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florida

via WFTV

Server Flavaine Carvalho was waiting on her last table of the night at Mrs. Potatohead's, a family restaurant in Orlando, Florida when she noticed something peculiar.

The parents of an 11-year-old boy were ordering food but told her that the child would be having his dinner later that night at home. She glanced at the boy who was wearing a hoodie, glasses, and a face mask and noticed a scratch between his eyes.

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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and the Bible.

There’s a strange bit of hypocrisy going down in the state of Florida. During the COVID pandemic, it was a place where some protested lockdowns and mask mandates under the umbrella of personal freedom. But now, some of the same lawmakers in the state are doing an about-face and pushing to ban certain books in its public schools.

Last month, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill into law that allows parents to recommend certain instructional materials be banned from the schools. More than 200 books (mostly those that deal with race, sexuality or LGBTQ+ issues) have been banned in school districts across the state since the law took effect.

Chaz Stevens, a resident of Deerfield Beach, Florida, believes that parents and districts are overlooking one book that contains genocide, slavery, talk of LGBTQ issues, bestiality, misogyny, rape and child sacrifice. You may have heard of it. It's commonly referred to as "the Bible."

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Kate McKinnon and Colin Jost.

Florida’s House of Representatives recently passed the Parental Rights in Education bill, commonly known as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, and it’s believed it will soon pass the state senate and be signed into law by Governor Ron DeSantis.

The bill is seen as a huge step back for LGBTQ rights in the state because it prohibits “classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity in certain grade levels” in Florida's primary schools.

The bill will stigmatize LGBTQ children and those who have LGBTQ parents in Florida’s schools. "So, it applies to K through 12 classrooms, and it grants the right for any parent who believes that a conversation is happening about our families to sue a school district. It's an aggressive attack," Equality Florida's Senior Political Director Joe Saunders said according to CBS.

"If children are not feeling that they are accepted or who they are and the family they come from isn't accepted, it will have an impact on them," Todd Delmay told CBS News' Manuel Bojorquez.

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Photo by geoff trodd on Unsplash

Manatees, aka "sea cows," are starving to death in Florida so officials are staging an intervention.

Manatees are one of Earth's more oddly beloved creatures. They're cute in a "so ugly they're cute" kind of way, and their bulbous, slowly meandering bodies have earned them the nickname "sea cows." They are a migratory species, and in the U.S. they congregate mainly in the waters of Florida.

Sadly, manatees are also dying at an alarming rate after only being taken off the endangered species list in 2017. During the first nine months of 2021, nearly 10% of Florida's manatee population died—more than double the five-year average. Many of those deaths were due to water quality issues impacting the growth of seagrass, one of the manatee's primary food sources.

Boat strikes, habitat loss and toxic algae blooms also threaten the species, but far too many are dying of simple starvation. According to WUSF, at least 58% of the seagrass in the northern Indian River Lagoon has been lost since 2009, and at least 96% of the Banana River's seagrass is gone. Both river habitats have long served as winter homes for manatees.

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