By Jim Turner, The News Service of Florida TALLAHASSEE — Restaurants and many retail stores outside of Southeast Florida can start reopening Monday with limited occupancy as part of the first phase of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ economic-recovery effort after the coronavirus caused massive shutdowns. DeSantis on Wednesday outlined what he described as a step-by-step plan […]
By Jim Turner, The News Service of Florida TALLAHASSEE — Florida’s overwhelmed online unemployment-compensation system has been taken down for the weekend as the state scrambles to process applications and reduce a massive backlog of claims caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Users of the Department of Economic Opportunity’s CONNECT system, who continue to express frustration […]
By Ana Ceballos, The News Service of Florida TALLAHASSEE — Private schools and Florida universities might see drops in enrollment as the coronavirus continues to hammer the economy, members of a panel focused on reopening the state’s education system said Wednesday. School-choice advocates said in a conference call they worry families might no longer be […]
The News Service of Florida Florida will be able to increase by 18,000 a day the number of COVID-19 tests that can be processed, after the state signed contracts with two additional testing companies, Gov. Ron DeSantis said Wednesday. DeSantis told reporters in Tallahassee that he anticipates the companies will be able to provide results […]
By Jim Saunders, The News Service of Florida TALLAHASSEE — In a move that would create a utility with customers from Miami to Pensacola, Florida Power & Light and Gulf Power plan to merge in 2022, their parent company, NextEra Energy, said Wednesday. NextEra, which has long included FPL, closed a deal in January 2019 […]
By Jim Turner, Christine Sexton The News Service of Florida TALLAHASSEE — With hundreds of thousands of workers filing unemployment claims and businesses shuttered across the state, a task force created by Gov. Ron DeSantis began discussing ways Monday to revive the state’s economy from the coronavirus crisis. Officials from businesses such as Disney World, […]
On Monday the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity began to provide daily updates on their efforts to address Reemployment Assistance challenges. The State Reemployment Assistance Claims Dashboard is provided below. The information includes the total number of claims submitted, verified, processed, and paid. The Dashboard can be found here.
The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) model, which has become the go-to model for coronavirus projections, has once again lowered the projections for Florida. The model now projects that 1,363 Floridians will die from the coronavirus, down from the 4,748 deaths projected less than five days ago. Previous to the 4,748 deaths, the […]
By Jim Turner, The News Service of Florida TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday shook up oversight of the state’s unemployment-compensation system, which has struggled with a massive surge in applications because of economic fallout from the novel coronavirus. DeSantis put Department of Management Services Secretary Jonathan Satter in charge of the troubled CONNECT […]
By Christine Sexton, The News Service of Florida TALLAHASSEE — As the number of infections in long-term care facilities approached 1,000, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Monday that the state will begin a push to test nursing home residents and staff members for the novel coronavirus. DeSantis said the state will dispatch 10 four-member teams to […]