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Courtesy photos. A man approaches the counter at the Super 8 Motel in Ormond Beach Thursday night, then jumps over it and rifles through the cash register with a clerk sitting right there. She was unharmed.

DELAND -- The Volusia County Sheriff's Office teamed up with local and state law enforcement Thursday in a crime suppression operation in West Volusia that resulted in 40 arrests and 89 traffic citations.

The eight-hour sweep through DeLand, Orange City, Deltona and DeBary netted arrests for everything from open warrants and traffic offenses to possession of marijuana, Hydrocodone and steroids," Sheriff's spokesman Gary Davidson said.

DAYTONA BEACH -- An ex-convict is heading back to prison for another 15 years after his trial convictions today in the beating of a prostitute in a vacant lot on South Beach Street last September.

A jury found Michael Edward Beach guilty of three separate counts: battery, aggravated battery and false imprisonment.

Washington, DC -- Congresswoman Suzanne Kosmas, D-New Smyrna Beach, defended NASA's human spaceflight program and the thousands of Central Florida jobs it supports by voting today against drastic cuts to exploration funding.

Kosmas, the first-tem congresswoman representing the 24th district, voted no on the FY 2010 Commerce-Justice-Science Appropriations bill, which provides only $3.3 billion for exploration, $670 million less than the President Obama's budget request.

June 18, 2009: Michael R. Wade and Neaka M. Warren, Edgewater; Christopher J. Sabella and Samantha A. Burch, Oak Hill.

Margaret A. Patterson, 89, New Smyrna Beach, a former housekeeper, died Tuesday, June 16, 2009.

Basil Arch, 89, of Edgewater, a self-employed automotive shop owner, died Saturday, June 13, 2009.

Courtesy photo. Robert Herron, a 53-year-old homelesss man from DeLand was in surgery today for a knife wound to his chest. He was found in a wooded area outside the Edgewater city limits with a knife sticking out of his chest.

EDGEWATER -- A 53-year-old homeless DeLand man was found stabbed in the chest, with the knife still stuck in him last night, the Volusia Sheriff's Office reported, adding he remains hospitalized in stable condition today.

Edgewater Police initially responded to the call and found Robert Herron on the ground along the 3200 block of South Ridgewood Avenue, heavily bleeding and the knife in his chest, Sheriff's spokesman Gary Davidson said.

NEW SMYRNA BEACH, Fla -- Retaliation by burning a man's home for a stolen bicycle has landed a 21-year-old Edgewater man in prison for 25 years.