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Monday's Daily Pulse
What you need to know about Florida today
‘Survival mode’: Florida’s migrant workers consider future after new law
In Florida, there are more than 1.8 million immigrants, including those without permanent status. Immigrants represent 11% of the total labor force but account for the largest share in certain industries. They make up 37% of the workforce in agriculture; 23% in construction; and 14% in service jobs, according to a recent KFF Health News analysis of a 2021 U.S. Census report. [Source: Tampa Bay Times]
Citizens’ rate hikes among lowest of Florida’s top 10 insurers
Yes, there are some trade-offs to being insured by state-owned Citizens Property Insurance Corp. But despite them, there’s little an argument that folks who rely on “the insurer of last resort” have been facing insurance rate hikes that rank among the lowest over the past two years. It’s one reason, along with a growing reluctance by private-market insurers to continue insuring Florida homes, why the number of accounts covered by Citizens’ has grown from 420,000 to 1.3 million since 2019. [Source: Orlando Sentinel]
Florida made it easier to keep your therapist from another state. Here’s how.
Floridians who leave the state will now be able to keep their mental health therapists under a new law. Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill May 25 that authorizes Florida to join an interstate compact allowing psychologists to keep treating patients when they leave the state. And it allows people who come to Florida for college or other reasons to stay with psychologists they’re comfortable with from home. [Source: Tampa Bay Times]
Want a job near the beach that pays $50,000 or more? These South Florida cities are hiring
Wouldn’t it be nice to work near the beach? The following jobs aren’t exactly on the sand under a palm tree or big umbrella. But most are based a couple of blocks away in seaside cities that run through or straddle A1A. What follows are some of the job openings in Miami Beach, Surfside, Bal Harbour, Bay Harbor Islands and Sunny Isles Beach that pay at least $50,000 a year. [Source: Miami Herald]
Florida universities study pros, cons of artificial intelligence
As artificial intelligence becomes an increasingly high-profile topic in higher education, Florida universities are holding discussions about how to harness the technology’s power and to stave off student cheating using it. The University of Florida Board of Trustees, for example, received an update Thursday from the school’s Provost Joe Glover on artificial intelligence, or AI, initiatives at UF. The state’s flagship university is home to a supercomputer known as HiPerGator, which was a $50 million gift to the school from NVIDIA, a Silicon Valley-based tech firm, and company co-founder Chris Malachowsky, a University of Florida graduate. [Source: Orlando Sentinel]
ALSO AROUND FLORIDA:
› USF lab will be the first in Florida to create human trafficking database
Human trafficking in the Tampa Bay area is a problem — but, because Florida has no centralized data collection, no one knows just how much. A bill recently signed into law aims to correct that, making a lab in downtown St. Petersburg the home of a new data bank working to shed light on a shadowy crime in our area. Housed at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg, the lab — called the USF Trafficking in Persons (TiP) Risk to Resilience Lab — will collect and analyze anonymized data from across the state.
› Miami braces for Trump’s historic criminal court hearing
Miami has hosted its share of marquee criminal defendants over the years — Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega, al-Qaeda jihadist Jose Padilla, and Cocaine Cowboys Willy Falcon and Sal Magluta — but no one nearly as prominent as Donald J. Trump. This is an unprecedented federal indictment of a former president of the United States, a man who — love him or hate him — once occupied the most powerful office in the world and remains a leading candidate to regain the Republican presidential nomination.
› Orlando Tech Community to leave Orlando Economic Partnership for new nonprofit spinoff Innovate Orlando
Orlando Tech Community, which until now has operated under Orlando Economic Partnership, will leave the area’s public/private economic development organization for a new nonprofit spinoff dubbed Innovate Orlando. Innovate Orlando filed its articles of incorporation on Feb. 24 and officially starts work this week.
› Clearwater’s The Sound will bring much-needed midsize music venue to Tampa Bay
Sporting a white Adidas wide-brimmed golf hat over his long blond hair, Cheap Trick’s Robin Zander looks every part the 30-year resident of the Tampa Bay area that he is. And this month, the rocker is looking forward to breaking in a new music venue close to home. On June 28, his legendary band will put on the first concert in the new music venue called The Sound at Clearwater’s Coachman Park.
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