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No help from DC? Florida to spend millions on Zika fight

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Saying he was “profoundly disappointed” with the ongoing federal stalemate over the Zika virus, Florida Gov. Rick Scott on Thursday ordered the state to spend millions in an effort to stop its potential spread. Scott used his emergency powers to authorize spending up to $26.2 million on everything from killing mosquitoes, training mosquito technicians and purchasing Zika prevention kits. The Republican governor has been calling on the federal government for weeks to approve money to fight the Zika virus, which…

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Todd Wilcox dropping out of race for U.S. Senate

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Todd Wilcox is dropping out of the U.S. Senate race in Florida. Sources close to Wilcox’s decision say his withdrawal from the race is imminent and that he will support Marco Rubio for the good of the Republican Party. The former Special Forces commander and CIA veteran becomes the fourth Republican to drop out of the contest after Rubio decided to run for re-election to his seat, after repeatedly saying he would not. Wilcox denied that he would drop out just two days ago, citing his decades of…

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Adam Putnam talks about traps for mosquitoes to test for Zika virus

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At the Bronson Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory in Kissimmee, trained scientists will be working this summer to stop the spread of the Zika virus before it becomes a problem in Florida. At a news event Thursday morning, Commissioner of Agriculture Adam Putnam said there were no Zika cases that originated in Florida yet. Although there are currently 158 cases of Zika in Florida, Putnam reassured that all of them were travel-related — none had originated here. Putnam’s fear, however, was…

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Nationwide backlog of traps to detect Zika virus

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Florida has received less than half of the special traps it has ordered to help detect the Zika virus in mosquitoes, and nationwide the only U.S. distributor of the traps has a backlog of almost 1,950 orders from governments and private businesses, officials said Thursday. State workers in Florida had ordered more than 300 of the traps but so far have gotten only about 120 traps. The remaining 190 traps are on back order, Florida Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam said…

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As summer arrives, Bill Nelson calls for more funding for mosquito control

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As an afternoon storm blew through downtown Orlando, Florida Senator Bill Nelson addressed a group of reporters at his regional office Friday and called for more funding from the government to fight mosquitoes carrying the Zika virus that can come with such storms. The Zika virus has been spreading in a way Nelson and other worried officials call “a full-blown crisis.” And Congress, Nelson said, isn’t doing enough. He stated that they had been acting “irresponsibly” by not giving enough funding to…

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Marco Rubio may be ready to endorse in U.S. Senate race, defends his own pace

in 2017/Top Headlines by

Florida’s outgoing Republican U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio suggested Monday he may be ready to endorse the Republican he wants to follow him into the office. “I’ll have something to say about that in the next couple of days,” Rubio said Monday after meeting in Orlando with Orange County Mayor Teresa Jacobs to discuss Central Florida’s heroin crisis. Rubio also insisted his recent flurry of activity on Florida issues is not a change in his activity level, but a change in media coverage…

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Rick Scott to talk Zika in D.C.

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Gov. Rick Scott is heading to the nation’s capital to “meet with Congressional leaders on Zika preparedness,” his office announced. His daily schedule shows him departing the Enterprise Florida board meeting in Naples, his hometown, and departing for Washington, D.C. later on Wednesday. He is then scheduled to meet with seven of Florida’s members of Congress and Sen. Marco Rubio. Florida now has 109 reported cases of Zika, all travel related, according to the Department of Health. Most adults can…

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