News briefs

Lightning kills man at Florida gathering

LAKELAND, Fla. (AP) — A lightning strike at a Fourth of July gathering in central Florida killed one person and 18 others were taken to hospitals, officials said Saturday.

About 100 people from a church group were outside playing soccer and volleyball in Lakeland, about 30 miles east of Tampa, when a lightning bolt or series of strikes hit nearby, seemingly out of nowhere, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said.

Benjamin Gonzalez, 30, who was playing soccer, was hit and collapsed. He was taken to a nearby hospital and pronounced dead. Eighteen others were hospitalized and nine more treated at the scene.

Judd said their injuries were not life-threatening, with symptoms including numbness and tingling.

Authorities were called to the Iglesia Bautista Maranatha's property at about 4:40 p.m. Witnesses said there was some cloud buildup in the area, but it wasn't enough to alarm anyone, Judd said.

Truck of fireworks explodes, killing 2

OCRACOKE, N.C. (AP) — A truckload of fireworks exploded Saturday morning on a dock at a remote North Carolina island, killing two workers and critically injuring three others preparing for an Independence Day celebration, authorities said.

The explosion shook homes and businesses and was heard across a village on the southern end of Ocracoke Island, which is the only inhabited part of the 15-mile spit of land, accessible only by boat.

Dock master Robert Raborn noticed the workers unloading the truck from the Anchorage Marina about 200 yards away and described the explosion as one of the loudest things he has ever heard.

"It was like 40 minutes' worth of fireworks going off in four seconds," Raborn said.

Hundreds of tourists and residents streamed down to the south end of the island to see what was going on, Raborn said.

Three medical helicopters took the injured employees to hospitals, Hyde County spokeswoman Jamie Tunnell said. One worker died at the scene and the other died about six hours later at a hospital.

Build-A-Bear drug bust: $30M in heroin

NEW YORK (AP) — A dozen people have been arrested, and 33 pounds of heroin worth $30 million and stuffed inside Build-A-Bear toys has been seized in a drug bust in the Bronx.

The arrests late Friday afternoon were announced Saturday by the New York office of the Drug Enforcement Administration along with city and state police.

The authorities say the arrests broke up a drug ring that each week sold hundreds of thousands of small bags of drugs.