WUFT News News and Public Media for North Central Florida from the University of Florida in Gainesville
State laws, including in Florida and neighboring states, are a patchwork of regulations that tend to land on the side of corporate secrecy, more often than not.
Read More »Florida Governor Signs Controversial Abortion Law
Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a controversial bill Tuesday requiring underage girls to obtain consent from a parent before they can have an abortion, lauded as one of his legislative goals during the election year.
Read More »DeSantis Signs Sweeping New Environmental Law For Cleaner Water
The Republican governor called the measure “one of the most significant pieces of substantive legislation in quite some time,” but environmentalists said it falls short of efforts necessary to protect Florida’s waters.
Read More »State Seeks To Fast Track Voting Rights Appeal
Arguing that the case is of “exceptional importance,” lawyers for Gov. Ron DeSantis have made a rare move of asking a full appellate court to consider a challenge to a voting-rights ruling that would pave the way for hundreds of thousands of felons to cast ballots in the November elections.
Read More »DeSantis Signs Bills On Wrongful Incarceration, Broadband
Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday signed 25 bills into law, including approving $2.15 million for a Jacksonville man wrongfully imprisoned for almost 43 years and two measures tied to a series of controversial highway plans.
Read More »Out Of Sight, Still A Blight
Known to pollute water, leaky septic tanks can also pose problems for human health. Whether they can spread COVID-19 is uncertain.
Read More »E-Verify Opponents And Supporters Wait As DeSantis Begins To Sign Bills
If DeSantis signs the bill, as he is expected to do, all public employers, contractors and subcontractors must register with the E-Verify system to hire new employees beginning Jan. 1. Private employers have the option of using E-Verify or the documents required for an I-9 form, but they must keep copies of those documents at least three years.
Read More »State Under Pressure To Revamp Ballot Order Rules
State elections officials will have until June 1 to decide how they want to comply with a federal judge’s ruling that rejected a decades-old Florida law requiring candidates who are in the same party as the governor to appear first on the ballot.
Read More »Senate Reaches Historic Deal On $2 Trillion Coronavirus Economic Rescue Package
Congressional leaders announced an agreement to fund cash payments to Americans, bailouts for key industries and aid to the health care industry.
Read More »Bill To Streamline Life-Saving, Anti-Overdose Drug Naloxone In Schools Failed In Legislature
First-responders carry a powerful, opioid-overdose reversal drug – known as naloxone – that can save lives when injected into a patient or sprayed into his nose. The U.S. surgeon general has urged broader access to the drug to reduce overdose deaths, but the Legislature failed to pass a measure that could have made the drug more widely available in Florida’s schools – despite it being free of charge to schools in many cases.
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