Florida News Archive

Gov. Ron DeSantis recently released a $99.7 billion budget blueprint for the 2022 legislative session and has touted a series of other proposals.

Florida trailed only Texas in population increases from 2020 to 2021, while the nation had the slowest growth rate in its history, according to information released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau. Florida grew by 211,196 residents from July 1, 2020, to July 1, 2021, to a population of 21,781,128, the census estimates show. Texas grew by an estimated 310,288 residents to a population of 29,527,941.

The Florida Department of Health released a report Friday that reflected a surge in COVID-19 cases this month. Here are totals of new cases for the past 10 weeks:

— Week starting Oct. 15: 15,292

— Week starting Oct. 22: 13,123

Louie Wainwright, a longtime leader of Florida’s corrections system whose name is on the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision Gideon v. Wainwright, died Thursday in Tallahassee. He was 98.

Pointing to an effort to ensure diversity in the court system, President Joe Biden on Thursday nominated Southern Poverty Law Center attorney Nancy Gbana Abudu for a seat on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which hears cases from Florida, Georgia and Alabama.

Saying President Joe Biden exceeded his authority, a Tampa federal judge Wednesday backed Florida’s attempt to block a COVID-19 vaccination requirement for federal contractors.

After both sides said the case was moot, the 1st District Court of Appeal on Wednesday dismissed a high-profile legal fight about the state’s efforts to prevent school mask mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic. A three-judge panel dismissed an appeal after attorneys for Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration and a group of parents filed a joint motion saying the case was moot because of a law passed in a special legislative session last month

As the Seminole Tribe pursues a legal battle to regain control over online sports betting in Florida, the federal government has not decided whether to launch an appeal.

Florida trailed only Texas in population increases from 2020 to 2021, while the nation had the slowest growth rate in its history, according to information released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau.

A federal judge heard arguments Tuesday in a more than five-year legal battle over whether the Florida High School Athletic Association violated a Christian school’s free-speech rights by preventing a prayer from being read over a loudspeaker before a football game.