Orlando citizens may preserve part of Pulse nightclub for memorial

ORLANDO, Fla. — An Orlando citizens advisory board is headed toward preserving a portion of the defunct Pulse nightclub — but not the whole structure — to memorialize the 2016 mass killing there.

The future of the nightclub building, a safe space for Orlando’s LGBTQ+ community until the massacre, long has sparked disagreement among victims’ families and survivors of the mass shooting that killed 49 people and wounded 53 others.

“To me, it’s a sacred place,” said committee member Mayra Alvear Benabel, whose daughter Amanda died at Pulse. Demolishing it would be akin to erasing her daughter, she said.

But its presence on South Orange Avenue creates trauma for others, activists say.

—Orlando Sentinel

Suspect in Temple officer's killing is stabbed multiple times in jail

PHILADELPHIA — Miles Pfeffer, the man accused of shooting and killing Temple University Police Officer Christopher Fitzgerald in 2023, was stabbed multiple times in the Curran Fromhold Correctional Facility, where he has been held awaiting his murder trial.

Around 6:40 p.m. Thursday, another incarcerated man, Rafael Venegas, ran out his cell and attacked Pfeffer, 19, with a homemade weapon, according to the jail incident report. Pfeffer suffered puncture injuries to his forehead, inner right hip, and right hand, the report said.

After Venegas refused commands to stop, a correctional officer pepper-sprayed him and he and Pfeffer were separated, the report said. Pfeffer was then taken to Jefferson Torresdale Hospital for medical evaluation, according to the report. A law enforcement source said his injuries were not life-threatening.

Pfeffer faces charges of murder and crimes related to the fatal shooting of Fitzgerald.

—The Philadelphia Inquirer

Ukraine’s parliament cancels session amid new attack threat

Ukraine’s parliament canceled Friday’s plenary session due to the threat of a possible air attack on Kyiv’s government district, according to lawmakers.

The country is on high alert after Russia launched a “new” kind of ballistic missile at the city of Dnipro on Thursday, the latest escalation of hostilities in the long-running war. In the run-up to that attack, several embassies in the Ukrainian capital issued alerts and temporarily closed due to extraordinary risks.

While the Ukrainian capital comes under near-daily attack by Russian forces, this is the first such move by the legislature in recent months. Lawmaker Yaroslav Zheleznyak told Bloomberg News that the session was postponed to next week.

The government is working as usual and employees will head to a shelter in the event of an air alert, Serhiy Nykyforov, a spokesman for President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, despite an earlier report from Ukraine’s public broadcaster Suspilne that some official institutions had reduced the number of staff on premise.

—Bloomberg News

Florida couple become 2-time space tourists with Blue Origin flight

ORLANDO, Fla. — Winter Park power couple Marc and Sharon Hagle returned to space on a short suborbital flight aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket on Friday.

The duo first flew to space on New Shepard back in 2022, the fourth-ever flight of the space tourism rocket. For flight No. 2, they joined four new crewmates on the NS-28 mission that lifted off from Blue Origin’s West Texas launch site at 10:30 a.m. EST.

This was ninth human spaceflight since the first in 2021 that took up company founder Jeff Bezos. The trips last a little longer than 10 minutes, but take passengers up past the Karman line — about 62 miles high — the internationally recognized altitude for someone having gone into space.

Passengers experience a few minutes of weightlessness before making a parachute-assisted landing just a few miles from the launch site.

The pair, who were 73 on that first trip, became the first married couple on a commercial spaceflight and took some time while weightless to share a kiss.

—Orlando Sentinel

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