Southeast
Democratic Gov. Beshear blasts Kentucky House Republicans' spending plan
Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear on Thursday tore into a state spending plan unveiled by House Republicans, saying it falls far short of what’s needed for Kentucky schools, juvenile justice, health care and other essential services at a time of big budget surpluses.
In his first skirmish with GOP lawmakers since winning reelection last year, Beshear said the House’s two-year spending plan would bring on needless red tape, hamstring the state’s response to natural disasters and significantly cut its government workforce.
“There’s a lot to work on,” he said while contrasting his budget blueprint with the GOP House version.
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Asked for a response later Thursday, Republican House Speaker David Osborne said: “It will come as no shock to anybody within earshot of this that there’s no way in the world we’re ever going to spend as much as the governor wants to.”
The House spending proposals were introduced on Tuesday. House Appropriations and Revenue Committee Chairman Jason Petrie said at the time that it “continues our commitment to investing in our commonwealth’s future while prioritizing responding spending that aims to efficiently allocate resources while maintaining essential public services.”
Two days later, the Democratic governor found plenty of problems with it, including key elements for public education. Beshear said the House plan would funnel $1.1 billion less into the state’s main funding formula for public K-12 schools — known as SEEK — than he proposed.
Democratic Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear is seen here answering questions during an interview on Dec. 19, 2023, in Frankfort, Ky. He censured Kentucky House Republicans’ spending plan on Jan. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley, File)
He blasted the House GOP plan for not guaranteeing pay raises for teachers and all other public school employees and for its lack of funding to provide access to preschool for every Kentucky 4-year-old. Both were cornerstones of Beshear’s budget plan, which called for an 11% raise for school employees.
That universal pre-K proposal is essential to meeting Kentuckians’ child care needs, he said. Enrolling every 4-year-old in state-supported preschools would free up more slots in daycares for younger children and would help many parents reenter the workforce, the governor said.
“Just giving a blanket investment in child care without universal pre-K is not going to add one childcare slot anywhere in Kentucky,” Beshear said. “It’s not going to solve any of the child care desert issues. You’ve got to do them together if we want to have a real impact.”
The big pay raise is needed to attract and retain teachers as states compete to staff classrooms, he said.
The House plan would leave it up to school districts to decide whether to use additional state funding to award pay raises to teachers and other staff. It reflects requests from school superintendents that they be given spending flexibility, Osborne said Wednesday.
“We try not to micromanage those things, especially when it comes to their budgets,” he said.
The House measure includes language strongly encouraging districts to award raises. And it includes provisions to track salary decisions by districts. It would add “a layer of accountability with a reporting requirement that makes salary schedules, compensation increases … easily available,” Petrie said.
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In methodically picking apart the House plan, Beshear said it would underfund the state’s Medicaid program, which serves poor and disabled people. It fails to fund safety upgrades at juvenile detention centers and would halt efforts to shore up staffing in those centers, he said.
The House plan also would put limits on funding to respond to emergencies and natural disasters, he said. The amount of money available under the bill “wouldn’t get us through an ice storm,” Beshear said.
It could force a governor to call lawmakers into a special session to obtain the necessary funding, he said. Kentucky was pounded by natural disasters during Beshear’s first term when tornadoes hit western Kentucky in late 2021 and flooding inundated sections of eastern Kentucky in 2022.
Some of Beshear’s harshest comments in his review were aimed at the potential impact on the state’s workforce and the paperwork it would create for his administration. The House budget would dramatically reduce state personnel by eliminating funding for up to 95% of vacant positions, he said.
“This is just taking a hatchet and hacking at the executive branch without even looking,” Beshear said.
The House measure would snarl his administration in red tape, he said, by requiring that quarterly reports be submitted to the legislature for virtually every executive branch action. He called it an unworkable attempt to micromanage the executive branch.
“This is the type of red tape that prevents things from getting done in government,” Beshear said.
One looming decision for lawmakers is what to do, if anything, with the state’s massive budget reserves amid strong revenue collections. House Republicans have proposed tapping those reserves to make one-time investments totaling more than $1.7 billion for infrastructure, public safety and economic development and to help pay down unfunded liabilities in public pension systems.
With the budget process in its early stages, the governor said hopes changes will be made — either in the House or when the executive branch budget measure goes to the Senate. But with supermajorities in both chambers, Republican lawmakers will determine the final contents of the state budget.
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A Florida high school teacher is accused of engaging in repeated sexual encounters with a student who had moved into her home, and plying the teen with alcohol, according to an arrest affidavit.
Mackenzie McLean, a 49-year-old economics teacher at Crooms Academy in Sanford, was arrested Tuesday on two counts of sex offense by an authority figure and one count of distribution of a controlled substance.
The male student, a senior who was friends with McLean’s daughter, moved into the teacher’s home around March 2024 after he was kicked out of his own home, according to the affidavit.
The victim said that on one occasion when he was playing video games with McLean and her daughter in a bedroom, McLean gave him 12 shots of gin, causing him to become severely intoxicated, according to the affidavit. She then allegedly told her daughter to leave the room before engaging him in sexual activity.
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Mackenzie McLean, 49, is an economics teacher at Crooms Academy in Sanford, Florida. The school district said she was placed on administrative leave following her arrest on Tuesday. (Seminole County Sheriff’s Office)
It “went on for a very short time,” the student told authorities, alleging that he “pushed McLean off him and told her it was wrong.”
The student lived with McLean for nine months, though he estimated that he was sexually abused “approximately five to ten times” in the two months when she was still his teacher.
McLean taught the male student at Crooms Academy of Information Technology, a magnet school in Sanford, Florida. (Google Maps)
As the student told authorities about the alleged sexual encounters, detectives noted in the affidavit that he appeared “quite emotional” and started crying with visible tears.
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The student said he allowed the sex to continue because he was afraid that if he stopped, he would no longer have a place to live or food to eat.
The student also brought a friend to speak with detectives who said she had also spent time at McLean’s home, sometimes sleeping over. The teen girl alleged that McLean provided her with alcohol and Adderall, a schedule two controlled substance.
The friend said that she witnessed McLean ask the student to sleep in bed with him, though she did not have direct knowledge of any sexual activity until sometime later, according to the affidavit.
McLean was arrested on Tuesday and is being held on $35,000 bond. (iStock)
Text messages between McLean and the teen girl show that McLean claimed she knew the sexual relationship with the student was wrong, though she alleged that the student initiated the sex.
“I’m well aware that I’m the adultier adult and so I intentionally never initiated anything because I didn’t want to make him feel any kind of way,” reads one alleged message from McLean.
McLean was placed on administrative leave Tuesday morning after spending nearly 25 years working in the district, a Seminole County Public Schools spokesperson told FOX35 Orlando in a statement.
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“Any allegations of misconduct by our staff will be taken seriously and handled quickly,” the statement said. “The safety of our students and staff is our highest priority, and any type of behavior that jeopardizes that safety will not be tolerated in Seminole County Public Schools.”
McLean is being held on a $35,000 bond. Her next court date is scheduled for March 31.
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Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Sunday blamed what he called “venom” from the political left following a deadly incident at President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence.
“Two would-be assassins dead, one in jail for life, and this venom coming from the other side…” Bessent said during “Sunday Morning Futures.”
“They are normalizing this violence. It’s got to stop.”
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Secretary Scott Bessent speaks to members of the media outside the White House on Nov. 5, 2025. (Eric Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Bessent pointed to a campaign commercial from an Illinois Democratic Senate candidate in which Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton showcased people declaring, “F— Trump, vote Juliana,” urging that the “profane” video be taken down.
“We don’t know whether this person was a mastermind, unhinged or what, but they are normalizing this… violence,” he said.
Fox News Digital reached out to Stratton’s office for comment and did not immediately hear back.
Bessent’s comments came as authorities investigate a security incident at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, where a young male suspect was shot and killed early Sunday.
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An aerial view shows the Mar-a-Lago estate and the north gate in Palm Beach, Florida, following reports of a shooting incident on Feb. 22. (Fox News)
Sheriff Ric Bradshaw confirmed to Fox News that the suspect was 21-year-old Austin Tucker Martin of North Carolina.
The president was in Washington, D.C., at the time of the incident. No Secret Service agents or law enforcement personnel were injured.
“I want to congratulate Sean Curran and the Secret Service for protecting the president and his family,” Bessent said, adding that Trump and his family are safe.
The Treasury secretary declined to discuss potential changes to the president’s security posture at Mar-a-Lago following the incident but insisted that protections around Trump are “as strong as it’s ever been.”
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Fox News’ Alex Nitzberg contributed to this report.
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Southeast
Largest measles outbreak in recent history reported on southwestern Florida college campus
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More than 40 measles cases have been reported at Ave Maria University in southwest Florida, marking the largest outbreak on an American college campus in recent history.
The situation at the private Catholic college comes amid a broader national increase in measles cases, with 2,280 confirmed infections nationwide in 2025 and more than 900 cases reported so far in 2026.
“Since the start of the semester, 48 nurse-assessed students have progressed beyond the contagious period and now have natural immunity,” Ave Maria University posted in an online update on Feb. 10.
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Several universities have reported measles activity this year. Clemson University and Anderson University in South Carolina each reported single cases that led to the quarantine of a larger group of students.
The University of Florida also reported exposure in two specific classes at its Gainesville campus.
Several universities have reported measles activity this year, but the scale at Ave Maria sets it apart from the others. (iStock)
The Florida Department of Health (DOH) recently updated its data to show 46 confirmed measles cases across Collier County from Jan. 1 through Feb. 7, with the university serving as the primary site of the cluster.
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The contagious period for measles includes the four days before and after a rash appears, according to the DOH.
More than 40 measles cases have been reported at Ave Maria University in southwest Florida, marking the largest outbreak on an American college campus in recent history. (Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
“All nurse-assessed students on campus within the four-day contagious period following the onset of a rash are in quarantine,” the university stated in the latest update.
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Ave Maria University requires proof of vaccination but, in accordance with Florida law, allows students to opt out by signing a waiver for religious or personal reasons.
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The “vast majority” of the campus community is vaccinated, according to university health updates. The school remains open for normal operations, including in-person classes and Mass.
The “vast majority” of the campus community is vaccinated, and the school remains open for normal operations, including in-person classes and Mass. (iStock)
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People with a history of infection or who have received the full series of measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) immunization are 98% protected and are unlikely to contract measles, according to the DOH.
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