Governor Ron DeSantis has filled the remaining vacancy on Florida’s Supreme Court, announcing his new pick this week. The move followed a legal push-and-pull, with the governor’s initial choice being rejected. Ryan Dailey has more on the DeSantis effort to get his first pick onto the federal bench.
Advocates are working to get as many Florida felons registered to vote before the November election as they can. But a new ruling from the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals is making that more difficult. It requires felons to first pay off all fines and fees tied to their sentences as Blaise Gainey explains.
Florida doesn’t have any accommodations for certain disabled voters who wish to cast mail-in ballots. If you’re blind or can’t use your arms, you’ll need to get someone else to fill out your ballot. But Robbie Gaffney reports in at least five counties, that’s about to change.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Florida marked the one-year anniversary of its public trust unit this week. The unit’s team of prosecutors and investigators have so far worked on almost 20 cases of public corruption in the 23-county district. In Bay County, prosecutors say officials in one small town conspired with a local company to steal 5-million dollars that was mean for hurricane debris removal. U.S. Attorney Lawrencce Keefe reiterated the importance of the offices’s work at a recent news conference where he announced the arrest of former Lynn Haven Mayor Margo Anderson. Anderson and three other former Lynn Haven officials have been indicted on fraud charges in the last year. As Valerie Crowder reports, the town’s remaining leaders and its residents are finding ways locally to restore public trust as plans for the town’s rebuild move forward.
The 2020 Atlantic Hurricane Season is already one of the busiest on record. We’ve had 21 named storms so far. The last traditional name on the list is “Wilfred” and it’s now swirling in the western Gulf. Now we have to go to the Greek alphabet for storm names. That’s only happened one other time in the history of Atlantic storms. On the day before sub-tropical Storm “Alpha” suddenly emerged off the African coast, Gina Jordan talked with Meteorologist Athena Masson (MASS-uhn) with the Florida Public Radio Emergency Network.