Florida's Latest News

Byron Donalds’ Coastal Corridor plan focuses on waterway protection

Gubernatorial candidate Byron Donalds is rolling out his plan to protect coastal waterways in Florida.

“Protecting Florida’s water is crucial to our state,” Donalds said in Pinellas County, where he announced his “Coastal Corridor” plan as a “marine equivalent” to Florida’s Wildlife Corridor.

“Where the Wildlife Corridor connects inland habitats from the north to the south, the coastal corridor links and protects our coastal waterways along the Gulf of America and the Atlantic Ocean. It connects them back to inland watersheds that feed them,” the Republican Congressman from Naples said.

Indeed, the Wildlife Corridor may be the state’s most concerted effort to protect undeveloped lands. It is a matrix of protected lands connecting core wildlife preserves throughout the state. It encompasses nearly 18 million acres of land, 10 million of which are conservation lands, stretching from the Everglades in South Florida all the way north to the Okefenokee Swamp and northwest to the tip of the Florida Panhandle.

How will Florida's minimum wage increase to $15 affect workers and businesses?

On Sept. 30, Florida’s minimum wage went up to $15 due to a constitutional amendment voters approved in 2020.

In 2019, the minimum wage in Florida was less than $9. Now with the $15 rate, it will rise in the future to keep up with inflation rates.

Many supporters said the former wage wasn’t a livable one and that workers getting more money to spend would create economic growth. The phase-in for the full $15 was reached, giving businesses time to adjust.

Concerns about business employers not being prepared to adjust to the increase to $15 an hour are arising.

Samantha Padgett, from the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association, said businesses are already dealing with higher prices across the board.

Today is the last day to register to vote in the 2026 Midterms

Eligible voters who have not yet registered to vote are officially out of time at the end of Monday, as Oct. 5 is this year’s deadline to register to vote in the 2026 General Election.

State law requires Floridians to register to vote no later than 29 days before the election; Monday marks 29 days until Election Day in Florida.

Voters who are already registered can still make address changes to their voter registration after Monday’s deadline, as long as the new address is also located within the state of Florida. State law allows in-state address changes at any time.

Florida residents who are eligible to vote — those who are 18 years old or older, are U.S. citizens and have not had their voting rights suspended due to a felony conviction — can register online, at any Supervisor of Elections office, at any office that issues Florida driver licenses or ID cards, at any public library or with any voter registration agency, such as a public assistance office.

Florida's dengue outbreak is now the largest in the continental US in decades

Florida's current dengue outbreak appears to be the largest in several decades in the continental United States.

State health officials reported this week that more than 250 locally acquired cases of the mosquito-borne disease have been tallied so far this year. The vast majority of them were in Hillsborough County.

Federal health officials say their data on dengue outbreaks is limited. But available information from state health departments and medical journals suggests the Florida outbreak marks the most cases in a calendar year for any state since at least the 1940s.

Puerto Rico is consistently hit hard by dengue, with numbers much higher than what's seen in any of the 50 states. But in the continental U.S., Florida usually gets the most locally transmitted cases. The state's previous worst year was 2023, when just under 200 locally spread cases were reported.