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• A former cow pasture in Polk County is being transformed into a test track. It’s about the same size as the Daytona International Speedway, and it’s designed for high speed testing of toll technology, and self driving cars.
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• Polk County in Central Florida, is known as an agricultural community. It’s also home to Publix, one of the state’s largest supermarket chains, which is why another distinction may come as a surprise.
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• The Polk County Sheriff’s Office and Lakeland Police arrested 95 people during a five-day undercover prostitution operation.
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• Congressman John Mica told a gathering of municipal leaders from across the region to act now on expanding construction along I-4. Mica’s concerned there won’t be any money left to extend the I-4 overhaul into Volusia and Polk counties.
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• Attorneys for a 13-year-old Lakeland girl arrested for cyberbullying in the wake of a classmate’s suicide is suing the Polk County Sheriffs Office. The announcement comes just days after a candlelight vigil marking the one-year anniversary of the death of Rebecca Sedwick, the girl’s alleged victim.
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• According to the state health department, about 200,000 migrant or seasonal workers help harvest crops in Florida annually. The federal government estimates they earn about $7,000 a year for a single worker or $10,000 for a family. That makes finding affordable housing difficult, and many are classified as homeless under federal law. To overcome this problem and attract needed workers, some employers build migrant labor camps. The state regulates more than 700 of them, housing about 34,000 people. Migrant laborers come to Polk County from October to May to harvest citrus, so county health inspectors are visiting camps now. 90.7’s Amy Kiley tagged along recently with inspectors Delmys Cerrato and John Cook. They toured the cramped, summer-camp-like units where workers …
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