Politics
Juvenile justice legislation moves through first committee stop
The House Education & Employment Committee unanimously advanced a measure that seeks to provide services to Florida’s youth to address underlying issues concerning school truancy.
Clearwater Republican Rep. Berny Jacques and Orlando Democratic Rep. LaVon Bracy Davis presented the bill (HB 1405) to the committee before the 19-0 vote. They detailed how changes in the bill, if passed, would help more children and their families to have access to resources they need before a situation gets out of control.
Jacques noted that the bill is geared toward preventing “youth from getting into either delinquency, or dependency,” and noted that the change is “long overdue.”
Jacques said the bill would clean up language, consolidate legislative intent into one section at the front of the chapter, remove unnecessary definitions, simplify definitions, add necessary definitions, and remove references to delinquency.
“Regarding truancy, the bill provides that a child cannot be found truant a second time. If not compliant with the first truancy finding, the case is handled by the case staff and committee to determine if a Children in Need of Services petition needs to be filed,” Jacques said.
“It also bolsters the reporting on truancy by requiring the quarterly reports sent by schools to districts show the number of students past the 15-day threshold on a rolling basis. And it bolsters the current reporting by requiring the schools to confirm that truancy remediation is being done for each student in the report. If not, the school must submit a remedial action plan to the district and follow up within 90 days showing truancy remediation is under way for illicit students.”
Gainesville Democratic Rep. Yvonne Hinson asked how schools would enforce the measures.
“We do have many attendance issues in schools today, and how to solve them, I guess this might be one of them,” Hinson said. “I wonder how you expect schools to ensure compliance with the stricter truancy enforcement measures.”
In response, Jacques said the bill introduces mechanisms to put remedial plans in place by Child Study Teams (CST) that would identify students with truancy issues before courts get involved.
“If it does not get addressed at that point, it can get escalated to a Children in Need of Services petition. And then there can be more intervention, which might include a shelter to make sure they’re getting these kids on the right path,” Jacques said.
“Then of course, the requirement provisions that we’re bolstering will help identify the kids who are being listed, and we will know as a state who needs a remedial action so we don’t get into a situation where it’s getting out of control.”
Jacques said the measure is not punitive and is rather prevention-focused to help the child and their parents avoid getting to that point.
Bracy Davis added that the CSTs determine the best route for the child and would involve parents in the discussion.
“The school puts together a CST … and this is before any petition is filed. And the Child Studies Team, they determine what are the best, what’s the best route for the child after five absences, or five exhibitions of truancy,” Bracy Davis said. “They talk with the families, they talk with the parent if they can, they bring the parent into the conversation, and they determine what are the root causes.”
The teams would then offer voluntary services from the Department of Juvenile Justice if it would help the child to get to school. This would all happen before a petition to a court was filed.
Jacques said the pivotal part of the bill that makes it different from what is already in law is the parent’s involvement in the process.
“Currently there’s not an avenue where we’re adding parental involvement during that CST process, and that’s a very pivotal portion of it because you know, parental accountability’s a big part in the system,” Jacques said. “And in fact, the bill adds accountability mechanisms for parents who are not doing the right thing and are basically setting their kids up for failure. And so, this adds them early on in that process before it levels up to that period where they’re in circuit court.”
“The current system lacks some of that, this makes sure that we fill those gaps,” Jacques added.
In closing, Bracy Davis said the legislation is reinforcing the commitment to intervention and prevention and is geared towards family support.
“This bill is not just about statute alignment, it is about ensuring that our most vulnerable population, our youth, have every opportunity to succeed,” Bracy Davis said. “The system we refine today will determine the pathways available for our children tomorrow. We are not simply adjusting language in the law, we are reinforcing a commitment to intervention, prevention and holistic family support. As a former Department of Children and Families attorney, I have seen firsthand the impact of systemic failures on the lives of children and their families.”
“When we invest in prevention, when we strengthen intervention processes, when we ensure that children are not criminalized for status offences, but instead connected to the resources they need, we are not just improving the law, we are changing lives,” Bracy Davis added.
The bill has three more committee stops to go. It will now move to the House Health & Human Services Committee.
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Jameis Winston is ready to take a bite out of the Big Apple. And maybe eat some wins for the New York Giants, too.
The 31-year-old quarterback agreed to terms with the Giants on a two-year, $8 million contract, a person familiar with the deal told The Associated Press on Friday night.
Winston joins Tommy DeVito as the only quarterbacks on the Giants’ roster. New York has been in the market in free agency for a veteran, with Aaron Rodgers, Russell Wilson and Joe Flacco also mentioned as possible targets.
The person spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because the team didn’t announce the deal. Fox Sports first reported that Winston was joining the Giants, adding that the deal could be for as much as $16 million with incentives.
“Start spreading the neWs,” Winston wrote on X, a play on his infamous “Eat a W” pregame speech with Tampa Bay in 2017. He added an apple emoji while appearing to confirm his Big Apple welcome.
Winston was the No. 1 overall pick by Tampa Bay in the 2015 draft out of Florida State. He got off to a solid start to his NFL career, finishing second in the AP Offensive Rookie of the Year voting behind Rams running back Todd Gurley, and surpassed 4,000 yards passing in each of his first two seasons. But he also struggled with his consistency and interceptions in key moments became an issue.
Winston threw for a league-leading 5,109 yards and had 33 touchdowns in 2019, but also led the NFL with a career-worst 30 interceptions in his last season as the Buccaneers’ starter. He signed with the Saints in 2020 to be Drew Brees’ backup and then re-signed the following offseason the day after Brees announced his retirement.
He started seven games in 2021 before a torn ACL ended his season. A back injury limited him the following season as he became the backup to Andy Dalton. Winston again re-signed with the Saints in 2023, serving as Derek Carr’s backup.
Winston has passed for 24,225 yards and 154 touchdowns with 111 interceptions in 10 NFL seasons.
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Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
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With massive job cuts, the National Weather Service is eliminating or reducing vital weather balloon launches in eight northern locations, which meteorologists and former agency leaders said will degrade the accuracy of forecasts just as severe weather season kicks in.
The normally twice-daily launches of weather balloons in about 100 locations provide information that forecasters and computer models use to figure out what the weather will be and how dangerous it can get, so cutting back is a mistake, said eight different scientists, meteorologists and former top officials at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — the weather service’s parent agency.
The balloons soar 100,000 feet in the air with sensors called radiosondes hanging about 20 feet below them that measure temperature, dew point, humidity, barometric pressure, wind speed and direction.
“The thing about weather balloons is that they give you information you can’t get any other way,” said D. James Baker, a former NOAA chief during the Clinton administration. He had to cut spending in the agency during his tenure but he said he refused to cut observations such as weather balloons. “It’s an absolutely essential piece of the forecasting system.”
University of Oklahoma environment professor Renee McPherson said, “This frankly is just dangerous.”
“Bad,” Ryan Maue, who was NOAA’s chief scientist at the end of President Donald Trump’s first term, wrote in an email. “We should not degrade our weather system by skipping balloon launches. Not only is this embarrassing for NOAA, the cessation of weather balloon launches will worsen America’s weather forecasts.”
Launches will be eliminated in Omaha, Nebraska, and Rapid City, South Dakota, “due to a lack of Weather Forecast Office (WFO) staffing,” the weather service said in a notice issued late Thursday. It also is cutting from twice daily to once daily launches in Aberdeen, South Dakota; Grand Junction, Colorado; Green Bay, Wisconsin; Gaylord, Michigan; North Platte, Nebraska and Riverton, Wyoming.”
The Trump administration and its Department of Government Efficiency fired hundreds, likely more than 1,000, NOAA workers earlier this year. The government then sent out letters telling probationary employees let go that they will get paid, but should not report to work.
Earlier this month, the agency had announced weather balloon cuts in Albany, New York and Gray, Maine, and in late February, it ended launches in Kotzebue, Alaska. That makes 11 announced sites with reduced or eliminated balloon observations, or about one out of nine launch locations which include part of the Pacific and Caribbean.
Among regularly reporting weather stations, NOAA had averaged about only one outage of balloon launches a day from 2021 to 2024, according to an Associated Press analysis of launch data.
Meteorologists Jeff Masters and Tomer Burg calculate that 14 of 83 U.S. balloon sites, or 17%, are doing partial or no launches. That includes two stations that aren’t launching because of a helium shortage and a third that is hindered because of coastal erosion.
“The more data we can feed into our weather models, the more accurate our forecasts, but I can’t speculate on the extent of future impacts,” weather service spokesperson Susan Buchanan said in an email.
University at Albany meteorology professor Kristen Corbosiero looked at the map of launches Friday and said “wow, that is an empty area … That’s not great.”
Corbosiero works in the building where the Albany weather service used to go to the roof to launch twice-daily weather balloons. It’s now down to one at night, which she said it is worrisome heading into severe weather season.
“For those of us east of the Rocky Mountains, this is probably the worst time of year,” said Oklahoma’s McPherson. “It’s the time of year that we have some of our largest tornado outbreaks, especially as we move into April and May.”
Former National Weather Service Director Elbert “Joe” Friday said the weather balloons get “the detailed lower atmospheric level of temperature and humidity that can determine whether the atmosphere is going to be hot enough to set off severe storms and how intense they might be.”
Satellites do a good job getting a big picture and ground measurements and radar show what’s happening on the ground, but the weather balloons provide the key middle part of the forecasting puzzle — the atmosphere — where so much weather brews, several meteorologists said.
All of the 10 announced reductions are in the northern part of the United States. That’s about where the jet stream — which is a river of air that moves weather systems across the globe — is this time of year, so not having as many observations is especially problematic, McPherson and Corbosiero said.
Weather balloons are also vital for helping forecast when and where it will rain, said Baker and another former NOAA chief, Rick Spinrad.
The weather agency has been launching balloons regularly since the 1930s. During World War II, weather balloon launches in the Arctic helped America win the air battle over Europe with better forecasts for planes, former weather chief Friday said.
It takes 90 minutes to an hour to fill a weather balloon with helium or hydrogen, get it fitted with a sensor, then ready it for launch making sure the radiosonde doesn’t drag on the ground, said Friday, who recalled launching a balloon in Nome, Alaska with 30 mph winds and windchill of about 30 degrees below zero.
Meteorologists then track the data for a couple hours before the balloon falls back to the ground for a total of about four of five hours work for one person, Friday said.
“It’s kind of fun to do,” Friday said on Friday.
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Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
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