Florida’s largest K-12 scholarship funding organization put at risk assistance to more than 500 students with special needs ahead of the 2018-2019 school year because staff members made a “processing error” involving enrollment documentation, a Florida auditor general report found.

The audit, issued last week, said special-needs students who were eligible for awards under the Gardiner Scholarship Program saw a delay in funding due to the error by the organization Step Up for Students. The error affected 583 students before it was fixed.

Following the devastation of Hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas, Sens. Rick Scott and Marco Rubio sent a joint letter Wednesday to President Donald Trump, urging that he waive or suspend certain visa requirements for Bahamian citizens with relatives living in the United States.

This week, even as protests continue in Hong Kong, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, the chairman of the  Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) and a member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, doubled down on his proposed “Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act.”

The protests, which started over a proposed extradition policy that could lead activists in Hong Kong to be deported to mainland China, have resulted in the shutdown of the Hong Kong airport. After months of protests, Hong Kong’s leadership announced on Wednesday it would not pursue the proposed policy. 

Florida officials said Monday that 72 nursing homes and assisted living facilities and seven hospitals on the state’s East Coast had been evacuated in preparation for Hurricane Dorian.

Agency for Health Care Administration Secretary Mary Mayhew told reporters that only four of the long-term care facilities were evacuated because they didn’t have emergency generators and access to backup power as required by law.

Gov. Ron DeSantis received multiple briefings Monday on Hurricane Dorian from Division of Emergency Management Director (DEM) Jared Moskowitz and State Meteorologist Amy Godsey. Through this emergency, the governor has remained in communication with federal, state and local weather experts, as well as county emergency management directors and mayors. That is unlikely to change.

At 9 a.m. Monday, monster Hurricane Dorian's western movement had slowed to an agonizing 1 mile per hour, "adrift in a stalled flow with no steering currents" and extending the already battered northern Bahamas' nightmare. The Cat 5 storm's northward turn isn't expected until early Tuesday morning.

Strong winds and waves were starting to rake Florida's East Coast even with Hurricane Dorian some 100 miles to the east.

State Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried is expected to be in Tampa during the coming week to help host the Florida Energy & Climate Summit.

Fried’s office touted the multi-day event as the first state-level conference to address climate change since 2008, and representatives of a wide range of groups, companies and government agencies were expected to take part.

President Donald Trump called it “an absolute monster” comparable to 1992’s Hurricane Andrew. Others say its relatively compact and “terribly beautiful” eye wall resembles Hurricane Charley’s fist of fury in 2004.

But as Hurricane Dorian churned into open water northeast of the Bahamas Friday morning on a projected beeline for Florida’s Atlantic coast, many were making comparisons with the 1935 Labor Day hurricane, perhaps the most savage in state history.

Florida doesn’t plan to turn portions of highways into all one-way traffic when evacuation orders are issued for Hurricane Dorian.

Gov. Ron DeSantis said the state has cleared shoulders on interstates and highways and will lift tolls as evacuations orders are issued. But implementing a process known as “contraflow” isn’t currently being considered.

The reason: All one-way traffic could interfere with storm preparation.

As Hurricane Dorian barrels toward Florida this weekend, all eyes are on the storm’s path and on how Gov. Ron DeSantis handles his first major natural disaster since taking over as the state’s commander-in-chief in January.

So far, the Republican governor has urged Floridians to prepare for the storm’s impact, which he said Friday could be a multi-day “major event” with a “host of issues” for the Sunshine State.