Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Thursday that he has asked the Legislature to change Florida law to allow smoking medical marijuana. If lawmakers don’t comply by mid March, he’ll drop the state’s appeal of a court decision that says banning it violates a constitutional amendment. Against a backdrop of lush green in Winter Park — the hometown of attorney and medical marijuana champion John Morgan — he added that he plans to drop appeals in several other cases regarding limited licensing and vertical integration, which requires medical marijuana companies to grow, manufacture, sell and market their own product.
Moving swiftly, a federal judge on Thursday struck down limits on early voting that Republican lawmakers approved last month in a lame-duck session. In a five-page ruling, U.S. District Judge James Peterson concluded the new limits on early voting are invalid because they so closely mirror ones he struck down as unconstitutional in 2016. His decision also threw out parts of the lame-duck laws affecting IDs and other credentials that can be used for voting. "This is not a close question: the three challenged provisions are clearly inconsistent with the (2016) injunctions that the court has issued in this case," Peterson wrote.
College will be free for virtually all Cleveland school district graduates starting with this year’s senior class, after the much-anticipated launch today of the Say Yes to Education college scholarship and student support program in the city. A team of city, county, philanthropic and Say Yes leaders announced the scholarships at a rally at John Marshall High School to cheering students this morning, pledging that the ever-increasing cost of tuition will no longer block Cleveland school district graduates from attending college. Officials have already raised more than 70 percent of the $125 million they need to pay for scholarships for the next 25 years.
Gov. Ralph Northam announced Thursday the recipients of fiscal year 2019 farmland preservation grants. Six localities have been awarded a total of $633,831 from the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services’ Office of Farmland Preservation. The funds will be used to permanently preserve working farmland through local Purchase of Development Rights (PDR) programs. PDR programs compensate landowners who work with localities to preserve their land permanently by voluntarily securing a perpetual conservation easement.
Thousands of Oklahomans could lose Medicaid coverage if the state is allowed to implement work requirements for the public health insurance program, according to a study from the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families. The study found anywhere from 4,000 to 13,000 adults could lose coverage.
While hackers and cybercriminals frequently target state computer systems, many states don’t require every employee to get cyber awareness training. Answering a seemingly routine HR email, the Utah workers typed in their credentials as requested.And then they had a paycheck stolen.Cybercriminals had tricked the state workers into opening fake links. The scammers used the information to access the state payroll system and change employees’ direct deposit information, diverting their paychecks into phony bank accounts.Only three workers fell victim to the June scam, thanks in part to Utah’s mandatory cyber awareness training, said Chief Information Officer Michael Hussey.But that training is not standard practice in all states.
A $200,000 budget request by Gov. Brad Little for an Idaho board that manages money to pay a federal and state agency to kill wolves that attack livestock and big game is sufficient for fiscal year 2020, a board member told lawmakers. "We're fine with the $200,000 this year," Wolf Depredation Control Board member Carl Rey told the budget-setting Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee, noting the board has a surplus this year."I will tell you that I don't think that is sustainable beyond fiscal year 2020," he said.The board contracts with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services and Idaho Department of Fish and Game to kill wolves that attack cattle, sheep, deer and elk. Besides money from the state's general fund, it also gets money from the livestock and sheep industry and the Idaho Department of Fish and Game.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission completed the final step in reevaluating five Species of Special Concern, one of six key objectives outlined in Florida’s Imperiled Species Management Plan. s a result, several fish and wildlife species no longer warrant listing.Based on a thorough scientific review, the FWC determined the harlequin darter, Homosassa shrew, southern fox squirrel and the Monroe County osprey population no longer warrant listing as Species of Special Concern.Through the process, FWC biologists and partners agreed that Florida has three distinct species of alligator snapping turtles. Two of these species do not warrant listing. However, the Suwannee alligator snapping turtle will now be listed as State Threatened.
More than four months after Missouri became the first U.S. state to regulate the term “meat” on product labels, Nebraska’s powerful farm groups are pushing for similar protection from veggie burgers, tofu dogs and other items that look and taste like real meat. Nebraska lawmakers will consider a bill this year defining meat as “any edible portion of any livestock or poultry, carcass, or part thereof” and excluding “lab-grown or insect or plant-based food products.” It would make it a crime to advertise or sell something “as meat that is not derived from poultry or livestock.”Similar measures aimed at meat alternatives are pending in Tennessee, Virginia and Wyoming. They come amid a debate over what to call products that are being developed using the emerging science of meat grown by culturing cells in a lab. Supporters of the science are embracing the term “clean meat” — language the conventional meat industry strongly opposes.
Maryland’s utility companies on Monday won state approval to install a network of more than 5,000 electric vehicle charging stations — fewer than they had hoped for, but a step toward the state’s ambitious goal of 300,000 electric vehicles on the streets by 2025. The Maryland Public Service Commission authorized BGE, Potomac Electric Power Co., Delmarva Power and Potomac Edison Co. to move forward with a modified, five-year pilot program of residential, workplace and public charging stations, paid for mostly by ratepayers.