MidPoint

Your mid-week, mid-morning source for local and statewide news and public affairs from a local perspective.

MidPoint takes up the challenges of Affordable Housing in the Tampa Bay region and what to do about it with former County Commissioner Kimberly Overman, Founder of the Housing Leadership Council of Tampa Bay, and Ernest Hooper, Sr. VP of Communications for the United Way Suncoast.

School librarians are feeling threatened and attacked but are speaking up against Moms 4 Liberty book bans, censorship of libraries and the new "Don't Say Gay" law.

FL Rep. Dianne Hart, a long-term champion of criminal justice and prison reforms, and Julianne Holt, the elected Hillsborough County Public Defender for the past 33 years both appeared on MidPoint to discuss the mostly more punitive new criminal justice laws that emerged from the 2023 legislature like the new pretrial release rules that will keep more people in jail pending trial, along with the few reform successes such as the return of $32 million to the Prison Welfare Trust for expenditures like prison air conditioning.

Your mid-week, mid-morning source for local and statewide news and public affairs from a local perspective.

Local Family Court General Magistrate Philip Wartenberg and family law attorney Joshua Sheridan joined MidPoint to discuss some of the big changes in Florida divorce and family law which emerged from the 2023 legislative session, including the possible end to permanent alimony, a rebuttable presumption of 50/50 shared child custody in most cases, and the new law which now permits the state to take custody of a child if one parent objects to the other parent's seeking gender-affirming treatment for their minor child.

Death penalty defense lawyers, Allison Miller and Craig Whisenhunt join MidPoint to discuss the new legislation that now makes Florida the state with the lowest legal threshold to put convicted people to death for murder, and the new legislation that makes sexual battery on a child under 12 also subject to the death penalty.

Local Immigration lawyers Chelsea Nowel and Ananis Makar joined Shelley for an overview of the new punitive and disruptive Florida immigration laws that threaten the Florida economy and treat undocumented people with a complete lack of dignity.

The DeSantis administration is remaking New College of Florida into a version of the Christian focused Hillsdale College and developing curriculum for a SAT alternative Christian and Western tradition-based test called the "Classic Learning Test."

Florida legislature tries to bust the teachers' unions.