R-word

Published: Dec. 14, 2020, 5:15 a.m.

The Electoral College meets in Tallahassee this afternoon for a lost cause … to cast votes for Donald Trump and Mike Pence.

Also, on today’s Sunrise:

— The state reports 84 more fatalities and almost 9,000 cases of COVID-19. Bad as that is, it’s the first day in a week with fewer than 10,000 new infections.

— Gov. Ron DeSantis appears from his bunker to talk about the arrival of COVID vaccines and defend the state raid on a COVID-19 whistleblower. He wishes people would stop using the R-word.

— What else you call it when officers walk into a private home with guns drawn to investigate a nonviolent crime … so we’ll stick with “raid” for now.

— Some have accused the Governor of spinning the COVID-19 data and withholding information that doesn’t support his agenda, but every once in a while, he says the right thing — in the wrong context. Call these "DeSantis’s unintentional moments of truth," and here are four examples.

— A Florida couple is in jeopardy after accusations of stealing the questions and the answers to Florida's teacher test and selling them in study guides and test prep tutoring. On Sunrise Soapbox, U.S. Attorney Larry Keefe says the case has international implications. Florida’s Education Commissioner calls the allegations “abhorrent, unacceptable and embarrassing.”

— And finally, a Florida Man is vowing to rebuild his roadside snake exhibit after a fire killed all of his reptiles.