Florida News Archive

A plan to shutter up to four state prisons is alarming officials in Florida’s rural regions where correctional institutions have played an outsized role in providing jobs and supporting businesses for decades.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to take up a lawsuit that alleged Florida Department of Children and Families social workers showed “deliberate indifference” to a child who was placed in foster care shortly after birth and was diagnosed with AIDS at age 14.

The Florida Senate is poised to start moving forward with a proposal designed to crack down on social-media companies that block users from their platforms, a priority of Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday issued an executive order barring government agencies from issuing COVID-19 “passports” and preventing Florida businesses from requiring customers to show documentation that they have been vaccinated or have recovered from COVID-19 before gaining entrance.

Sweet and salty, oysters from Apalachicola Bay are an epicure’s delight.

But the U.S. Supreme Court dealt a major blow to Franklin County’s crippled oyster industry this week, siding with Georgia in a years-long legal “water war” over the river system that flows into the Florida estuary where the tasty tidbits have spawned for centuries.

A survey of 5,110 people incarcerated in prisons and jails in four states — including Florida — shows that more than 45 percent, or 2,318 people, would refuse COVID-19 vaccinations, according to a new “Morbidity and Mortality” report from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Another nearly 10 percent of people participating in the survey, or 498 people, said they would “hesitate to receive” vaccines while slightly more than 45 percent of the survey participants or, 2,294 people, said they would get the shots.

Gov. Ron DeSantis is asking the Florida Legislature to provide bonuses for public school principals and teachers, using $216 million in federal pandemic relief money earmarked for education. The governor is floating $1,000 bonuses for public school principals and classroom teachers in grades PreK-12, which he estimates would go to 3,600 principals and nearly 180,000 teachers throughout the state.

A Florida Senate panel Wednesday signed off on a proposal aimed at keeping most transgender females from participating in high-school and college sports, but the measure stops short of an all-out ban being considered by the House.

The House and Senate are advancing proposals that would create a public-records exemption for information about lawmakers, including their home addresses and phone numbers, but opponents question how the measures would interact with a requirement that lawmakers live in their districts.

A Northwest Florida attorney who drew national headlines by dressing as the Grim Reaper to criticize Gov. Ron DeSantis’ response to the coronavirus pandemic faces possible discipline after prosecutors filed a motion last week.