think about the odds of that. >> and what a bond they will hav. >> and how thankful her family is. >> he thank thank you, guys. right now at 11:00 it's called operation hydro-hustlers. >> and our communities cannot tolerate this type of criminal behavior. >> 22 people arrests with high-end items, how deputies managed to pull it off. >> i'm not interested in being politically correct. i'm interested in being correct. >> do or die for mar marco rubio, but will it be enough. and why this suspect was trying to get away from deputies. >> we begin at 11:00 with a

hillsborough county. deputies seized hundreds of pounds of weed and arrested two dozen people accused or growing it, and now we are hearing this these were cuban drug traffickers here... legally? illegally. >> one of them has only been here a month but came here from cuba to join that drug operation, but the majority of the grow houses sat in ordinary unsuspecting homes that could have been in your neighborhood. >> they were hiding in plain sight, cuban drug dealers transformed ten homes into marijuana grow houses. >> the houses were often rented by individuals at the direction of a particular drug trafficking leader. >> that was 22-year-old

immigrants to harvest and even had electricians on the payroll to grow hydroponic weed. >> the levels of the thc in this marijuana is very, very high. >> and it goes for high dollars, costing much more than your average weed, deputies seized more than 2 million worth of plants and along with them 21 cars and boat owned by drug drivers, ranging from a mer he mercedes to a maserati. >> now they belong to hillsborough county. >> our communities cannot tolerate this type of criminal behavior. >> it's a felony with a maximum of 30 years in prison. 22 people were arrested but five are still wanted. >> to all of those that are involved, we will see you in a

process play out on each case. >> to take had sure those arrested don't flee back to cuba, bond was set high. and to leave jail they would have to prove that the funds for the bond are coming from a lijts source and legitimate source and not from drug money. >> all right, crystal, it is quite the busy night in politics. from the gop debate to a rally in ybor and one at the fair grounds for hillary clinton and bernie sanders. we begin first with the debate, and our political editor craig patrick watched it closely. a different tone? >> my goodness yes. this was a far more civilized

i think the candidates realized that the back and forth of insults was not doing them any gd good nor was it helping their party and points tonight for donald trump, also a very, very good night for mar marco rubio because they stopped rolling in the mud with the juvenile insults. rubio was very disciplined and on point, but overall this is a debate that focused on policy. i think one of the biggest moments of the debate was rubio's retort when asked whether we should hit the breaks braiks with brakeswith record to our relationship with cuba. >> here is a thought, they stop putting people in jail for speaking out and they kick out the russians and the chinese and they take all of the fiewj fugitives

the cop killer from new jersey and send her back to the united states and to jail where they belongs and then we can have a relationship with crew about a. >> could cuba.>> so you are seeing a very strong performance from rubio, but the challenge he has is the distance that he is behind in florida and a lot of the vote is already in and so he can't move the needle much regardless of what happens. >> so in terms of the viewers what do you think they will remember and take away? >> i think they will remember it for its lack of memorable moments. you don't have the snide remarks and the roman coliseum-style crowd, and props to florida for having that kind of a civilized debate. many of the scenes that launched a lot of these candidates national stars and there were also interesting which changes

as you would expect all of the gop candidates criticized the washington top-down common core, but trump went a different direction, and he used it to carson. watch this. >> common core is a disaster and if i'm elected president in the first days as president, i will direct the department of that day. >> i was with dr. ben carson today who is endorsing me by the way, tomorrow morning and we were talking and we spoke for over an hour on education and he has such a great handle on it. he wants competitive schools and wants a lot of different things. >> and springing forward to tomorrow, ben carson will speak out on donald trump's behalf follows several others who have

and he entered this debate saying look presidential, be presidential and he did not take the bait when his rivals tries. >> and the democratic presidential candidates toured the campus today. bernie sanders was at the state fair grounds trying to score another upset, and our evan axelbank is life out there. >> he made no bones about predicting another win. he says that momentum is building and insteed there were 9,000 people here to see the man who says he is leading a revolution in american politics. here is bernie sanders on stage at the expo center at the state fair grounds and of course he hammered on all of his usual

politics and student loans, immigration and in michigan he won there, and he says it's repeating itself in florida. he acknowledged the large poll deficit as he had in michigan and that he is going up against a sizable clinton machine but he says a large-turn-out will deliver the state for him. clinton tried to sharpen her economic message about the port of tampa and the i-4 corridor to cite a couple of examples but first here is bernie. >> the reason there is so much momentum for this campaign is that we are doing something pretty radical in american politics; we are telling the truth. >> one of the reasons i wanted to come to familiar today was to

need a president and frankly a governor who want to help you create those jobs. >> and so hillary clinton throwing some red meat to the party faithful there in ybor city. the clinton campaign also holds an ad vantage in delegates but a good shows on tuesday would give him a rationale to stay in the race but an argument that he is getting stronger over time. he cited a poll that showed him beating donald trump in the general election by nearly 20 points and that is a part of the argument that he is bringing to the state of florida in hopes of a good shows on tuesday and indeed his main aim for tuesday is a good turn-out. >> all of the actions leading up to next tuesday's florida primary, also voting that day, illinois, missouri, north

that is another winner take all state. a big vote there. now, the other story we are following a 3-year-old one of two people shot on a porch in a south st. pete drive-by. it happened today at about 2:00, and the little girl was hit in the stomach, a 23-year-old was the or person shot, but the shooting of that 3-year-old enraged city leaders some of whom showed up at the scene and declared enough is enough. >> city government can't do it alone, the whole community had to work together and we have to say with one loud voice that we have had enough, no more gun violence. >> police are looking for a white dodge challenger. no word on the child's condition except that the wound is thought to be nonlife threatening.

leave a special needs stiewpt student asleep on the bus. >> what were you thinking? the attendant walked right by him. >> what they did, not once, but twice. plus... >> oh my gosh! >> pretty scary, police are speeding down the polk county road. who they were after when we come back, and mike you said another one like today? >> yeah, and in fact we could go

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>> high-speed chase, i am not freaking kidding. here it comes, here it comes -- >> there it goes. a wild chase in polk city, the guy in the pickup truck took dep 'tis deputies on a 14-mile chase, and when deputies got there, the

to go back to jail and he took off. at one point during the chase he drove through a pasture. there he is, doing dowg nuts doing doughnuts in the pasture and wrashed crashed into a car that was pulled over to let police go by, and four people in the car were not hurt. this is his photo, tad whitworth charges. he was out of jail on -- 34th avenue north and st. pete. deputies arrested the driver and passenger who ad one point trying to get out of the car and

well, a bus driver and her assistant are charged with neglect after leaving a special needs students on a bus alone, not once, but twice. >> sheriff grady judd says both women did not check the bus so see if anyone was left behind and they had a child disarm an alarm that was supposed to remind them to do so. the 13-year-old fell around on his bus ride, and the driver, 51-year-old gale brown and 57-year-old gwendolyn simmons never noticed he didn't get off the bus at school. and they parked the bus and left leaving him to climb out the emergency exit and hitchhike nearly 30 miles home. he told the attendant the next day they had left him but she

and so it happened again, when mom found out she called deputies. >> the attend president attendant walked right by him. when two people ignore all of the rules there is not a lot we can do, other than put them in jail, and we did that. >> the driver and attendant will likely both be fired. >> and a lot of people are loving this weather and they are more. >> we'll have to dodge some showers here and there, but first i want to show you the time lapse view from today and what a view it was. all day long, in and out of sun and clouds, with a little bit of a breeze to keep us feeling at least a little bit cooler. we'll have a little bit less of a breeze tomorrow but still the same mix of sun and clouds, and

time of year. daylight savings time begins. we loss an hour and but we gain it on the backside, and be sure to set your clocks before you go to bed saturday night, and before you know it, the sun is going to set after 8:00. we are nearing the 90 degree mark for highs. look at the highs across the country because it was not just us dealing with the 80's. d.c. was 80 and albany new york at 81 degrees. the average high in al brean alabama alabama about a al about a albany thistime of year, we are still in winter for a few more days but i

out there. the dupt is 61, winds out of the east-southeast, and to the north, 67 in wiki weeki wachee. and 67 in frost proof and 68 out in wauchula. we've been talking about all of this intense rain across louisiana, on into mississippi and now making its way toward alabama and georgia as well and it just continues, you don't see an end in sight, and you see more rain gathering off shore and you switch to the water vapor loop and there is just so much moisture in the air. we call this an atmospheric river, and it's streaming in and hen

flow into mexico and this is so rare that they saw snow across portions of a had guadalajara,and that is rare to see, the last time was 1997. and so it's been a while since we have seen a cut-off low e and that is what is aiding aiding all of this flooding. by the time they move east it looses that moist connection it has right now and so by sunday when we see the showers and storms there could be a few heavy downpours but for the most part we are just look at scattered shower activity. starting at the coast and moving eastward, similar to what we see time. and once again, mid to upper 80's.

fairly humid, mid 80's tomorrow and therefrom is the there is the rain threat. 80 on monday and hanging around the 80-degree mark heading towards monday of next week. >> coming up could it be an on-going solution to end the transportation fight, what lawmakers are trying to wendy hates dirty lawn furniture. that' s why she uses scotts outdoor cleaner plus oxi-clean. it cleans all of wendy' s lawn furniture without damaging any of wendy' s lawn.

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pef we >> we have an update on ride share services and local regulators. with just a day left, lawmakers would vote on this. and the transportation commission said it would start ierk issuingtickets to drivers but then we learned that lawmaker put a proposal on the table requiring background checks and insurance and the senate could vote on them as early as tomorrow. and if you have beach plans you will want to know about this. dredging is already happening on turtle beach, it will stretch for two miles down the beach to restore what mother nature washed away. >> over the past year there have been a number of storms that pounded on the beach.

just drops off, and they have to wrap it up before turtle nesting season, and if they are still working out there, the marine lab will monitor the area for seaturtles who may start nesting early. >> and mayor clint johnson of dubarry went out to test a homemade raft that he is planning to to take to cuba, one of his oars broke, and he says it's no big deal, it's a proto type, and supporters are urging him to reconsider but he says that is not going happen. >> what could stop you? >> i'm doing this trip and when i put my any kind something i don't give up until i achieve

>> he says it's doing it to raise awareness for what cuban refugees experienced. and crews are preparing for the upcoming rolling stones concert. the band announced they will expand their crew tour to include havana. now that the relationships between could you with a and cuba and the united states is thawing, the sensorship rules are changing.

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>> it's a big weekend in st. pete as the indy car series kicked off, 1 preponderate pntd .78 1.8 miles of bone rattling racing and i got to experience it myself, with mario andretti. take a look at my day at the track. >> iep so i'm hopping in with you today, i feel like i'm in good hands. >> you are in good hands. >> any advice? >> just sit back and relax. >> how fast are you going to take me today?