Daniel Rivero

Up until now the only way for most people to get tested for COVID-19 is if you show clear symptoms and have a referral from a medical professional. Either that, or by being a politician, an NBA player or a celebrity.

But a new study done in coordination with the University of Miami and Miami-Dade County plans to change that in a way researchers hope will better help tackle the outbreak.

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One of the most important things for the public during the COVID-19 public health emergency is access to reliable information from the state government.

In a press conference on Thursday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami will be among the first hospitals in the state to receive new commercial test kits for COVID-19.

FREEPORT, GRAND BAHAMA — A few days after Hurricane Dorian, Amanda Kellowan rummaged through what was left. She had just spent 36 hours in the attic of her home, fleeing from the 30-foot storm surge that swept over her island home of Grand Bahama last September.

The Orange County Supervisor of Elections Office is blaming a widely used elections software company for a false report to the state that nearly a quarter million registered voters had been removed from the county's voting rolls. 

Since 2016, Russian-American photographer Anastasia Samoylova has been capturing images of sea-level rise in South Florida in quiet — and often surprising — ways.

Florida passed an amendment in 2018, promising to restore voting rights for over a million Floridians with felony convictions. But that hope turned to confusion soon after.

The state Legislature followed up with a law clarifying that in order to get their voting rights back, felons needed to pay off all fines and fees related to their convictions. Hundreds of millions of dollars in fines are owed across the state, including $278 million in Miami-Dade County alone.

On an afternoon in November, 17 people from across Miami-Dade County gathered in a Miami courtroom to have their voting rights restored. The hearing would be an early indication that party politics are playing a role in how a controversial state law is being rolled out.

Despite much-publicized efforts by the Florida Democratic Party and its allies, state data shows Republicans in the swing state are far outpacing Democrats when it comes to the raw number of registered voters.

As more than 10,000 supporters of President Donald Trump awaited his arrival at the BB&T Center in Sunrise for a campaign rally Tuesday night, Brock Cline showed up to the exceedingly red party in a green kilt and a bagpipe in hand.

"We just wanna come here and play and see if President Trump will let us play inside in front of everybody,” said the Boca Raton resident. He and his wife Toni broke out into song, playing Amazing Grace for a crowd that gathered around.

Cheers erupted in a Miami-Dade County courtroom on Friday, as more than a dozen people with felony convictions had their right to vote restored by a judge.

The mass court hearing was part of a brand new process created by the 11th Judicial Circuit of Florida, along with Miami-Dade’s offices of the State Attorney, the Public Defender, and the Clerk of Courts.

On Monday, a major hearing is set to take place in Tallahassee that will set the tone of a challenge to a Florida law that opponents have called a “poll tax.”

A federal judge has temporarily blocked a portion of a controversial Florida law that called on local police to cross state lines to assist federal immigration officials but left in place a provision where the officers would have to hold undocumented immigrants until the feds pick them up.

Newly filed court records are shedding light on the closely watched federal court case relating to voting rights for people with felony convictions. Several groups filed lawsuits against state and local officials after Governor Ron DeSantis signed a law tying the right to vote to paying all the fines and fees related to a felony conviction.

A number widely cited by media outlets and elected officials since Hurricane Dorian pounded the Bahamas is incorrect, the United Nations has acknowledged.

In a press briefing last Friday, Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for the Secretary-General of the United Nations, said: “We believe that about 70,000 people are currently homeless in the Bahamas.”

FREEPORT, GRAND BAHAMA - After days of living on a devastated island with no electricity or running water, thousands gathered at Freeport Harbour in Grand Bahama this weekend trying to get tickets to the first passenger boat leaving from Freeport to the Port of Palm Beach since Hurricane Dorian struck.

Ariel and Delavoe Wilson crouched over their phones at a Dunkin Donuts in Fort Lauderdale. Over a WhatsApp group, they scrolled up and down, gazing at photos and videos of Hurricane Dorian’s devastation in the Bahamas. Images of familiar places that, oddly, no longer looked familiar.

“Just about everywhere is devastation,” said Delavoe. “My own house. My street. The airport. All the smaller places that are much closer to the sea.”

This last May was the hottest ever recorded in the Sunshine State. That was followed by higher-than-average temperatures in June and July. The scorching hot temperatures means thousands of inmates across the state are spending what could potentially be a record-breaking summer without access to air conditioning.

The Florida Department of Corrections operates 50 “major facilities” across the state. Only 18 of them have air conditioning in “most of their housing,” according to the department.

The first legal challenge to Florida’s controversial law banning so-called “sanctuary” cities and counties was filed on Tuesday against Governor Ron DeSantis and Attorney General Ashley Moody in the Southern District of Florida. Leading the federal lawsuit is the City of South Miami.

"Ni las moscas están [Not even the fleas are here]." That's how one shopkeeper at the Tropicana Flea Market in Miami's Allapattah neighborhood described the usually bustling place on Sunday. 

A federal lawsuit has been filed against the Florida Secretary of State and ten county Supervisors of Elections across the peninsula, in what amounts to the first major legal challenge to a controversial bill that was passed by the Republican-dominated legislature to require former felons pay all fines and fees before being able to vote.

The number of Cuban nationals being detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has sharply risen over the last few years, according official data from the federal agency obtained by WLRN through a Freedom of Information Act request.

The state of Florida has officially launched an investigation into the group that raised over $23 million online, in a stated effort to privately build President Trump’s proposed border wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.

“In response to consumer complaints, including those referred by the Office of the Attorney General, the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services has opened an investigation into this charity,” Department of Agriculture spokesperson Franco Ripple told WLRN in an email.

Mango season is nearly upon us, that annual ritual of pungent juices dripping onto the chin, of begging friends and family for a spare fruit or two, of driving slowly along back streets to check out that one tree that drops fruit right on the side of the road that you’ve been thinking about since this time last year.

And all this time, you might be asking yourself, "How can I get in on the mango action without avoiding the middlemen? If I live in a condo, can I grow my own mango tree?"

Business from cannabis is growing fast in Florida; some of it regulated tightly, and some of it without rules. But all of it comes with cash that the banking industry is reluctant to touch. 

The first legal industrial hemp seeds in decades are growing now in South Florida soil.

CBD is showing up in ice cream, gummy bears and cocktails, but the state says the products are illegal.

When Amendment 4 passed last November, many people thought it would give over a million people with felony convictions the right to vote in Florida. 

Florida Commissioner of Agriculture Nikki Fried ran on a platform of what she called 'the three W’s': weapons, water and weed. Within months of her swearing in, it’s that last W that’s already generating a buzz around the state. 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis recently announced that he will be heading a trade mission to Israel in May. He will be joined by Florida's Cabinet -- Attorney General Ashley Moody, Commissioner of Agriculture Nikki Fried, and Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis. An official meeting of the Florida Cabinet will take place at the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem during the visit.

Gummy bears, oils, cocktails, ice cream ... Products with CBD in them have practically become ubiquitous in South Florida. The chemical CBD comes from the cannabis plant and that fact is leaving business owners in a kind of grey zone. But increasingly the federal government is taking notice, while regulations from the state are forthcoming.

A bill that is advancing in the Florida Senate could provide relief for a large chunk of people with felony convictions who want to regain the right to vote following  the passage of Amendment 4 last November.