Florida News That Impacts You – May 13th, 2026
Bottom Line: Your daily recap of the biggest news from around the state that impacts you throughout the Palm Beaches and Treasure Coast.
- While at Big Dog Ranch Rescue on Tuesday, Governor DeSantis signed the Animal Welfare and Domestic Animals bills into law. The new laws create new felony offenses for adults who cause or encourage minors to participate in aggravated animal cruelty, animal fighting, or sexual abuse involving animals, increasing criminal penalties for animal fighting and baiting offenses, requires juveniles convicted of animal cruelty offenses to undergo psychological evaluation, expands Florida’s animal abuse offender database, requires pet dealers to disclose financing terms, allows consumers to terminate financing agreements without penalty if an animal is later found unfit for purchase, requires pet dealers to provide veterinary medical records documenting examinations and medications, and treatments provided to the animal.
- Florida has three top five metros in the country to begin a career, according to a new WalletHub analysis. While Atlanta is ranked first, Orlando is second; Tampa is fourth, and the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach metro is ranked fifth.
- Starting today, the Palm Beach County’s Sheriff’s Office House of Worship alert system will go into effect. The early alert system will notify houses of worship when one of 40 types of crime has been reported within a half mile of their location. The three-tiered system offers different threat levels based on the type of crime and/or concern to a congregation.
- Similar to yesterday, it’ll be warm and humid today with a chance of showers and thunderstorms throughout the day today with highs in the mid to upper 80’s throughout the Palm Beaches and Treasure Coast – a little warmer than for this date. Similar weather but with lower chances of rain is expected over the next few days.
- Gas prices fell by another four cents per gallon to $4.31 statewide. In Palm Beach County the average price is $4.48 per gallon, in Martin the average is $4.40, it’s $4.32 in St. Lucie, and in Indian River County the average is $4.39 per gallon.