> i'm keith cate. thank you for joining us tonight. we begin with breaking news. several hurt in a school bus crash. we're told 35 students from seven springs middle school were on board the school bus. the county sheriff's office is telling us that several were hurt but the injuries were minor. the scene is now clear. trinity road and little road are back open. >> an armed mass bandit is on the lose. he may be behind as many as six hold ups striking in the dark of night. terrorizing convenience store clerks during his robbery spree. peter bernard joins us now live with the latest on this. >> reporter: good evening jen, this is one of four stores in pinellas county who have been hit over the past 4-1/2 months. all the crimes caught on camera. so cops are hoping you can help catch them. his mo is the statement every time. he b lines for the clerk.

this is the third time he's robbed this senoco station on 76th avenue north in petersburg. for the first time since the robbery, i showed john zachary the video and he explained how it all went down. >> he was telling me, just give me all the money. i was looking for the money. i just told him i didn't care for the money or anything. i just said to get what he wants and leave. >> reporter: but he didn't leave. at least not right away. with the camera recording he took cash from the register,. >> i didn't give him the money, he's going to shoot me. so it's not worth it. >> reporter: later he scooped new port cigarettes and heads to the door where a coin game sits.

quarters. waiting to rob. expect. you don't know his intentions. you're just here taking care of the store and the customers and your life comes in jeopardy. i don't get it. >> reporter: that clerk now worries that anyone who comes behind him, is going to try to rob him. so he's quitting and moving away. >> you see this robber with a hoodie and bandana.

>> reporter: yeah, but that hoodie is very distinctive. it has a checkered design. about it. one recruit all but gave away the cheating scandal when she answered the or -- oral part of the exam like if she had it memorized. a man was charged for two murders. dwayne commings was charged with kidnapping. he's now accused of killing finland.

jaimeson winston will be getting a check from the university and her attorneys will be getting a much bigger check. >> reporter: she gets $250,000, her attorneys, get $750,000. this legal problem has been following him around since before he was a starting quarterback at fsu. erica kenson claims winston aped her while they were both students. she sued florida state university saying the university did not immediately investigate and tried to cover up the case. school and was denied an education. federal prosecutor john fitzgimit is not involved in the case but believes the settlement was just a business decision for fsu. or companies will pay money because they have a lot of

just not worth it to them to spend a bunch more money then ultimately you never know what might happen at a trial. >> reporter: yeah, this lawsuit does not impact kinsman's civil lawsuit against winston or his counter lawsuit against her. back to you guys. >> and again 700,000 for the attorneys in this deal, huh jeff. >> yeah, that's a lot. >> jeff patterson live in tampa. thank you. it's a case of a cockatoo caper. the bird was swiped and now sound. you, jen. this all started friday when a creepy customer stole hector who's right next to me here right out of his habitat.

osowski did a story on this case. a detective broke that case because of that channel 8 viewer who saw chip's story. this surveillance video shows the man detectives believe threw hector into his backpack. a few minutes later he dances his way out of the store. >> we think that's why the dancing jig was going on. for him to kind of drown out the noises of the bird squacking from the bag. >> a woman said that she saw the story on your station, and was alerted to it because she had been given the bird to babysit over the weekend. >> reporter: today we did our own investigation and traveled to see the store.

>> no she did not. >> she did not. >> reporter: a short while later, hector was home. >> here's your mama. >> hi, hi, did you miss us. >> reporter: you bet he did. >> this is amazing. hi, can you say hello to the cameras. everyone was hoping that you would have a safe recovery. >> reporter: store manager kennedy hand fed hector back when he was a baby. the story. you guys are amazing. we're so -p happy. i have not slept his friday -- >> if hector would say what do you think he would say? >> he would say i'm so happy to be home. right. >> reporter: at the moment, hector is having quite a fun time trying to bite the button from his shirt. unless this guy can grow wings and fly away, he's going to be

grand theft charge for stealing hector who's worth $2,100. >> i understand that there's a lot of friendly contact between the pets and customers at pet land. is that going to have to change. >> reporter: no manager don't want to change that. customers and the staff love to interact with the animals. but they say when sketchy people come in, they're going to pay closer attention. still ahead tonight. it is a ground breaking policy but does it belong in more bay area schools. >> what the state has agreed to

smoking is what caused facility. one person died, two others were hurt.

sprinkler system that's because the building was built before before it was required. crews took to the water to continue clean up from last week's tornado. the county dispatched 20 boats to pull out the debris and damage that was scattered throughout the intercoastal water way. the debris can be harmful to boats and the eco system. that clean up work is expected to last for at least the next couple of days. an effort by students to make a transgender bathroom policy will now be looked at

today supporters called on the school district to help them make the change. and a look into a shady trucking instructor. and what the state is willing to do to help hundreds of drivers now left without licenses. in this line of work only the freshest ingredients make the cut it's important to

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a shady

busted for taking bribes and giving licenses to those who did not deserve them. these drivers did nothing wrong they just had a shady examiner. >> now they have to pay thousands of dollars to get their licenses back. investigators shannon behnken joins us and you got some results. >> reporter: at first state inspectors did not want to help these truck drivers. their answer boiled down to too bad. by i kept pushing for these drivers who found this to be a hit to their livelihood. >> all the time and effort involved and the money and everything. >> reporter: truck drivers pay thousands of dollars and a lot of time.

who charged people to pass truckers who could not pass the test on their own. but now everyone who was tested by the same guy have to pay. >> money i'm still paying on the first time already. a lot of these guys are. >> reporter: the test cost roughly $300. extra money truckers like lee don't have. >> it's very difficult to live out here on this road. you have to think, you have to pay for three meals a day, all your drinks and everything else out of your pocket that cuts it down pretty quick. >> reporter: jose perez is caught up on this mess. he got a legitimate score but it happened to be administered by that crooked tester. >> i did my part. i feel like i should be able to keep my license.

taking the test again, but thinks someone else should pay for it. why won't the state step in and help them out with that money. >> at first they simply told us too bad. >> most of these folks did absolutely nothing wrong. >> this seems ridiculous. >> reporter: guess what, after seeing our story the state had a change of heart. now they're offering to help on a case by case basis which is good news for truckers. >> this does not mean that the state will waive fees for everyone. but they are willing to consider those who can afford this on their own since it's clear these folks didn't do anything to cause this. many of these people need to go

think if you have to do your driver's test, or written test all over again. a cool and quiet evening across the tampa area. here's a live look at tampa beach. sun. overnight hours tonight it's not going to be as cold as last night was. the temperatures slowly falling back. by the time you wake up tomorrow morning we're going to be dealing with temperatures 50s. some areas will be able to fall back into the 40s. this warm up not going to last too long. but enjoy it while it does last because as we head into tomorrow afternoon, we will likely make it back up into the mid-70s. expect partly to mostly sunny skies through the day. we're looking at warm conditions for tomorrow.

next storm system. there's the cold front we're tracking. you can see not a ton of rain along it right now. but we're looking at an area of low pressure that starts to develop in the gulf. currently under the spear of influence of this high pressure is going to keep things warm through at least tomorrow. there's the warm front as we continue to push east. you can see it stays pretty quiet in florida. as he head into wednesday, as this front sinks further south. i will take a closer look and show you through the evening. just a few clouds around. you want a light jacket. not as heavy a jacket as this morning. you will see temperatures reaching back into the 70s.

layers as we warm up quite quickly. by wednesday morning that's when the cold front approaches. we're expecting these to continue through the day. so on and off showers the potential to see some strong maybe even an isolated severe storm on wednesday. we're looking at a widespread one to 2-inches of rain with this system. could see isolated amounts higher than that. so wednesday really looking like a wash out. but too often by an 80% chance of rain. that's because we're expecting pretty much everyone to see rain and to see it for the biggest period of the day. by thursday this system starts to move out. expect a few lingering storms by tuesday morning. as the invasion begins temperatures in the low 60s at 11:30 by 2:00 p.m. we're topping out in the upper 60s. looking at a great weekend ahead. we do have those very high rain

wednesday. keep the umbrella handy wednesday. stay alert as we can see a few strong storms as well. but this system will clear out as we head into late in the day on thursday. then as we head into friday, saturday and sunday of next week temperatures will begin to warm back up slowly. >> all right, thank you julie. >> thank you very much. coming up in sports, the carolina panthers begin the super bowl build up as the favorite. >> don't rule out peyton. >> steven stankos not too happy about information going public

well the past couple of weeks america finally caught on to what nfc south teams found out this season. carolina panthers they are a dominating football team. young for sure, but the super

sunday night, the panthers were an instant 3-1/2 favorite to beat the broncos. the hard part is to actually win the game. listen to the panthers head coach ron rivera today. that work is already on the way and the broncos they're not taking a break either. >> they deserve it. we all have to remember what the focus is and that's to win. it's not about getting there. it's about winning it. >> we're going to work. we're not going to wait on anything. the fact we've had two weeks, our preparation how we do things as coaches is going to stay committed to our routine that we've had since the beginning of the year. >> feeling good now to say congratulations.

this is probowl number seven for menkins. and cutter committed maxi as the new coach. the lightning will attempt to become the new -- they finally have something. over the weekend they reported an eight year deal by the lightning for $68 million surfaced. not too thrilled about the attention nor the speculation on those terms. >> things come out that were said, some things are true. some are not. i think because there's been a -- for something to come out people were surprised maybe. but whether it was true or not. lots of people have said things

and some people said things that are true. you're going to have to make a story when there's not much action going on. a lot of stuff we talked about is obviously going to stay internal. >> it's just keeps growing and growing. >> was that basically don't believe everything you hear. >> i think he's keeping it real. i don't like those numbers by the way. they're not signing him for those numbers. >> thank you. before we go we have breaking news to share with you. this is where a person was transported to the hospital after being hit by a train. eagle hd is over the scene. this is on snell point road on interstate street in ruskin. fire rescue tells us that the adult victim was transported to the hospital as a trauma alert. we're going to bring you more information coming up on 8 at 7:00 with jen leigh.

>> thank you for for joining >> thank you for for joining us. >> we'll see you back here

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