The Cooler

Only had the time to gather up a few stories from this morning's mainstream media. Enjoy.

A- Herald: How this happens still amazes me.

An 18-month-old boy died Thursday after he was left in the back seat of a car, police said.

Rescuers got a call about a child who was unresponsive in a child seat in the back of a pickup truck around 3 p.m., according to Detective Roy Rutland, a Miami-Dade police spokesman.

Fire Rescue pronounced the boy dead in the strip mall parking lot at Southwest 84th Avenue and Flagler Street.

Miami-Dade detectives are interviewing the boy's mother, Rutland said.

The mother went to work at around 9 a.m. with the child in the back seat.

Police said the boy's father was the one who found him in his safety seat.

B- Herald: South Florida's Sopranos.

Eleven Palm Beach and Broward County residents were indicted Thursday after federal prosecutors outlined their alleged roles in an organized crime ring specializing in fraud, narcotics, gambling and mob-style shakedowns.

The crew operated out of South Florida, but regularly reported and paid tribute to the Bonanno family, a New York City-based mafia unit, according to the indictment from the U.S. attorney's office in Miami.

C- Herald: BankUnited goes belly up.

Without missing a beat, BankUnited will reopen this Friday morning with a new owner and a whole lot more capital.

Dozens of federal regulators swept in to BankUnited's offices in Coral Gables on Thursday afternoon after the close of business and seized the teetering thrift, capping a yearlong odyssey to revive the $13 billion asset institution.

[...]

BankUnited, dragged down by risky home mortgages that fizzled in the housing downturn, is the largest bank to succumb to loan losses this year and the third-largest in assets to fail in the current downturn after IndyMac and Washington Mutual.

The collapse of the thrift will cost the FDIC insurance fund an estimated $4.9 billion. In the current downturn, only the IndyMac failure cost the FDIC fund more, with a hit of $11 billion.

All customers' deposits are safe at the new institution, which will keep the BankUnited name BankUnited's shareholders, however, aren't so lucky: Their equity is likely wiped out.

D- Sun-Sentinel: In other words, when it comes to predicting hurricane seasons, flip a coin.

Seasonal outlooks are subject to large errors.

While the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's forecast was on the money in 2007 and 2008, it was off target in the three prior years. The agency overestimated the number of storms in 2006 and underestimated the numbers in 2004 and 2005.

Even if it turns out to be a slow season, it would be a mistake to let your guard down. Anyone remember 1992?

E- CBS4: Lego thief busted!

LAUDERDALE LAKES (CBS4) ―A 34-year-old man walked the aisles of a Walmart in Lauderdale Lakes and instead of looking for deals he allegedly set his own price by altering bar codes on certain products, according to the Broward Sheriff's Office.

Max Rodriguez would have gotten away with it, but an employee followed him around the store on the 3000 block of N. State Road 7 on Monday afternoon. The employee watched as Rodriguez picked up six boxes of the same Lego toy priced at $62 each. At the register, the toys rang up to $7.46 each – an illegal savings of $330.

The employee questioned Rodriguez and called police. During the interview, Rodriguez allegedly admitted to altering the bar codes and told detectives he had pulled off the scheme in about 300 other occasions. He would then sell the toys on the Internet.

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