George Texs blog

A group of women farmworkers from Homestead, a major agricultural area in South Florida, traveled to Tallahassee on Tuesday to say they want their kids to have opportunities to further their education rather than toil in the fields. But legislation moving through the state House would roll back child labor restrictions to allow minors to work longer hours. This Thursday, the Florida House will vote on, and most likely approve of, HB 49 , which would allow 16- and 17-year-olds to work more than eight hours per day and more than 30 hours a week during the school year. Employers could give 16- and 17-year-olds fewer breaks under the House proposal. “What’s best for our kids is that they study to be able to defend themselves in life, so that they don’t have to work in the fields under the sun all the time. We don’t want them to pass out from heat illness or suffer debilitating injuries; we want them to be healthy,” said Sandra Diaz, one of the workers with The Farmworker Associat...

Kassie Stuart was 17 years old when she was diagnosed with idiopathic genetic epilepsy, which can result in intense seizures. Now 23, the Tallahassee resident says she’s tried 25 different medications to deal with her illness but nothing helped until she discovered delta-8 THC nearly four years ago. That’s a cannabinoid found in the cannabis plant that hemp entrepreneurs created after the passage of the 2018 U.S. farm bill, which made the use of hemp extracts legal in the U.S. Since she started using that product, she’s gone from having a couple of seizures a day to suffering from only one or two a year. “I had my medical [marijuana] card for a little bit,” she says. “It was helping, but it wasn’t giving me the medical relief that I needed when I was introduced to delta-8 and it really helped me. I feel like if I’m ‘spazzy’ or ‘seizey’ or if I have a really bad headache, I can just hit my [vape] pen a couple of times or eat some edibles, and it goes away in a couple of minute...

To announce his support Monday for constitutional amendments to balance the federal budget and impose term limits on Congress, Gov. Ron DeSantis didn’t stay in Tallahassee or even from Washington, D.C. No, he went to Naples, home turf for Tarren Bragdon, leader of the Foundation for Government Accountability, which is trying to gin up support for those amendments plus others to give U.S. presidents the line-item veto over budget bills and forbid Congress from exempting itself from the laws it passes. Tarren Bragdon of the Foundation for Government Accountability participated in a news conference with Gov. Ron DeSantis on Jan. 29, 2024, in Naples. Source: Screenshot: Florida Channel Bragdon was on hand during a news conference when DeSantis and House Speaker Paul Renner came out for the four constitutional amendments. Proposals to call a constitutional convention to take up term limits and a federal balanced budget amendment both have passed the full House and are set for S...

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on March 26 in the case that could significantly curtail access to a prescription drug used for both abortions and miscarriage care. The case centers on when and how patients can access mifepristone, a pharmaceutical the U.S. Food and Drug Administration originally approved in 2000. Mifepristone is currently approved for use up to 10 weeks gestation and accounts for more than half of abortions in the United States when used in combination with a second pharmaceutical called misoprostol. Doctors also often use the two-drug regimen to provide treatment following a miscarriage. Lawsuit history The original lawsuit, brought by the anti-abortion legal organization Alliance Defending Freedom, asked the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas to overturn the FDA’s original approval of mifepristone. If the judge didn’t agree to that, the organization requested the court revert prescribing and dosage of ...

A U.S. Senate committee on Thursday launched an examination of assisted living, holding its first hearing in two decades on the industry as leaders of both parties expressed concern about the high cost and mixed quality of the long-term care facilities. The federal government has minimal oversight of assisted living, which is regulated by states, unlike skilled nursing homes. Both the Democratic and Republican leaders of the Senate Special Committee on Aging said their inquiry aimed to detail the financial practices and quality levels in the industry so that consumers would be better able to choose facilities. Lawmakers expressed little appetite for Congress to take a more direct role in regulating the sector, such as by setting federal standards for staffing levels and how workers are trained. Prompted by a New York Times-KFF Health News series, Sen. Bob Casey, the Pennsylvania Democrat who chairs the panel, put out a call for residents and their families to submit their bills...

COLUMBIA — Seeking another slingshot from South Carolina to the White House, President Joe Biden pitched a list of successes to the party faithful with the refrain of “promises made, promises kept.” His speech ended with a simple request: “Vote!” Biden headlined the state Democratic Party’s “First-in-the-Nation Celebration” dinner as part of an all-out effort to jumpstart sagging enthusiasm for his re-election in the state that bolted his 2020 campaign from fifth place to first. “If you ever doubt that the power to change America is in your hands, remember this: You proved it. You’re the reason I’m president,” he told a crowd of about 800 at the State Fairgrounds. “You’re the reason Donald Trump is a defeated former president,” he continued to loud applause. “You’re the reason Donald Trump is a loser, and you’re the reason we’re going to win and beat him again.” The crowd then chanted “four more years” to drown out protesters of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. Later, another ...

Letters to the Editor  is a periodic feature. We  welcome all comments  and will publish a selection. We edit for length and clarity and require full names. In response to Sarah Jane Tribble’s report about growing enrollment in Medicare Advantage plans — and the growing concerns — a senior policy adviser at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation weighed in on X, formerly known as Twitter: Managed care backlash in full swing as more consumers become aware of the tradeoffs involved choosing M.A. https://t.co/7EAMZJ9YJk — Katherine Hempstead (@khemp64) January 8, 2024 — Katherine Hempstead, Princeton, New Jersey Medicare Advantage: To Whose Advantage? Sarah Jane Tribble did an excellent job reporting on Medicare Advantage plans and the major limitations within them that leave people basically screwed (“ Older Americans Say They Feel Trapped in Medicare Advantage Plans ,” Jan. 5). Don’t forget presidential hopeful Nikki Haley at one of the Republican debates stated that Me...

The Florida Supreme Court will consider voting-rights advocates’ appeal of a congressional redistricting map that erased Black representation in North Florida, but the justices might not decide the case in time to affect the November elections. In an order issued on Wednesday, the court gave Black Voters Matter Capacity Building Institute and other plaintiffs until Feb. 28 to file their initial brief in the case. The state has 30 days after that to reply; the groups have another 30 days to respond to the state’s arguments; and then the state has 30 days to file its final answer. Which would place the end of the briefing section of the case at the beginning of July. Qualifying to run for Congress ends on April 27. The Legislature, which would have to draw a new map if the high court decides for the voting-rights groups, adjourns its regular session on March 8. And that doesn’t account for oral arguments, which the justices said “will be set by separate order. Counsel for the ...

Clay County GOP Rep. Sam Garrison says he’s advocating for a bill to address the homeless situation in Florida because he doesn’t want the state to become like California. “We’re going to do a different model,” he told a committee in the Florida House on Thursday. “It’s a model that has both carrot and stick. We’re going to provide the resources necessary for the COC’s [Continuums of Care] in the communities to do the best for their communities. The best for their citizens. But we’re also going to have a pretty hard line to say we are not going to allow the public space that we all enjoy that’s essential for a thriving community be lost. We’re just not going to do it. “ Speaking in support of the measure was one of Tallahassee’s most influential lobbyists, Ron Book, who has served as chairman of the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust for the past 25 years. Book mentioned that homelessness in Miami-Dade is remarkably lower than in other major urban areas around the country and sa...

Since suspending his presidential candidacy over the weekend, Gov. Ron DeSantis has thrown himself into minding the store in Tallahassee, participating in a flurry of meetings with lawmakers and administration officials. DeSantis even scheduled his first news conference since leaving the race on Sunday, traveling to Lake Okeechobee on Thursday to relive an early bright spot from his first term, at least as evidenced by favorable press coverage — environmental protection. The occasion was a ribbon cutting marking the first flows into the 6,500-acre EAA Reservoir, one of the water receptacles constructed during DeSantis’ governorship to filter lake water of toxic algae before it can flow into St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee rivers, coastal estuaries, the Everglades, and Florida Bay. Besides creating a foul-smelling, dangerous mess alongside coastal properties that can cause serious illness in people, the algae can kill fish and the sea grasses upon which the Florida manatee depend...

The cost of overdrawing your bank account could ease considerably under  a rule proposed recently by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The proposed regulation is in line with a larger effort that the Biden administration has championed the past few years to crack down on “junk fees,” which are tacked onto everything from ticket prices to hotel bills. The agency says roughly 23 million households use overdraft fees each year and while most consumers’ overdrafts on debit cards are less than $26, they usually have to pay overdraft fees around $35. Regulators are proposing instead three options for banks: They could offer overdraft loans that comply with lending laws, set a fee that reflects the actual cost or charge a standard fee set by the agency. And while regulators haven’t settled on that benchmark fee yet, amounts being considered range from a low of $3 to a high of $14. The overdraft rule would apply to insured banks and credit unions with more than $10 billion i...

Thank you for your interest in supporting Kaiser Health News (KHN), the nation’s leading nonprofit newsroom focused on health and health policy. We distribute our journalism for free and without advertising through media partners of all sizes and in communities large and small. We appreciate all forms of engagement from our readers and listeners, and welcome your support. KHN is an editorially independent program of KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). You can support KHN by making a contribution to KFF, a non-profit charitable organization that is not associated with Kaiser Permanente. Click the button below to go to KFF’s donation page which will provide more information and FAQs. Thank you! The post Prescribing Love: Send Us Your Health Policy Valentines first appeared on Daily Florida Press .

The U.S. Energy Department will pause approvals of new exports of liquified natural gas to all countries without a free trade agreement with the United States, Secretary Jennifer Granholm and White House National Climate Advisor Ali Zaidi said on a press call Thursday. They said the agency is readying a new review framework that could give greater weight to the effects of liquified natural gas on climate change. U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm speaks during the daily press briefing at the White House on June 22, 2022 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images) U.S. capacity for exporting liquified natural gas, or LNG, a less carbon-intensive alternative to other fossil fuels such as coal, has tripled since 2018 and is projected to double again by 2030 because of new projects already under construction, Granholm said. The rapid pace of growth in the industry requires an update to how the administration assesses proposed export projects, she said. ...