Florida
Facing a 50-Minute drive? How Tampa Bay doctors are fighting Florida’s maternity care deserts
TAMPA, Fla. – Driving an hour away to the hospital due to lack of access to maternity care is a reality for pregnant women as a new report out shows fewer hospitals are delivering babies.
What we know:
Expectant mothers know to expect a lot of doctor visits.
“You go to the doctor every four weeks in the beginning, every two weeks in the second or in the third trimester and then every week for that last month,” said Dr. Mary Ashley Cain, an associate professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at TGH/USF Health.
But, those trips are easier said than done for moms-to-be in rural communities, traveling more than 50 minutes on average in Florida.
“We do have those patients that are in those rural areas that, again, have to travel a distance from Hardee to Hillsborough, from Pasco to North Pinellas, you know, that have to come quite a distance just for their appointments,” said Careen Rush, the maternal telehealth program manager at Orlando Health Bayfront Hospital in St. Petersburg.
By the numbers:
A January 2026 maternity care report from the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform found less than 33 percent of rural hospitals in Florida provide maternity care.
More than 120 rural hospitals nationwide closed since 2020, the report said.
“There is always a risk to closing labor and delivery units, especially in a more rural area due to the amount of resources that it does take to care for both mom and baby,” said Dr. Victoria Selley, chief medical officer at AdventHealth Sebring in Highlands County.
READ: Bay Area health care systems expanding as region continues to see major growth
AdventHealth Sebring is the only hospital in a tri-county area that provides labor and delivery services.
“Working in a rural community hospital, those are my friends and family that I’m caring for,” said Selley.
Why you should care:
Orlando Health Bayfront in St. Petersburg uses a maternal telehealth program to help reach rural maternity patients.
Rush said federal legislation helped designate money at the state level for maternal telehealth coverage throughout the state.
“They started running some pilot programs on how we could reach this population, particularly in the rural areas in those healthcare deserts where a lot of moms do look for delivering hospitals,” said Rush.
She said Orlando Health Bayfront expanded the program from Pinellas and Pasco counties into Hardee, Highlands, Manatee, and Polk counties.
“There’s lot of options that we’re looking at for future expansion to go out to where they are rather than an outreach, rather than them come to wherever the provider is sitting,” said Rush.
Dig deeper:
A new Orlando Health hospital is going up in Wesley Chapel, but it won’t include maternity care.
But in those cases, doctors said guidelines for helping pregnant patients, especially high-risk ones, are critical.
“They may not be able to take care of all of those steps, but we’re working throughout the state to help other hospitals and other providers in some of these maternity deserts recognize it and know where they can send a patient,” said Cain.
READ: Hillsborough County health care plan sees surge after federal subsidies expire
Maternity deserts may not go away, but Tampa Bay area doctors said they’re committed to keeping the existing care in place.
“Those of us that are in these communities are holding on to our labor and deliver units as tightly as we can because we know the value of what that provides to the community. It really is about one patient, right, that it makes a difference for,” said Selley.
The Source: The information in this story came from The Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform and interviews with Tampa Bay hospital systems, and it was reported by FOX13’s Briona Arradondo.
Florida
Florida college Republicans group chat reveals racist texts: ‘Avoid the coloreds like the plague’
It only took three weeks for a group chat for conservative students at Florida International University (FIU) to become a place where participants eagerly used racist slurs, prompting widespread condemnation from community leaders.
Abel Alexander Carvajal, secretary of Miami-Dade county’s Republican party and a student at FIU’s College of Law, reportedly started the chat after the killing of Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, in September 2025.
But on Wednesday, the Miami Herald published leaked WhatsApp conversations in which the college Republicans made racist, sexist, antisemitic and homophobic comments, including variations of the N-word used more than 400 times. Knowledge of the chat’s existence was revealed on the same day that Republican lawmakers in Florida pushed forward a bill to rename a one-mile stretch of road alongside FIU in honor of Kirk.
William Bejerano, who the Herald noted once tried to start an anti-abortion group at Miami Dade College, was the most prolific user of the N-word. Using the slur, Bejerano called for dozens of acts of extreme violence against Black people, including crucifying, beheading and dissecting.
Dariel Gonzalez, then the College Republicans’ recruitment chair, who has recently applied to become a GOP committee member, responded to the calls for violence by saying: “How edgy.” He repeatedly used “colored” to describe Black people, including writing: “Ew you had colored professors?!” and “Avoid the coloreds like the plague,” according to the Herald.
Carvajal, who was appointed to a two-year role on the city of Hialeah’s planning and zoning board earlier this year, confirmed to the paper that the group chat was his doing, but he denied knowledge of the problematic comments until the publication contacted him about its logs last week.
“It’s been five months since this was sent and this is the first time I’ve seen this message,” Carvajal told the Herald.
“I guess to an extent, I bear some responsibility, cause I created a chat. But if I had seen this at the moment, I would have removed [Bejerano] from the chat. I probably would have even blocked his number.”
The Herald found that Carvajal had deleted 14 messages sent by other participants in the chat and 42 of his own messages before the publication obtained the chat’s logs.
He also participated in some of the racist discussions. While referring to a Black student who allegedly left FIU’s College Republicans after a member of the group “called her a [N-word]”, the Floridian reported that Carvajal wrote: “Why didn’t miggress leave?” Elsewhere in the chat, the publication reported that Carvajal used “Miggress”, “Migglet” and “Migger” to refer to Black women, Black children and Black people, in general.
At one point, Gonzalez wrote: “You can fuck all the [K-word, a slur for Jewish people] you want. Just don’t marry them and procreate.”
Ian Valdes, the Turning Point USA FIU chapter president, responded, “I would def not marry a Jew,” before changing the group chat’s name from “Uber [R-word slur for disabled people] Yapping” to “Gooning in Agartha”. “Gooning” is a gen-Z slang term for male masturbation, while “Agartha” is a mythical white civilization promoted by Heinrich Himmler, one of the most powerful leaders in Nazi Germany next to Hitler.
Gonzalez reportedly described Agartha to the group chat as “Nazi heaven sort of”.
Kevin Cooper, the first Jewish chair of the Miami Dade Republican party, condemned the group chat in a statement published to X and called for Carvajal’s resignation.
“The majority of our board voted to request Carvajal’s resignation. We have commenced removal proceedings and look forward to resolution from the Republican Party of Florida,” he wrote.
That call was echoed by Juan Porras, a Republican state representative and Miami-Dade GOP state committee member, who said in a statement: “Leadership carries responsibility. When someone in a leadership role engages in this kind of behavior, it damages the trust placed in our party by voters across Florida. For that reason, I am asking the Miami Dade Republican party secretary to step down from this position.”
In a joint statement, Florida Republican state senators Alexis Calatayud, Ileana Garcia and Ana Maria Rodriguez denounced the chats and called for the expulsion from party leadership of its participants.
“The individuals in the group chat have exposed how profoundly misaligned their beliefs are to the views of the Republican party of Florida,” their statement said. “We call for the immediate expulsion of the individuals disseminating from any level of leadership of the Miami-Dade Republican Party … We will not tolerate bigotry or discrimination.”
Multiple leaked group chats from young Republicans have created controversy in recent years.
Last year, Politico published messages from a group chat of more than 100 conservatives across the country in which users also made racist and antisemitic comments. In 2022, a Young Republican group chat from North Dakota was revealed as a cesspool of homophobic and antisemitic rhetoric.
Florida
Federal judge blocks DeSantis executive order declaring CAIR a 'terrorist organization'
Florida
Gas prices rise in South Florida amid U.S. and Israel’s conflict with Iran, as the stock market also reports a dip
Four days into the Iranian conflict, gas prices are rising at many stations in South Florida.
“I’ve traveled all over the United States,” says Stacey Williams. CBS Miami spoke to him as he was gassing up on the turnpike. He paid $66 for 20 gallons of diesel to fill his pickup truck. Williams has noted the fluctuations in fuel as he drives to locations for his work on turbines. He just spent three weeks at the Turkey Point Nuclear Power Plant south of Miami.
“The salary we get paid per hour does not add up to what we pay for gas, housing, and food,” he says.
Mitchell Gershon is also dealing with the higher gas prices. He has to fill three vehicles constantly for his business—Thrifty Gypsy, a pop-up store at musical venues. He’s back and forth from Orlando to Miami and says fuel is costing him 20% more. When asked how he handles these fluctuations, he said, “Have a little backup cash so you are ready for it.”
The rise in oil prices contributed to a drop in the stock market on Tuesday, which means some retirement accounts dipped, too. CBS Miami talked to Chad NeSmith, director of investments at Tobias Financial Advisors in Plantation, for perspective on the drop.
“We are seeing most of the pullback today. Yesterday was a shock,” he says. He’s not expecting runaway oil prices but says investors should stay in the loop: “Pay attention to your portfolio. Stick to your goals. Have a plan because these things are completely unpredictable.”
That unpredictability has Williams adjusting his budget. “You just cut back, cut corners, all you can do,” he says.
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