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Florida’s new student-athlete heart screening law takes effect, and one teen’s story shows why it matters

By CNN

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    COLLEGE TOWN, Florida (WTXL) — Florida’s new student-athlete heart screening requirement is now law statewide. One Leon County gymnast’s story is a powerful reminder of why early detection matters.

Florida’s new requirement for heart screenings before student athletes can compete is now officially in effect statewide — and one Leon County teenager’s story illustrates exactly why supporters say the law could save lives.

Aubrey Boyd, a competitive gymnast who trained nearly 5 hours a day, had no idea anything was wrong.

“I had no symptoms. I wasn’t feeling fatigue like any of that I wasn’t sick. I wasn’t losing my energy more so I just had like no way of me, knowing that it could’ve happened without the test,” Boyd said.

One heart screening changed everything. Doctors discovered two hidden heart conditions that placed her at high risk for sudden cardiac arrest. She was admitted to the ICU and underwent two procedures. Today, she has a clean bill of health.

Her mother, Ginger Boyd, said the timing of the discovery was critical.

“Had her condition not been caught when it was based on the amount of activity that she was engaged in she would’ve begun to lose heart functioning and capacity over time and according to the physician who actually did her ablation it’s likely that she would’ve passed out somewhere and ended up in the emergency room and that’s how she would’ve found out about the condition,” Ginger Boyd said.

Aubrey Boyd said the experience gave her a new perspective on what the screenings actually mean.

“Before I had taken the test, I like thought it was just a normal test that the school screenings that you have at school, but after I had gone to the hospital, gotten the surgery, and was healed. I realized how much that had saved my life, and it just like saved my heart and further issues down the road,” Boyd said.

The screenings take only a few minutes, are painless, and can detect heart abnormalities that traditional sports physicals often miss. Amanda Dibley, screening site director for the nonprofit Who We Play For, said 1 in 300 youth have an undetected or underlying heart condition.

Patrica Stadler, a nurse and member of Transformation Church, explained what the screenings can reveal that a standard checkup cannot.

“EKG is going to find the electrical components of the heart so we can be low in the safety thinking that, well, listen to my heart. I went to the doctor. This is more detailed,” Stadler said.

Who We Play For has pushed for expanded screenings across Florida, and Dibley said the new state law is a milestone for the organization.

“We are very grateful for the Second Chance Act just so we can keep our children’s hearts safe and that parents and children can feel confident and safe that when their child is out there playing on the field or in the court or participating in whatever they do, they can know that their child is safe,” Dibley said.

As the statewide screening requirement takes effect, organizations like Who We Play For hope more families will understand that one appointment could make all the difference before the season ever begins.

Free community heart screenings will be held in Leon County on July 29 and again on Aug. 1 ahead of the upcoming school year.

This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. WTXL verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.

Why no one knows what to expect from the Fed decision today

By CNN
Washington (CNN) — The Federal Reserve has been unusually silent about the future path of interest rates, with Chairman Kevin Warsh offering few signals as policymakers grapple with renewed inflation concerns and a murkier economic outlook.Fed officials will have a chance to clarify their thinking when they announce their latest rate decision at 2 p.m. ET Wednesday, followed by Warsh’s post-meeting news conference at 2:30 p.m. ET.Inflation slowed sharply in June, according to the latest Consumer Price Index, largely due to lower energy prices that month as tensions briefly eased in the war with Iran. The encouraging inflation report prompted investors to scale back expectations that the Fed would need to raise interest rates for the first time since July 2023 in order to keep price pressures in check.But the conflict in the Middle East escalated earlier this month, triggering a spike in global energy prices last week. Tensions have eased in recent days, prompting energy prices to decline accordingly. However, shipping through two key waterways — the Bab al-Mandeb Strait and the Strait of Hormuz — remains subdued. Nearly a quarter of the world’s oil flows through the region. Meanwhile, Fed officials are debating how the rapid adoption of AI could impact inflation.The economic crosscurrents have made it difficult to understand where inflation is headed. Compounding that uncertainty, Warsh has declined to offer clear guidance on interest rates. Ahead of this week’s policy meeting, markets are split on whether the Fed will hold its benchmark lending rate steady for the fifth consecutive time or deliver a rate hike.It’s a lack of clarity not seen in years.“The Fed is looking at all these inflationary impulses and determining if they will be there over the longer term,” Narayana Kocherlakota, an economics professor at the University of Rochester and former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, told CNN.“But it’s becoming very difficult to know what the Fed is going to do in the next few months, because Chair Warsh has been studiously uncommunicative about how the Fed is going to react to these changes in economic conditions,” Kocherlakota said.‘A complete unforced error’Warsh has long signaled that he intended to ditch a long-held practice known as “forward guidance.”Since 2000, Fed officials have generally used forward guidance to give investors a clearer sense of where interest rates were headed, arguing that greater transparency makes monetary policy more effective. But in his confirmation hearing in April, Warsh said he wouldn’t speculate on the economy’s path as chairman.With the Fed’s next move still an open question, it’s unclear whether Warsh’s break from decades of Fed communication has reduced — or amplified — uncertainty.“It’s going to lead to market volatility,” said Kocherlakota. “It makes businesses more reluctant to invest, meaning they’ll be less likely to demand workers to build the kinds of goods and services … because they’re uncertain about what the Fed is going to be doing.”“That kind of uncertainty, in my view, is a complete unforced error on the part of the Fed,” he added.On the other hand, some argue that Fed officials have in recent years spoken too frequently about the economy.“We got to a point where the dissection of the Fed’s forward guidance was so acutely broken down into parts that I’m not sure it helped in the way it was meant to help either,” said Kezia Samuel, chief market strategist at wealth management firm AssetMark.Risks of higher inflationFed officials largely agree that the central bank shouldn’t respond to higher energy prices with interest rate hikes because those costs are expected to come down on their own.“Conventional wisdom among central bankers is to look through one-time price increases, such as those associated with higher tariffs and a jump in oil prices,” Fed Governor Christopher Waller said this month.However, if price pressures persist, there’s a far greater the risk that inflation broadens well beyond the energy market. That could begin to erode Americans’ faith that inflation will eventually slow toward the Fed’s 2% annual target.To get a sense of inflation’s direction, central bankers focus on so-called core measures of inflation that strip out volatile food and energy prices. Core inflation gives economists and policymakers a good sense of how persistent price pressures may be, and to gauge Americans’ view of prices, officials look at market- and survey-based measures of inflation expectations.Neither of those measures warrant imminent rate hikes, but that could change if the Iran war spirals out of control or persists for an extended period.Meanwhile, Fed officials are closely watching Big Tech’s massive spending on AI data centers, which was discussed at the Fed’s June policy meeting.“Many participants noted that ongoing strong demand for AI infrastructure would likely sustain upward pressure on prices for technology products and electricity,” the meeting’s minutes read. “Most participants remarked that growth in economic activity that exceeded that of potential output, owing in part to strong AI business investment, could contribute to more persistent inflationary pressures.”The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
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