Florida's Latest News

‘Pathetic failure of leadership’: Ron DeSantis blasts Joe Biden’s school reopening plan

Gov. Ron DeSantis made a rare direct attack against President Joe Biden, accusing the President of a “pathetic failure of leadership” on reopening schools.

During an interview airing Sunday with Mark Levin on Fox News, the Governor said the evidence is clear that in-person education hasn’t caused COVID-19 outbreaks. Democrats, including Biden, are listening more to teachers’ unions than the science, DeSantis leveled.

“This is just purely being subservient to a special interest, and Biden has been one of the worst in it, because when he says, ‘My goal is to get 50% of the schools in person in 100 days,’ we’ve already had that,” DeSantis said. “His goal should have been yesterday to get everybody back in school, but he can’t do that because he doesn’t want to upset the teachers’ union.”

DeSantis to allow physicians to vaccinate people deemed ‘extremely vulnerable’ to COVID-19

After focusing almost exclusively since December on vaccinating seniors, Gov. Ron DeSantis has cleared the way for more people under age 65 to receive shots if they are “extremely vulnerable” to COVID-19.

DeSantis issued an executive order late Friday afternoon that allows physicians to vaccinate people who are deemed “extremely vulnerable” to the disease. The executive order also will allow advanced practice registered nurses and pharmacists to provide shots to such people if physicians determine that the recipients are extremely vulnerable.

Under a Dec. 23 executive order, hospitals -- but not the other types of health-care providers -- were allowed to vaccinate people considered extremely vulnerable to COVID-19. But the primary focus of the December order was DeSantis’ push to vaccinate people age 65 or older.

As Florida lawmakers reconvene, pandemic casts large shadow

Florida lawmakers gavel into session Tuesday amid a pandemic that will play a starring role on their agenda and influence how they conduct business over the next two months.

The state Legislature will have to grapple with a health threat that has loomed large on public life and the state's economy, as lawmakers deal with reduced government revenues as they draft a state budget.

The coronavirus is already influencing how lawmakers are conducting business. Social distancing rules will remain in place at the Capitol to keep the coronavirus from infiltrating the hallways of power -- even though a fourth of the state Senate, perhaps more, has been infected by the disease, including the chamber's president and its top Democrat.

Shevrin Jones says Session should include condemnation of White supremacy following Capitol attack

With the Capitol attack months in the rearview, Democratic Sen. Shevrin Jones wants to make sure Florida hasn’t forgotten the threat of White supremacy.

Jones is pushing a resolution (SR 1074) in the 2021 Legislative Session — which begins Tuesday — calling on his colleagues to condemn the hateful ideology. In a talk with Florida Politics, he pegged it as one of his top priorities this year.

The measure would follow a broader resolution, approved in 2020, pushing back against philosophies which incite hatred based on immutable characteristics. White nationalists and white supremacists were specifically named in that 2020 resolution, though even that wasn’t without controversy.