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• WMFE: 2020 Census: Osceola County grew 45% over the decade; MSA Villages 39%. “The Villages metropolitan area — which is all of Sumter County — grew by 36,332 people over the decade to 129,752 at the 2020 census.”

• Mainstreet Daily News: Shands CEO: Record COVID hospitalizations continue. “UF Health Shands Hospital has 216 COVID-positive adult patients, a 54% increase from the hospital’s previous pandemic high of 140. Of those adult patients, 54 are in intensive care. Shands said she has nine children under the age of 19, six of whom are in intensive care.

• Ocala Gazette: School mask policy discussed, unchanged. Marion County School Board Member Eric Cummings again reiterated his stance on masking and enhanced safety procedures and implored the board to take further action. “To me, it’s crazy that we’re still talking. How we talk when things haven’t changed. When things get worse day by day. We’re playing with people’s lives right now…with our students’ lives, with our staff’s lives,” he said.

• The Alligator: The loss of a Gainesville woman’s baby, born in prison, sparks protests in the community. “About 50 protesters gathered outside the Alachua County Jail Wednesday afternoon in solidarity with grieving mother Erica Thompson, a 25-year-old woman who lost her baby after giving birth in jail. The cries at the help went unnoticed for hours until her child was born and she was taken to UF Shands Hospital – where she watched her newborn Ava die in her arms, Thompson wrote in a post on Facebook on Tuesday.

• WCJB: High Springs City Commissioners vote unanimously to purchase Santa Fe Canoe Outpost. “Town of High Springs is getting into canoe rentals.”

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• Associated Press: Florida launches antibody treatment effort to help hospitals. “The drugs are administered intravenously or by injection and manufactured by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals. It concentrates doses of antibodies made in the laboratory to fight against COVID-19 and is aimed at people at high risk.

• WUSF: Florida reports 20,656 new cases of COVID-19 and 357 deaths. “The CDC now counts cases and deaths on the day they occur as opposed to the day they were reported to the agency.”

• Politico: DeSantis backs off from threatening to withhold salaries from rebel school officials. “The decision by the governor’s office represents a tacit acknowledgment that he cannot legally take away the salaries of school board members and others despite previous threats.” DeSantis could impose hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines on school districts for disobeying his mask orders, but it would be up to the board leaders themselves to cut their own pay.

• News4Jax: Governor DeSantis suggests Florida could return to daily COVID-19 reporting. “‘In terms of county breakdown, you know, maybe that’s not a bad idea in the future. I know we used to look at that a lot,'” DeSantis said during a Thursday press conference.

• WLRN: Florida will likely become a majority-minority state within the next decade, according to census data. “The state of Florida as a whole, as well as Miami-Dade, Palm Beach, Broward and Monroe counties, all saw more than double the number of people identifying as more than one race – compared to 2010.”

• Florida Information Service: Pre-pandemic Florida Unemployment Claims. “Last week’s estimate is the lowest number since 3,807 claims in the week ending December 28, 2019, more than two months before the pandemic began causing job losses. massive in March 2020.”

• ProPublica/Palm Beach Post: We reported on pollution from burning sugarcane. Now, federal lawmakers want the EPA to act. “Citing a Palm Beach Post/ProPublica report on the burning of sugar cane fields, leading members of Congress called on the EPA to investigate Florida’s air monitoring and change national standards for pollution.

• Florida Storms: Tropical Storm Watches and Warnings issued for Southwest Florida and the Florida Keys before Fred. “The forecast remains on track for some strengthening on Friday as it approaches the Florida Strait and moves into the far eastern Gulf of Mexico this weekend.”

• WTSP-Tampa: Local business owners hope Tropical Depression Fred will help clear the red tide. “But experts, while optimistic, warn that a positive outcome largely depends on the strength of the winds and the intensity of the counterclockwise direction of the storm which could alternatively push the red tide higher into the bay. “

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• Health: how to manage the renewed anxiety linked to COVID

• Health: From free pizza to free tuition, colleges are trying everything to get students vaccinated

• Health: almost 300,000 additional federal health workers are ordered to be vaccinated

• World: US troops sent to help evacuate Americans as Taliban advance in Afghanistan

• Planet Money: How much phone time is too much phone time? Scientists study digital addiction

• Race: PBS and Ken Burns promise to do better on diversity, but critics aren’t convinced

• National: Jamie Spears agrees to withdraw from the guardianship of Britney Spears