just ahead. so many kids are going to prison. so many youth are losing their life. >> leaders say keeping kids out of trouble starting with keeping them employed. a new initiative for st. pete teens. i'm a free american, and i have absolutely every right to be out and about in my hometown. >> he's at the center of two major court cases now many just three years. what george zimmerman has to say about keeping a you're watching fox 13 and the 11:00 news starts now. let's get straight to it now. that news alert out of tampa. we've been following this for more than an hour. firefighters battle a fire that has gone to three alarms at a business there. this is at a strip mall at 40th and hillsborough avenue. 40th street and hillsborough avenue. haley hines has been on the scene for some time now. what can you tell us, haley, about how this firefight is

battling the fire, and they're still hard at work. tampa fire has two ladders up. they're spraying water down from ab above. they just upgraded it from two alarm to three alarm. it grew over the last couple of hours, when firefighters got here they found intense flames shooting from the northwest corner of big and deals supercenter. they found them shooting through the roof, and because this is a grocery store, it provided a lot of fuel for the fire. there's a surrounding the neighborhoods. in fact, if you drive up i-275, you might notice a haze as you approach the hillsborough avenue xit. no word yet on what started the fire, but the good news we're hearing, no one was hurt. >> we just called for a third alarm, so we have two additional units coming here on scene. the good thing is that we don't have any reports of anybody that's been injured, either firefighters or people inside the building. the building owner or the store manager has told us that all of

>> reporter: crews will be out here for some time. in the meantime, they blocked off part of hillsborough avenue in front of the building near 40th. drivers have to take a detour around the building, so if you're headed this way, you want to take note of that. again, just a massive effort out here tonight to try to put out the fire here at big and deals supercenter. it's unclear exactly what caused the fire, but it looks like crews are making some progress. we're not seeing so much of an orange glow over the smoke rising from the building. we keep you updated on the fight out here. good news is we're not hearing about any injuries. chris. >> that is good news. it looks like there's an apartment complex near that shopping center there kind of behind the center center. hopefully none of the smoke is carried by the wind over there and is not affects residents that live over there. >> reporter: it looks like the fire is contained just to this building at this point. if it spreads, we'll surely let

haley hines reporting to us live. thanks. a new effort to get kids into jobs and out of trouble. st. pete's been plagued by youth gun violence in the past. a local nonprofit is stepping up offering dozens of jobs to at-risk kids. more than 80 lined up to apply this year. crystal clark was there for them and talks about why this is a life-saving effort. 80 kids look for a job foent? >> that's righ the reports of teen shootings come in every single week. just today a teen was shot on 48th street south in st. pete. thankfully he survived, but many others do not. community leaders say the way to stop the violence is to give these teens a new outlet and a steady paycheck. one by one they filed in. anxiously waiting for their chance to make a good first impression. >> it's just the first job, so

fair came after months of applying online, only to get the same outcome. >> it's a long waiting process. basically we'll hit you in two weeks, and then basically they never hit me back up. >> for some of sims' peers their alternative to work has been the streets. gun violence claimed the lives of an 18-year-old in april and a 15-year-old in june. last year seven teens were killed. the st. pete police to find a way to curb the problem. >> they don't see hope. they don't see any way of funding themselves or supporting themselves outside of cri criminality. >> reporter: he hoed a job fair pairing up with mcdonald's to offer 50 positions on site. >> the parents and kids are excited. i remember getting my first job how excited i was. so to see the faces, to see the

unbelievable. >> reporter: his nonprofit, i support youth, registered 82 kids in advance of monday, even more showed up to interview on 22nd street south. >> there's like not a lot of places hiring at the moment, and this is helping a lot of teens. >> getting them employed is about much more than just money. >> outside of school, they have a responsibility now of a job, and to so the more responsibility the young person has, the more they stay out of trouble. >> for today, stevens says his group plans to help them find internships. st. pete police have launched their own initiatives like the not my son campaign as well as a mentorship program called men in the making. while it's hard to show these programs are working, since launching this summer they don't have new reports of teen deaths. cynthia. >> maybe that's a sign where we can hope at this point. thanks so much, crystal.

this morning rescue divers recovered the bodies of two young men from fort lauderdale that died in a cave diving accident. they explores a cave system in weeki wachee. those underwater caverns are a dark history. >> peacock and ritmeyer have previous cave diving experience while exploring the caverns on eeg's nest on sunday, they were supposed to ronald hour. it didn't happen. it took separate dives to find the bodies. when they found the bodies, they were close to each other some 260 feet below the surface in an area known as the pit. matt van zandt is another experienced cave diving being there many times. he said any number of things could have gone wrong. >> may have lost their line, may have loss visibility, may have

issues. we don't know at this point, but typically or more than likely it was a series of issues. >> reporter: signs warning of the dangers are posted around the dive area. isn't the early 80s there's been at least six deaths here. van zandt says he and other continue to explore, all it cautiously. >> i do it as a form of eco-tourism like backpacking or rock climbing or mountaineers. >> reporter: josh cascio, fox 13 news. >> that's very sad. i've really dangerous cave. well, this may not come as a big surprise, but nbc news announced today billy bush has been fired. >> they were talking last week like this was coming, and now it has. of course, this is fallout after that videotape surfaced in which bush and donald trump had a vulgar conversation about women. it was from 2005 when bush worked for "access hollywood." you could hear him laughing as trump talked about.

appearance of a young woman. after the video surfaced, bush said he was embarrassed and ashamed. he'd only been with "today" for two months. trump has yet to comment on the recent development, though he was busy campaigning in wisconsin where he's falling behind hillary clinton in the polls 7 points. that's according to the most recent clear politics poll. other new polls show trump slipping nationally. he's behind 8 points in washington poll. hillary clinton took a break from campaigning to get ready for wednesday night's debate, but now she's facing a new scandal. newly released fbi records suggest one of her aides try to strike a deal to reclassifying the e-mails and the bureau would get coveted responses overseas. she said she played no roles in declassifying e-mails.

pinellas county. they retook the lead in voter rej station as we're three weeks from election day. it goes back and forth, though. evan is in the newsroom to explain why suddenly pinellas is always so important. >> pinellas is a big parts of that. in the last four presidential elections, the candidate that wins pinellas county wins florida and then want presidency itself, right now the democrats have a slight lead in voter registration in 231,000 voters. democrats led in 2008 and 2012, but republicans lead in 2000 and 2004. so far the number of returned mail-in ballots for this election favors the demby by 2.5 points.

600,000 total voters and they have an edge of maybe a thousand or two, thousand registrations, it's really not significant. it's who you get to the polls. >> reporter: statewide the number of democrats to mail in ballots barely elisped the number of republicans each with 211,000. the last day to register to vote is tomorrow after democrats want a week-long extension from a hurricane matthew. now, early voting starts a week from today and ends on the sunday before election day itself, isn't ya. thanks so much for the update. if you're still undecided, the third and final presidential debate is this wednesday might and you can watch it right here on fox 13 starting at 9:00. >> if you are decided, you may want to see that, right? >> yeah. the mail-in votes have come in and some are already done.

unbelievable. there's a lot of outrage over the death of this bear that caught the nation's attention. >> he couldn't harm anyone or even to a garbage can. >> i hear a lot on my facebook page. how the death of this bear calmed petals because he walks on his heined legs could spark new legislation in his house. legal deja vu for

this is mike's office. if he doesn't show up, he doesn't get paid. too often marco rubio didn't show up and failed us when he did. i am patrick murphy. to get things done, you've got to show up. you've got to work together. whether it's protecting social security and women's health care or growing the economy, we've got to start solving problems instead of pointing fingers. i am patrick murphy and i approve this message

a news alert out of sara we have a news alert out of sarasota right now. police are looking for this missing teenager, and that is 17-year-old ail fred matthews. he was last seen around 5:00 this evening on north lockwood ridge road wearing a gray top with red stripes, jeans and black nike sneakers. he suffers from a medical condition. that's why they're so concerned. if you know anything about his whereabouts, you're urged to call police in sarasota. a big sentence handed down

kill george zimmerman received 20 years in prison. once again, the court system sided with the former neighborhood watchman, zimmerman and the courtroom where the sentencing took place was the same one where zimmerman was acquitted three years ago in the trayvon martin case. he spoke to fox about what it was all like. >> reporter: matthew eperson showed no emotion sentenced to 20 years behind bar. he was convicted of shooting as he drove. >> i want to thank god for sparing my life that day. >> his wife and mother went before the judge saying the jury got it all wrong. >> disgusting lies have prevailed in such a manner that truly have discouraged many my faith in the justice system. >> zimmerman said they got it right again. this is the same courtroom when he was acquitted. we caught up with him after

there, seeing them in hey different context and perspective and seeing the judge again from a different perspective. >> zimmerman didn't think the martin case would be center stage in this case. >> he stated that i shot trayvon has a money-making endeavor. again, that's grossly unacceptable. >> reporter: back in may zimmerman auctioned off the gun used in the shooting. he raised $250,000 and used it on pay off legal million. i have hard court costs in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. when mr. la faye and other may makes a big deal about $250,000, i'm still broke. they don't realize that. >> reporter: after two major cases will he keep a low profile. >> i have absolutely every right to be ut and about as a free american in my hometown with hi head held high without a mask

>> the judge ordered eperson to be held in jail during the appeals process. the big 12 is a big no for the university of south florida. commissioners announced today they will not expand the conference from the current ten members. back in august usf put together this promotional video right now hoping they would consider adding them. the league tossed around the idea of expands. they held schools, and in the end the league decided better off with no new members. they will focus on gert more money from the tv partners. scott smith will tell us how the school responds in a few minutes in sports. now, your skytower radar forecast with fox 13 chief meteorologist paul dellegado. >> paul: incredible fall colors from maine into the mountains of north carolina.

maine from pam williams. . that's pretty good, isn't it? across the border from main to new hampshir, brett woods fall foliage is a good ski resort in new england. beautiful colors with the stream in the foreground and shft white mountains of hmz in the background, all good stuff. today is not exactly fall-like. we hit 90, which is 6 degrees above the average of 84. not a record, 93 set in 1990 and the morning low is 71 degrees. no big change tomorrow. it's about now when we get the cool snap, because this is the average date in tampa, october 17th when the low drops below 60s. it hasn't happened yesterday and we're not even close, but i think it will happen the upcoming weekend, maybe sunday morning or monday morning. we may have a 58 or or 59 in

today it's more of the same. you can go back. go back to last sunday, and not yesterday but a week ago sunday, we had a northeast wind. this really has not changed at all. every single solitary day it's the same. ponce in a while we see some showers move across the peninsula during the day. we had a couple today in northern pinellas, southwestern pasco. they're long gone, and now we're just in the low to mid-70s across the board, and we watch also of pressure near the bahamas. decent chance this becomes either a subtropical storm or tropical storm the next couple of days. the good news is if it gets going, it won't go west towards us. it will go north and northeast. we talked about this possibility last week and something go here. it looks like here. it goes up the east coast and on

gets geg and spins this way. we see a northwest wind him it. if you want to get doled in the weather, it's because of big nor'easters going up the coast drags down the cold air. this type of year you have a trop kwal low off the cost, we get a northwest wind and drier air on the backside. that's my forecast thinking this week, drier and cooler behind a front. not cold, but a big drop in humidity and a big change in the early on saturday. mostly dry air with an ear to northeast wind. here comes the front in blue. it races south. all the brown indicates very dry air and obviously cooler air. that's the early look at the upcoming weekend, and what you see is what you get. we're down to 71. i see a mixture of clouds and sun and at least 87 tomorrow for a high. many spots are near 90.

the upper 80s and your forecast shows more mid to upper 80s and nighttime lows near 70. this presidential race has turned into one of the nastiest in history and a lot of voters are turned off across the aisle. tonight we continue our series

some sad news some sad news to report

not because of natural causes. he became an internet sensation this this video of him walking on his hind legs went wild. new jersey wildfire officers believe petals was killed in the state's recent bear had you not. >> they can't be sure because they don't have dna everything but they see a bear that looks like him. now his death has a lot of people wanting to change new jersey's hunting law. >> reporter: there's no upright walking bear waltzed into the hearts of many. >> he was a good soul and good guy. he walked right through the neighborhood. >> reporter: petals seen walking around this oak ridge, area. while he wasn't tagged, they believe he was killed during last week's hunt. >> he couldn't harm anyone or do any damage even to a garbage can. >> reporter: the department says the bear killed had

waum on all fours. he was one of the 487 bears kimmed during nnew jersey's five-day hunting season for black bears. >> petal was defenseless and taken down by a hunter for a trophy. >> reporter: the new jersey state senator started an online petition that received 10,000 signatures for a bill he proposed to ban bear hunting in the state for the next five years called petal's law. >> it resistant containers. when people throw trash out, that's what brings bears into neighborhoods. it will ban baiting. >> reporter: today the senate economic growth committee voted 3-2 to advance the measure. many who live in those neighborhoods, though, believe hunting is the only effective way to control the bear population. >> we'd be out with the kids in the yard, and one would scream bear. we have to gather them up and run to the deck because they come right through your yard no

practical way to protect one bear out of thousands, however, even hunting advocates say they wish it didn't have to be petals. >> now, florida's bear hunt is usually held this time of year. they had one last year. over the summer you may remember fish and wildlife commissioners voted to post tone it. they will meet again to consider to bring back the hunt next year in 2017. scott. as you heard earlier, the big 12 decided not to and get usf's thoughts on the matter next. the bucs hit the practice field today off the bye-week. it's number 18, louis murphy, is

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day at practice today. dirk koetter held a few guys out today, but we anticipate fewer names on the injury report later this week. we know more about the status of doug martin, mccoy and ayers later this week. murphy practiced for the first time in nearly a year. he came back from acl surgery, and has been on the physically unable to perform list since the start of training camp. the bucs have 21 days before that gives him time to get up to speed. murphy says he feels good. he admits he actually thought about retiring. >> i'd be lying if i said anything about retiring. it was really tough. i came in. anybody who came off acl, it's really tough. it tested me mentally and there are a couple of days when me and dutchy were in there going back and forth. he told me to push through.