Commercial Truck Insurance in Fort Lauderdale, FL

With NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman on hand, the Florida Panthers on Wednesday cut the ribbon on their long-awaited downtown Fort Lauderdale practice facility, Baptist Health IcePlex, a family-oriented centerpiece of the renovation of War Memorial Auditorium in Holiday Park.

The new $65 million venue includes two NHL-quality ice rinks: One is for team practices, many of which will be open to the public; the other is dedicated to public skating, youth and adult club hockey, and skating instruction. The first sessions of public skating begin on Thursday afternoon.

Bettman called Baptist Health IcePlex “a magnificent facility.”

“One of the things the NHL prides itself on is, are teams making a difference in the lives of the people in the communities in which they play. I don’t think there can be any better example than what we’re looking at here,” Bettman said.

Wednesday’s ceremonies came nearly three years after the 2021 groundbreaking and included a parade of team officials, city and county politicians, and other civic leaders. The Panthers were represented by Michael Viola, son of owner Vincent Viola, president and CEO Matt Caldwell and general manager Bill Zito, among others.

Also in attendance were Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis, former Mayor Jack Seiler, County Commissioner Robert McKinzie and District 2 City Commissioner Steve Glassman, who went to high school with Bettman on Long Island, N.Y.

Trantalis called the venue a “shining example” of what public-private partnerships can create. The project began in 2019, he said, when the City Commission voted to invest $800,000 to improve the War Memorial Auditorium, now nearly 75 years old.

“This project is not just about restoring a building, it’s also about transforming our community overall, creating a vibrant destination for sports, entertainment and recreation,” Trantalis said.

The next phase of the project will include a second-story restaurant, The Federal, which is scheduled to open in April. The Federal will be operated by Knallhart Management Group, which runs several popular downtown restaurants and bars, including Holly Blue, Rhythm & Vine, The Wilder, Roxanne’s Liquor Bar & Kitchen and, soon, The Shorely at the Bahia Mar on Fort Lauderdale beach.

The property also will feature a major music venue in the renovated War Memorial Auditorium, with acts booked by global entertainment company Live Nation. It’s expected to open this summer.

The Panthers’ corporate offices will remain at Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise, and the team will continue to support programs on the three rinks at the Florida Panthers IceDen in Coral Springs. Panthers CEO Caldwell said the team recently extended its contract with the IceDen.

But the team’s hockey headquarters is now at Baptist Health IcePlex.

Caldwell called the venue “a communal hub, an entertainment district to bring the county together.”

That’s where things got a little Messi.

“We’re all about Broward County. We’re not like another team that says they’re here, but they’re trying to go to Miami,” Caldwell said, laughing.

He said the facility would continue the team’s “hockey is for everyone” theme, with leagues for girls, learn-to-skate classes, free hockey tutorials and events for the disabled.

Walking her dog in Holiday Park on Wednesday afternoon, Fort Lauderdale resident Ellen Fried, 55, was happy to hear the doors on the facility were opening.

“I don’t know how to ice skate, but maybe I’ll learn,” she said, laughing. “I do have a toddler granddaughter who likes to play rough. Maybe hockey is for her.”

If you’re into Panthers swag, the team shop is large, aesthetically pleasing and fully stocked. A Matthew Tkachuk jersey by Adidas, with sewn-on nameplate, shield and patches, costs $285.

Panthers GM Zito said the facility also benefits the players. A state-of-the-art practice facility in the middle of Fort Lauderdale’s thriving downtown, where “significantly more” than half of the roster and staff lives, is unique among NHL teams, he said.

Removing the commute — Coach Paul Maurice, a Victoria Park resident, sometimes walks to work — is a huge improvement in the team’s quality of life, Zito said.

“We’re the only [NHL team] who has a facility that is located so perfectly. It makes a difference,” he said.

Dedication of the Fort Lauderdale Florida Temple

After a day of rain, the skies were blue and clear the day of the dedication for the Fort Lauderdale Florida Temple on May 4, 2014. President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, second counselor in the First Presidency, remarked that the rain was “not only liquid sunshine which came down but might even be tears of joy which were shed from heaven because of this great event of the dedication of this Fort Lauderdale temple.”

Later, President Uchtdorf applauded the Florida Saints and the history of the Church in the Sunshine State. “I am impressed not only by the natural beauty of Florida,” he said, “but also by its people and the rich, inspiring heritage in Church history.”

He continued, “No one can read the stories of the early Church members here in Florida without having a feeling of gratitude and love for these early Saints. Tears come to my eyes when I think of the many sacrifices made and the devoted service given by these early members in Florida. It was not easy and often dangerous for these Saints, whose history was mostly written long after the handcarts arrived in the Salt Lake Valley.”

One member, struggling to talk because of emotion, told Church News of the great blessing it was to have a temple so close to her home. “It is now possible to come to the temple often, even weekly, rather than occasionally," she said.

Elder D. Todd Christofferson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles joined President Uchtdorf at the ceremony by conducting the second of three sessions.

Accompanying President Uchtdorf and Elder Christofferson at the dedication were Elder Ronald A. Rasband of the Presidency of the Seventy; Elder Kent F. Richards, a General Authority Seventy and Assistant Executive Director of the Temple Department; and Bishop Gary E. Stevenson, Presiding Bishop.

Dedicatory prayer excerpt: “O God, our Eternal Father, our humble hearts are filled with gratitude and love for Thee on this long-awaited day of dedication. We ask for Thy Holy Spirit to attend us during the dedication of the Fort Lauderdale Florida Temple. We rejoice in this day of celebration, and our hearts are filled with praise to Thee.”

Read the dedicatory prayer of the Fort Lauderdale Florida Temple here.

The Fort Lauderdale Florida Temple was announced Oct. 3, 2009, by President Thomas S. Monson. A groundbreaking ceremony was held nearly two years later, on June 18, 2011, where Elder Walter F. González presided.

Visitors attended an open house from March 29 to April 19, 2014, and a cultural celebration took place just a few weeks later, on May 3, 2014. The temple was then dedicated in three sessions on May 4, 2014, by President Dieter F. Uchtdorf.

Architecture and Design of the Fort Lauderdale Florida Temple

The Fort Lauderdale Florida Temple’s single-spire design was built with precast integral colored concrete panels, giving it a white-colored exterior. The temple includes a series of arches that lead to the main entrance. Standing on 16.82 acres, the structure is approximately 30,500 square feet, rising almost 100 feet high.

The grounds are planted with palm trees, flowers, and various shrubs and walkways that lead to the front doors of the house of the Lord, where fountains and a reflection pool can be found. A large pond is located just outside the west area of the temple grounds.

The Fort Lauderdale temple interior includes a lot of blue, green and other earth tones to reflect the tropical area. The wood is made of red grandis from Ecuador, and interior stones used are marble, limestone and onyx.

Interior Photos of the Fort Lauderdale Florida Temple

Top customers included ‘Michael Jackson’, ‘Tom Hanks’ and ‘Fats Fatz,’ indictment states

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – A man who owns several South Florida pawn shops is facing federal charges as part of what prosecutors say is a multi-million dollar scheme to launder money, including drug proceeds, using fraudulent gift cards and money orders.

Andrey Perov, 38, was booked into the Broward County jail and made his initial appearance in Fort Lauderdale federal court on Wednesday.

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According to court documents, he owns Bee Pawn LLC, with locations in Miami-Dade, Broward and Orange counties and Hard Rock Giffies, a pawn shop at 5814 Stirling Road in Hollywood.

Prosecutors said Perov came on their radar after a confidential source, cooperating with authorities after a Broward drug trafficking conviction, told investigators that a co-conspirator of Perov had laundered drug money for him.

According to FBI charging documents, in 2021, the confidential informant, then working for federal agents, asked the co-conspirator to launder $110,000 in narcotics proceeds.

FBI agents said that the co-conspirator didn’t want to launder the cash, but he knew someone who could: Perov.

Investigators recorded an undercover interview with Perov in January 2021, where he told the informant that he owned several South Florida pawn shops and “could always use U.S. currency to purchase ‘gift cards,’” the court documents state.

An FBI agent said in the interview, the informant expressed concern about the source of the money.

“I don’t want it to come back and haunt me,” the informant told Perov, according to court documents. “This is dirty money. You know, this is drug money that I did...a while back...Selling pills and stuff like that.”

The charging documents state Perov then asked, “Selling what?”

“Huh?” prosecutors said the informant responded. “Selling pills.”

“Pills? OK,” Perov is accused of responding. “No, I don’t judge.”

Perov then agreed to launder $11,000 for the informant and deposit the proceeds in the informant’s bank account, which was actually controlled by law enforcement, FBI agents allege, and instructed the informant to deal with his assistant for future money laundering endeavors.

Agents said Perov’s assistant laundered $99,000 for the informant over the following months.

Then, according to court documents, from December 2021 to November 2022, a second confidential informant, a Russian speaker, provided Perov’s assistant with $540,000 worth of FBI-purchased gift cards and got $460,000 back.

“According to Co-Conspirator 2, (Perov) mentioned on more than one occasion that the pawn shops needed to have a money transmitting license to conduct the business of redeeming the gift cards and money orders,” court documents state. “However, (Perov) never obtained either a Federal or State money remitting license.”

Further, the court documents state that the co-conspirator ”estimated that approximately 70% of all gift cards and 100% of all money orders that were sold to (Perov)’s stores were fraudulent.”

“The Co-Conspirator explained that there was no legitimate reason why someone would want to sell a money order to the store since money orders could already be used to pay bills, rent, etc. They were as liquid as cash,” agents wrote.

The co-conspirator said, according to the FBI, that he or she believed that most of the gift cards and money orders sold to Perov’s stores came from “suspicious” people involved in “criminal activity,” explaining that “generally no photo identification was taken from certain individuals who were selling large quantities of gift cards/money orders to the store.”

“The Co-Conspirator recalled that sometimes when photo identifications were requested, the male customers provided a female’s photo identification card,” agents wrote.

Authorities later obtained a search warrant to go through an online ledger maintained by Perov, which showed that his pawn shops redeemed roughly $53 million in money orders and gift cards, approximately $2 million of which were denied “due to fraud or theft,” court documents state.

Some of Perov’s top customers used apparent pseudonyms to hide their true identities, authorities allege.

Names listed on the ledger, they said, included “Tom Hanks,” “Michael Jackson” and “Fats Fatz” and many profiles didn’t have a corresponding identification card, court documents state.

Some customers redeemed hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of gift cards each, authorities allege.

Perov is facing charges of conspiracy to launder monetary instruments and conspiracy to engage in monetary transactions in property derived from a specified unlawful activity and opening a money transmitting business without a license.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Panayotta Augustin‐Birch ordered Perov remain held on pretrial detention, according to online records.

He was being held in the Broward Main Jail as of Thursday morning.

Read the court documents:

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Spring break plans for thousands headed to or from South Florida have been thrown into disarray as severe thunderstorms pounded the region, grounding flights and shaking up major events. Miami International Airport (MIA) and Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport (FLL) were hit hard by weather delays with MIA grounding all departures on Saturday morning, confirmed by the Federal Aviation Administration's National Airspace System. Adding to the woes, a disabled aircraft briefly forced a runway shutdown, and lightning strikes contributed to the delay melee, CBS News Miami reported.

Travelers faced swelling frustration with the average delay at MIA topping over an hour and a half, according to the FAA's National Airspace System Status. MIA was juggling record numbers this spring break, seeing about 170,000 passengers each day. As a storm system swept through Friday night, Saturday became a logjam with the airports reporting over a thousand delayed flights combined. Miami's airport chaos included three canceled departures, one canceled arrival, and 57 delayed flights, and as CBS News Miami indicated, the delays are expected to spill throughout the day.

Gripped by this sudden halt, passengers found themselves stranded, grappling not only with the delays but also with the spring break travel surge making accommodations scarce and sharply pricier. "Because there were some flight delays due to weather, I got stuck here overnight," stranded traveler Amoie Hutchinson shared in a statement acquired by WSVN. She described a frantic scramble to find a hotel amidst soaring rates due to the influx of spring break tourists and other major events in the area.

The turmoil rippled beyond the airports as the Ultra Music Festival, expecting 55,000 revellers, had to shut down prematurely Friday due to the dangerous weather. The festival's organizers directed attendees to leave the park in an orderly fashion for their safety, per posts on its social media accounts. The Miami Open, a cornerstone tennis tournament, also felt the storm's impact, facing a six-hour delay for Friday's matches and eventually suspending that day's games, WSVN reported.

Amid the downpour of delays and cancellations, Miami International Airport has been proactive in advising travelers to remain in contact with their airlines for the most current flight updates. In a statement shared on X, MIA warned of the potential operational impact of March 23's inclement weather and has continued to keep passengers informed as conditions evolve.

⚠️ #WeatherAdvisory (30/23/24) ⚠️ Inclement weather may impact operations on March 23. If you're traveling, please get in touch with your airline for the latest flight updates. pic.twitter.com/Zt1gxfi5Y9

— Miami Int'l Airport (@iflymia) March 23, 2024

Topline

Parts of South Florida are getting hit by a major non-tropical storm that is bringing inches of rain, heavy wind, power outages and school closures — just after Fort Lauderdale passed a record-100 inches of rain for the year.

Key Facts

The extreme weather began on Tuesday and will likely continue at least for the next day, with flood advisories and wind advisories in effect for areas around Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties through Thursday afternoon, according to the National Weather Service.

Around 10 a.m., the NWS said winds were “gradually weakening,” but would continue to gust at 40 to 50 mph through the evening along the coast.

Over the last 24 hours, four to eight inches of rain has fallen over most of the Miami-Dade metro, and up to 15 inches have fallen over portions of the Everglades and far south Miami-Dade, according to the Tampa Bay Times.

The storms have led to some school cancellations in the Broward County Public Schools district and at Broward College, and flooded roads and crashes in the Fort Lauderdale region, the Tampa Bay Times reported.

The weather service warned of the storm in recent days, though the non-tropical area of low pressure is unlikely to turn into a tropical cyclone, with just a 10% chance over the next week.

Surprising Fact

On Wednesday, Fort Lauderdale—which usually gets about 66 inches of rain annually—became one of the wettest major cities in America, surpassing 100 inches of rain this year, according to Fox Weather. As of Wednesday morning, Fox reported the city had received 102 inches of rain this year, meaning it was less than an inch from breaking its 1947 record for most rain in a year.

Big Number

86,544. That’s how many people were without power in Florida just after noon on Thursday, according to poweroutage.us.

With just two weeks left of the Atlantic hurricane season, the National Weather Service said there is a 70% chance—up from 50% on Wednesday—that a late-season tropical cyclone forms in the southwest Caribbean Sea over the next week. Regardless of whether a cyclone forms, the service said the system will bring “heavy rains … likely result(ing) in flash flooding and mudslides” over the weekend around Jamaica and Hispaniola.