Florida's Latest News

Florida’s new academic standards are ‘weak,’ outside review says

Gov. Ron DeSantis called a special news conference in January to boast about Florida’s new educational standards, something he had promised a year earlier to appeal to his conservative base.

Gone were the controversial Common Core standards that many critics had blasted as an unworkable federal mandate. In their place, DeSantis said, was common sense.

These would serve as a model for the nation, the governor declared. He named them the Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking, which, as the acronym BEST suggested, met the state’s pledge to have the finest standards around.

Weeki Wachee, the city of live mermaids, is no more

The city of Weeki Wachee ceased to be on Tuesday when Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill dissolving the municipality.

Founded in 1966 to put the famous Weeki Wachee mermaid attraction onto maps and road signs, the city at last count had just 13 residents. But in recent years, the city’s coexistence with the state park caused friction.

Questions arose about how the people running the city, which was insolvent and provided no visible services to the small business community that paid taxes, could be the same people who ran important functions at the state park. 

Time running out for Ron DeSantis to act on the budget

The state budget has felt a distant thought amid the coronavirus pandemic, but with July quickly approaching, Gov. Ron DeSantis faces a dilemma of where to thin $500 million to $1 billion dollars from the impending fiscal year’s budget.

In March, the Governor asked legislative leaders to hold on to the $93.2 billion spending plan to buy time for the economy to track its course and for Congress to outline federal assistance. But with three weeks remaining until July 1, the scene is mostly set for the economic realities going into the 2020-2021 fiscal year, and the Legislature will soon hand its spending plan to the Governor, kicking off a 15-day countdown for him to pick winners and losers.

Florida's Higher COVID-19 Cases Not A Second Wave – Yet

The number of new COVID-19 cases has gone up in Florida in the past week, with the state and Tampa Bay area reporting some of their highest figures since the pandemic began. This comes a month after the state began reopening for business and recreation. 

But data on new cases alone doesn't paint a complete picture about coronavirus in Florida.