In florida today, attending a grass roots event. She met with a group of children brought into the u. S. Illegally before 16. Love birds are waking up this morning forever changed. This man popped the question at the Rockefeller Center in new york city u and over in los angeles, runners had the chance to propose or renew their vows during the marathon. Hard to do that while youre running. Lets check with weather and traffic. Reporter its early in the morning, folks, and we have two accidents. Sad news on the Howard Franklin bridge, a couple of lanes taken away due to a fatal crash. I will show you what this looks like. Traffic using caution as they pass by. Moving over to a car fire here, southbound 275 here, no smoke there, but just be aware of that. The southbound lanes on u. S. 19 are actually blocked right at ridge road, and traffic is still kind of light, you know, theres not a lot of vehicles on the roadway, and youre routed around it. I will keep an eye on in throughout the morning for you. We definitely had our share of incidents trafficwise, but hopefully traffic will look better for us. Hopefully people are careful as the rest of the morning goes on. Temperaturewise, not bad. 61 in tampa. 59 in lakeland. Our cooler spots to the north. Its 58 in sarasota, and look at difference from yesterday morning to today. We are 14 degrees warmer in lakeland than you were sunday 12degrees warmer in brooksville. The average high is 73. We are above average. I will take you hourbyhour through today and then into the rain. A Manatee County man is dead after a deputy shot and killed him, and now the deputy is on administrative leave it happened outside of a home in bradenton. Reporter good morning to you. Deputies cleared the scene around 9 30 sunday night after spending hours investigating. The wellman cured upscale neighborhood. Neighbors say the only tv happening here is an occasional car burglary, but not today. 50yearold Mark Stoddard had his knife in his hand. The deputy repeatedly told him to put it down. When he approached the deputy armed with the knife, the deputy shot him. One neighbor didnt want to go on camera out of respect for the family but said another neighbor rendered aid until paramedics arrived but there was little they could do. Deputies have not released the name of the officer involved, but he or she is on mandatory leave until the end of the investigation. Im chip osowki. Thank you, chip. We are talking about fatal crashes. Last year alone there were 19,000 were injured, and 8600 were killed. The Highway Patrol will be kicking off an awareness no campaign. Stacey gibson lost her only child and best friend after a tragic hitandrun crash 2 years ago. The driver is now serving 13 years behind bars. Gibson says that sentence is not good enough because he sentenced her to life without her son. You could have stayed there to call 911, and you could have stayed there to help his friends who were in a complete panic and chaos. Theres always something to do just be there. 8 on your side wants to know why this happens so often. A legal expert explained to us theres a will the of reasons why the driver left the scene. It could be everything maybe they are not supposed to be out, maybe they are breaking arrest, or second maybe wrong place at the wrong time, and safe if i may be an issue for them. The florida Highway Patrol hopes their Education Campaign will reduce the number of senseless hitandrun crashes. Count on news channel 8 to let you know what they have to say on first on 4. We have jawdropping video of bad driving. Pinellas county police are white car. Its becoming a game with Young Drivers who take a video of themselves driving wrecklessly and posted it to social media. Accident. Oh my god. Shhhhh. Oh my god oh my god this stuff was pulled in the area of 66th street and 121st avenue, and anyone with call the Pinellas Park police. The nation is mourning the antonin scalia. Flags are at half staff outside of the white house and in front of the Supreme Court building. Just as scalias body is in virginia, after being flown there from texas. His family is not requesting a private autopsy because he died from Natural Causes in the lone star state. A battle is brewing with the senate and the white house. A nomination during an election has not happened in decades. Reporter hours after justice antonins death, intentions very clear. I plan to fill the position. The senate is not going to act, and thats pretty clear. Reporter senator ted cruz is warning of dire consequences should mr. Obama add another justice on the court. We will see partial birth abortion, no notification. Reporter just as scalias views often influenced the court. We lost one of the greats, and i would like the person to be tailored just like justice scalia. Reporter barack obama is president of the United States until january 20, 2017. [ cheers ] that is a fact, my friends, whether the republicans like it or not. Apparently they believe that the constitution does not allow forth a nominee to replace justice scalia. Reporter democrats are also concerned the high court could be paralyzed with just eight members. President obama will nominate a successor after the Senate Returns for a weeklong recess. Its 4 08 in the morning. Good morning, we are only a few days away from the gasparilla classic. Your last few days to get the training runs in, and this morning the shoe of approval goes on a morning run. Its comfortable. Throughout the day the rain will eventually increase throughout the day, but so will the temperatures. We are already at 60 by 9 00. Kevin gordon will have a relatively warm day for this time of the year. 70 at noon. Notice the clouds increasing. After 3 00 p. M. , again, i put in at least a small rain chance ahead of the cold front that will come in early tomorrow. Most of the rain will happen and 10 00 a. M. Tomorrow, and after that, sunny and pleasant wednesday thus sunday. Cant beat it. Lets check on traffic. Its been a sad morning. We have two fatal accidents, and we have little issues popping up. Its busy in the fact we are having issues. A fatal crash on the Howard Franklin bridge, and unfortunately a couple of lanes taken away to the right. No delays because its early in the morning and light traffic, and in general people are still at home, like yourself, listening to the news. The earlier vehicle fire was cleared from the highway here. We have a crash here, and its tieing up some of the lanes at the intersection of ulmonton road this is all southbound lanes at u. S. 19 at ridge road the port richie area, and it also involves a semitruck. Back to gene and gayle. A lot of questions about this, a 4yearold boy finds a gun and fires a shot outside of st. Petersburg. He was playing with a cat when the animal ran under the house. The boy followed the pet, found the gun, and fired the shot into the ground. Thankfully no one was hurt. The boys family said they do not own a gun. The case is under investigation. We are looking into the case of two boys in clear water that ended with a little boy who nearly drown. In a second instance a2year old was found in a backyard pool. Both are in Critical Condition this morning. On lockdown. Strong storms pounding the northeast, and we will show you video of an interstate disaster, and when you see that, you will be thankful we dont get snow here. All weekend long. What the u. S. Is doing in the island nation to help expand trade with cuba. Kathy caster is in cuba this week, and so is news channel 8. She is looking for ways to expand business with cuba, and Jeff Paterson reporter there. He shows us the agenda for today. Reporter it was a busy trip for the delegation. They med with a woman who makes baby clothes and who is licensed to do that, and they met with a man services the old the road. Meet with officials to find out what are the obstacles between business with tampa and cuba and to find out what can be done to make the obstaclings easier to get around. Thank you, jeff. Ad on your 8 on your side is bringing you reports for cuba over the next several days. The pope will be celebrating mass at a soccer stadium where he will talk about the migration through the u. S. Border. Nearly 100,000 people showed up for his mass on valentines day in mexico city. Right now the fbi is trying to figure out who installed an explosive device on a rental the bomb squad spent hours working to neutralize it. Fortunately no one was hurt. Swallowed up by a trim treer, thats what happened to a worker in oregon. Remarkably he survived. Its believed his harness was stuck on the branches going into the chipper. His leg ended up hitting the safety lever with the blade just inches for his head. He will be okay with some injuries. Hunters caught 102 pythons since the challenge began on january 16th. The finallal lee will be announced february 27th. The captured snakes were killed and then turned over to researchers. They are trying to find clues to control the expanded python population. Tax season just started, americans something could be wrong with their tax returns. Taxpayers are receiving letters for the irs saying the agency is dealing with tons of fraudulent returns. The good news, 8 on your side found more security measures are in place to detect fake returns. Look at this multicar collision near indianapolis. 40 to 50 cars were involved. Officials dont know what caused the crashes, but they happened during a sudden winter storm. Two miles after highway were closed to salt the roadways and clean up from the collisions. The most serious injury reported was a broken leg. Its not looking better in ohio. This guy is taking one step forward and two steps back in clearing the snow off his car. The winter storm left the roads frozen and covered in snow, causing traffic problems all over the state. Because of low visibility on top of Everything Else they were dealing with. Its 4 18, and i feel guilty because we had a gorgeous weekend. Really a top 10 kind of day. Blue skies and low humidity. Things are changing today, but it will not be too bad. Extra clouds through the weekend. Nice this morning at 57 degrees. Clouds increase. 70 already at lunchtime. 75 at 3 00 p. M. , and theres a slight chance for rain later in the day. Right now, we are much warmer than yesterday. Auburndale, youre 61. Our cooler spots like iverness, youre at 58 degrees. How about 58 at arcadia. 10degrees warmer than we were on sunday morning. Watch the clouds increase. There could be a stray shower through the Late Afternoon and evening hours this 6 30. Its ahead of the big cold front. You will notice this is 3 55 in the morning tomorrow. Into the northern areas, and this is south at 5 00 in the morning, and then at 7 00, its already starting to clear out, and we are in for another long stretch of beautiful weather into the weekend. Leslee, how about traffic on the 8s . Not so beautiful. Unfortunately we are kicking off this monday morning with two fatal accidents. One is northbound on the Howard Franklin bridge, and this is a live look at what is going on. We have the two right lanes taken away. Traffic is slowing down as they approach, doing the right thing, moving to the left there. An investigation is going on, and also southbound on u. S. 19, all lanes are blocked at ridge road. Youre routed around that due to a crash with a semitruck, and theres also a fatal accident. Lets move over and talk about pasco county. This is past state road 52. Theres a disabled vehicle in the ulmerton road here at mountain parkway, an injury tieing up the intersection. Back to gene and gayle. Leslee, thank you. Talk about making valentines day extra special. Ahead in largo, a way couples marked the holiday in a way they will never forget. The stock market just closed on the other side of the world. What investors need to know right now asian stocks are showing promise this morning this is the first day of trading after the weeklong Lunar New Year holiday in china. The stocks initially fell, but the hit was met with a surge in gold shares. The nikkei closing slightly up. Think about this. Youre at the grocery store, and you hear a mother yelling to her young daughter to steal chocolate, and then the kid stuffs it in her jacket, do you mind your own business and keep walking or Say Something . We will look at difficult ethical dilemma later on the today show. What would you do . You have to tell someone to someone. Maybe tell the manager. Reporter more than 60 couples are waking up marry this morning in largo after the 10th annual childrens botanical gardens. Some came from outside of the Sunshine State to exchange its gorgeous. Its monday, and it will be hard to get out of bed. We have your weather and minutes. Plus and part of the 1 billion huge expansion project here at Tampa International airport expected to be completed this week. 4 28. Time for weather and traffic on the 8s, and emoji man will get the day, ahead of the best rain chance tomorrow morning, and ahead of that dry for the rest of the week. We will run down the timing throughout the rest of the week, leslee. We have a fatal accident on the Howard Franklin bridge, and you can see everyone moving by on the left. Is this is northbound, and heres where it is at. Again, right lanes blocked. 4 30 on this monday, president s day, good morning to you, and welcome. Im gene ramirez. And im gayle guyardo. A deputy shot and killed a man during a domestic dispute,