Here are some of the top stories from the past week that you may have missed from NBC 6 News.
Missing Florida Boater Found Clinging to Capsized Boat
A 62-year-old boater who had been missing for a couple days was found clinging to his capsized vessel off of Florida's Atlantic coastline, the U.S. Coast Guard said.
The agency had been searching for signs of Stuart Bee and his 32-foot boat since he was reported missing on Nov. 27.
A crew onboard the container ship Angeles spotted Bee some 86 miles off of Cape Canaveral on Nov. 29, the Coast Guard said in a Twitter post.
"I didn't see anybody, I thought, this is it!" Bee said in a call with the Coast Guard.
Read more here.
Local
Family Got Negative Antigen Tests, But All Were Positive
A Hallandale Beach family found out that not all coronavirus tests are alike.
Mariana Lucero spent six days in the hospital last month diagnosed with COVID-19 and the resulting pneumonia after testing negative several times last month with antigen tests.
Now she's home, on oxygen, while her husband, Nelson Bernachea, wants to share some advice: don’t rely solely on a rapid antigen test to see if you are infected.
He got his first negative test in early November, but soon began to feel a bit off. So a few days later, he got tested again at Hard Rock Stadium along with his wife. And he and his wife were reassured with the result: negative.
But then a couple days later, he got the results from the PCR test given the same day: positive.
His wife, 16-year-old son, and 8-year-old daughter got the same results: negative on the antigen tests, positive on the PCR.
Read more here.
Districts Attempt to Reengage Thousands of Chronically Absent South Florida Students
For many months, we’ve been hearing our local school superintendents and national educational leaders saying the pandemic would lead to learning losses among students.
Now it’s happening.
Thousands of kids are falling through the academic cracks. About 1,700 students in Miami-Dade and nearly 800 in Broward are considered missing by the public school districts. These are kids who have basically disappeared, who are not logging into online school or showing up for in-person classes. Another 14,000 or so, a figure combining numbers from both counties, are considered chronically absent.
Miami-Dade and Broward Public Schools are tackling the problem by using teams of their own social workers, mental health professionals, and counselors to track down the truant kids and intervene with their families.
Read more here.
Boeing 737 Max Set to Fly Again With Flights Out of MIA
South Florida passengers will be the first on board when the Boeing 737 Max makes its return to the skies.
The Federal Aviation Administration and aviation authorities across the globe grounded the plane after a 737 Max Lion Air flight out of Indonesia crashed in late 2018, killing 189 people. Four months later, an Ethiopian Airlines flight crashed, killing 157 people.
Nearly two years later, American Airlines at Miami International Airport will be the launching point to get the plane back in the sky with passengers on board. On Dec. 29, the 737 Max will make its first U.S. commercial flight from Miami to LaGuardia in New York. It's the only place in the U.S. for now where the flights will resume.
Read more here.
Broward Students Push Back on Policy to Keep Cameras on During Virtual Learning
A new policy requiring Broward County Public Schools students to keep their cameras on during virtual learning is getting pushback from thousands of students in the district.
“I know personally people that are not in home environments that are as nice so by showing their house to everybody in their class, by showing their parents and their siblings running around in the background, I know that’s really embarrassing,” said Kayla Bello, a sophomore at Fort Lauderdale High School.
Bello is one of thousands of Broward County students who signed a petition on Change.org titled “Cameras Should Not Be Required In Broward County Schools.” The petition had more than 8,000 signatures as of Tuesday.
Read more here.
