Combined dispatches

The Florida Trident, a publication of the Florida Center for Government Accountability, called a statement, made by the DeSantis Administration Friday, "a masterpiece of spin and understatement" that credited “overwhelming interest” for temporarily pausing a scheme to put golf courses, hotels and pickleball courts on nine of Florida’s pristine state parks.

Near the Lesser and Greater Antilles there is an area of disturbed weather moving over the central tropical Atlantic Ocean that is expected to interact with an approaching tropical wave during the next several days.

A bus carrying farmworkers that police said left from the Immokalee area earlier, overturned on Tuesday in central Florida, killing eight people and injuring about 40 other passengers, authorities said.The bus was transporting 53 farmworkers at about 6:40 a.m. when it collided with a truck in Marion County, north of Orlando, the Florida Highway Patrol said.The Florida Highway Patrol said the bus had left from the Immokalee area earlier in the day.

More than a dozen parents, teachers, and students along with Equality Florida have reached a settlement with the Florida Department of Education and school districts.The settlement will allow K-12 students to speak and write freely about sexual orientation and gender identity in class participation and schoolwork.It will also reinstate Gay-Straight Alliances throughout the state.

Health care providers across the country are reeling from a cyberattack on a massive U.S. health care technology company that has threatened the security of patients’ information and is delaying some prescriptions and paychecks for medical workers.The hack could also disrupt discharging people from the hospital, a major hospital association said.Change Healthcare announced Thursday that a ransomware group that had claimed responsibility for the attack was at fault. Change Healthcare also said it is assessing the impact of the attack, which it first acknowledged on Feb. 21 and has affected billing and care-authorization portals across the country.

State Rep. Adam Botana, R-Bonita Springs, will have a familiar Democrat challenger this year against.

A Fort Myers state senator and a Jacksonville state representative have both introduced bills that would punish local officials who attempt to have Confederate memorials removed.

A 2,000-plus-acre Southwest Florida ranch has been added to a state program designed to protect rural land.Florida agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson announced the addition of the Syfrett Ranch property in Highlands and Glades counties on Monday through the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services’ Rural and Family Lands Protection Program. The approval was part of $19 million approved by Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Cabinet on Tuesday to conserve rural land used for cattle, while also expanding a list of agricultural properties the state could help shield from residential or commercial development.

Henry Mack, a former high-ranking state education official and nearly chosen as president of Florida Gulf Coast University earlier this year, was named interim president of Broward College on Tuesday. Mack, who previously was a chancellor at the Florida Department of Education overseeing the Division of Florida Colleges, was chosen to succeed former Broward College president Gregory Haile. Another selection made Tuesday, this one by the New College of Florida Board of Trustees, selected Interim President Richard Corcoran to become the small liberal-arts school’s leader on a permanent basis.

As areas of South Florida, including Collier, Hendry and Glades counties, swelter under a heat advisory with heat indices up to 110 again today, portions of the southwest United States have been melting under those actual temperatures for nearly three weeks.