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August 13, 2021

The water fight waged by Florida and Alabama against Georgia has been going on for years. This week, a judge struck down another legal challenge over how much water Georgia can get from the Chattahoochee River. This is the second win for Georgia this year. Last spring, the U.S. Supreme Court ended Florida’s effort to put a cap on Georgia’s water use. Apalachicola Bay in the Florida Panhandle has been a focus in these water fights. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has shut down the Bay’s oyster fishery after years of drought devastated wild oyster beds as wel las the people who depend on the oyster industry for their livelihoods. WFSU's Gina Jordan spoke with reporter Molly Samuel at WABE public radio in Atlanta

As kids are heading back to the classroom for in-person school this year, concerns about rising pediatric coronavirus cases are growing. Regan McCarthy reports doctors are urging masks and vaccines to help reduce the virus’ spread.

Governor Ron DeSantis is backing away from his original threat to defund public school districts and dock the pay of superintendents and school board members. He now says he’ll withhold the equivalent amount of those salaries from the money the state sends to the offending school districts. The threat comes as a result of a few districts imposing student mask mandates in violation of DeSantis’s executive order that no such mandates be imposed. Lynn Hatter has the latest.

A Leon County judge spent more than an hour this (Friday) afternoon considering the legal challenges by the parents to the governor’s mask mandate ban. Lynn Hatter tells Tom Flanigan what happened in the course of those proceedings and what occurs next.

There were nearly 5-thousand teacher vacancies and about 37-hundred support staff position openings across Florida at the start of August. Local districts are seeking bus drivers, food service workers, classroom aides and certified instructors. Those numbers come from an annual survey by the statewide teachers’ union — the Florida Education Association or F-E-A. Valerie Crowder reports the union has tracked a sharp increase in vacancies since this time last year.