SCENE | C1 LOCAL | A3 CLERMONT’S STRUGGLING HISTORIC VILLAGE BEVERLY SHORES HOSTS DESSERT GETS HELP FROM CONTEST SATURDAY AREA CHURCHES Thursday, August 8, 2019 YOUR LOCAL SOURCE FOR LAKE & SUMTER COUNTIES @dailycommercial Facebook.com/daily.commercial $1 ‘Red fl ag’ gaining momentum Bipartisan gun But a bipartisan proposal by A similar bill never came due process,” Trump said HOW DOES A RED laws plan has Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., up for a vote in the GOP- in a White House speech on FLAG LAW WORK? support in Congress and Richard Blumenthal, controlled Senate last year, Monday. D-Conn., is gaining momen- but both parties express hope A closer look at red flag laws, In general, red flag or By Matthew Daly tum following weekend mass that this year will be different. which have been adopted by at “extreme risk protection The Associated Press shootings in Texas and Ohio President Donald Trump has least 17 states and the District of order” laws allow courts to that left 31 people dead. The signaled support for the plan. Columbia, including a law set to issue temporary orders barring WASHINGTON — Despite emerging plan would create “We must make sure that take effect Aug. 24 in New York. someone from possessing frequent mass shootings, Con- a federal grant program to those judged to pose a grave Most of the laws have been guns based on some showing gress has proved to be unable to encourage states to adopt “red risk to public safety do not approved since the February of imminent danger or a risk of pass substantial gun violence flag” laws to take guns away have access to firearms and 2018 mass shooting at Marjory misuse. legislation, largely because of from people believed to be dan- that if they do those firearms Stoneman Douglas High School resistance from Republicans. gers to themselves or others. can be taken through rapid in Parkland, Florida. See RED FLAG, A5 Boom in overdose- Paying tribute reversing drug is tied to fewer drug deaths By Mike Stobbe midst of the deadliest drug The Associated Press overdose epidemic in its his- tory. About 68,000 people NEW YORK — Prescriptions died of overdoses last year, of the overdose-reversing according to preliminary gov- drug naloxone are soaring, ernment statistics reported and experts say that could be last month, a drop from the a reason overdose deaths have more than 70,000 in 2017. stopped rising for the first “One could only hope that time in nearly three decades. this extraordinary increase The number of nalox- in prescribing of naloxone is one prescriptions dispensed contributing to that stabili- by U.S. retail pharmacies zation or even decline of the doubled from 2017 to last crisis,” said Katherine Keyes, year, rising from 271,000 a Columbia University drug to 557,000, health officials abuse expert. reported Tuesday. The United States is in the See DRUG, A5 LOCAL | A3 Local Purple Heart recipients gather with Property Appraiser Carey Baker and Mayor Nick Girone at the Purple Heart Day ceremony in Mount Dora on Wednesday. [CINDY SHARP/CORRESPONDENT] RENAMING Mount Dora honors its heroes on Purple Heart Day STREET BRINGS By Roxanne Brown roxanne.brown@dai- BACKLASH lycommercial.com MOUNT DORA — Water- man Village’s Wayne Kunkel, 95, a local World Florida husband, 92, War II veteran, said he still remembers clearly prepar- ing to go into Normandy and wife, 89, competing with fellow soldiers of the 83rd Infantry Division. in water ski nationals It’s the memories of shortly after getting there that things get hazy. By Larry Keller be the oldest competitors at “I went into Normandy GateHouse Florida the 2019 GOODE Water Ski and I never got past the first A member of the Mount Dora Fire Department thanks Wayne National Championships few days of fighting. All I Kunkel, a 95-year-old Purple Heart recipient, for his service at the At an age when most people at Okeeheelee Park in West remember is that I woke up Purple Heart Day ceremony in Mount Dora on Wednesday. [CINDY are thankful just to be alive, Palm Beach through Saturday. after being unconscious for SHARP/CORRESPONDENT] Harry and Artis Price are Events begin at 8 a.m. every I don’t even know how long. zooming behind boats, zip- day. Admission is free. But after some time I got “Today, we’re gathered Purple Heart City,” Girone ping over lakes and defying The championships are better and here I am today,” here around this Veterans added. Father Time. being held in conjunction Kunkel said. Memorial to raise a flag to During the ceremony, He’s 92 and she’s 89, and Kunkel later found out honor a group of veterans Girone told guests about the husband-wife team will See COUPLE, A5 that he had suffered a blast who received a service medal all the hard work the concussion and to this day, that they never wanted city’s Public Works and the shrapnel in his leg helps to receive: the Purple Parks crews did in the Left to right: tell the story about how he Heart,” Mount Dora Mayor past few weeks to clean Artis Price, 89, ended up as a Purple Heart Nick Girone said before up and restore the Veter- and Dr. Harry recipient. explaining that the Purple ans Memorial monument, Price, 92, will Kunkel was one of the Heart medal is awarded first dedicated in 1931. It be competing honored guests at Mount by the military to service stands on the corner of in this week’s Dora’s Purple Heart Day members who were either Fifth Avenue and Baker Water Ski ceremony Wednesday wounded or killed during Street in a spot directly in National morning, at which the city combat. front of City Hall, where the Championships raised a special Purple Heart “Today is Purple Heart Purple Heart flag was raised at Okeeheelee flag presented in June by Day around the country and Wednesday alongside the Park. [GODWIN the Military Order of the the flag we are raising here U.S. flag. KELLY/NEWS- Purple Heart for the state today is symbolic of the fact JOURNAL] of Florida. that Mount Dora is now a See HEROES, A7 Volume 143, Issue 220 Local & State ................ A3 Scene ........................... C1 © 2019 GateHouse Media Opinion .......................A9 Comics ........................C4 Home delivery: 352-787-0600 Sports...........................B1 Diversions .................... C5 A2 Thursday, August 8, 2019 | DailyCommercial.com NATION&WORLD SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA Kim: North Korean launches were warning to US, South Trump faces protests as North Korea said Wednes- day leader Kim Jong Un supervised a live-fire demon- stration of newly developed, he visits Dayton, El Paso short-range ballistic missiles intended to send a warning to the United States and South By Zeke Miller and Korea over their joint military Jill Colvin exercises.The official Korean The Associated Press Central News Agency said two missiles launched from a western DAYTON, Ohio — Pro- airfield flew across the country testers greeted President and over the area surrounding Donald Trump’s arrival in the capital, Pyongyang, before Dayton Wednesday, blam- accurately hitting an island ing his incendiary rhetoric for target off its eastern coast. inflaming political and racial Its four rounds of weapons tensions in the country, as demonstrations in two weeks he visited survivors of last come during a stalemate in weekend’s mass shootings nuclear negotiations and after and saluted first responders. President Donald Trump The president and first repeatedly dismissed the signif- lady Melania Trump began icance of the tests, even though their visit at the hospital the weapons show North where many of the victims Korea’s ability to strike at U.S. of Sunday’s attack were allies South Korea and Japan and treated. Reporters traveling its military bases there. with the president were kept out of view, but White House MORTON, MISS. Press Secretary Stephanie Immigration raids hit Grisham tweeted that the Miss. food processing plants couple had “been stopping between rooms to thank the Demonstrators chant as they protest the arrival of President Donald Trump outside Miami Valley U.S. immigration officials hardworking medical staff. Hospital on Wednesday in Dayton, Ohio. [JOHN MINCHILLO/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS] raided several Mississippi food Very powerful moments for processing plants on Wednesday all!” of Democrats. likely. thing Trump could do was and signaled that the early- Outside Miami Valley “Had nothing to do with In Dayton, the anger and to meet with relatives of the morning strikes were part of a Hospital, at least 200 pro- President Trump,” Trump pain were on display as victims. large-scale operation targeting testers gathered, hoping to said. “So these are people protesters chanted “Ban “It shows that he actu- owners as well as employees. send a message to the presi- that are looking for political those guns” and “Do some- ally cares, if he talks to Employees filled three buses — dent that they want action gain.” thing!”— now a rallying cry individual families,” said two for men and one for women on gun control. Some said He also defended his around the city. Melendez, who credits — at a Koch Foods Inc. plant in he was not welcome in their rhetoric on issues includ- Holding a sign that said Johnson with helping his tiny Morton, 40 miles east of city. There were Trump sup- ing immigration, claiming “Not Welcome Here,” Lyn- 9-year-old daughter survive Jackson. They were taken to a porters, as well. instead that he “brings nell Graham said she thinks the attack by pushing her military hangar to be processed Critics say Trump’s own people together.