Your Florida Daily: Florida Black history instruction prompts Vice Presidential visit; cocaine sharks

Plus: The radioactive ‘Fountain of Youth’

(AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta) (Manuel Balce Ceneta, Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

Vice President Kamala Harris is visiting Florida today to deliver critical remarks about the state Board of Education’s approval of new standards for how Black history will be taught in schools.

According to a White House announcement, the trip to Jacksonville will focus on education freedom to quote “learn and teach America’s full and true history.”

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This week, the Florida Board of Education approved new standards in a 216-page document detailing how public schools should approach Black history.

The standards also included rules that require students to only use the bathroom of their gender at birth and for parents to be notified when their child uses a name other than their legal name.

Surveillance still of a suspect in a beating at a Pompano Beach movie theater. (BSO)

A fight over a seat at a South Florida movie theater ends with a man in the hospital and deputies looking for the attacker.

The Broward County Sheriff’s Office said this happened earlier this month at a Pompano Beach movie theater.

Deputies said the victim purchased reserved VIP tickets for himself and his wife and found an unknown man and woman sitting in their seats.

Investigators said the 63-year-old asked politely for them to move when the man aggressively got in the victim’s face and then started throwing punches.

Cellphone video taken inside the theater shows the victim falling down as the man continues hitting the victim.

The attacker and his female companion were captured on surveillance walking out of the movie theater but neither have been located.

Deputies said the victim was treated at the hospital for several injuries to his head and face.

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This image released by Discovery shows a great white shark in a scene from Air Jaws: Final Frontier," premiering July 26 as part of Discovery's Shark Week. (Discovery via AP) (© 2022, Discovery, Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

First, it was cocaine bear, now it’s cocaine sharks.

Next week a Discovery Channel Shark Week episode, “Cocaine Sharks,” looks into decades-old rumors of sharks coming into contact with cocaine dumped into the waters off Florida’s coast.

In one experiment, environmental scientists create packages similar in size and appearance to cocaine bales and observe sharks taking bites from them.

Cocaine is known to wash up on Florida shores but there’s no concrete evidence to show that it’s ingested by fish or other predators.

Random Florida Fact

The fountain of youth that Ponce de Leon is said to have searched for in Florida may actually be a radioactive well beneath an abandoned lot in Punta Gorda.

Word got around in the 1920s that the water from this street-side tap had magical qualities.

Decades later, the EPA tested the sulfurous-smelling water, they found that it contained double the acceptable level of radioactivity.

Officials tried to shut it down, but residents pushed back.

Today, travelers can still swing by for a swig of mineral-rich water, though a sign next to the fountain reads, “Use Water at Your Own Risk.”


About the Author

Katrina Scales is a producer for the News 6+ Takeover at 3:30 p.m. She also writes and voices the podcast Your Florida Daily. Katrina was born and raised in Brevard County and started her journalism career in radio before joining News 6 in June 2021.

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