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• WMFE: 2020 Census: Osceola County Grew By 45% Over Decade; The Villages MSA By 39%. "The Villages metropolitan area — which is all of Sumter County — grew by 36,332 people over the decade to 129,752 in the 2020 Census."

• Mainstreet Daily News: Shands CEO: Record COVID hospitalizations continue. "UF Health Shands Hospital has 216 COVID-positive adult patients, a 54 percent increase over the hospital’s previous pandemic high of 140. Among those adult patients, 54 are in the ICU. Shands reported having nine children under the age of 19, including six in ICU."

• Ocala Gazette: School mask policy discussed, unchanged. "(Marion County School) Board Member Eric Cummings again reiterated his stance on masking and enhanced safety procedures and implored the board to take additional actions. 'To me, this is crazy that we’re still talking. How we’re talking when things have not changed. When things are getting worse by the day. We’re gambling with people’s lives right now…with our students’ lives, with our staffs’ lives,' he said."

• The Alligator: Loss of Gainesville woman's baby born in jail sparks community protest. "About 50 protesters gathered outside of Alachua County Jail Wednesday afternoon in unity with grieving mother Erica Thompson, a 25-year-old woman who lost her baby after giving birth in jail. Screams for help went unnoticed for hours until after her child was born and she was taken to UF Shands Hospital — where she watched her newborn, Ava, die in her arms, Thompson wrote in a Facebook post Tuesday."

• WCJB: High Springs city commissioners unanimously vote to purchase the Santa Fe Canoe Outpost. "The city of High Springs is getting into the canoe rental business."

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Around the state today

• Associated Press: Florida Launches Antibody Treatment Effort To Help Hospitals. "The drugs are delivered intravenously or by injection and made by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals. It concentrates doses of lab-made antibodies to fight COVID-19 and are geared toward people who are at high risk."

• WUSF: Florida Reports 20,656 New COVID-19 Cases And 357 Deaths. "The CDC is now counting cases and deaths on the day they occur as opposed to the day they were reported to the agency."

• Politico: DeSantis backpedals on threat to withhold salaries of defiant school officials. "The move by the governor’s office represents a tacit acknowledgment that it legally can’t take away the salaries of school board members and others despite previously threatening to. DeSantis could levy hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines against school districts for disobeying his mask orders, but it would be up for the board leaders themselves to cut their own pay."

• News4Jax: Gov. DeSantis suggests Florida could return to daily COVID-19 reporting. "'In terms of breaking it down by county, you know, that might not be a bad idea going forward. I know we used to look at that a lot,' said DeSantis in a Thursday press conference."

• WLRN: Florida Will Likely Become A Majority-Minority State Over Next Decade, Per Census Data. "The state of Florida as a whole, as well as Miami-Dade, Palm Beach, Broward, and Monroe counties, all saw more than double the amount of people identifying themselves as being from more than one race — as compared to 2010."

• News Service of Florida: Florida Unemployment Claims At Pre-Pandemic Level. "The estimate for last week is the lowest number since 3,807 claims during the week that ended Dec. 28, 2019, more than two months before the pandemic started causing massive jobs losses in March 2020."

• ProPublica/Palm Beach Post: We Reported on Pollution From Sugar Cane Burning. Now Federal Lawmakers Want the EPA to Take Action. "Citing a Palm Beach Post/ProPublica report on the burning of cane fields, leading members of Congress have called for the EPA to investigate air monitoring in Florida and to change national pollution standards."

• Florida Storms: Tropical Storm Watches and Warnings Issued in Southwest Florida and Florida Keys Ahead of Fred. "The forecast remains on track for some strengthening Friday as it approaches the Straits of Florida and moves into the far eastern Gulf of Mexico this weekend."

• WTSP-Tampa: Local business owners hope Tropical Depression Fred will help clear red tide. "But, experts, though optimistic, caution that a positive outcome largely depends on how strong the winds are and the intensity of the storm's counterclockwise direction which could alternatively push the red tide further up the bay."

From NPR News

• Health: How To Deal With Renewed COVID Anxiety

• Health: From Free Pizza To Free Tuition, Colleges Try Everything To Get Students Vaccinated

• Health: Nearly 300,000 More Federal Health Workers Are Ordered To Be Vaccinated

• World: U.S. Troops Sent To Help Evacuate Americans As Taliban Makes Gains In Afghanistan

• Planet Money: How Much Phone Time Is Too Much Phone Time? Scientists Research Digital Addiction

• Race: PBS And Ken Burns Vow To Do Better On Diversity But Critics Aren't Convinced

• National: Jamie Spears Agrees To Step Down From Britney Spears Conservatorship

About today's curator

I'm Ethan Magoc, a news editor at WUFT. Originally from Pennsylvania, I've found a home telling Florida stories. I’m part of a team searching each morning for local and state stories that are important to you; please send feedback about today's edition or ideas for stories we may have missed to emagoc@wuft.org.