Florida DOGE report
The state’s report on local government spending is out.
Led by the state Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, the effort is supposed to focus on finding what it calls overspending, waste, fraud and abuse.
But critics, including some local officials, say it's misleading and incomplete.
Guests:
- Sheila Weinberg, founder and CEO of Truth in Accounting.
- Jake Hoffman, chair of the Hillsborough DOGE Liaison Committee.
State tests some food for toxins
Over the course of the past month, First Lady Casey DeSantis has led an effort called Healthy Florida First to test common food items for chemicals.
The initiative has found mercury and lead in some baby formula, arsenic in some candy and the weedkiller glyphosate in some bread.
Do these findings pose a risk to the public? And how do the levels of these chemicals found in the Florida Department of Health’s testing compare with national safety standards?
Guests:
- Alex LeBeau, an environmental scientist specializing in toxicology, owner of Exposure Assessment Consulting.
- Samantha Putterman, Florida government reporter at PolitiFact.
Weekly news and briefing
Some public high school students in Central Florida have planned protests against the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement effort.
These follow recent student demonstrations in other districts in recent weeks.
The entire state is experiencing some level of drought leading to some water management districts to declare a water shortage. Extreme dry weather conditions also raise the risk for wildfires.
Some ships are too tall to fit under the Sunshine Skyway Bridge to sail in and out of Port of Tampa.
So a private company is looking to build a port on the gulf side of the Skyway to accommodate the biggest of the big cruise ships and capture some of that tourist activity. The possible port would be near the waters of an aquatic preserve drawing concerns from environmentalists.