Florida ratcheting up fight against red tide

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law Thursday an initiative between the state and Sarasota-based Mote Marine Laboratory that includes $3 million a year for the next five years to research the causes and impacts of red tide. The bill (SB 1552) creates the Florida Red Tide Mitigation and Technology Development Initiative as a partnership between the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s Fish and Wildlife Research Institute and Mote Marine Laboratory. More from CBS Miami, WKMG, WUSF, and the AP.

State could face $76 billion in climate change costs by 2040

Climate change is going to cost Florida more than any other state. It’s not even close. That’s according to a new report from Resilient Analytics and the Center for Climate Integrity, which projects that the state could be on the hook for building $76 billion worth of sea walls by 2040 to mitigate the effects of climate change — and that’s based on a conservative sea level rise scenario. To put that in perspective, Florida’s entire 2018 budget was about $88.7 billion. See the summary report for Florida here and read more from the Tampa Bay Times, WJCT, and WLRN.

Florida to launch workforce housing program

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday announced that Rebuild Florida will launch a workforce housing construction program statewide with $140 million. The Florida Keys will receive $35 million. Also, state administrators said Monroe County by next week will receive $21 million in FEMA reimbursement for debris removal for Hurricane Irma cleanup. See the full announcement and read more from the Miami Herald.

65% of Florida’s voters support legalizing recreational marijuana

A strong majority of voters — 65% to 30% — want to see marijuana legalization in Florida. The results were reported Thursday by the Quinnipiac University Poll, a showing the pollsters called “an all-time high in the state” on the marijuana issue. Voters’ views have changed significantly. In May 2016, Florida voters were split with 56% in favor and 41% opposed. In November 2016, it was much closer, with 48% in favor and 46% opposed. [Source: South Florida Sun-Sentinel]

Just add humidity: How this air-to-water machine can quench your thirst

It's a devil's pact: The gleaming rays of sunshine this time of year come hand-in-hand with body-drenching humidity. But what if that humidity could serve as a commodity for our current and future water needs in South Florida and beyond? What if clean water could be created ... right out of thick air? A niche industry has emerged in recent years to do just this, and a small Cooper City company, with access to all the suffocating humidity they could ever want, is a key player. [Source: Phys.org]

ALSO AROUND FLORIDA:

› Darden stock dips as 4th quarter revenues fall below analysts’ expectations [Orlando Sentinel]
Total sales increased 4.5% to $2.23 billion, driven in part by 39 new restaurants added during the 2019 fiscal year. However, total sales failed to match the $2.24 billion analysts had projected, likely contributing to the declining stock. The stock was down 2% in early trading Thursday, but bounced back later in the day.

› CareerSource Pinellas is selling its Science Center, and the money may not go where promised [Tampa Bay Times]
When CareerSource Pinellas bought a science center in 2014, its leaders agreed that if the project went bust and they sold the center, they’d deposit any money earned into a trust for education. Fast forward five years and the Science Center of Pinellas County has been sold to the City of St. Petersburg in a deal that will net CareerSource, the local job placement agency, about $2.4 million, according to its CEO. But that money may never go to helping people learn.

› Tampa innovators and makers needed to reinvent food production systems for long distance space travel [Florida Trend]
Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden has launched its Growing Beyond Earth Maker Contest, a multidisciplinary endeavor to leverage the ingenuity of minds across the nation to reinvent the systems used to grow edible plants on the International Space Station (ISS) and beyond.

› Experimental theater gets the spotlight in Central Florida [Orlando Sentinel]
The theater has always been a great place to try new things. Not because audiences are forgiving or because staging a production is cheap, but because actors can always say that you’re misremembering things and they were never there. If you like a little experimentation on your stage, a few Central Florida venues are rolling the dice for you.

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› Manatee Millennials discuss affordable housing and development [Sarasota Herald-Tribune]
The Manatee Millennials Movement, also called M3, held its monthly meeting Wednesday covering progress on projects the group has taken on, including promoting affordable housing in Manatee County. M3 works under Manatee County Neighborhood Services, bringing together young county workers to develop leaders across departments to participate in improving the community.

› Democrats fear Trump, Republicans are making inroads with Hispanic voters in Florida [Miami Herald]
When Donald Trump’s campaign manager said in Miami recently that he planned to launch a national Hispanic outreach effort in Florida, Democrats took notice. The state’s 2.2 million Hispanic voters make up an outsized portion of Florida’s electorate, and nearly two-thirds voted in 2016 for Hillary Clinton.

› Magic Leap sues former employee who launched own wearable computer glasses [South Florida Sun-Sentinel]
The Plantation business, which has raised more than $2 billion from investors, has sued former employee Chi Xu, who founded a Chinese company known as Nreal. Magic Leap alleges in the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Northern California, that Chi Xu is exploiting Magic Leap’s “confidential and proprietary” information in development of its own wearable computer glasses.

› Miami kicked Ultra out of Bayfront Park. Now the city may bring the festival back. [Miami Herald]
In the telenovela of Miami politics, the relationship between City Hall and Ultra Music Festival might be one of its greatest on-again, off-again romances. Just when it looked like that union might be permanently broken, Miami’s politicians and administrators might try to patch things up: Commissioners on June 27 will consider bringing the three-day electronic dance music event back to its longtime home at Bayfront Park.