Cell phone use in Brevard schools.
A new Florida law bans the use of cell phones during the school day for elementary and middle school students. But Brevard's school board is planning to forbid their use for all ages. They say the previous policy — which allowed the use of phones outside the classroom, in settings such as school cafeterias — wasn't being enforced well enough. Nothing has been finalized, but an updated cell phone policy and student code of conduct addressing the use of cell phones are in the works.
Driver’s ed is mandatory for teens.
Starting next month Florida teenagers will need to take a driver’s ed class to get their learner’s permit. A new state law has eliminated a shorter online course. The new law still does not require an actual on-the-road driving lesson, but it does require a longer online course. Nearly 450 people died in Florida crashes involving young drivers, including about 135 teen drivers themselves.
Florida wants a second ICE detention camp.
The Alligator Alcatraz detention camp may grow to 5,000 beds to house immigrants, starting in early July. Now state leaders considering a second detention center, this time southwest of Jacksonville. The Florida National Guard training center, Camp Blanding, would house immigrants in tents and center workers in old FEMA trailers.
Abortion ban leads to relationship violence.
A new study finds that there’s an increase in intimate partner violence in parts of the country with a near-total ban on abortion.
WMNF’s Chris Young reports that the study, published in the National Bureau of Economic Research, only echoes what abortion rights advocates say they would expect.
The study found that abortion restrictions increased the rate of intimate partner violence by about 7 to 10 percent. The study only confirms what Kira-lynn Ferderber, outreach educator at Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida, has seen.
“Every rapist in Florida, every wife beater in Florida is hoping that these bans stay, that the bans spread, that they continue, that they become more and more extreme.”
Although data for Florida was not included in the study, the state has a six-week abortion ban many have described as extreme.
Investigators report on Surfside condo collapse.
It’s been four years since the Champlain Towers condo collapsed in Surfside. Now investigators are homing in on shoddy construction as the most likely cause of the collapse. In an update from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, they ruled out sinking ground as a cause. Investigators believe the structural design of the building did not meet building code standards.
L3Harris continues construction of SLS rocket engines.
The future of NASA’s SLS rocket is in doubt, with funding limited in the proposed budget. But Melbourne-based L3Harris is continuing on building the engines for the massive rocket. So far, NASA has flown the SLS once. The next launch has been delayed until April 2026. The L3Harris subsidiary, Aerojet Rocketdyne, manufactures the RS-25 engines, originally used on the space shuttle. NASA had ordered $3.5 billion of the rocket engines to support the Artemis mission. Meanwhile, there are social media reports that L3Harris is laying off an unspecified number of employees.
