The Point

The Point, Feb. 24, 2023: Florida executes first prisoner since 2019

WUFT | By WUFT News

Published February 24, 2023 at 1:00 PM EST

Subscribe to The Point, arriving in your inbox Monday through Friday at 8 a.m.

The stories near you

• WUFT News: Protestors sang and prayed outside Florida State Prison as Donald Dillbeck was executed. "Schoolchildren, teachers, advocates and attorneys gathered across the street from the prison holding red and black signs and wearing shirts that read 'we oppose the execution this week.'"

• WUFT News: Gainesville Police Advisory Council plans to revisit the future of K-9 Unit. "Having already voted to keep the K-9 unit working, the council had planned to wait until May to meet again to discuss the future of the unit."

• WUFT News: Lake City debates new public records policy. "At the meeting, council members discussed whether 30 minutes was enough time for an employee to search for a record."

• Mainstreet Daily News: Newberry cancels April election. "Newberry opened its qualifying period on Monday for candidates to run for mayor and two city commissioner positions. But after qualifying closed at noon on Thursday, only the incumbents had filed."

• WUFT News: Ukraine’s heart in Florida: How loved ones bring people together thousands of miles away. "In a home computer are hundreds of pages of letters sent to the Whartons. Their contents are heartstrings extending from Ukraine to Florida since Russia invaded the country a year ago."

• WUFT News: UF students and faculty hold ‘Can’t Ban Us’ teach-in about Black history. "Students and faculty gathered at the teach-in to highlight the rapidly growing African American history and Black studies resources housed at George A. Smathers libraries."

• WUFT News: Alachua County’s Human Rights Board has a new member, and she is seeking change. "Erin Field cannot walk, but she has never had more power."

Today's sponsored message

Around the state

• News Service of Florida: Migrant flights lawsuit is dismissed after new migrant transport bill passes. "During a late-afternoon hearing, Circuit Judge John Cooper dismissed the lawsuit after Pizzo’s attorney, Mark Herron, acknowledged that it should end."

• WUSF-Tampa: Clean energy advocates educate Floridians about electric rate hikes, ahead of campaign launch. "Clean energy advocates held an online event this week to educate Florida residents on why their electric bills have been increasing so much in recent years: as the cost of fossil fuel goes up, so do rates."

• Florida Politics: Bill to preserve historic cemeteries wins unanimous House subcommittee approval. "The bill would create a state program to guard the eternal rest of African Americans buried during the era of segregation."

• WUSF-Tampa: Students hold statewide campus walkouts to protest DeSantis' 'attack on education.' "They did so as part of a movement called “Stand for Freedom” — a protest of the DeSantis administration's probe into college diversity, equity and inclusion programs, requests for health records for trans students and faculty, the restructuring of New College of Florida, and more."

• Florida Politics: Penalty hikes for fans who run onto football fields, concert stages advance with extra sanctions for sponsors. "Event disrupters could receive a year in jail and $2,500 in fines. Those paying them to do it would face even steeper penalties."

• WLRN-Miami: Everglades reservoir underway, but there's new concerns over whether it will work. "The reservoir, along with treatment marshes already under construction by the South Florida Water Management District, are intended to help repair ailing Everglades wetlands and reduce polluted discharges from Lake Okeechobee fouling coastal estuaries."