Florida's Latest News

Gov. DeSantis signs ‘Cassie Carli Law’ to ease the safe exchange of minors

Under the new law, every Sheriff’s Office in Florida must provide at least 1 location for safe child custody exchanges.

Florida law will change next month to better protect parents and their children during custody exchanges through legislation Gov. Ron DeSantis just signed.

The bipartisan measure (HB 385) is named for Cassie Carli, a Navarre woman who died after a custody exchange gone wrong. Had it been law at the time, she likely would still be alive, the bill’s many proponents said.

Effective July 1, the “Cassie Carli Law” requires all court-approved plans for shared parental custody to include, unless otherwise agreed to by both parents, a list of “authorized locations” to hand off their children.

AI used in prepping Florida state and local responses to hurricanes

As the official hurricane season gets underway, artificial intelligence (AI) is playing an increased role in helping the Department of Emergency Management (DEM) prepare to deal with the tropical blasts.

KPMG LLP Data and Analytics is in its third year as a contractor with DEM, and the projection this year is for a more active season than usual.

Bobby Gorantla, a managing director for KPMG, is directly involved with advising DEM officials and local municipalities on how AI can better prepare the local and state governments for a major storm during the so-called “mean season.”

“Our goal with AI is to create efficiencies, make predictions, automations and sort of like remove some of the repetitiveness and the fatigue that comes with the (emergency preparedness) job,” Gorantla said.

Florida Supreme Court weighs UF campus shutdown case

In one of numerous similar lawsuits in Florida and across the country, the state Supreme Court on Wednesday weighed whether a University of Florida graduate student could seek to require the school to refund money for services that were not provided during a COVID-19 campus shutdown in 2020.

Attorneys for student Anthony Rojas went to the Supreme Court after a divided panel of the 1st District Court of Appeal rejected a potential class-action lawsuit stemming from fees that students paid for services such as transportation, health care and athletics.

The appeals court ruled that an Alachua County circuit judge should have dismissed the lawsuit because UF was shielded by sovereign immunity, a legal concept that generally protects government agencies from liability.

But a key issue is whether UF breached a contract with Rojas. Under sovereign immunity, government agencies can face lawsuits if it is shown that contracts have been breached.

AIF poll shows Florida voters trust Republicans on economy, but remain unhappy on insurance response

Pocketbook issues like inflation could determine which party Florida voters in Florida support in November. That should be good for Republicans, whom voters generally trust more on economic issues. But on the critical issue of insurance costs, voters remain displeased with political officials across the board.

That’s according to a new poll released by the Associated Industries of Florida (AIF), whose Center for Political Strategy.

While the organization plans to release full crosstabs on the poll at its ongoing Summer political retreat, pollsters shared that voters prefer generic Republican candidates over generic Democrats by a 47% to 43% advantage. Pollsters report a margin of error of 3.4 percentage points.

Importantly, Florida independent voters say they prefer Democrats over Republicans by a 43% to 36% advantage. But Republicans hold an edge on voter registrations in the state.