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Showing posts from July, 2021

KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Hot Covid Summer

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Can’t see the audio player? Click here to listen on SoundCloud . You can also listen on Spotify , Apple Podcasts , Stitcher , Pocket Casts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Predictions of a “hot vax summer” that would let Americans who had their covid immunizations celebrate the waning of the pandemic are turning out to have been premature. Covid-19’s delta variant is driving up cases in all 50 states, prompting new recommendations for masks and a growing number of vaccine requirements, including one for most federal workers. Meanwhile, official Washington celebrated the anniversary of the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act, which sought to guarantee an array of protections, as concerns grow that people with covid aftereffects could dramatically expand the population needing those protections. This week’s panelists are Julie Rovner of KHN, Mary Ellen McIntire of CQ Roll Call, Anna Edney of Bloomberg News and Rachana Pradhan of KHN. Among the takeaways from t...

Discipline of minority schoolchildren in FL and elsewhere can be discriminatory and disturbing

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In the fall of 2019, a little Black girl named Kaia Rolle was arrested at her Orlando school, allegedly for throwing a tantrum.  A police officer zip-tied her hands behind her back and placed her in the back of a police car for kicking a school staffer. Rolle was just 6 at the time, and the officer’s body camera footage of her arrest caught the attention of national news outlets. That spurred a new law in Florida  —  “the Kaia Rolle Act” — that forbids the arrest of anyone under 7, under most circumstances. That law and another this year in Florida — on restraining and secluding children — shows some progress in how schools are dealing with students who have been disciplined. But Florida and other states, particularly Southern states, are still behind in ensuring that minority students are not disproportionately disciplined. And the federal government is moving to improve disciplinary practices that ensure students are treated equally. In Florida, Black students represent o...

Why I’m not going to the Tallahassee Chamber conference

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“If you always do what you’ve always done, you will always get what you always have.” – Henry Ford Just a week before the local corruption trial began, the city commission approved an $ 8 million no bid sale of public land to a hotel developer outside of the state. First and foremost among the public speakers, Sue Dick, President of the Greater Tallahassee Chamber of Commerce, urged the Commission to ignore its own policies and award the sale without a competitive process. The ongoing public corruption process, which involves pay-to-play systems in our local government, is the “who’s who” of the chamber loyalists. Long-time host of the annual chamber retreat, Gary Yordon, revealed in his testimony that he has misled the public by registering as a lobbyist for another company as governance for a client who ultimately pays for governance backed by Maddox. Yordon recently retired as master of ceremonies at this year’s event, making it the first ...

Watch: Cyclist Hits Olympic-Size Medical Bills After Crash

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“CBS This Morning,” in partnership with KHN and NPR, interviews Phil Gaimon , a cyclist who had hoped to be in Tokyo next week as a competitor in the track events on the USA Cycling national team. Instead, a crash on the velodrome track in Pennsylvania in 2019 ended his Olympic dream and left him with huge medical bills — even after his two insurance policies paid portions of the treatment. KHN Editor-in-Chief Elisabeth Rosenthal said Gaimon hit three health care land mines: out-of-network hospitals, out-of-state care and gold-plated charges from the hospitals. Two years after the crash, Gaimon is still fielding calls from collection agencies. KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation. USE OUR CONTENT...

DeSantis vows to let parents ignore local school board decisions on masks

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Update: Around 4:30 p.m., Gov. Ron DeSantis issued the executive order he had described earlier Friday. It threatens to withhold state-controlled funding from school districts that do not comply. The order calls for health and education rules for “controlling the spread of COVID-19 in schools” that maintain Floridians’ constitutional freedoms, maintain parents’ rights under state law to make health-care decisions for their children, and that “protect children with disabilities or health conditions who would be harmed by certain protocols such as face-masking requirements.” The order relies in part on language signed into law earlier this year in the new “Parents’ Bill of Rights.” Also Friday Sen. Gary Farmer, a Broward Democrat and attorney, announced he will heartily defend the Broward County School Board’s decision Wednesday to require students, staff and visitors to wear face masks at school as a method of slowing transmission of COVID. Gov. Ron DeSantis vowed Friday mornin...

Ransomware/Cyberattacks

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The morning’s compelling story. Host Carol Castiel and assistant producer at the Current Affairs Desk, Sydney Sherry, speak with Tatyana Bolton, policy director of the Cybersecurity and Emerging Threats team at R Street Institute, about recent cyber and ransomware attacks, mostly emanating from Russia, which have crippled international companies and jeopardized economies. Bolton analyzes the threat of ransomware and how criminal networks in Russia like REvil, are perpetrating attacks and what can be done defensively and offensively to stop them. check out this site Support local journalism The post Ransomware/Cyberattacks first appeared on Daily Florida Press .

Cameroon Says Boko Haram Attacks Military, Seduces Civilians | Voice of America

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MAROUA, CAMEROON – Officials in Cameroon say Boko Haram militants appear to be changing their tactics and attacking only military and government targets in an effort to try to attract more recruits. This week, Cameroonian Defense Minister Joseph Beti Assomo a military hospital in Maroua about 80 kilometers from Nigeria’s Borno state, where 14 government troops and four civilians are recovering after Boko Haram attacks over five days on the northern border with Nigeria. Boko Haram Attack Kills Five Soldiers, Civilian, Cameroon Reports Boko Haram and a splinter group of the Islamic State, have been mounting increasingly deadly attacks against security forces and civilians Assomo said Cameroonians and President Paul Biya share the grief of family members of 14 soldiers killed by the jihadists. Among the wounded soldiers is 37-year-old Lieutenant Innocent Beti who was shot in his abdomen when Boko Haram attacked the village of Sagme. He said if he re...

FSU football countdown for the most important players: No. 4

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The countdown to the 2021 Florida State Football season is on. The Seminoles go into the coming season with many questions, Mike Norvells second at the head of the program. During a season shortened by a pandemic that limited the Seminoles to nine games in 2020, the FSU finished with a 3-6 record. It was the program’s worst record since FSU 3-8 in 1975, a year before Bobby Bowden arrived in Tallahassee. Norvell and his staff inherited a roster that was the youngest in college football in terms of sub-student percentage at the end of the season. To counteract this, the Seminoles hit the transfer portal hard this off-season and brought 10 FBS transfers with plenty of experience. Norvell is kicking off a critical second season off the program that emerged from a much more regular off-season and will seek to lead FSU to its first winning record since 2017. Here’s a countdown look at the Democrats’ list of the top 40 FSU players for the coming season, compiled by ...

Florida Wildlife Corridor subverted by a gold-medal Tallahassee Switcheroo

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An example of Florida wetlands. Credit: Julie Hauserman I watched some of the opening Olympic ceremonies last week for one simple reason: I had read that Florida has more athletes in Tokyo right now than any state besides California. And they’re not just there to get away from the smell of the red tide fish kills, either. Floridians are competing in every sport from weightlifting to water polo. To my surprise, though, not one of them is involved in such traditional Florida sports as the drive-thru gator throw, the downhill machete chop, or the naked-as-a-jaybird fleeing and eluding. Longtime Floridians spend years learning to master such challenging sports as worm-grunting, interstate mullet tossing, and the 50-yard dash across hot beach sand. Why those are not Olympic sports is a mystery I cannot comprehend. If there’s any sport at which Floridians would consistently win gold, though, it’s got to be the Tallahassee Switcheroo. You’ve never heard of it? Oh, sure you h...

Off-Duty Border Patrol Agent stop car-jacking of pastor

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This week’s must-read news report. An off-duty Border Patrol agent from the El Centro Sector with the help of a private citizen stopped an attempted carjacking in progress, Sunday afternoon. At around 12:45 p.m., while on his way to work, off-duty Border Patrol agent Roy Rosas witnessed an attempted carjacking taking place. The victim of the crime, a local church pastor, was assaulted by a 24-year-old Westmorland man who attempted to take the victim’s car. A scuffle ensued between agent Rosas, the private citizen, and the assailant. The aggressor was subdued and successfully removed from the pastor’s vehicle. The individual was detained awaiting the arrival of the Westmorland Police. The assailant sustained minor injuries and was taken to a local hospital where he was treated and released before being booked into county jail. “As sworn officers, Border Patrol agents risk their lives every day both on and off-duty,” said Chief Patrol Agent Gregory K. Bovino. “...

Court throws out wrongful conviction of Duval man imprisoned 7 years

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A Duval County man wrongfully convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison for a 2013 armed robbery must get a new trial, an appellate court has ruled. Dustin Duty, a client of the Innocence Project of Florida and Miami Law Innocence Clinic, has been in prison for seven years. He is incarcerated at Marion Correctional Institution in Marion County. The unanimous ruling in the First District Court of Appeal overturns the conviction and orders a new trial in Duval County, though prosecutors could choose to drop the case and set Duty free. Duty’s lawyers are asking prosecutors to drop the case, saying the appellate court correctly found “egregious errors” in his defense at trial – including failure to corroborate an alibi from his employer – which support Duty’s claim of innocence. Dustin Duty, imprisoned seven years, was wrongly convicted. Credit: Florida Department of Corrections “As the [appellate] court concluded, trial counsel’s errors denied him the representation he...

A long corruption probe in Tallahassee whimpers to a close — The return of Rod Smith? — Gruters talks about allegations on internal GOP call

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Hello and welcome to Wednesday. Somewhere on Adams Street — For nearly two weeks now, a drama has played out in a federal courtroom in Tallahassee that has captivated observers and longtime players in the state Capitol’s insular world of politics. It was a drama that once helped upend state politics — but has resulted in, well, what? Star witness? — The corruption trial of local developer J.T. Burnette — who is married to the head of one of the state’s largest medical marijuana companies — reached its apex this week when former Tallahassee Mayor Scott Maddox, a one-time rising star for Florida Democrats, testified on behalf of prosecutors. Drunk at the time — Maddox, who has run statewide and once served as chairman for the Democrats, has already pleaded guilty to fraud charges. But there he was on Tuesday, testifying about a time when he had separated from his wife, drunk heavily and met with undercover FBI agents about possible deals that turned out to be fabricated. Pro...

Unraveling the Mysterious Mutations That Make Delta the Most Transmissible Covid Virus Yet

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Upon first inspection, the mutations in the highly contagious delta covid variant don’t look that worrisome. For starters, delta has fewer genetic changes than earlier versions of the coronavirus. “When people saw that the epidemic in India was driven by delta, they did not suspect it would be so bad or overtake other variants,” said Trevor Bedford, an evolutionary biologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. But those expectations were wrong. Delta has kept some of the most successful mutations found in earlier variants, but also contains new genetic changes that enable it to spread twice as fast. Delta is more dangerous in many ways. It has an incubation period of four days , rather than six, making people contagious sooner. When the pandemic began, people spread the original coronavirus to an average of two or three people. Today, people infected with delta infect six people, on average. As of this week, the delta variant had caused at least 92% of the n...