Florida's Latest News

Florida Senate approves redistricting map for Florida’s 28 U.S. House districts

The Florida Senate approved a congressional redistricting plan to divide Florida into 28 congressional districts.

With a 31-4 vote, the plan (S 8060) became the first map approved by a chamber of the Florida Legislature during the once-a-decade redistricting process.

Liberal advocacy groups like Latino Justice have promised lawsuits over a failure to increase Florida’s number of minority access districts. Meanwhile, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office has criticized at least one district as an “unconstitutional gerrymander,” and online activists have called on the Florida House to ignore the Senate map or for DeSantis to veto it.

That said, many third-party observers have generally praised the Senate process. Senate Reapportionment Committee Chair Ray Rodrigues, an Estero Republican, has prioritized working within the boundaries of the law. The Princeton Gerrymandering Project, for example, gave draft maps a B grade.

DeSantis steers $2.3M to training programs for commercial drivers, nurses

Flanked by line workers holding signs that said, “Truck Yeah,” Gov. Ron DeSantis announced $2.3 million in funding Thursday for six state colleges offering commercial driver’s license and nursing certification programs.

“If you look at our economy now, a four-year university degree is not always the best way to be successful,” DeSantis said. “In fact, you have a lot of people who will go deep into debt and will end up with a degree in something like ‘zombie-studies’ and then they wonder why the seas don’t part for them. It’s not necessarily about having a sheet of paper, but it’s really about what skills or knowledge are you being equipped with.”

DeSantis said $930,000 will go to the State College of Florida, which has campuses in Bradenton and Venice; $550,000 to Manatee Technical College in Bradenton; $415,000 to South Florida State College in Avon Park and $100,000 to North Florida Technical College in Starke, all for commercial driver’s license programs.

Florida’s omicron wave could be worse than data shows

Florida has recorded nearly 1.5 million COVID-19 infections since the first case of the omicron variant was identified in the state six weeks ago. Last week the state hit a record 61,500 infections a day.

But the true number of infections is likely much higher.

“Throughout the pandemic we’ve never really known the true rate of spread of the infection,” said Jason Salemi, an epidemiologist at the University of South Florida. “It was horrible at the beginning of the pandemic, because we had no tests, then it got better during the course of the pandemic, but omicron is just a different beast.”

Experts said testing resources can’t keep up with the scale of the contagious variant, aren’t being deployed properly and can’t be tracked. They fear the state’s new testing recommendations could make the problem worse by discouraging asymptomatic Floridians from getting tested.

First Lady Casey DeSantis ‘doing well’ after completing chemotherapy in breast cancer fight

Florida First Lady Casey DeSantis completed her final round of chemotherapy Wednesday in her fight against breast cancer, Gov. Ron DeSantis said.

“She ran that gauntlet,” DeSantis said at an event Thursday in Bowling Green, about 60 miles southeast of Tampa, announcing a new workforce funding program. “ ... She’s doing well, and we look forward to continue to have good news over the ensuing weeks and months.”

“It’s not the most fun thing to see someone go through,” DeSantis said. “But at the end of the day, she’s fought really hard. We think she’s responded very well. I mean, she’s still got more stuff to do. But that’s a big milestone because it’s nasty stuff when they’re doing that.”

The first lady’s breast cancer diagnosis was announced by the governor’s office in October. DeSantis said earlier this month he expected her to be cancer-free sometime this year.