By TYLER TREADWAY, Scripps Howard News Service

FORT PIERCE, Fla. - Jacob Brighton's parents "deserved to be shot," a defense attorney told jurors in an opening statement of a trial for fatal shootings of Richard and Penny Brighton, killed Aug. 2, 2007, at the family home west of this community along Florida's Treasure Coast.
Jacob Brighton faces two counts of first-degree murder.

FORT PIERCE, Fla. - The National Navy UDT-SEAL Museum is trying to get memorabilia from the Navy SEALs' operation to kill Osama bin Laden.

"I caught the president's remarks Sunday night," said Michael R. Howard, the museum's boss and a retired Navy SEAL, "and I had an immediate gut feeling that our SEALs did the operation."

FOPRT PIERCE, Fla. - At team of scientists embarked Friday on a month-long search for something they hope they don't find: oil in the undersea realms of the east and west coasts of Florida.

INDIAN RIVER COUNTY, Fla. - A gold-rimmed portrait necklace, several gold and silver coins and numerous artifacts from a 1715 Spanish fleet have been discovered in about 10 feet of water off the aptly named Treasure Coast of Florida.

Robins migrating north for the spring are stopping off along Florida's Treasure Coast for some cocktails.

"This time of year, expect to see some robins looking a little woozy," said Ken Gioeli, natural resources agent for the Cooperative Extension Service in Fort Pierce, Fla.

FORT PIERCE, Fla. - Now it can be told: About 20 staffers from the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute took part in a hush-hush search for Amelia Earhart's plane in the depths of the Pacific Ocean during spring 2009.

First, more and more of his patients couldn't afford the medicines he prescribed.
Then Dr. Shasher Singh read about several local business and plant closings and slowdowns, and that the St. Lucie County School District plans to cut more than 300 jobs, some through layoffs.

A pair of first-of-a-kind underwater drones embark this week on a mission to map coral reefs off the coast of Florida.
And after they get their feet wet on this task, so to speak, these "autonomous underwater vehicles" will be used around the world to scan the ocean floor and accumulate environmental and archeological data.

"The river shall bring forth frogs abundantly, which shall go up and come into thine house, and into thy bedchamber and upon thy bed."Exodus 8:2Although not quite in biblical proportions, scads of frogs are showing up on Florida's Treasure Coast, one more lingering effect of Tropical Storm Fay.

STUART, FLa. -- So you think today's high prices make it tough to feed the family? Consider the Ais Indians.A display that will be part of a new Florida museum will vividly portray the lengths that the Ais, the dominant tribe on Florida's Treasure Coast for 2,000 years before Europeans arrived, went to get food.