Front page news in St. Augustine:

MIAMI (AP) — Financial pressures likely contributed to a helicopter pilot’s decision to continue flying through deteriorating weather before crashing in north Florida, killing a Mayo Clinic heart surgeon and technician on their way to retrieve a heart for transplant in 2011, according to a report from the National Transportation Safety Board.

Neither the Bell 206 helicopter nor pilot E. Hoke Smith of SK Logistics in St. Augustine were experiencing any problems before the crash early in the morning on Dec. 26, 2011, according to the NTSB probable cause report, published late Monday.

But the helicopter was not certified to handle the sporadically misty and overcast conditions between the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville and Shands Hospital at the University of Florida in Gainesville.

The board found that Smith’s decision to continue flying in the poor conditions resulted in the crash in a remote, wooded area in Clay County, killing all three men on board.

Smith did not make any backup plans for the organ transport. Other SK Logistic pilots told investigators that they would have made the same flight but would have arranged for ground transportation or a flight by a fixed-wing aircraft if they could not complete the mission as scheduled, according to the report.

“Contributing to the pilot’s improper decision was his self-induced pressure to complete the trip,” according to the report. … READ MORE.

A man who lost most of his face and his eyesight in last year’s face-chewing attack in Miami has a message for the people who donated to his care: Thank you.

If you want to send a message back, tag your tweets #Wishes4Poppo, and his nurses will read him the notes.

MIAMI (AP) — A homeless man whose face was mostly chewed off in a bizarre attack last year in Miami says he doesn’t want any more reconstructive surgery.

Ronald Poppo spent nearly a month in a hospital after the attack alongside a Miami highway. Since then, he’s been living in a long-term care facility.

The attack left him blind and disfigured. Poppo’s doctors said Tuesday he knows he’s lost his nose and his left eye completely, but he’s satisfied with the surgeries and skin grafts that have closed his wounds.

A video posted online by the hospital that has been caring for Poppo shows him sitting in a hospital bed, wearing a baseball cap and strumming a guitar.

Facing the camera, Poppo thanks the public for their contributions and support.

KEY WEST, Fla. (AP) — Mosquito control officials in the Florida Keys are waiting for the federal government to sign off on an experiment that would release hundreds of thousands of genetically modified mosquitoes to reduce the risk of dengue fever in the tourist town of Key West.

If approved by the Food and Drug Administration, it would be the first such experiment in the U.S. Some Key West residents worry, though, that not enough research has been done to determine the risks that releasing genetically modified mosquitoes might pose to the Keys’ fragile ecosystem.

Doctors in Miami have successfully removed a spear accidentally shot through a teenager’s skull during a spearfishing trip.