Floridians’ Fights Against Flock Cameras and AI Are Shaking Up State Politics

Sam Altman, the embattled CEO of the AI technology company OpenAI, vacillates between warning of a labor market doom loop due to the technology his company developed and promising a new golden era for humanity just around the corner. In an essay posted to his X account this July, he claimed that “by safely stewarding AGI [artificial general intelligence] into the world, we can enter a new…
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Florida Farmworkers Exposed to Scorching Heat and Pesticides

It’s shaping up to be another hot Florida summer. Among the most vulnerable are those with the least resources for dealing with the heat: underserved communities and communities of color, who often are excluded from environmental and climate protections. That includes the state’s more than 150,000 farmworkers, who are responsible for raising the food that nourishes us. Jeannie Economos is a…
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Federal Appeals Court Affirms Florida’s “Stop WOKE Act” Is Unconstitutional

Instead of the state determining what will be taught in university classrooms, students must be free to hear and consider even officially disfavored ideas presented to them by professors, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday. More than two years after oral arguments in a case challenging the 2022 law dubbed the Stop WOKE Act, two out of three judges on a U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th…
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Florida Bars Undocumented Students from State Colleges

On June 30, Florida’s State Board of Education voted to bar undocumented students from attending any of its 28 state-funded colleges. The ban on undocumented student enrollment in colleges extends to adult general educational programs, including English-language courses and GED courses. The policy requires students to present documentation proving citizenship or legal residency before…
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Florida Law Banning Local Net-Zero Emissions Policies Will Take Effect July 1

A new state law limits Florida communities’ aims to offset greenhouse gas emissions that are warming the global climate and intensifying disasters such as hurricanes. Specifically, HB 1217 prohibits local governments from pursuing net-zero emissions goals. At least 10 cities and counties have implemented such policies, including Fort Lauderdale, Miami, Orlando and Leon County…
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Florida Shuts Down Alligator Alcatraz After a Year of Lawsuits and Brutality

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), along with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), announced last week that all persons detained at the Alligator Alcatraz immigration jail were transferred to other facilities, and that the site’s giant tents and cages had been emptied. The reason given to the public was the risk posed by Florida’s hurricane season, with the agency offering this…
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