Florida's Latest News

Ron DeSantis finds second act as key Trump ally. Will his third act be a 2028 run?

In a matter of days this week, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis dragged lawmakers to Tallahassee, handed them an aggressively gerrymandered congressional map, strong-armed the Republican-controlled legislature into backing it and tilted the midterm battlefield toward his party.

It was a familiar display of the raw political power that DeSantis once used to fight culture wars and notch conservative victories as he chased the presidency. Now, he is flexing that same authority in service of the man who dimmed his White House dreams — but who could yet revive them: President Donald Trump.

Over the past 16 months, few, if any, Republicans outside Washington have proven more indispensable to Trump than DeSantis. He has enthusiastically aided the federal immigration crackdown — forcing law enforcement to cooperate with Trump’s ICE, launching a statewide dragnet that has troubled even deeply conservative sheriffs and erecting a costly detention center on Florida swampland that became known as “Alligator Alcatraz.” He created a Florida version of the Department of Government Efficiency, echoed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in pushing to end school vaccine requirements, is helping the White House rewrite the rules for how colleges pay student-athletes and arranged for the state to hand over a prime piece of Miami waterfront to a foundation planning Trump’s presidential library.

DeSantis’ realignment with Trump comes as uncertainty hangs over his political future. His second term as governor ends in January, leaving him two plausible paths: a job in Trump’s Washington, or positioning himself for a Republican Party after Trump.

“Finishing strong is going to be important for his legacy and he knows that’s what will impact his future and how people view him more than anything else,” said Nick Iarossi, a lobbyist who has raised money for both Trump and DeSantis and has clients in Washington, DC, and Tallahassee.”

Ron DeSantis names Steven Hughes to join FSCJ Board of Trustees

A longtime executive in the steel industry is in line to join the Board of Trustees for the Florida State College at Jacksonville (FSCJ).

Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Friday that he’s appointed Steven Hughes to be the next member of that panel overseeing FSCJ operations on the First Coast.

The FSCJ Board of Trustees has up to nine members who are appointed by Florida’s Governor. It is the policy and practices organization that sets standards for the school, which has four main campuses in Duval County and three additional educational centers in that county and Nassau County.

Hughes has a career steeped in CMC Steel, which has more than 200 operations across several states and Europe. The Commercial Metals Co. has steel production sites and metal recycling operations in Florida, where Hughes is a Director of Operations.

Florida’s Spirit Airlines goes out of business. Operations ending ‘immediately’

Florida-based Spirit Airlines, an impish upstart that shook the industry with its irreverent ads and deep discount fares, announced Saturday that it has gone out of business after 34 years.

The ultralow cost airline that once operated hundreds of daily flights on its bright yellow planes and employed about 17,000 people said it had “started an orderly wind-down of our operations, effective immediately.”

The airline said on its website that all flights have been canceled and customer service is no longer available.

“We are proud of the impact of our ultra-low-cost model on the industry over the last 34 years and had hoped to serve our guests for many years to come,” the announcement said.

Kathleen Peters seeks to block data centers despite state law

Pinellas County Commissioner Kathleen Peters wants to ban data centers in Pinellas County, but under current legislation, it may be impossible to stop them.

While the county has not received an official proposal to build a data center, Peters reported to the Catalyst that staff have been approached by an unnamed party interested in developing a data center somewhere along Gandy Boulevard, where the center would have easy access to water to use for evaporative cooling of its systems. Millions of gallons are required daily.

“I don’t want increased demand on water and power,” said Peters. “What we need are good fiber optics, but we don’t need data centers here.”

(Note: fiber optics are used for high-speed communications.)