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Helicopter's thermal imaging helps save a young autistic girl lost in a Florida swamp

“I just love how the deputy greeted her. What a beautiful ending. You guys are the best!”

A deputy locates a missing girl in a Florida swamp.

A 5-year-old with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) wandered off into a swamp near Tampa, Florida, around 5:00 pm on Monday, February 26. The good news is that the girl was saved in about an hour thanks to the work of some brave sheriff’s officers and their incredible thermal technology.

The girl wandered from her home and was quickly reported missing by her family to the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Department. The sheriff quickly dispatched its aviation unit that used thermal imaging technology to scan the nearby swamplands to try to find the young girl before nightfall.

Thermal imaging technology captures images based on the heat emitted by objects, allowing us to see temperature differences even in the dark, making it super handy for night vision and heat detection. The thermal technology helped the officers quickly identify the girl from high above the trees.

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Afroman ready for the 2024 United States Presidential Election

Joseph Foreman, better known to music fans as rapper Afroman, had his Ohio home raided by Adams County Sheriff's deputies last August. The deputies were acting on a warrant claiming probable cause that drugs, drug paraphernalia, and evidence of drug trafficking and kidnapping would be found on his property.

Afroman wasn't home at the time of the raid, but his wife captured footage of it on her phone.

The deputies found nothing, confiscated over $5,000 worth of Afroman’s hard-earned money, bashed in his front door, broke his front gate and destroyed his home security camera system. No charges were filed after the raid. The money was later returned to the "Because I Got High" rapper.

“They come up here with AR-15, traumatize my kids, destroyed my property, kick in my door, rip up and destroy my camera system,” he said in August, according to Fox 19.

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Joy

Touching video shows a deputy sheriff teaching a stalled teen how to drive a stick shift

“I asked her if I could help assist her. So I kinda went through the steps of helping her out.”

via Cleveland County Sheriff's Office

Deputy Kendrae Traylor helps a stalled motorist.

Just like rotary phones, shopping malls and popcorn you heat on the stove, stick shifts (or manual transmissions as the pros call ’em) may soon be a thing of the past. A report in The Atlantic shows that in the year 2000, manual transmissions accounted for 15% of the new and used cars sold by Carmax.

In 2020, that figure dropped to just 2.4%.

The sad thing is that countless people will never experience the pleasure of driving a manual transmission. There’s something to be said about the feeling of actually driving and controlling a vehicle with a stick shift. It's a sensation you can’t get behind the wheel of an automatic.

Manual cars are also cheaper, less likely to be stolen and have lower maintenance costs.

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via PixaBay

A police officer stands on-duty.

In the aftermath of the George Floyd murder in 2020, people have begun to rethink the role that armed police officers have in society. Does every problem need to be addressed by someone with the power to administer lethal force?

The Aurora Police Department in Colorado launched a six-month program last year that led to the creation of two mental health crisis response teams. The first pairs an officer with a mental health professional. The other pairs a mental health professional and a paramedic to handle mental health crisis situations where there is no apparent danger.

“When someone calls in to report either themselves or an individual in crisis, or maybe they just see someone who might need some resources and help, dispatch will put that in a call, and my team is able to click on the call, review everything and see if it meets criteria," Courtney Tassin, program manager for the Aurora Mobile Response Team, told 9News.

The Aurora Mobile Response Team's van is stocked full of food, water and hygiene products to help the people they encounter on the streets.

Over the first three months, the team went on 116 calls.

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