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Florida will see its three millionth unemployment application this weekend.

As of Friday morning there were 2,958,663 applications filed since March 15th, an more than 138,000 have been filed since July first.

As Disney prepares to open this weekend, its home county, Osceola, is showing the highest unemployment in the state at 37 percent.

It is still the number one problem Orlando State Representative Anna Eskamani is hearing from constituents.

“It’s like non stop to this moment. My phone…I had a Miami woman crying this morning. I mean, its just so bad, so bad,” said Eskamani.

During the first nine days of July, Florida saw over 172,000 unique unemployment claims.

Up to 29,000 are people who filed, went back to work, and are re-filing.

“Every week we’re finding large corporations furloughing or just plain laying off people,” said Orlando State Senator Linda Stewart.

Senator Stewart worries more furloughs will turn into layoffs.

“We’re not going to be able to get everybody back to business and doing what we would like to see, even if its half of what we were doing before until we get the virus under control,” said Stewart.

On Thursday, the Governor and US Labor Secretary made it clear that opening schools this fall isn’t just about learning gaps, but unemployment as well.

“We can’t just leave society sitting on the mat,” said Governor Ron DeSantis.

Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia hopes opening schools will give people a place to send their kids so they can go back to work.

“If we don’t get our schools open, it will be that much harder for working adult women who are facing a higher unemployment rate to get back to work,” said Scalia.

And many will exhaust all of their unemployment benefits at the end of July, raising the question, what’s next?

Unless Congress acts before the end of July, unemployment benefits will run out for thousands of Floridians.

The debate over a statewide mask order continues to heat up as a group of physicians returned to the Governor’s mansion once again, this time with the ‘Grim Reaper’, to demand executive action.

The legal battle challenging local mask orders is also playing out in court.

Friday’s 11,385 new cases work out to a Floridian is being infected with the coronavirus every seven and a half seconds.

“Governor, you just can’t spin your way out of this reality,” said Dr. Ron Saff with Physicians for Social Responsibility.

The physicians, along with more than 1,000 doctors and healthcare workers who have signed onto a petition, blame the latest spike in part on the reluctance of the Governor to issue a statewide mask mandate.

“Florida is frighteningly becoming an epicenter for the virus,” said Dr. Saff.

This is the second time in less than a month the physicians have protested in front of the Governor’s Mansion… this time joined by Daniel Uhlfelder, better recognized as the grim reaper often seen traveling the state.

He contrasted the precautions the Governor has taken for himself and family with precautions in place for the public.

“Open the Capitol! Because you’re killing Floridians!” said Uhlfelder.

Multiple localities have issued their own mask orders, including Leon County where the Capitol is located.

But not everyone supports mandating masks.

Rep Anthony Sabatini is spearheading legal challenges of seven local orders.

A virtual hearing was held for suit against the Leon ordinance Friday.

“In South Florida where they’ve had these mask ordinances from the beginning we have not seen a different trajectory or different trend in hospitalization and death,” said Sabatini during the hearing.

But the judge chose to uphold the ordinance.

And doctors hope that will send a clear message.

“Why are we even taking this question seriously? Mr. Sabatini, let’s get real,” said Dr. Donald Axelrad with Physicians for Social Responsibility.

But the ruling will likely do little to change the Governor’s stance on the issue anytime soon.

The Governor has continued to dismiss the idea of a statewide order, despite the Republican Governor in Texas mandating masks as his state experiences a similar spike in cases.

Physicians for Social Responsibility is urging Floridians who support a statewide order to call or email the Governor to express their opinion on the matter.

You can call his office at 850-717-9337 or email GovernorRon.DeSantis@eog.myflorida.com to make your voice heard.

The Florida Democratic Party applied for and received over three quarters of a million dollars from the Payroll Protection Act, but the party should not have applied in the first place.

Criticism for accepting $780,000 from the Payroll Protection Act has come from both inside and outside the Democratic Party.

Democratic State Senator Jason Pizzo first tweeted it should be returned.

Senator Annette Tadeo quickly expressed outrage.

So did State Representative Anna Eskamani.

“We have to be bold enough and brave enough to say something, because if we don’t have values, then what do we have?” said Eskamani.

Payroll Protection Act rules are clear.

Businesses primarily engaged in political activities aren’t allowed.

In a statement, the Florida Democratic Party said in part “The bank, the loan processor, and agents of the Small Business Association approved the funding. It now seems they made a mistake… so we are volunteering to return it.”

“Returning the funds was absolutely the right decision to make. I really wish that the Trump administration was as responsive when it came to actually funding PPP,” said Florida Commissioner of Agriculture Nikki Fried, the lone statewide elected Democrat.

State GOP chair Joe Gruters was reluctant to appear on camera after his CPA firm received a PPP loan.

The Republican Party did not.

Leon County GOP Chair Evan Power said the Democrats should have know better.

“The association of state chairmen sent out a letter saying the Payroll protection money was not aimed to be used for parties and could cause a legal problem if they did it,” said Power.

When asked if the incident warranted an investigation, Power said agreed.

“I think its appropriate to be investigated for taking taxpayer money,” said Power.

At least one Tallahassee lobbying firm has also returned PPP money.

The Democratic Party’s full statement reads:

“Congress passed the Paycheck Protection Plan to support employers and their efforts to provide funds to keep people working — and like many employers during the shutdown, FDP was concerned about meeting payroll and keeping our staff employed, so we applied. The bank, the loan processor, and agents of the Small Business Association approved the funding. It now seems they made a mistake in approving the funding so we are volunteering to return it. As a Democratic Party we are entering this election stronger than ever, with a growing staff and a commitment to electing a President that will address this crisis, rebuild our economy and heal the nation. That President is Joe Biden.”

One out of every three girls and one out of five boys will fall victim to sexual assault before turning 18 and often by the time they’re ready to come forward it’s too late to hold their offender to accountable.

Until now.

The bravery of one survivor was the driving force behind a new law that has removed the statute of limitations for sexual battery on a minor.

Donna Hedrick was just 15 when she was raped by her choir teacher.

“He told me don’t tell anybody, cause nobody will believe you,” said Hedrick.

Years later, she and other victims of the same man came forward and even got a confession… but it was too late to press charges.

“This is very, very common. These children are traumatized by this,” said Representative Scott Plakon, who co-sponsored the new law bearing Donna’s name.

The statute of limitations for such crimes varied wildly depending on the age of the victim and the aggressor.

“It was very confusing and I think that is primarily what we needed to fix most of all,” said Senator Linda Stewart, who sponsored Donna’s Law in the Senate.

Hedrick wanted to ensure the same thing would never happen to another child.

She spent three years advocating for change and telling her story to lawmakers.

“The bill is to protect our children who are sexually molested and raped. It helps those children, children like me, who weren’t able to deal with their abuse in a mature manner, to do so as an adult,” said Hedrick, telling her story publicly for the first time before a House committee in February.

The hard work paid off.

Donna’s Law received unanimous support in both the House and Senate.

It was signed by Governor DeSantis on June 23rd and starting July 1st it removed the statute of limitations for victims sexual battery under the age of 18.

Now victims can press charges against their aggressors whenever they’re ready.

But the law isn’t retroactive, so it won’t apply in Donna’s case, but she said it’s about helping future victims.

“That is the message to the offender that, that child is going to always have the right to come after them,” said Hedrick.

The new law doesn’t affect due process.

Accusations will still need to be backed by evidence, but it will at least provide some hope for future victims.

There’s some good news for the many Floridians sick and tired of constant robocalls.

The US Supreme Court has upheld a decades old federal law banning robocalls you can help fight back against offenders.

It’s an annoyance anyone with a phone can relate to: Robocalls.

There were more than 350,000 complaints in Florida just last year.

We even got a few while putting this story together.

But thanks to a new US Supreme Court ruling, the law banning robocalls has been upheld and even beefed up, removing an exemption for debt collectors.

“Part of what the law does is allows new technology to be invented [and] allow us an opportunity to actually go after some of those companies,” said Florida Commissioner of Agriculture Nikki Fried.

Fried heads Florida’s Division of Consumer Services.

Her agency fined 16 companies nearly a million dollars for violating Florida’s ‘Do Not Call’ list last year.

“For consumers this is a huge win. This is a real opportunity to get those robocalls off of our phone lines,” said Fried.

Not everyone is happy with the ruling.

Pollsters and political consultants had hoped the court would grant them an exemption from the ban.

But PR-wiz Ron Sachs told us those who were suing have plenty of other less intrusive options to reach voters.

“We do surveying, polling every week to broad numbers of people locally, statewide, even nationally and those polls are from voter rolls and they are online surveys that people opt-in,” said Sachs.

Cell phone companies have been developing new technologies for labeling and even filtering out suspected robocalls.

As an added protection sign up for Florida’s ‘Do Not Call’ list.

You can also file a complaint here.

The federal government also recently beefed up penalties for violators.

The TRACED Act signed into law in December sets fines as high as $10,000 per unlawful robocall in some cases.

The Florida Department of Agriculture has announced a new program to help counties improve energy efficiency for low income Floridians.

Counties that develop projects to upgrade energy efficiency are eligible for up to $100,000 of the total $1 million pot.

Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried said lowering the energy bills for those at the bottom of the economic ladder is good for the economy and the environment.

“The counties will then create their own programs internally of how to work with the individual families. Whether to increase their electric equipment, their efficiency equipment inside their homes, or other tools like solar panels,” said Fried.

And Fried said this is just the beginning.

If successful, she hopes to expand the program in the future.

It’s going to be at least ten more days before the state even considers allowing bars to reopen in Florida, and that’s a big ‘if’.

An alert citizen’s video resulted in Bajas Beachclub bar in Tallahassee having its license suspended for violating the state’s on-premises closure order.

A second license was also suspended in Orlando.

“It is impossible to police 20 million across the state with 140 ABT officers more or less,” said Florida Division of Business and Professional Regulation Secretary Halsey Beshears.

Since the June 26th order, the state has received 625 citizen complaints.

“We follow up with an ABT agent the next day. We try and go back at the time the complaint was filed. So we try and go at the time we think that violation may occur,” said Beshears.

The agency has set a date of July 16th to reconsider the bar closure order.

“There was a direct correlation we thought at the time the Governor opened the bars to the spike. So we felt like after three weeks we could see those numbers arrested or flat lined,” said Beshears.

But with over 7,300 new cases Tuesday, the likelihood of reopening that soon is declining.

“The next step if we don’t see a drop in those numbers, maybe the restaurants are next,” said Beshears.

On the day the bar closure was ordered, Carol Dover, the CEO of the Restaurant and Lodging Association warned her members they could be next.

“So we better pay attention. It’s 50 percent,” said Dover.

But Beshears told us it’s not an action the state wants to take.

“This thing isn’t prejudice towards anyone. It is an equal opportunity terrorists toward everybody who’s out there in business right now,” said Beshears..

And the Secretary told us local sheriffs have been especially helpful in pointing out violators.

Complaints can be filed online here.

Those filing are asked to be specific and include pictures of violations when possible.

Florida’s Commissioner of Education has ordered K-12 schools to open at full capacity in August.

Education groups worry the goal may be too optimistic after a month of record setting case numbers that shows little sign of slowing down.

The order from the Education Commissioner says schools must reopen all brick and mortar buildings at full capacity at least five days a week.

“If we had to open schools today I would say absolutely not,” said Florida Education Association President Fedrick Ingram.

To Ingram, the order is a dramatic shift from the local control centered reopening guidelines the department released in June.

“This has been hoisted upon us in the middle of a crisis where it doesn’t seem that our state has control of what’s going on around us,” said Ingram.

Andrea Messina with the Florida School Boards Association said there is some flexibility to provide ‘innovative’ learning in the order.

“Blended models, I think alternative platforms. Anything that is not the traditional classroom, bricks and mortar experience,” said Messina.

The order was issued just hours after the President tweeted, ‘Schools must open in the fall’.”

But Ingram hopes politics weren’t the deciding factor.

“Because a tweet does not make policy and it should not make policy for the State of Florida,” said Ingram.

And Messina said with the state continuing to see record case numbers, the order comes at a challenging time.

“There are communities that are not prepared for five days a week,” said Messina. “So allowing those to have some alternative plans I think is really going to be crucial.”

The order does waive the requirement schools provide 180 days of instruction.

That could provide some flexibility in the event they’re forced to close again.

We reached out to the Department of Education for comment on this story, but did not hear back in time.

The Education Commissioner also declined to be interviewed.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission will vote later this month to close what was once one of the richest oyster-producing bays in Florida and the nation.

It’s for the bay’s own good and has the support of those who have cherished the bay’s riches.

Before 2010, nine out of ten oysters served in Florida came from Apalachicola.

On any given day, hundreds of boats could be seen culling for oysters.

But no more says Apalachicola Riverkeeper Georgia Ackerman.

“An Oyster fisheries collapse was declared in 2012 by NOAA and we simply haven’t seen the oysters make significant recovery,” said Ackerman.

Several droughts saw the freshwater flow from Georgia into the bay cut dramatically, allowing saltwater fish to decimate the oyster beds.

“Black Drum, Red Drum. I mean, they’re eating our oysters,” said Shannon Hartsfield with the Franklin County Seafood Workers in a 2018 interview.

Oyster production has dropped so dramatically, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission will vote later this month to close the bay to oystering until the end of 2025.

It has the support of the local community.

“They should have done it about ten years ago,” said Steve Rash with Water Street Seafood, a seafood distributor in the Bay Area. “It’s not only to provide for the oyster industry, but all of the eco, the environmental services. You know, the fish, the shrimp, the crabs.”

The State is going to be spending $20 million to re-seed the oyster beds, using old oyster shells.

The same technique worked after a 1985 hurricane destroyed the oyster beds.

“Ultimately, if we are able to recover this population, we bring both a strong ecology and economy back to the region,” said Ackerman.

The ban could take effect as early as August 1st.

But despite all of the hopes and money being spent on the bay’s future, it will all come down to Mother Nature cooperating.

A new lawsuit seeks to force all of the state’s elections supervisors to keep digital images created from paper ballots, but some supervisors worry the coming election is already complicated enough in this age of COVID.

Every voting machine in Florida is already capable of capturing digital images of the paper ballot inserted by voters, but the settings make the capture optional.

“This is an important check on the paper ballots,” said State Representative Joe Geller.

Geller is one of the people suing.

“If the ballots are walk away, or for that matter, paper ballots are pretty easy to alter,” said Geller.

He points to his own county.

It misplaced over 2,000 paper ballots in 2018.

He calls the digital images a trusted backup.

“Most people want the results to be clear, understandable, and verifiable. So this is not in our opinion, its not partisan,” said Geller.

Images must be kept for at least 22 months, the same as paper ballots.

For counties with older machines there could be an increased cost.

Leon County Supervisor Mark Earley points out the majority of machines in Florida are older and would get slower if they have to image capture.

“If it’s going to be slower per voter per machine, then you need more machines to process the same number of voters. This fall given COVID and social distancing and all that, you know, we are already concerned about having lines form because we may using fewer polling places, so to me, this is a bad time for this lawsuit,” said Earley.

At least 27 counties are already keeping the images.

The lawsuit seeks an expedited hearing and a declaratory judgement in time for the August 18th primary.

An estimated 770,000 felons too poor to pay their legal financial obligations believed they’d be allowed to vote in the upcoming elections after a federal court found the state could not block them from registering to vote.

But a federal appellate court has put that ruling on hold, once again blocking them from at least the August primary.

“It throws the rights of hundreds of thousands of Floridians into flux and chaos surrounding election rights is never a good thing,” said Mark Gaber, and Attorney with the Campaign Legal Center, which is representing plaintiffs in the case.

Florida elections are often decided by a few thousand votes so the outcome of this case could have implications for the November election.

The requirement for felons to pay fines, fees and restitution before they can regain the right to vote was put in place by the Legislature after voters approved Amendment 4 in 2018.

Sponsor Representative James Grant asserts the law reflects the wording of the amendment itself.

“The amendment specifically reads, ‘All terms of sentence including probation and parole’,” said Grant.

There has been speculation that felons impacted by the financial requirements are more likely to vote blue.

But Democratic strategist Steve Schale is skeptical.

“If you look at the population of felons, they actually line up pretty close both politically, ideologically as well as racially with the State of Florida,” said Schale.

And Grant said the law was not crafted with party in mind.

“My only job was to implement, enact the constitutional amendment exactly as it was presented to get on the ballot, exactly as it was presented to the voters and accept the political ramifications as they may be,” said Grant.

The appellate court won’t even hear the case after registration closes for the Primary.

But Gaber expects the case to be expedited.

“We’re hopeful that the 11th Circuit will move quickly to issue a full ruling on the merits and then if the Supreme Court needs to step in then that could happen before the November election,” said Gaber.

Registration for the General election closes October 5th.

Without a decision prior to that, indigent felons will be effectively barred from voting one more cycle.

The ACLU, one of the parties suing to strip the financial requirements from the law, told us in a statement a previous ruling by the appellate court is still valid.

However, that ruling only applies to the 17 plaintiffs named in the case, allowing them to vote despite having outstanding fines and fees.

People behind on their rent or mortgages have another month to scrape together what they owe before facing eviction.

Governor Ron Desantis signed the executive order extending eviction moratoriums until August first was filed at 8:10 pm Tuesday, less than four hours before it was set to expire.

Florida Democrats had asked for the extension.

“In order to make sure this pandemic doesn’t impact people’s security to have a place to live, the moratoriums are extremely essential,” said State Senator Audrey Gibson.

But property owners were not happy.

One manager told us that he expected a race to the courthouse, accusing some renters of using the moratorium to avoid paying rent even though they were still working.

Sen. Gary Farmer believes banks need to start looking out for landlords.

“I do think landlords need some relief with regard to any mortgages them may have, or loans they may have. Because they have to make payments perhaps as well,” said Farmer.

The extension is important because even though A total of $395 million in state and federal funding is being made available to help people with rent and mortgages, it has not yet started to flow.

”This money is so critical to our local communities,” said Cragin Mosteller with the Florida Association of Counties.

Mosteller explained each county will have its own set of rules on disbursement.

“Each county is going to have to make a decision. It’s an important decision on how quickly to get that money out there,” said Mosteller.

And the Florida Housing Finance Corporation said it is still working on a distribution formula that will combine population and unemployment rate.

Some money is expected to be disbursed in July.

Starting Wednesday, teens under the age of 18 will need a parent’s consent is they wish to have an abortion.

The legislation was signed Tuesday night by Governor Ron DeSantis, buta recent US Supreme Court ruling is giving pro-choice groups hope they can successfully challenge the law in court.

Minors seeking an abortion already had to notify their parents.

Now they’ll need their permission.

“At the very least, this common sense law raises the standard [for] an abortion as is required in almost every other medical procedure,” said Ingrid Delgado with the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The new law is nearly identical to one struck down by the Florida Supreme Court three decades ago.

This time, lawmakers beefed up an avenue to bypass the consent requirement through the courts for minors who fear retaliation from their guardian.

“Things like providing counsel to indigent minors and establishing a record that can be appealed in case a waiver is denied,” said Delgado.

Pro-choice groups like Planned Parenthood have likened the new law to a trojan horse, meant to test how far the newly conservative leaning state supreme court will allow lawmakers to restrict access to abortion.

But pro-choice advocates are hopeful a US Supreme Court ruling Monday, striking down a Louisiana law that would have restricted abortion access, will send a clear message to those in power.

“The law was a different law. The intent was exactly the same… and what we saw the Supreme Court say was that courts and state legislatures need to stop trying to block access to essential health care like abortion,” said Stephanie Fraim, Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida President.

The US Supreme Court ruling doesn’t directly impact Florida’s new law, nor similar laws on the books in 21 other states.

The real test will be whether the changes to the judicial bypass option are enough to satisfy the privacy concerns that led the state supreme court to strike down the previous version of the law.

No suits have been filed against the law yet, but Planned Parenthood tells us all options are on the table.

In a virtual press conference Wednesday, Florida Democrats said two South Florida hospitals have stopped accepting patients for elective procedures as the number of coronavirus hospitalizations have increased.

They’re calling on the Governor to ensure access to free testing for all Floridians and say it’s time for the Governor to issue a statewide mask mandate.

“It’s become a political statement rather than a necessary health precaution as it should be. We wear masks to protect others. You wear a mask to protect me, I wear a mask to protect you. This needs to be about ‘we’ not ‘me’ and this is not a political statement, this is about the health of Floridians,” said State Senator Gary Farmer.

The Governor has so far come out in opposition of a mandatory face mask order, but multiple counties have taken it upon themselves to issue their own local ordinances.

Environmental spending came out strong even after the Governor’s vetoes.

$100 million for Florida Forever and $372 million for the everglades survived the Governor’s self described ‘Red Wedding’ that totaled more than $1 billion in cuts.

But Aliki Moncrief with Florida Conservation Voters noted water quality projects weren’t quite so lucky.

$48 million didn’t make the cut.

“So cutting just short of $50 million in water projects that are there to upgrade those aging systems, help communities transition from septic to sewer, you know those are really important projects that I don’t think we can afford to wait on in many cases,” said Moncrief.

In all $83 million in environmental spending was cut from the budget.