Aaaaaannddd, they’re OFF!  That is the declaration that hasn’t been heard at historic Hialeah Park since 2001, when the track shut down.  But Hialeah, Florida’s lush and tropical landmark is about to reopen.   Thanksgiving weekend will see a return of horses and gamblers in the stands, which needed all kinds of work to get back into shape.  150 construction workers have been installing the plumbing, painting, and electrically wiring this place in double shifts to make the deadline.  That’s a lot of sweat — literally.  It’s still 85 degrees in South Florida, and Hialeah is a couple dozen miles from the beach, so, no ocean breeze like you get in Miami Beach to cool you down a notch.  Out in the center of the track, there’s a flash of pink that the horses will be sprinting by.  It’s a flock of pink flamingos, and as local lore has it, they’re the descendents of the pink flamingos made famous in the opening of the hit 80s tv show Miami Vice.  Crocket and Tubbs are long gone, but the developers of Hialeah Parks reopening can already sense the return of the good times.  And this place does look spiffy, freshly painted and polished.  And in front of the main entrance, little kids will learn the history here.  A big statue of Citation, the triple crown winner who raced here on its way to becoming a horse racing legend, will welcome all spectators on their way in.

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Hurricane Ida, which in a span of about 24 hours broke apart from a Cat 2 hurricane to a Tropical Storm to a Tropical Depression, is now less of a wind event, and all about the rain.  Flash flood warnings are in effect all up through the South,  from Alabama north to Virginia and beyond.

Being based in Miami, I tend to cover a lot of these type of stories, as Florida gets hit by a lot of the hurricanes and tropical storms that strike the US.  The days are long, wet, and dreary, typically.  In hurricanes, even worse:  no power, sometimes for 100 miles in all directions.

Not the case with Ida.  Really a “boring” storm, from our point of view.  Not even all that much rain where we were positioned, at Ft. Walton Beach, Florida.  But the Atlanta-area is expecting more than 4 inches of rain.

Stay tuned to Fox News Channel for the latest on Ida!

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4 years in the making, yet the NASA rocket scientists will have to wait at least 1 more day.  A freighter in the danger zone and chronic unfavorable weather forced NASA’s Ares 1 X launch director to scrub the launch attempt Tuesday.    For 4 hours, mission managers went through delay after delay.  First it was too many clouds.  NASA has a triboelectrification flight rule, which means if there are clouds between 22,000 and 72,000 feet, through which the Ares 1 X rocket would fly, that could create electricity which could then strike the rocket and ruin the test flight.  After that, there was a short delay as a sensor cover was removed from the tip of the 327-foot tall rocket, but got stuck.  Once that fell out of the way, the weather again looked good—green for go-launch—but then a cargo ship entered the danger zone east of the launch pad.  By the time the ship’s pilot was contacted and turned around out of the way, the weather soured again.  And then winds violated the “no winds within 10 nautical miles of the launch pad that exceed 20 miles an hour” rule.

By 11:30 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, after 3 ½ hours of excitement and anticipation, the highly anticipated test flight was scrubbed for the day.

This flight is more than 4 years and $3 billion in development.  It’s the first test flight of the new Constellation space flight system that will replace the current space shuttle program once it’s retired, currently scheduled for 2010. The flight plan is for a short flight, just about 6 minutes from liftoff to splashdown.  The first  2 minutes are the crucial ones, where sensors on board the world’s tallest rocket will record vibration, thermal and aerodynamic data to help in the final design of the Ares 1 rocket.   The next launch attempt will be Wednesday at 8a.m. Eastern time at the soonest.

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The search for a 7 year old missing North Florida girl has now turned into the search for a child killer.  Somer Thompson disappeared Monday afternoon in Orange Park, Florida as she was walking the mile home from elementary school with her twin brother, 10 year old sister and several friends.  At some point, they noticed Somer was missing.  Almost 2 days to the hour from that moment, investigators at a Georgia landfill discovered two small legs protruding from the trash heap.

Clay County Sheriff Rick Beseler identified the body this morning as Somer Thompson, due to a distinct birthmark Somer had on her leg as well as the clothing Somer’s mother said she wore to school Monday.   A Georgia medical examiner began the autopsy in Savannah, Georgia this morning, to determine the exact cause of death, try to discover any DNA other than Somer’s on the body and also use dental records to officially declare the body found in the landfill is that of the missing 7 year old.

Investigators from a dozen local, state and federal agencies are now involved in the hunt for Somer Thompson’s killer.

Stay tuned to Fox News Channel for the latest in this story.

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The buzz saw is spinning, just not all day long. At Shell Lumber in Miami, the whiff in the air isn’t just the sawdust; it’s also about business starting to regain some traction. Shell is a construction supply depot, selling anything and everything you would need to build a home, remodel a kitchen or just turn an old house into a modernized marvel.

Back in ’05 and ’06, when new homes and condo towers were being built all up and down south Florida, this place would have a line of pickup trucks waiting for the store to open every morning at 5:30 a.m. That’s not the case these days, but owner Adam Haase says, optimistically, perhaps the swing of the economic pendulum is heading back up towards good times again.

In the past week, he’s hired 3 new employees to work the floor, helping customers who are coming in to buy the supplies for new projects and new contracts. Sales are happening, he says, just not the high-end sales, like the expensive Brazilian lumber for Amozonesque backyard decks.

“People are opening their wallets, but they’re not emptying their wallets,” he says. But the more business he gets at Shell Lumber, he says that’s a direct link to what’s happening in the construction economy at large. This, on a day when Florida’s Labor Department just announced that the Sunshine State’s unemployment level has now hit 11%, the highest since 1975.

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This is Phil Keating on the scene in Tampa, Florida today for the highly anticipated “face the media” news conference with New York Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez, the highest paid player in Major League Baseball history.  More than 200 representatives from the media showed up at George Steinbrenner Field, where the Yankees hold spring training, which is now underway.  A-Rod, a three-time American League MVP and A.L. leader in home-runs during the three seasons he was at the Texas Rangers, ’01, ’02, ’03.  As it turns out, these were years that he was juicing.  Sports Illustrated broke the story earlier this month that in 2003, he’d tested positive for testosterone and Primobolan, both currently banned by the league but not specifically at that time.

A-Rod confessed he and his cousin injected the steroids about two times a month, for 6 months during those three years.  He blames it in curiosity, immaturity and a desire to have more energy, under the pressure of having signed a 250-million dollar contract with the Rangers.

He says he’s sorry and that he will now participate in doing a nationwide anti-steroids campaign.  During his opening statement, he got to the very end where he said “and to my teammates…,” and as he looked over to the teammates gathered there in support, A-Rod clearly became almost overwhelmed and on the verge of tears.  He bit his lip.  He sat back.  He breathed.  He looked at the packed tent.  And, 37 absolutely silent seconds later, he leaned back up to the mic and said “….thank you.”

The day here, opening for Spring Training, absolutely gorgeous.  Cloudless skies, 74 degrees.  I think I am a little bit sunburned.  Life is good when you work out of the Miami Bureau!!

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