2024 Florida Legislature

The bill designating "rural emergency hospitals" stems from a federal law and would make them eligible for Medicare payments. The hospitals must be licensed by states, creating a need for the bill.

The website will include educational materials on pregnancy and parenting, maternal health services, prenatal and postnatal services, programs for fathers, adoption services and more.

Black babies are at higher risk of infant mortality than white babies. There are also several factors behind the barriers to prenatal care in Florida.

Researchers looked at workers' comp claims in 24 states and found that excessive temperatures increased the frequency of injuries, with risks in the South particularly higher.

The city hasn’t given all those benefits to Joey Davis, president of the Tallahassee firefighter’s union and a cancer survivor. Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the bill earlier this month.

The law will be part of the motor vehicle registration process. Sponsors say it will make officers mindful of possible medical conditions of someone in the vehicle who may not respond to commands as expected.

DeSantis said the law will protect the state’s cattle industry against “an ideological agenda that wants to finger agriculture as the problem.”

The bill focuses on single-use electronic cigarettes and will allow the state attorney general's office to set up a registry of products deemed off-limits, after an administrative process.

The state currently bans most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. That will drop to six weeks, with exceptions.

The state awarded USF $5 million in recurring funds to create the Florida Center for Behavioral Health Workforce. Millions of Floridians live in an area where mental health professionals are sparse.