Florida's Latest News

DeSantis Financial Bolsters Foster Care System

In the announcement, the Governor’s team shared that “from foster parents who step up, to tuition exemptions for kids in the child welfare system, Governor DeSantis is making positive advancements in the lives of those often overlooked.”

The effort comes after the Governor addressed a “fatherhood crisis,” launching a financial initiative that would provide $70 million to “put programs in place that support fathers and help families stay connected and engaged with each other.”

On Monday, when DeSantis signed H.B. 7065, the “Child Welfare” bill, DeSantis commented that “if you look over the last many decades, one of the worst social trends has been the decline of fatherhood, and we do have in many instances a fatherhood crisis in this country.”

SB 7034 passed during the legislative session that came to a close on March 14^th, and Senate President Wilton Simpson (R) championed the approval.

DeSantis takes over redistricting, bracing for legal battle

You do it.

That is the defiant message Florida’s Republican legislative leaders sent Gov. Ron DeSantis last week after the governor vetoed a compromise plan to redraw Florida’s congressional districts, then called legislators back into a special session starting Tuesday to try again.

House Speaker Chris Sprowls and Senate President Wilton Simpson announced the Legislature’s redistricting staff would neither draft nor produce a map for the special session but instead would await the governor’s plan. After “consulting” with the House and Senate redistricting experts, the governor’s general counsel submitted a map on Wednesday.

It is just as the governor promised.

The map reconfigures the state’s current congressional districts, gives Republicans four additional favorable seats, eliminates two districts now held by Black Democrat U.S. Reps. Al Lawson of North Florida and Val Demings of Orlando, and potentially sets in motion years of legal challenges.

UF Health researchers help develop highly accurate, 30-second coronavirus test

The most accurate COVID-19 test often takes 24 hours or longer to return results from a lab. At-home test kits offer results in minutes but are far less accurate.

UF Health researchers, however, have helped to develop a device that provides a highly accurate, 30-second coronavirus test.

The motherboard of a COVID-19 rapid testing device that UF Health researchers helped develop can return a coronavirus test result as accurately and sensitively as the gold standard of testing, a PCR test, in 30 seconds. UF Health researchers are working with scientists at National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University in Taiwan.

The device, researchers said, could transform public health officials’ ability to quickly detect and respond to the coronavirus — or the next pandemic. And, UF has entered into a licensing agreement with a New Jersey company, Houndstoothe Analytics, in hopes of ultimately manufacturing and selling the device, not just to medical professionals but also to consumers, according to a news release from UF Health Communications.

Nine months after the Surfside collapse, a judge and a new mayor try charting a path forward

No matter how many times the stories of the June 24 disaster get told, they don’t get easier to hear.

"Everybody here welled up, including the court," said Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Michael Hanzman, who got emotional during a court hearing on March 30. "It's very difficult to hear these tragic stories."

By the end of the hearing, Hanzman would rule on a proposed settlement for the homeowners who lost their condos in the collapse — $83 million that would come from insurance payouts and the upcoming sale of the beachfront property.

Some at the hearing spoke against getting blamed for the 40-year-old building collapsing.