The Florida Roundup - State investigates Trump assassination attempt, mosquito control, PolitiFact checks claims, environmental news

Episode Date: September 20, 2024

This week on The Florida Roundup, we spoke with Politico’s Kimberly Leonard about the state’s probe into the apparent assination attempt on former President Trump (01:14). We looked at mosquito control efforts in Lee County (09:11) and spoke with Florida Medical Entomology Laboratory’s Nathan Burkett-Cadena about the public health risk mosquitoes pose (20:31 ). And later, we had Samantha Putterman with our partner PolitiFact join us for the latest claims check (32:12). Plus, we shared some environmental news stories from across the state (37:24) and a listener mailbag (47:16).

This is the Florida Roundup. I'm Tom Hudson. Thanks for being with us this week. If you live in or own a condominium anywhere in Florida and your building is at least three stories tall and at least 30 years old, you have about 100 days before new reforms take effect. That looming deadline has condo associations across the state scrambling to get their buildings inspected and owners are worrying about facing expensive special assessments. This week, for the second week in a row, Governor Ron DeSantis pledged that lawmakers will revisit the reforms before the end of the year. We're not gonna punt this till next year. That's not gonna happen, don't worry. But for the second week in a row, he stopped just short of exercising his power to call legislators back to Tallahassee

for a special session, at least for now. Here's the governor Thursday in Pinellas Park. The goal has to be that we're generating the necessary ideas and the reforms to provide relief that that would be passed by the legislature and signed into law by the end of the calendar year. I don't think you can wait till the next legislative session because I think a lot of these deadlines will have already come and gone. Now, the week began with Florida in the presidential election headlines. A man was arrested Sunday after allegedly lying in wait for hours with an assault rifle in bushes along a golf course in Palm Beach County waiting for former President Donald Trump. Now the investigation

into an assassination attempt is underway and the governor thinks the state should take the lead, not federal authorities. This is DeSantis Tuesday in West Palm Beach. They don't have jurisdiction over a case that's not a federal official or is a apparent winner of a presidential election or the formerly declared president elect. Kimberly Leonard covers Florida politics for Politico. She writes the political playbook every weekday. As a matter of fact, with us here on the Florida Roundup, let's start, Kimberly, with the investigation into the assassination attempt. roundup. Let's start, Kimberly, with the investigation into the assassination attempt. Why does Governor DeSantis think that the state of Florida should have priority to investigate and prosecute this person and not federal authorities? Well, there's this stated reason that he basically

says that he thinks that because, you know, the FBI is separately involved in investigating Trump over, you know, other criminal allegations that the state has a way to come in and be more independent. But then there's also the unstated political reason, which is that Governor DeSantis is making up with President Trump, former President Trump, and I think he's trying to show that bygones be bygones and to insert himself into the national conversation, one that he knows Republicans care about very much.

What is the specific action that the governor took this week regarding the state investigation and potential prosecution of the suspect? He signed an executive order giving the state the ability to go ahead and investigate. And it's going to be overseen by Ashley Moody's office, the attorney general, and then FDLE and the Federal Highway Authority are both looking into the case. So they're going to be doing interviews. They're going to be publishing reports. He says that they will update us regularly.

So that might be something that's different from what Secret Service said. He made the point in his news conference that Florida has sunshine laws, that he said reporters and others can FOIA, can essentially file a freedom of information request. You're smiling at this because both you and I have filed FOIAs on many other issues with the state. And let's say it's a frustrating process to be diplomatic at that. It can be when they don't want the information released. Yes. Yeah.

So you mentioned the attorney released. Yes. Yeah. So you mentioned the Attorney General, Ashley Moody. She will be the person kind of overseeing this state investigation. And she waved off worries that this was a turf war with the feds. It is very common for state investigators, state prosecutors to work with our federal prosecutors and federal agents on dual tracks with different purposes. Now, the state's top lawyer, that's Ashley Moody, the attorney general, and the state's top executive, that's the governor, Governor DeSantis. They also question the ability of, as you mentioned earlier, the FBI to investigate this, but also even federal prosecutors to potentially prosecute this case, questioning their neutrality, given that the classified document prosecution

against the former president was in the same federal district that now leads the attempted assassination investigation. Man, don't you want a clean slate? Don't you want to have investigative agencies that are just going to pursue this without any other agenda creeping in, without there being any cause for concern about any impartiality. So what about the duality of a state investigation and a federal investigation? Might this be a defense attorney's dream scenario to have two investigators

interviewing the witnesses separately and perhaps looking for holes in their stories? Right. That's one of the big questions that keeps coming up. And because if, as you're saying, if they're interviewing some of the same people around the case and then they find holes in it, could it get in the way? But my understanding is that there are often state investigations and federal investigations happening at the same time. But I don't know how you look at this and don't get political, you know, just because of all the different people involved and why they're getting involved and so forth. I do think that there is a hunger from the public to have more information. The suspect is in federal custody facing federal gun charges currently awaiting likely what will be some kind of indictment or another charging document. What is the likelihood that he would be handed over to the state of Florida to face potential charges? Oh, I mean, I'm not sure about that. He's going to be having a detention hearing

on Monday. And one thing I want to stress, he probably will face more charges from the Fed, but they first have to be able to establish motive. And so that's sort of in contrast to what Governor DeSantis has said, which he has gone on record to say, well, the Feds can't do this. That's not really accurate, according to the statute. And also he is sort of preemptively saying where he thinks the charges will land, whereas we haven't seen that from the feds. Yes, the wheels of justice sometimes turn a little more slowly than the wheels of politics, and certainly the wheels of rhetoric. Kimberly Leonard covers Florida politics for Politico. She's with us here on the Florida Roundup. Let's move to condominiums. Lots of focus on this over

the past couple of weeks, especially. It's clear that the governor wants state lawmakers to gavel in a special session in the next 100 days before the end of this year to deal with the condo reforms that were put in place after the deadly Surfside collapse three years ago. Why hasn't he taken the formal action, the declaration, to call lawmakers back to Tallahassee? I don't think he's ready to dial it up to that level yet. That doesn't mean that he won't. But it's interesting that we've heard from the incoming leaders of the House and Senate, and they've said, no, let's wait until the regular session in March. And the

governor pushing back now saying, nope, I think the organizational session, which will be in November, will be a good time to go ahead and gavel in and talk about this condo issue. So calls for the special session, it's been interesting to listen to this over the past two weeks. They've obviously been growing louder from the governor, and they have been heard from across the aisle now. Danielle Levine Cava is the Democratic mayor in Miami-Dade County, the most populous county in the state of Florida, with hundreds, if not thousands of condominium associations that are affected by these reforms. Here's what she told me on Wednesday this week. We have so many people who are affected by this locally and who are facing impending deadlines, whose property values are affected, who are frightened that they're going to lose their homes. But we need the state to really take aggressive action.

It will really be a hardship to wait until the regular session. So, Kimberly, there is an election underway. November 5th is the last day to vote. Then there's Thanksgiving, just a few weeks after that. Then there's the winter holidays, Christmas and New Year's Eve. And by that point on New Year's Day is when these reforms are in place. So what's the runway if there is a special session for lawmakers to actually convene and consider any kind of relief to these reforms? Well, the time they're talking about is the organizational session. One of the reasons there's been pushback is because that's usually a time where you set up different committees, you swear in the new leaders, and they're sort of like, I think that's enough. But look, this is a problem everyone's talking about.

The governor hears it and he knows that it's going to cause, you know, probably a mass exodus out of Florida if people can't afford their homes. It's not just that they have to pay these assessments if they stay in place, but if they decide to leave, there's really nowhere to go because the costs of these residences have gone up so much. Yeah, who becomes the buyers? Kimberly Leonard watching Florida Politics for Politico. Thanks so much, Kimberly. Appreciate it. Thank you. Now, imagine one of those small containers from a Publix deli counter, a plastic eight ounce bowl that you'd get some egg salad in, for instance. Now imagine just a thin layer barely covering the bottom like a dusting of flakes of black pepper. That's what 647 dead mosquitoes look like. Or think of a shoebox that's filled barely a quarter

of the way up. How many mosquitoes do you think that would be? This is about 150,000 mosquitoes. Yeah. 150,000. 150,000. all different types of mosquitoes and especially the black salt marsh mosquito that buzzes all around our state. By the way, that's Halim Phillips. He's a scientific intelligence officer with the Lee County Mosquito Control District. And he had those containers of dead mosquitoes when we visited his lab this week. of dead mosquitoes when we visited his lab this week. Lee County is home to Fort Myers, Cape Coral, Sanibel Island, and the largest mosquito control district in the state. Its budget is over $40 million. If it's a day that ends in Y, it is mosquito season in parts of Florida. Mosquito control here in the Sunshine State is battling both a public nuisance and a public health threat. And it's a fight funded by tens of millions of dollars of local property tax money. Which is why I rode along this week with Jen McBride.

She's the communications director at the Lee County Mosquito Control District. We took off in an Airbus helicopter from Buckingham Airfield. It's a World War II era Army training base in eastern Lee County. No need for our phones to be in airplane mode in the helicopter. Once we cleared through some air traffic, we were flying over scrub brush and grass dotted with salt marshes. Prime breeding ground for mosquitoes. McBride reminds me there are 54 species of mosquitoes in Lee County, but they target only about 15. The ones that bite mammals, she says, like livestock, pets, and people.

We fly to the northwest, hugging the Gulf Coast with its high rises and beaches. We cross the Caloosahatchee River and hover over more scrub and grasses and water along the western edge of Cape Coral. So this area here, this is actually a big breeding one. So this is one we kind of keep a good eye on. This whole big area here, we actually do quite a bit of treatment in this area. Is this all marsh here? Yeah, there's some in here. This is our pilot, Nick McCoy. Below us are waves of brush and flatwoods with huddles of pine trees and a spectrum of green hues. There's an occasional brush stroke of brown on the ground

and a dollop of dark blue. It's water all set against the early afternoon sun here in southwest Florida. Now the Mosquito Control District uses helicopters like these to spray for bugs, but we're not spraying on this flight. This is Jen McBride again. as little as 1,000 eggs and up to 39,000 eggs in one square foot. That's a lot of mosquitoes. You can see that there's probably not a lot of blood mules to choose from here. Not a lot of mammals down there. Not a lot of mammals, so what are they going to do? Look at all those houses right next to this area here.

They're going to go to that area to find their blood mule. And this is that species that will travel long distances to find their blood meal. So that's why that salt marsh is a real pest. A blood meal is what we would call a mosquito bite. It's the females who do the biting. They need the blood to survive and develop their eggs for the next generation of mosquitoes. And it's that bite that's at best a public nuisance, at worst, a threat to public health. This year, the State Department of Health has issued mosquito-borne illness advisories for seven counties.

The most recent was about a month ago for Duval County, thanks to a human case of West Nile virus. That's just one of the many diseases spread by mosquitoes, including dengue. While there have only been about three dozen cases of dengue contracted in Florida so far this year, that's a 50% jump from last year at this time. If you look at the amount of money that we spend on disease mosquitoes versus nuisance, you know, it's a majority of our budget. This is Andrea Liel. She is the executive director of the Monroe County Mosquito Control District. The Florida Keys may be one of the smallest counties in Florida with only about 82,000 full-time residents, but it spends millions of dollars on its bugs. Its budget this year alone is $18 million.

When I first started back in 2003, we didn't think about things like this until 2009 and 10, when we saw the first dengue outbreak that we've seen in the Florida Keys since the 1930s. You're seeing more of that public health aspect than what you did historically. Back up in the air over Lee County, we fly over Fort Myers neighborhoods that are still rebuilding two years after Hurricane Ian. There are empty concrete pads where there had been mobile homes. Near the bridge to Sanibel Island is an outlet mall that was damaged and is still being torn down. Several hundred apartments may be built in its place. It's just a reminder of the pull of Florida.

The pull for new residents moving from places like the Midwest and Northeast. The magnetism of our sunshine, but not our year-round mosquito season. Of course, we're growing tremendously here. People come up north, they're used to that kind of treatment. They're bringing those ideas down here that we're running Southwest Florida the same that we run mosquitoes up north. They don't have the same control up north, typically. And when I'm saying control, I mean control year-round, annually, that we have to keep up with us. So I think that's one of those misconceptions and definitely challenges against Lee County grows tremendously. This is Jen McBride again with the Lee County Mosquito Control District. You know, all you have to do is drive down the street and see the construction here in Lee County. With more construction, there's more people,

which means more blood deals, right? So it definitely increases the cost of treatment for sure. How bad are the bugs this season in your neighborhood? What precautions do you take to avoid getting bitten? Call us now, 305-995-1800. 305-995-1800 305-995-1800 or email us radio at thefloridaroundup.org Now this helicopter

is just one of the tools Lee County uses in its $40 million annual budget in the fight against mosquitoes. It has a fleet of trucks with traps and sprayers, two airplanes and these. Chickens.

And they're called sentinel chickens. Sentinel. Like keeping watch. It's kind of like the layer of protection for us prior to it becoming with humans. Most counties enroll these chickens as part of the system to monitor mosquitoes. The chicken's blood is tested for antibodies to diseases carried by the bugs. And then there is using the bugs themselves. Lee County releases a half million male mosquitoes each week. These are sterile and used in target areas to reduce the bug population. Now, the Florida Keys have been conducting a more controversial experiment. It's only one of two places in the country where genetically modified mosquitoes have been approved by the EPA for

release. The permit for Monroe County allowing the use of these bioengineered bugs expired this spring, so it didn't release any this year, but it did over the past three years. Here's Andrea Lall again, the head of the Mosquito Control District in the Keys. From what we saw in the neighborhoods where we were doing releases, in comparison to those neighborhoods that we weren't, we did see a population suppression. The experiment used male mosquitoes with an altered gene that is lethal to females. The males mate with wild females and then the female eggs die. And remember, it's female mosquitoes that bite and bring the threat of disease. It's important that people are able to go outside and not have to worry about mosquito-borne diseases. Yes,

you're going to still have to worry about those nuisance salt marsh mosquitoes, but you aren't going to have to worry about, is that mosquito bite going to make me sick? Am I going to have to go to the doctor? What's going to happen next? We don't have to worry about, is it going to impact our tourist industry? Now, we talk a lot about mosquito bites and people, but what about pets? I mean, it's important, right? If you have a dog, you're probably more careful with him or her and mosquitoes than you are yourself. Heartworms are caused by infected mosquitoes. So what is the threat level from the bugs in your neighborhood? Have you gotten sick from a mosquito bite? Call us now. Phones are open on this Friday, 305-995-1800.

305-995-1800. You're listening to the Florida Roundup from your Florida Public Radio station. This is the Florida Roundup. I'm Tom Hudson. Next week on our program, getting out the vote. Election day, November 5th. Now that's just the last day to cast your ballot in this campaign cycle. The deadline to register to vote is fast approaching, and you still have some time.

So how will you vote? And I don't mean who you're going to vote for. I mean, how will you cast your ballot? The method. Florida has seen a dramatic drop off in the number of mail-in ballots following changes to state voter laws. So are you planning to VBM vote by mail? Will you vote early or on Election Day, November 5th? And what do you need to know to make sure your vote counts? Email us, radio at thefloridaroundup.org. Radio at thefloridaroundup.org. We'll be answering your questions next week on our program. This week, it's the fight against the bite. It has been a very wet, wet season in some parts of Florida.

Ideal conditions for mosquitoes, including species that spread disease like dengue and heartworm in your pets. Have the bugs in your backyard been busy? Have you gotten sick because of a mosquito bite? 305-995-1800. 305-995-1800 is our phone number. Nathan Burkett-Cadena is with the Florida Medical Entomological Laboratory in Vero Beach, I believe. Nathan, welcome to the program. Thanks for your time. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. So you study mosquitoes and bugs. How has the mosquito season been this year in Florida?

Well, like you said, Florida is a big state, so there's a lot of variation out there. If you look at parts of the state like Tallahassee, Jacksonville and Key West and Miami, they're two to three inches over their normal precipitation, say from the last 50 years. Some other places like Orlando have lower precipitation, actually. They're more than an inch and a half below normal levels. And we know that mosquito larvae are aquatic and they rely upon that rainfall for breeding. So wherever there's above average rainfall, you've got a lot more mosquitoes and places where you've got less rainfall, you've got a lot fewer mosquitoes. So looking around the state, you can see there's no really uniform pattern. So mosquitoes are a lot like many

Floridians. It's about location, location, location. You mentioned about the moisture really being some of the contributing conditions for this season. But what about mosquito-borne diseases? It's one thing to have a lot of mosquitoes, but how about those mosquitoes that are transmitting viruses to humans, but also to our pets? Yeah, that's a really good point. And so, like you mentioned, we've got a lot of mosquito species in Florida, over 90 species of mosquito, and only really about a dozen of those are important as vectors or transmitters of human diseases. And those species are really diverse. Some of them will breed in those little containers, like a little salad container you mentioned. And those are really important in urban areas. And they transmit

viruses like a dengue virus and ch gunya virus and Zika virus. But then a lot of our other mosquitoes that are transmitters of human disease don't use those same habitats. So they're not really reliant upon these manmade containers for breeding. in our residential areas and they love ditches and swales and other depressions in your landscape. And so it's really hard to generalize, but there is a lot of mosquito-borne disease transmission going on this year. West Nile virus is particularly hot right now with our sentinel chickens that you mentioned, detecting a lot of infections around the state in 23 of Florida's 67 counties. So it's really widespread right now. And I mentioned earlier that the dengue cases, while still small in number, it's twice as many for this time of year compared to last year.

Is this correlated with mosquito activity? That's a great question. And I'm going to go out on a limb here. I'm going to say that it's not related to mosquito activity. What I think it's reflective of, it's what's going on in the rest of the Americas. So there are dengue virus epidemics going on in nearly every major Latin American country in Brazil. So so far, there have been over 11 million dengue cases in Latin America. Yeah. And this is a more than 200 percent increase over the number of cases that we're seeing last year. But we are seeing these cases, the three dozen I mentioned, these are locally contracted cases. They're not travel cases of folks that have the virus and they travel to Florida. These are folks

who are in Florida and caught the virus. That is exactly right. And so how do those Florida cases get seeded? Well, most of the time it's from one of our residents traveling to one of these countries for a destination. So going to Brazil for vacation, getting infected, coming home, and then we already have the mosquitoes here that can transmit the virus. So the person feels feverish, feels ill. They're being bitten by the mosquitoes that can transmit, and they're transmitting those viruses to maybe their neighbors and their family. And so the number of imported cases is very high because of the number of cases that are happening in other parts of the world. Nathan, we've got some calls and some emails to get to. Nathan Burkett-Cadena is with us with

the Florida Medical Entomological Laboratory, talking about mosquito season here. Christina has been listening in from Miami. Go ahead, Christina. You're on the radio. Hi. Yes. I was interested in your program today because I'm a born and raised Miami resident,

and I'm an environmentalist. I actually worked for Miami-Dade County Parks and Recreation Department back in the day. It was actually at that time they were doing, they've always been doing mosquito spraying, but back in the time there were parks that didn't want the mosquito spraying, you know, and they wanted, they were concerned with the wildlife species in our, in the parks. So I was just wondering if you were going to have anybody on the air that was going to be on the side, so to speak, of the mosquito, on the side of maybe the environment, and what the environmental effects of all the mosquito spraying would be on the insect population. Sure.

I'm not sure anyone's pro-mosquito or anti-mosquito in this conversation, Christina, but I appreciate that. And let me put it to Nathan in terms of the effect of spraying and the effect of chemical treatment that mosquito control districts and park districts, the one that Christina used to work for in the city of Miami, use to try to control mosquito populations. How about the impact on not only the mosquito population, but other insects and other wildlife and flora and fauna? Thank you, Christina. That is a wonderful question. So what are the impacts of mosquito adulticides on what we call the non-targets, the pollinators that are flying out there in the environment? So that has been a concern of mosquito control for decades. And they've been trying to really engineer their spraying technology to avoid mortality in the non-targets.

And I and some of my colleagues here at the Florida Medical Entomology Laboratory have been working with some of the districts that you mentioned, especially Lee County Mosquito Control District, determining whether their practices impact these non-target pollinators and so we've done things like going out and collecting butterflies i hate to say this and but pinning them on live onto little lines and letting mosquito control trucks come by and and spray them putting bees in bags what are some of the early results of those investigations? For the most part, those organisms are resilient to the applications of adulticides. So there's a lot of variability out there. So some of the beetles that we've looked at are susceptible, but for the most part, things like fireflies are not. So mosquito control has been blamed for the sort of decline of fireflies around the Southern and Eastern United States. And from our tests, it doesn't look like the the chemicals that mosquito control are applying either from their planes, their helicopters, or

from their trucks are really killing the fireflies, even when we place them in direct line of fire of these adulticides. We have one email here, Nathan, from Carol writing, the more poisons you spray, the more mosquitoes you get, and they have evolved to be immune to your poisons. When I was speaking with the Lee County Mosquito Control District, they did mention they always have to fine tune some of the sprains as they see generations of mosquitoes. But Carol writes, I grow lemongrass along walkways. I have swarms of dragonflies, otherwise known as mosquito hawks, but very few mosquitoes. So that's how Carol's going after this. Garfield's been listening in in Port St. Lucie. Garfield, thanks for your patience. You're on the radio. Hi, how are you? Good. Go ahead. Okay. So my concern is I live in

Port St. Lucie. And when they spray, I go into my driveway sometimes. There used to be a lot of bees. And now some of the bees are dying. But what I do, I put, you know, those zoprolites. I put one in the front of my house, one in the back of my house. We used to not be able to go outside. Now we could go outside, and when you look underneath those lights, there's so many mosquitoes that die underneath it without damaging the bees. I plant a lot of vegetables and fruit trees, and the bees used to be there. But whenever that truck comes through and they spray that through the thing, sometimes I go out there and I see these bees, they die, and I'm like,

oh my God. Yeah, Garfield. They could invest more into that, though, in putting those lights on the road, so they just zap those mosquitoes. Thank you, Garfield. Nathan, a quick comment about those zapper lights, and I want to get to Leslie in West Palm Beach, who's got a story she wants to share with us. Go ahead, Nathan. Well, that's a good point. And there has been some research to look at how many mosquitoes versus other insects those zapper lights kill. And the research

indicates that mostly they're killing other things than mosquitoes. And there is a lot of really good research that's being conducted by colleagues at the University of Florida who are bee specialists looking at whether the larvicides and adulticides that mosquito control uses is responsible for the decline in the numbers of bees. And people who are bee lovers, they are not mosquito control people. They're bee lovers, and they can't really find any direct impact of mosquito control practices on honeybees. And now remember that most times the mosquito control trucks are coming by during the nighttime or the dusk. At that time, bees are in their hives. They are protected from those adulticides. And that's one of the reasons that mosquito control sprays when they do, but

it's also to coincide with peak mosquito activity. Put your long sleeves on. Nathan, thanks so much for your time today. Nathan Burkett-Cadena is with the Florida Medical Entomological Laboratory in Vero Beach. Leslie has been listening in in West Palm Beach. Leslie, I wanted to make sure to hear from you. Do you get the last word? Go ahead. You're on the radio. Hi there. Really quick, sure to hear from you do you get the last word go ahead you're on the radio hi there uh really quick when he's talking about the other creatures that are equal opportunity opportunity to pass away you could buy some bat houses and get some bats and have them when they go out at night eat mosquitoes what i'm calling about was a good friend of mine who lived in a beautiful estuary up on PGA, went out one day, and he ended up in a hospital in a coma from a mosquito bite.

He went from a vital man, about 55 years old, to a fellow with a knapsack on his back full of diapers, and he's using a walker. This is three years later. So he is the worst case I've ever heard of, but I've never had any contact with anybody that had anything on that level from a mosquito bite. Yeah, yeah.

Well, I appreciate you sharing that story and our best to a recovery, Leslie, with your friend. But again, about the bat houses, if you put a bat house, they go out and they eat mosquitoes by the thousands. Yeah, you sometimes use nature to fight nature. Leslie in West Palm Beach, thank you for joining us here on the Florida Roundup. Election Day is nearing.

Voting is going to begin soon. We are examining some claims each week here on the Florida Roundup with our news partner, PolitiFact. If you have a claim from a politician, social media, TV ad that you want us to check out, email us, radio at thefloridaroundup.org. Sam Putterman is a reporter at PolitiFact. Sam, let's start with a video ad that's been making the rounds. It's an ad from a group

supporting the abortion amendment here in Florida. And it talks about the current six-week abortion ban and makes this claim about the existing state abortion restrictions. An extreme ban with no real exceptions. Not for her health, not even for rape. So, Sam, is this claim in this ad accurate? No, we found this one to be mostly false. Florida's ban does include exceptions for the pregnant woman's health and life,

and it also includes exceptions in cases of rape and incest up to 15 weeks. Backers of Amendment 4 argue that these exceptions aren't real because of vague language, criminal penalties, and requirements that can make abortions difficult to obtain. For example, women have to provide legal documentation of rape to qualify, and two physicians are required to sign and verify a patient's case qualifies for health exception. But the words of the ad, you know, they don't explain this nuance, so it leaves viewers misleading impression, you know, that it doesn't allow for these exceptions at all. Let me remind folks that you are listening to the Florida Roundup from your Florida public radio station. Sam Putterman with PolitiFact is with us.

Abortion, obviously, a key issue beyond just the ballot question here in Florida. It's a significant difference between the candidates running for U.S. Senate. Former Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Mercosel Powell is running against Republican Rick Scott. Scott running for his second term in the U.S. Senate. Former Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Mercosel-Powell is running against Republican Rick Scott, Scott running for his second term in the U.S. Senate. Sam, back in August, Mercosel-Powell's campaign released a Spanish language radio ad that claims Scott, quote, wants to take away women's reproductive rights with no exceptions, end quote. Is that an accurate description of Senator Scott's position on abortion? No. So Scott does support limiting abortion, but he does also support some exceptions. You know, Scott has said if he was still Florida's governor, he would have signed the state six week

ban, which does include those exceptions for rape, incest, health. But Scott has also told media outlets that he prefers abortion limits at 15 weeks of pregnancy with exceptions for rape, incest and the pregnant woman's life. The Democratic vice presidential candidate was talking about abortion this week. We are talking about Minnesota, current Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. He was sticking to a Democratic strategy also of tying Republicans to Project 2025 and the plans that are discussed in that strategy. Here's what the Democratic vice presidential candidate claimed this week. Think about what they're saying in Project 2025. You're going to have to register with a new federal agency when you get pregnant.

So there the candidate is saying Project 2025 says that a pregnant woman would register with a federal agency. PolitiFact that claim, Sam. Yeah, so we found this one to be false. Project 2025 recommends that states submit more detailed abortion reporting to the federal government. And it does call for more information about, you know, how and when abortions took place, as well as other statistics for miscarriages and stillbirths. But the document doesn't mention or call for a new or old federal agency that's tasked with registering pregnant women. Walls was the subject of a claim by Florida Republican Congressman Byron Daniels within the last several weeks. He represents Southwest Florida. And the congressman

was speaking on Fox back in August when he made this claim. Tim Walls signed into law driver's licenses for illegal immigrants in Minnesota. So how about the ruling here, Sam, that as governor in Minnesota, Walls has allowed illegal immigrants, undocumented immigrants to get driver's licenses? Yeah, so this is true. Walls signed a bill in 2023 that lets people in Minnesota, regardless of immigration status, apply for a license or an ID card. To get a license, you know, people must meet certain requirements, including showing proof that they live in Minnesota, documentation proving their identity, and passing a written and a driving skills test.

But Walls has said that the bill would make roads safer because it ensured drivers in the state are licensed and that they carry insurance. Lots of rhetoric, fast and furious. Sam Putterman, PolitiFacting all of it with our news partner, PolitiFact. Sam, we've gotten a couple of emails over the past few weeks of stuff we need to put in your inbox to PolitiFact regarding the marijuana amendment, for instance, here in Florida. And I want to invite listeners to send us some things that they're running across in

social media, television ads, campaign stops, whatever it may be, go ahead and share it with us. Our email is radio at the Florida Roundup dot o r g radio at the Florida Roundup dot org. Sam, always a pleasure. Have a terrific weekend. We'll talk to you next week, OK? As well. Thanks so much. Sam Putterman with our news partner, PolitiFact. Don't forget to get those claims to us in our inbox, radio at thefloridaroundup.org, and we'll tackle them in the weeks ahead. You're listening to The Florida Roundup from your Florida Public Radio station.

This is The Florida Roundup. I'm Tom Hudson. Thanks for being along with us. We are known for our sunshine here, but we really know it's water that shapes our state. The ocean, our rivers, canals, lakes, and springs. Florida could face a water shortage as soon as next year. That's the takeaway from a Florida Tax Watch report released earlier this month. It uses water supply data shared by the state earlier this summer. As environment reporter Molly Duregg from our partner Central Florida Public Media explains,

the government watchdog group is urging Florida to overhaul its current framework for approving and funding water projects. Disjointed and inconsistent, that's how the new report describes the state's current process for choosing and funding projects to support water quality and control. But Florida Tax Watch President and CEO Dominic M. Calabro says there's a better way. Similar to the State Department of Transportation's five-year roads plan, Calabro says he wants to see Florida use a more robust, longer-term framework for planning, funding, and gauging the impact of water projects. work for planning, funding, and gauging the impact of water projects. We want to prioritize them based on the best evidence of what's going to have the greatest impact on the water quality and the water flow. The state's Office of Economic and Demographic Research estimates Florida will need to invest $1.7 billion for critical water supply projects through 2040. Per Florida Tax

Watch, that's a low estimate. In Orlando, I'm Mollie Derig. The federal government requires states to keep their water quality standards up to date with the latest science, but Florida has been chronically behind. Three years ago, a review found the state's rules did not do enough to protect coral. New water quality rules that are now being considered by Florida environmental regulators are again excluding measures that could better protect coral and seagrass from dredging and ship traffic. Environment Editor Jenny Stoletovich from our partner station WLRN in South Florida reports. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection is supposed to update water quality rules every three years. to update water quality rules every three years. During its last review, it drafted a 50-page report concluding limits on turbidity don't do enough to protect coral and seagrass from sediment

that can get churned up during dredging or ship traffic near busy ports. But during its first public webinar on the new rules, the agency said it was again putting off a rule change because it received more feedback on the proposal. And so agency said it was again putting off a rule change because it received more feedback on the proposal. And so we're taking time to potentially reevaluate our proposal. Nia Wellendorf is the program administrator for DEP's water quality standards. Wellendorf was asked if there was a way to update the rule rather than wait another three years.

We certainly have additional efforts going on behind the scenes that we will be tackling during the next review. DEP did not respond to an email asking what new information was being considered that was not already included in the 50-page report. I'm Jenny Stiletovich in Miami. From saltwater quality to freshwater now, Florida's springs face a lot of threats. Too many tourists, too much pumping, and too much runoff fertilizer. Carrie Sheridan from our partner WUSF in Tampa reports clean water advocates are urging the Department of Environmental Protection to adopt strong standards to protect the state's freshwater springs. Ryan Smart is executive director of the Florida Springs Council, an advocacy group. There's only one way to restore our springs, and that is to pump less water.

And there's only one way to get folks to pump less water, and that's to reduce the amount of water they're allowed to pump and to stop issuing every single permit. Smart says it's been eight years since then-Governor Rick Scott signed a law calling for urgent action to protect the state's fragile springs. He says the Department of Environmental Protection is proposing a new rule, but it's the same as what was already in the books when the legislature told them they had to do better. I'm Keri Sheridan in Sarasota.

Now, while we're on the topic of Florida's natural environment, it has been quite a month for some students in St. Petersburg. Reporter Jessica Mazaros brings us their story. The children were inspired to connect because of conservationist Jane Goodall. She held a youth environmental summit this past weekend and spoke at Tropicana Field. We want the world to know that young people like you are making a difference. The summit was coordinated by her Roots & Shoots youth program and other Tampa area organizations. 11-year-old Simon Rivers Jr. says he got a lot out of Goodall's speech.

She has now inspired me to go and do beach cleanups more often, to go and spread awareness throughout my home country and keep our environment clean and healthy for the sea life, forest life, and just life in general. Rivers is a student of Sir John A. Cumber Primary School in the Cayman Islands. He and his peers visited IndyEd, a small private non-profit school in St. Petersburg, this past Monday to carry on a collaboration that they started a year ago. Rivers says he's already made a new friend. They bonded quickly over their love of Panthers and sports.

We're going to contact each other through email. It's going to be very fun. The group of kids from both schools brainstormed environmental project ideas. What if we stop deforestation? Yes, I like stopping deforestation, almost like reforesting, like Clementine's idea. I love the way that you all are building on each other's ideas. A shared passion for protecting sea turtles first brought the schools together. Earlier this year, the IndyEd students held a sea turtle event on the St. Pete

Pier to raise awareness about the endangered reptiles. They're battling a reduction in their habitat and plastic and light pollution. Turtles are like a natural treasure in the Cayman Islands. Twanda Houghton teaches at Sir John A. Comper. She says this partnership is a great opportunity. It allows students to explore more and learn about different culture and to understand that you don't have to be in a classroom to learn something. The wider world is there for them to learn from. Back in May, the tables were turned. Six children from the St. Petersburg School got to visit Grand Cayman Island. Twelve-year-old Eva Spytek went on that trip. It was a really cool experience. It was one of the uniqueness places I've ever been to.

She and the other kids fed stingrays, swam in bioluminescent water, and of course stopped by the sea turtle center there. It was really nice to meet the people. I learned all about their island, the national foods, the birds, and I learned more about sea turtles. Rachel Pathé is a teacher at IndyEd in St. Pete and leads the school's Roots and Shoots chapter. Jane Goodall created Roots and Shoots to support children and their environmental projects with small grants. Pathé says working with the Cayman School helps the children build relationships and accomplish more. A partnership like this can take ideas and fine-tune them in a way

that we would have not had the opportunity if we didn't have perspectives from different places in the world. And some of the children are already thinking about how these ideas will influence their future lives. Ten-year-old Jonte Jennings of the Cayman Islands says he wants to start his own business one day. To help clean beaches in the Caribbean, to help the plastic pollution and the sea life that is endangered. The teachers hope their students walk away from this experience with the notion that they can take action, that they're not too young to be agents of change.

The group session ended with all the children reading a pledge in unison. I love myself. I matter. I pledge to become a positive leader and my best self. I'm Jessica Mazaros in St. Petersburg. And I'm Tom Hudson. You are listening to the Florida Roundup from your Florida Public Radio station. Summer officially comes to an end on Sunday. Summers here in Florida can be the season to suffer through, right? Hot weather, storm season, mosquitoes.

But we get mangoes. Fresh Florida mangoes are like the treat we deserve for weathering all this humidity and refreshing the hurricane forecast all the time. Except this year. This year's mango season has been downright rotten. Usually like this time of the year, you're still getting those really nice big mangoes that are just getting ready now and they're pretty much non-existent. That's Nivan Patel. He owns and runs Gee Indian Kitchen in Miami. He also owns a farm in South Florida where he grows fruits and vegetables that wind up on his restaurant's menu. owns a farm in South Florida where he grows fruits and vegetables that wind up on his restaurant's menu.

He usually fills up a seven-foot freezer with mangoes to use in drinks throughout the year. It usually lasts at least seven, eight months after mango season is over. This year, we haven't been able to freeze anything. We didn't have any surplus. It kind of changes how we look at the menu. So what happened? What happened to our yellow, orange, red, rainbow colored mangoes? That sweet scent, plump and round, soft, but not too soft. We had consistently cool temperatures in the mid to low 40s. And what happens is that actually damage the embryo of the seed and damage the flowers. They don't set fruit.

and damage the flowers, they don't set fruit. University of Florida tropical fruit expert Jonathan Cain says, blame the mango preseason. Well, of course, there's always next year. Finally on the roundup this week, some listener emails in our inbox. We heard from lots of folks wanting to share their thoughts on electric vehicles. We spoke about them last week. Scott and Cindy were listening and sent us this note.

I'm curious why the state doesn't install these chargers at all the rest stops along the way on 95, I-4, I-10, I-75. Seems like a perfect spot to have them. We got several emails about the state's plan to bring pickleball hotels and a golf course to several state parks. Remember that story? That plan is on pause now. Thomas in Hollywood wrote, Hi, Tom. Listen all the time. There's a lot of talk of the environmental, historic, cultural impact that these park improvements will have on the park system. However, no one mentioned exactly who is going to profit from these improvements. Who stands to gain?

By the way, Thomas put improvements there in quotations. Lise wrote us, this is on DeSantis. He has finally managed to bring together Republicans and Democrats. And then Rick sent us this short note, just three words. Rick wrote, enjoy your show. Hey, thanks, Rick. We appreciate that. You can always email us.

Our inbox is open. Radio at thefloridaroundup.org. Comments, constructive criticism, you name it, share it there. Radio at thefloridaroundup.org. And that is our program for today. It is produced by WLRN Public Media in Miami and WUSF in Tampa by Bridget O'Brien and Grayson Docter. WLRN's Vice President of Radio and our Technical Director is Peter Meritz. Engineering help each and every week with Doug

Peterson, Charles Michaels, and Jackson Hart. Richard Ives answers our phones. Our theme music is provided by Miami Jazz Guitarist Aaron Leibos at AaronLeibos.com. Don't forget about the podcast. You can download it, listen to past programs, and share the podcast by finding it on the NPR One app. Thanks for calling, listening, emailing, and above all, supporting public radio in your neighborhood. I'm Tom Hudson. Have a terrific weekend.