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The Point, Jan. 31, 2022: Alachua County's 2022 Teacher of the Year is a middle school music director

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Today's top Florida stories

• WUFT News: Lincoln Middle School music teacher named Alachua County’s 2022 Teacher of the Year. "(Todd) Eckstein, 46, takes seriously his role as director of instrumental music at Lincoln Middle School. He has for the past 15 years. In 2014, his students broke the county record for the number of school qualifiers sent to the Florida All-State music ensembles in a single year. On Thursday, Eckstein was named Alachua County’s top teacher at the Robert W. Hughes Teacher of the Year program celebration."

• Associated Press: Cold snap leaves icicles hanging from crops across Central Florida. "The National Weather Service said the temperatures are going to warm up nicely after a weekend at or near-freezing temperatures. The low temperatures are quite rare in Florida, but at first glance, the citrus, strawberry and tomato winter crops suffered no major damage. Farmers spray water onto the crops to help protect them from the cold."

• WUFT News: Cold weather shelters open in north central Florida during period of plummeting temperatures. "North central Florida has four shelters – two in Gainesville, one in Lake City and one in Ocala – providing hot meals, beds and clothing to residents seeking refuge during this chilly season."

• Politico: DeSantis aims to block state cash from companies flying immigrant children. None receive any, records show. "It’s among the potential problems with the governor’s loosely outlined policy push, which is a central part of contentious immigration legislation DeSantis is championing ahead of the 2022 midterms."

• News Service of Florida: Florida OSHA Shift Could Take Years. "Saying it is too early to determine whether pursuing the change would be “prudent,” Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration has told legislative leaders that it could take about nine years to move away from workplace regulation by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration."

• New York Times ($): The Ticking Clock for Miami's Condo Empire. "Pull up a map of the Florida coast, drop your finger onto the surface and you’ll almost certainly land on a town or city with its own disaster in the making. According to one recent study, 918,000 of Florida’s condo units are, like the ones in Champlain Towers South, more than 30 years old; many towers were thrown up during the boom years, when oversight was lax, developers were incentivized to prize speed over attention to detail and every permit was a rubber stamp away."

• Miami Herald ($): Feds try to block victims of Surfside condo collapse from accessing crucial evidence. "The evidence is key, both for federal investigators at the National Institute of Standards and Technology seeking to understand what caused the collapse — and for attorneys for victims and defendants in a massive civil court case that will try to assign liability for an accident that claimed 98 lives at Champlain Towers South. But now NIST and Miami-Dade County are trying to prevent experts for the attorneys from testing and sampling the materials."

• WGCU: Masks used to protect people from Covid-19 are becoming a worldwide threat to wildlife. "Discarded cigarette butts, empty cans and bottles have been fouling Southwest Florida’s beaches, preserves and parking lots for as long as people have been using such items, and now there is a new scourge being mixed in: discarded face masks used to protect the wearer from Covid-19."

• Tallahassee Democrat ($): Florida State probes air quality concerns in another building; some faculty shift to remote classes. "Florida State University will examine air quality in another on-campus building just days after the Sandels Building closed amid reports of troubling health concerns."

• Tampa Bay Times ($): It won’t take the ‘perfect storm’ to wreak havoc across Tampa Bay. "Tampa Bay is more vulnerable to less intense hurricanes than anywhere else in the state. The perilous position is a matter of both geography and explosive development. The threat is greater because too few people comprehend it. Faulty maps, complicated science and outdated mindsets instill a false sense of security."

• WTSP-Tampa: 'Painful loss': 2 Hillsborough County deputies found dead at vacation home. "The bodies of the deputies were discovered Saturday night at a vacation rental home in St. Augustine, a news release from the sheriff's office reports. Preliminary information shows the two deputies, who were in a romantic relationship, were heard arguing in a bedroom by fellow deputies on vacation with them just before gunshots fired, the release explains. Both of them were found with fatal gunshot wounds."

• WFLA-Tampa: 16 books removed from Polk County school libraries after objection from conservative group. "This developed amid a 'dramatic uptick' in challenges to books involving racial and LGBTQ issues, according to the American Library Association. The books include The Kite Runner, written by an author from Afghanistan, and two books written by Toni Morrison, an acclaimed African-American author."


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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.

Contact WUFT News by calling 352-392-6397 or emailing news @wuft.org