Florida's Latest News

Florida’s head of disaster management resigns after joining race for governor

Kevin Guthrie is out of his post as Florida’s emergency management director, one day after joining Lt. Gov. Jay Collins’ ticket in his long-shot quest to become the state’s next governor.

Gov. Ron DeSantis, during an unrelated news event Tuesday, announced that he’d accepted Guthrie’s resignation and that Florida Department of Transportation Secretary Jared Perdue will take over Guthrie’s job.

“It’s important we have emergency management just focused on emergency management,” DeSantis said.

“I don’t want to be in a situation where there’s politics in emergency management,” DeSantis said, adding that he wishes Guthrie the best. “I think you got to choose one or the other.”

DeSantis said he was surprised that Guthrie — who’s never before run for office — “aspired” to get into politics.

Who will win this Pinellas school board race? They’re split by 7 votes.

The big story: The two candidates for Pinellas County school board District 6 head to the local elections headquarters this morning hoping for some closure to their race.

The supervisor of elections called for a new look at the ballots after the first round of unofficial results from Tuesday’s primary showed former board member Nancy Bostock leading political newcomer Amanda Lord by two votes of more than 42,100 cast.

The spread grew to seven Thursday evening after a canvassing board review of mail and provisional ballots with questioned voter signatures. That process added 25 votes to the tally.

The change was not nearly enough to call off a recount, which state law requires when the difference between the top two candidates in a race is less than 0.5%. A machine recount is set for 9 a.m., followed by a manual review if needed, to determine who won.

DeSantis announces cancer grants applications are open, touts increased research dollars

Florida is accepting applications for $70 million in cancer “innovation” funds.

During a press conference in Orlando Wednesday, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced the availability of cancer innovation grant funds for next year and the latest list of researchers chosen to receive grants.

During a lengthy press conference, the governor touted his administration’s focus on increasing cancer research funding during his tenure in office, an interest inspired by First Lady Casey DeSantis’ cancer diagnosis and treatment.

DeSantis successfully pushed for increasing funds to the “National Cancer Institute (NCI) Centers Program,” created in 2014 by former Gov. Rick Scott and later renamed for Casey DeSantis, who disclosed in October 2021 she had breast cancer. The governor announced she was cancer free in March 2022.

Another polling firm comes under fire for ‘falsified data’ on Florida primary

A major polling tracker announced Thursday it would suspend its use of data from a pollster after it discovered evidence that the firm allegedly “falsified data” in a survey of candidates in Florida’s gubernatorial Republican primary race. 

The decision follows a shocking announcement last week from fake polling center Median Strategies, which admitted to spreading false polling data on the Los Angeles mayoral race as part of a “short-term social experiment” on the spread of unverified information. 

FiftyPlusOne announced Thursday it was “permanently banning” its use of The Public Sentiment Institute’s (TPSI) data after the firm reportedly fabricated vote-choice data for select respondents in their survey and failed to disclose it was funded by James Fishback’s campaign, one of the GOP candidates in the Florida gubernatorial race. 

“This fabrication appears to have boosted the poll numbers of the political candidate that paid TPSI for polling services,” the firm wrote.