While you were sleeping, we compiled the biggest stories of the day in one place. Each story has a quick and easy summary, so you're prepared for whatever the day brings. Just click on the links if you want to know more!
1. Tracking the tropics: It's getting crowded out there
Tropical Storm Bill continues to move away from the U.S and by tomorrow will become post-tropical or extratropical as it moves up towards Newfoundland.
The area in the Gulf of Mexico now has a high chance of development over the next 5 days. If it takes on a name, it will be Claudette. Computer models taking this up towards Texas/Louisiana over the weekend and early next week. No impacts to us here locally.
A tropical wave coming off the coast of Africa has a low chance of development over the next 2-5 days.
2. DeSantis signs bill requiring "moment of silence" in schools
Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday signed HB 529 into law, which requires teachers in first-period classrooms in all K-12 public schools to set aside at least one minute, but no more than two minutes every day "for a moment of silence."
"The idea that you can just push God out of every institution and be successful, I'm sorry, our founding fathers did not believe that," DeSantis said. "We have an opportunity here to really protect the religious freedom of everybody who's going to school K-12 in the state of Florida."
Critics say the Founding Father's made their position clear when they made separation of church and state part of the Bill of Rights.
4. Lawmakers hold their own moment of silence to honor 600,000 American lives lost:
As the United States approaches the grim milestone of 600,000 coronavirus deaths, a group of bipartisan lawmakers gathered on the east front steps of the U.S. Capitol building on Monday evening to honor the lives lost.
The group included Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D- Calif., Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and other bipartisan members of Congress.
The daily rate of infections, hospitalizations, and deaths is dramatically slowing down overall compared to the surge over the winter, some states like Alabama and Texas are seeing a rise in infection rates.
4. Reality Winner, NSA contractor in leak case, out of prison
A former government contractor who was given the longest federal prison sentence imposed for leaks to the news media has been released from prison to home confinement, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press on Monday.
Reality Winner printed a classified report and left the building with it tucked into her pantyhose. Winner told the FBI she mailed the document to an online news outlet.
The document detailed Russian government efforts to penetrate a Florida-based supplier of voting software and the accounts of election officials ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
Reality Leigh Winner, 25, a contractor with Pluribus International Corporation in Georgia, is accused of "removing classified material from a government facility and mailing it to a news outlet," according to a federal complaint.
5. Florida gets another legal challenge: This time for new elections rules
The Fair Elections Center and the Southern Poverty Law Center filed a federal lawsuit Monday on behalf of Head Count and the Harriet Tubman Freedom Fighters.
The suit asserts that the new law foments distrust against civic organizations that work to register voters.
At the core of the complaint is state-mandated language that third-party voter registration groups must warn groups that they might not submit a voter’s application documents in a timely fashion.
Today's Forecast
Coastal communities under a level 1/4 risk for excessive rainfall:
Get your complete hour-by-hour forecast here.
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On This Day In History
Henry Ossian Flipper, born into slavery in Thomasville, Georgia, in 1856, becomes the first African American cadet to graduate from the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York on June 14, 1877.
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