Kairi Lowery/Fresh Take Florida

Three hundred and fifty-eight. That’s how many times Akil P. Patel, Florida’s luckiest lottery player, beat the odds and cashed in a scratch-off ticket of at least $600 since 2015. To expect to win that many times, Patel would need to buy enough tickets to stack – like a deck of cards – from the ground past the top of New York City’s One World Trade Center, nearly 1,800 feet up.

A University of Florida senior accused of spitting on a campus police officer while his classmates were being arrested during pro-Palestinian protests accepted a plea deal Wednesday that lets him avoid any time behind bars.

Florida counties are continuing to update orders for their residents to evacuate ahead of Hurricane Helene.Counties that have issued emergency mandatory evacuations for all their residents include Franklin, Taylor and Wakulla counties in the Big Bend region. Those counties include more than 72,000 people.Other counties have issued area-specific mandatory evacuations, according to Florida’s Division of Emergency Management.