Florida
Homeland Security director's plans to close FEMA spark debate among Florida leaders

TAMPA, Fla. – Homeland Security Director Kristi Noem’s recent comment that she plans to close FEMA sparked debate on Wednesday among Florida leaders.
The backstory:
During a televised cabinet meeting with President Donald Trump a day earlier, Noem told the president, “We’re going to eliminate FEMA,” without going into detail about how that would happen. The statement, however, is in line with President Trump’s executive order in January calling for a “full-scale review” of FEMA.
READ: Florida bill would restrict artificial intelligence use by insurance companies when denying claims
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis didn’t comment on Wednesday on Noem’s comments, but last month said he would support closing down the agency.
“You’ve got folks with Milton and Helene who are still battling FEMA,” DeSantis said at the time, adding he wants to see disaster funding provided to states in the form of block grants ahead of a major storm. “Cut the bureaucracy of FEMA out entirely and that money will go further than it currently does at greater amounts going through FEMA’s bureaucracy.”
By the numbers:
Ninety-three percent of counties in the U.S. have had FEMA disasters declared since 2011, and Florida has received $8.5 billion.
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The other side:
Democratic U.S. Congresswoman Kathy Castor, who reprsents Hillsborough and Pinellas counties, said FEMA should be reformed, but she believes a full-scale closure is short-sighted and would leave communities unprepared and under-staffed to recover from storms.
“Congressional District 14, which is Tampa and St. Pete had more requests for emergency FEMA aid than any other district in the country over the past couple of years,” Castor said. “There is no way for local counties or the state of Florida to be able to surge in that kind of relief and expertise. You have to have a flexible national disaster response agency that can go to the areas of disaster, whether it’s wildfires or floods, tornadoes or hurricanes. So this one, it scares me.”
Amy Chester, the director of the non-profit Rebuild by Design, has dealt with FEMA a lot over the years and said transferring its responsibilities entirely to the states would be a complex process.
“We are able to show that 90% of counties across the US and 99.5% of congressional districts have experienced a major disaster declaration for a weather event from 2011 to 2024,” Chester said. “It would be incredibly complex to solely rely on a state to respond. There is so much depth of knowledge that needs to be built, and that’s not going to be built overnight. It’s not going to be built in a year, and we’d be lucky if it was built in ten years.”
MORE: Florida lawmakers could remove child labor protections for many teens
Chester believes it’ll be more difficult for states unaccustomed to natural disasters to take on recovery responsibilities.
“I think is going to be very different from a place like Iowa that has a smaller government than a place like Florida or New York or California,” she said. “What we really need is to be shifting our resources pre-disaster and our funding pre-disaster so communities aren’t suffering in the first place.”
The Source: The information in this story contains statements made by Homeland Security Director Kristi Noem and Governor Ron DeSantis. It also includes interviews with U.S. Congresswoman Kathy Castor and Rebuild by Design Director Amy Chester.
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Florida
Florida mom sparks fierce debate after allowing her kids to skip final week of school: ‘I don’t see the point’

School’s out for summer a little early.
Patricia Horton, a mother of two in Florida, unapologetically pulled her kids out of the “last couple days” of school because she insisted there was no reason for them to go.
“I don’t see the point,” Horton shared in a viral TikTok video posted on May 22. “Most of the teachers would rather you keep your kids home anyway.”
Horton, whose children are 7 and 12, admitted her parenting style is very different from how she was raised.
“My parents, they made me go to school every single day,” Horton added. “Every single day, all the way to the very last day of school every year.”
Horton revealed that her parents would only let her miss class due to a doctor’s appointment or if she was extremely sick.
The mom argued that kids aren’t learning during the final days of class and implied that they were being put to work cleaning the school.
“I have cleaned a lot of desks,” Horton revealed while talking about her childhood experience during the final days of school. “That is what we did the last week of school when I was a kid. We cleaned desks, and we cleaned classrooms, and I was a professional at cleaning desks.”
“I’m not doing that with my kids,” Horton added. “Stay home, baby, it’s summertime. Time to go.”
Horton claimed the teachers have no problem with her decision.
“They always say, ‘It’s been great teaching your kid, and I hope you have a great summer,’” Horton told TODAY. “It’s never, ‘Oh no, you’re not going to come?’ They totally understand.”
But Horton said she doesn’t force her kids to stay home and allows the duo the opportunity to attend classes.
“If my kids want to go to school, they are absolutely welcome to go,” Horton added. “If they want to stay home, I’m not going to make them go to school to sit there and maybe watch a movie.”
Horton received mixed reactions when she posed the question to her followers on how they handle the last week of school.
“I’m a teacher, and I hate when kids miss the last few days of school,” one TikTok user wrote. “We as a class have been a family for several months. Kids and teachers would like to say goodbye.”
“My kids would be SO disappointed if they missed the last few days,” another mom commented. “Splash pad, movies, field day, auctions… all on the last days. That’s the fun stuff they’ve waited all year for.”
One mom even joked that she made her kids go because “that’s the last little bit of my break.”
Others agreed that there was no reason to require kids to attend class.
“As a teacher, we aren’t doing anything fun,” a user confessed. “Sorry, we have checklists we have to get done, such as cleaning, seeing what things need repairs, etc. We don’t have parties or anything like that. It’s just babysitting at that point.”
“I did when they were in elementary,” another mom commented. “Middle School and High School don’t even take roll the last week. So they do not go.”
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