A new pilot program could soon be implemented to help young students master better ways to manage conflicts with teachers, peers and parents.

St. Petersburg Democratic Sen. Darryl Rouson filed a bill (SB 1014) to establish the Youth Conflict Resolution and Peer Mediation Pilot Program, which would aim to reduce juvenile violence in schools by equipping students with conflict resolution skills.

Violence in schools has been a persistent issue in Florida. In September 2024, reports showed that several students, some as young as 11, had been arrested and charged with making threats of violence, including posting online that they would conduct mass shootings at their respective schools. Another 13-year-old student was caught with a loaded handgun in his backpack.

The bill states that the Legislature intends to improve student success and well-being by engaging and supporting parents and community organizations in their efforts to have a positive impact on student learning and development.

The pilot program would be part of the Community School Grant Program, and would be implemented for three school years, starting no later than the 2026-27 school year.

The program would involve the Center for Community Schools at the University of Central Florida, which would work alongside the Florida Department of Education (FDOE) to develop, implement and monitor the effectiveness of specific curriculum at selected schools that have high rates of juvenile violence.

Schools would be required to integrate the curriculum into lesson plans and to provide training that would include community partners who interact with the students at the school where possible. Schools would also be required to provide data, and complete pre-pilot and post-pilot program surveys created by the center that would be completed by students, teachers and parents.

The center would be responsible for monitoring the program’s implementation, collect all relevant data and provide periodic updates. After the program ends, a comprehensive report would be submitted to the FDOE, including any recommendations for broader curriculum adoption.

The report would also need to include the number of students enrolled in the participating schools, the rates of student discipline and juvenile violence in the selected schools before the pilot program, and results of the surveys.

If passed, the bill would come into effect upon becoming a law and would expire after the final report is submitted.

Post Views: 0

President Donald Trump welcomed French President Emmanuel Macron to the White House for talks on Monday at a moment of deep uncertainty about the future of transatlantic relations, with Trump transforming American foreign policy and effectively tuning out European leadership as he looks to quickly end Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The two leaders started their day by participating in a more than two-hour virtual meeting with fellow leaders of the Group of Seven economies to discuss the war.

Trump also has made demands for territory — Greenland, Canada, Gaza and the Panama Canal — as well as precious rare earth minerals from Ukraine. Just over a month into his second term, the “America First” President has cast an enormous shadow over what veteran U.S. diplomats and former government officials had regarded as America’s calming presence of global stability and continuity.

Despite some notable hiccups, the military, economic and moral power of the United States has dominated the post-World War II era, most notably after the Cold War came to an end with the collapse of the Soviet Union. All of that, some fear, may be lost if Trump gets his way and the U.S. abandons the principles under which the United Nations and numerous other international bodies were founded.

“The only conclusion you can draw is that 80 years of policy in standing up against aggressors has just been blown up without any sort of discussion or reflection,” said Ian Kelly, a U.S. Ambassador to Georgia during the Obama and first Trump administration and now a professor at Northwestern University.

“I’m discouraged for a lot of reasons, but one of the reasons is that I had taken some encouragement at the beginning from the repeated references to ‘peace through strength,’” Kelly added. “This is not peace through strength — this is peace through surrender.”

Visits start on anniversary of war in Ukraine

Trump, a Republican, is hosting Macron on Monday, the three-year anniversary of the war in Ukraine. Trump is set to hold a meeting Thursday with another key European leader, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Their visits come after Trump shook Europe with repeated criticism of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for failing to negotiate an end to the war and rebuffing a push to sign off on a deal giving the U.S. access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals, which could be used in the American aerospace, medical and tech industries.

European leaders also were dismayed by Trump’s decision to dispatch top aides for preliminary talks with Russian officials in Saudi Arabia without Ukrainian or European officials at the table.

Another clash is set to play out at the U.N. on Monday after the U.S. proposed a competing resolution that lacks the same demands as one from Ukraine and the European Union for Moscow’s forces to immediately withdraw from the country.

On the minerals deal, Zelenskyy initially bristled, saying it was short on security guarantees for Ukraine. He said Sunday on X that “we are making great progress“ but noted that “we want a good economic deal that will be part of a true security guarantee system for Ukraine.”

Trump administration officials say they expect to reach a deal this week that would tie the U.S. and Ukrainian economies closer together — the last thing that Russia wants.

It follows a public spat, with Trump calling Zelenskyy a “dictator” and falsely charging Kyiv with starting the war. Russia, in fact, invaded its smaller and lesser-equipped neighbor in February 2022.

Zelenskyy, who said Sunday in response to a question that he would trade his office for peace or to join NATO, then angered Trump by saying the U.S. President was living in a Russian-made “disinformation space.” Confronting Trump might not be the best approach, analysts say.

“The response to President Trump doing something to you is not to do something back right away. You tend to get this kind of reaction,” said retired Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery, a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

He added, “This is part of a broader issue where I know the administration’s characterizing themselves as disruptors. I think a better term might be destabilizers. And, unfortunately, the destabilizing is sometimes us and our allies.”

That complicated dynamic makes this week’s task all the more difficult for Macron and Starmer, leaders of two of America’s closest allies, as they try to navigate talks with Trump.

High-stakes talks between European and U.S. leaders

Macron said he intended to tell Trump it’s in the joint interest of Americans and Europeans not to show weakness to Vladimir Putin during U.S.-led negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. He also suggested he’ll make the case that how Trump handles Putin could have enormous ramifications for U.S. dealings with China, the United States’ most significant economic and military competitor.

“You can’t be weak in the face of President Putin. It’s not you, it’s not your trademark, it’s not in your interest,” Macron said on social media. “How can you then be credible in the face of China if you’re weak in the face of Putin?’”

Yet, Trump has shown a considerable measure of respect for the Russian leader. Trump said this month he’d like to see Russia rejoin what is now the Group of Seven major economies. Russia was suspended from the G8 after Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region.

Trump dismissed Zelenskyy’s complaints about Ukraine and Europe not being included in the opening of U.S.-Russia talks, suggesting he’s been negotiating “with no cards, and you get sick of it.”

Putin, on the other hand, wants to make a deal, Trump argued Friday. “He doesn’t have to make a deal. Because if he wanted, he would get the whole country,” Trump added.

The deference to Putin has left some longtime diplomats worried.

“The administration should consider going in a different direction because this isn’t going to work,” said Robert Wood, a retired career diplomat who served in multiple Republican and Democratic administrations. “Let’s not kid ourselves: Russia started this war, and trying to rewrite the narrative isn’t going to serve the best interests of the U.S. or our allies.”

___

Republished with permission of The Associated Press.

Post Views: 0

The University of Florida (UF) will be a significant resource for historians of Marco Rubio’s Senate career.

Now that Rubio is handling international affairs for the U.S. as Secretary of State, he is leaving his political papers drafted as he was U.S. Senator to libraries at UF.

Rubio served in the Senate between 2011 to 2025, when he departed to become Secretary of State. In those 14 years in the Senate, Rubio generated quite an archive of official papers and memos.

UF officials announced Monday that Rubio, a Republican, agreed to deposit his papers from his senatorial service, along with other materials of historical nature, to the school’s George A. Smathers Libraries political papers collection.

Many of those documents will come from Rubio’s time as a member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Vice Chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He also served on the Senate Appropriations Committee, as well as the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship.

“We are honored that Secretary of State Rubio is entrusting us with his Senatorial papers,” said Judy Russell, Dean of University Libraries. “Preserving these historical documents is so important, and we are pleased future scholars will have the opportunity to engage with his materials and others in our collection.”

Rubio is an alumnus of UF, where he received a bachelor of arts degree in 1993.

The Florida Political Papers collection at UF houses many manuscripts from several of Florida’s highest-profile political leaders. The late Democrat Bob Graham, a former Governor and U.S. Senator, bestowed many of his political papers to the UF library system. Graham passed away in April.

Former U.S. Sen. and U.S. Rep. Bill Nelson also contributed many of his documents to the UF collection, along with many of his documents from NASA from when he served as the space agency’s Administrator from 2021 to 2025.

There are also documents in the UF archives from David Levy Yulee, who was a U.S. Senator for Florida before the American Civil War.

Post Views: 0