Florida's Latest News

Seminole Tribe reaches sports betting agreement with Hialeah Park, four other sites

Continuing to move forward with a major gambling deal with the state, the Seminole Tribe of Florida has reached agreements with five pari-mutuel facilities to help market sports betting.

The gambling deal, which was negotiated by Gov. Ron DeSantis this spring and approved by lawmakers during a May special session, allows the tribe to operate online sports betting that will be available to people throughout the state.

But part of the deal also called for the tribe to negotiate agreements with pari-mutuel facilities that would market sports betting and get a 60% cut of profits generated by the marketing. The tribe announced Thursday that it has reached agreements with the Palm Beach Kennel Club; Hialeah Park Casino; Ocala Gainesville Poker and Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co.; Tampa Bay Downs; and TGT Poker & Racebook in Tampa.

DeSantis sues Biden over vaccine mandates for contractors

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Attorney General Ashley Moody filed another lawsuit against the U.S. government Thursday, challenging the rule requiring companies that are federal contractors to show proof of vaccination or weekly COVID tests of their employees and calling it a “heavy-handed mandate never authorized by Congress.”

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court in the Middle District of Florida’s Tampa division, is one in a series of lawsuits against the federal government’s COVID-19 protocols, specifically the vaccine mandates, imposed by President Joe Biden. It seeks to halt implementation of the Dec. 8 deadline that applies to federal contractors.

“We are going to seek a preliminary injunction so that this mandate isn’t allowed to be imposed at the expense of the jobs of Floridians,’’ DeSantis said at a news conference in Lakeland. “We’ve got a very big footprint of companies that do contracting work for the federal government,” including the defense contractors and many along the Space Coast of Florida. “There’s a lot of folks that will be in the crosshairs on this.”

Mu variant of COVID-19 found in Altamonte Springs wastewater, city manager says

As Central Florida recovers from its surge of the delta variant, wastewater surveillance in Altamonte Springs this week revealed fragments of the mu variant of COVID-19, city manager Frank Martz said.

The amount of the mutation shed in the wastewater system was small Monday, Martz said, in comparison to far larger amounts found of the delta variant, which fueled record numbers of infections, hospitalizations and deaths in the region since July.

It’s the first known discovery of the mu variant in the region, which was first detected in Colombia in early 2021, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Mu is classified as a variant being monitored by the CDC and a “Variant of Interest” by the World Health Organization.

Florida engineers say all large buildings should be inspected after Surfside

Florida should require almost all large buildings to be inspected for structural issues, a coalition of the state's leading engineering associations recommended Thursday.

The recommendations come from a task force formed in the wake of the Surfside building collapse. The coalition, called the Surfside Working Group, gave their suggestions to state lawmakers.

The recommendation is for all Florida buildings that "exceed 10 occupants and are greater than 2,000 square feet." If accepted, it would require structural recertification within the building's first 30 years, with follow-ups every 10 years after.