STATEWIDE — Gov. Ron DeSantis says the state is making strides in correcting the widespread problems preventing tens of thousands of people from filing for unemployment benefits.

The governor says the state has hired almost 1,000 staffers to address the influx of unemployment assistance applications, and state employees are helping the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity take calls and process claims.

The DOE says it installed 72 new servers over the weekend to allow more people to apply online.


Charter Communications has temporarily opened its live stream free to the public. You can watch Spectrum News via our live stream on your desktop or laptop without a subscription by visiting our website and clicking “Watch Live” in the upper right. Charter also is temporarily offering free broadband and wifi access for 60 days to teachers and families with K-12 or college students. To enroll, call 1-844-488-8395. The company also will open more than half a million wifi hotspots across the country.


Yet some people are still having problems applying.

“I can’t get log in to the website, since week of 16th,” said Tonya Olson, who has been trying to apply for unemployment.  “Two or three hours a day of trying to call, I’ve sent numerous emails with no response and it’s just an unendingly frustrating.”

FedEx is helping out Floridians looking for a job. The company is offering to print and mail re-employment assistance application forms for free. You can go to any FedEx store in Florida to have the forms printed and mailed.

As for the state of Florida, it encourages applicants who haven't been able to complete an online application to go to the website, download and print an application, and mail in a hardcopy. You can find a link to the state’s printable application here.

NY records biggest 1-day jump in deaths

New York state recorded 731 new coronavirus deaths, marking its biggest single-day jump, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday. The state’s death toll since the beginning of the outbreak grew to 5,489.

The surge in deaths comes even as new hospital admissions have dropped on average over several days, a possible harbinger of the outbreak finally leveling off.

Cuomo said the death tally is a “lagging indicator” that reflects the loss of critically ill people hospitalized earlier.

“That’s 731 people who we lost. Behind every one of those numbers is an individual. There’s a family, there’s a mother, there’s a father, there’s a sister, there’s a brother. So a lot of pain again today for many New Yorkers,” Cuomo said at a briefing at the state Capitol.

In Italy, all signs point to the country having passed through the worst of the COVID-19 cases. Tuesday’s release of the latest numbers show new cases continue to decline for a third day running. The number of people in intensive care units is also falling there.

This decline in cases has led to discussion of Italy entering a "phase 2," during which the nationwide lockdown may be eased.

While China is reporting no new deaths over the past 24 hours for the first time since December, many experts are skeptical of any figures coming out of China or believing its government-controlled media.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.