The Point

The Point, Dec. 5, 2023: Former US diplomat charged with spying for Cuba

WUFT | By WUFT News,

WUFT News

Published December 5, 2023 at 1:00 PM EST

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The stories near you

• WCJB: Voter rights groups to appeal North Florida congressional map ruling to Supreme Court. "The Florida Supreme Court is likely to hear a statewide redistricting case. Voter rights groups are planning to appeal a decision that the state’s congressional districts can stay."

• Mainstreet Daily News: Gainesville civil rights leader Charles Chestnut III dies at 83. "Chestnut led Gainesville protests and sit-ins during the civil rights movement, later marching on Washington, D.C., with Martin Luther King Jr. He witnessed King’s 'I have a dream' speech, and Cynthia Chestnut said King inspired Chestnut to continue the work locally."

• WCJB: Alachua County Education Association members against proposed pay raise for school superintendent. "The proposed raise would increase the superintendent’s salary from $175,000 to $225,000."

• The Alligator: Longtime Gainesville residents, community leaders reflect on city protest history. "The city has a long history of protests. Beginning in the late 1960s, UF students took to the streets when they felt their voices weren’t being heard. Six decades later, students and Gainesville community members still gather in masses to ignite change."

• Mainstreet Daily News: UF announces third round of strategic funding awardees. "The projects will include a center for advancing gene and cell therapies, an AI-augmented learning platform for mathematics, enhanced access to cancer screenings and a digital humanities lab."

• The Alligator: Porter’s Quarters community farm combats food insecurity, empowers neighborhood. "In an unsuspecting intersection of streets near Downtown Gainesville, an empty plot of land used to lie across the Porter’s Quarters Community Center. Today, the plot serves as a community farm that grows fresh crops for residents."

• WUFT News: Pickleball pro: one UF player’s journey to the big leagues. "Django Chassang wants to dink for a living. The 20-year-old junior at the University of Florida follows much of the same lifestyle as his peers, but he tries to balance it with a career as a professional athlete."

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Around the state

• Associated Press: Former career US diplomat charged with secretly spying for Cuban intelligence for decades. "A former career American diplomat was charged Monday with serving as a secret agent for communist Cuba going back decades in what prosecutors portrayed as one of the most brazen and long-running betrayals in the history of the U.S. foreign service."

• WMFE-Orlando: Tech glitches among top worries as new Medicaid portal opens Tuesday. "Florida is flipping the switch Tuesday morning on its new online portal for residents who use Medicaid, SNAP benefits, and childcare subsidies. The MYACCESS website is retaining its name but shifting the technology that runs it."

• WLRN-Miami: Why Puerto Rico's failing health care system is driving health professionals to leave the island. "In an interview on Friday's South Florida Roundup with host Tim Padgett, Paul Velez, Borinquen President and CEO, said the high mortality rate in Puerto Rico documented in a recent investigative story jointly published by The Washington Post and Puerto Rico’s Center for Investigative Journalism starkly illustrates the deadly consequences of a failing health care system."

• News4Jax: Families of Dollar General shooting victims file lawsuit against store, security company, parents of shooter. "Lawyers for the families of three Black residents killed in a racially motivated shooting at a Jacksonville Dollar General store have filed a lawsuit. They’re suing the store, the security company and the shooter’s parents."

• WLRN-Miami: New Pew study shows Black news consumers favor local over national media coverage. "Black news consumers think local reporters do a better job of covering Black communities than the national media, according to a recent study from the nonpartisan Pew Research Center."

• WGCU-Fort Myers: Mote Marine discovers huge potential in corals that thrived in this summer's super-heated seas. "Expectations were somber for the health of Florida's Coral Reef and the Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium's four offshore coral nurseries in the Florida Keys this summer, as the ocean experienced record-shattering high temperatures just like on land due to the heat wave blanketing the world."