Florida News That Impacts You – March 22nd, 2024
Bottom Line: Your daily recap of the biggest news from around the state that impacts you in South Florida.
- Governor DeSantis signed five bills into law on Thursday including: The Behavioral Health Teaching Hospitals bill, which calls on teaching hospitals to work with colleges to develop behavioral health education programs. The Health Care bill, aka Florida’s 2024 Live Health initiative, is law. The Public Records and Meetings bill was signed. The new law exempts medical practitioners from having to provide personally identifying information under public records requests. The Health Care Innovation bill creates a Health Care Innovation Council which will aim to make public policy recommendations to the state for the purpose of shaping future healthcare policies. The Individuals with Disabilities bill is now also law. The new law modernizes access to health care services for those with disabilities.
- There was another legal win for sports betting in Florida. The Florida Supreme Court, which is set to take up a legal challenge to the 2021 Seminole Compact enabling sports betting, ruled Thursday that petitioners filed the wrong type of legal petition. The decision will prevent the court from hearing the case as previously scheduled. The court is allowing for the petitioners to refile with the appropriate petition.
- FAU is playing in the first game of the NCAA tournament to tip off today. The Eastern Region’s 8th seeded Owls face 9th seed Northwestern at 12:15. The University of Florida, the 7th seed in the South Region, will face 10th seeded Colorado at 4:30.
- It’ll be a stormy and windy day today into tomorrow with a high in the low 70’s which is about four degrees cooler than usual for this date. A front will bring rain into our area starting this morning and will continue through tomorrow morning. Rainfall totals will range from one to six inches of rain. Most of the Palm Beaches are expected to see rainfall totals between two to three inches. Wind gusts could reach 40mph.
- Gas prices dropped a couple of cents per gallon Thursday after having hit new highs for the year. The average price statewide for regular unleaded is currently $3.54 per gallon. In Palm Beach County the average price is $3.73 per gallon, in Martin the average is $3.62 and in Indian River County the average is $3.60 per gallon.