NEW: FL State Sen Jason Pizzo (D-Miami Dade) has filed a request for an emergency injunction, asking a Tallahassee judge to prevent @GovRonDeSantis’s administration from using state funds to pay for any future migrant flights. .@senpizzo argues the flights violate the language in the state budget, which set side $12 million to pay for “the transport of unauthorized aliens from this state consistent with federal law.”

Pizzo says flights originating in Texas with brief stopovers in FL don’t count.

SCOOP: The State or Florida threatened the Special Olympics with $27.5 MILLION in fines because the organization had a vaccine requirement at its games in Orlando this weekend.

Late yesterday, the Special Olympics pulled the requirement. 1/3 Florida said the vaccine rule conflicted with state law, and disqualified Special Olympics athletes from competing based on their vaccine status.

State said they heard from athletes and families of athletes who complained.

Here’s the letter the state sent. 2/3

SO -
I’ve finally read the Florida Dept of Health Inspector General report on Rebekah Jones, finding her claims of falsified COVID data “unsubstantiated” and “unfounded.”

Two takeaways… 1) It CANNOT be overstated the damage these now disproven allegations had on the trust between the State of Florida and the people.

In particular, what claims like this did to the morale of decent public servants who were battling daily with the pandemic.

NEW: Florida Division of Emergency Management sends letter to HHS, saying agency is willing to transport promised shipment of 30k monoclonal antibodies *itself.*

Will use its own trucking and shipping contractors.

There's a catch, though.

Thread. Vast majority of people w/ COVID in Florida have OMICRON.

Current evidence suggests only one monoclonal treatment appears to work for Omicron - Sotrovimab.

Testing underway for others: Eli Lilly and Regeneron. But they don't appear to work right now.

NEW: Florida Surgeon General says Biden Admin is "actively preventing" distribution of monoclonal antibodies by pausing shipments of Regeneron, in letter to HHS Sec.

Feds paused Regeneron bc it may not work against Omicron. FL says it can still be used in existing Delta cases. Letter goes on to reference Biden's remarks yesterday:
"President Biden recently states that there is no federal solution to COVID-19... Therefore, I respectfully request that you allow states and healthcare practitioners to provide treatment options..."

Remember this press conference on the steps of the Supreme Court - doctors touting hydroxychloroquine, prompting praise from then-President Trump and Google, Twitter, and Facebook to take the video down?

Florida’s new Surgeon General, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, was a speaker. 👇 Important to point out here - Dr. Ladapo does come with a very serious medical background.

Wake Forest, Harvard, etc.

Here's a part of his CV.

BREAKING: All South Florida schools have now mandated masks and defied Governor DeSantis.

Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach Co.

The last domino to fall was Palm Beach County. The school board eliminated the mask opt-out after a lengthy meeting tonight. This obviously doesn’t include private schools, which make their own mask policies.

NEW: @GovRonDeSantis tells me kids who had COVID exposure but *no symptoms* should NOT be quarantined away from school.

“Quarantining healthy kids deprives these kids of an ability to get an education.”

Says kids with symptoms should stay home. Worth noting the Florida Department of Health are the ones enforcing which kids should quarantine and they do send kids home for COVID exposure.

It’s time for 20 minutes of public comment at the Florida Board of Education meeting on punishing schools that mandate masks.

Buckle up. First comment comes from a man in Jacksonville, saying board members should be “investigated for murder - you’re killing people.”

NEW: Alt-right group The Proud Boys showed up to tonight’s Palm Beach County School Board meeting.

The meeting is to discuss masking in schools. The three men in “Stand Back, Stand By” shirts are waving an “unmask the children” banner. Update: they’re here in the meeting.

Confirmed: @CBS12 News is not allowed into the event where @GovRonDeSantis will sign a controversial elections bill into law, per @MadelineTV who is outside.

We were a pool camera, assigned to feed this event to affiliates nationwide.

Now, the only camera will be Fox News It’s not just us. Not a single reporter is being let in. This in a “sunshine” state that prides itself on open government.

WOAH! Big flash and streak across sky in West Palm Beach. Happened moments ago while we were on Facebook Live for a @CBS12 story.

Working to figure out what it was. .@ZachCoveyTV wake up! We need you.

USPS is warning FL and most other states that they may be overburdened with mail ballots come November.

We mailed 99 mock #VoteByMail ballots from mailboxes across Palm Beach County to see how long they took to get to our mock Supervisor of Elections Office.

What we found: We started with 100 (lost 1 before hitting the mail). Each was exact size and approximate weight of a mail ballot.

More than 90% of mock ballots we mailed returned to our mock Supervisor of Elections Office in 3 days or less.

Not a single mock ballot was lost in the mail.