Florida's Latest News

Byron Donalds vows to revive property tax cuts as Governor if November amendment fails

The leading Republican candidate for Governor says he won’t take no for an answer when it comes to a constitutional amendment lowering property taxes for homeowners’ primary residences.

“If it doesn’t pass this November, we’re going to bring it back as the state’s next Governor,” said U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds on Friday’s Varney & Co.

The Naples Republican, who qualified for the race this week with President Donald Trump‘s endorsement, is already pointing to a dormant constitutional body as his backstop.

HJR 1-F, the measure headed to the November ballot, would raise the homestead exemption on non-school levies to $150,000 next year and $250,000 in 2028. Should it fall short of the 60% threshold, Donalds says he’ll reach for a mechanism buried in state government to force the issue.

“We’re going to use our Tax and Budget Commission, which is in Florida’s Constitution, to study all taxes and fees with the goal of eliminating homestead property taxes or at a minimum, of providing real relief to seniors on fixed income and working families in our state,” the candidate told Varney’s Fox Business viewers.

Florida AG sues TikTok in latest move against tech giants

Florida officials sued tech giant TikTok on Monday in an attempt to enforce the state’s 2024 law restricting social media access for children.

The civil lawsuit, filed in St. Lucie County circuit court, is the latest major pushback from Florida against Big Tech, which has become a prominent foil for state GOP leaders over the growing use of social media and artificial intelligence. Florida’s social media restrictions were initially blocked in federal court amid pressure from tech companies that argued the law was a free speech violation, but the state was cleared in November to start enforcing the law for the first time.

State Attorney General James Uthmeier, who brought the lawsuit, said TikTok is liable to pay “potentially billions in damages” for allegedly deceiving parents and exposing children to harmful content on its app. And he warned this could only be the start for social media companies that may be skirting Florida’s law prohibiting children younger than 14 from using many platforms while requiring parental approval for 14- and 15-year-olds.

“Time is up for TikTok,” Uthmeier said during an event Monday. “TikTok happens to be one of the most egregious social media applications when it comes to the dangers that are there at the fingertips of kids.”

Charlie Crist joins calls to cancel Ye concert in Tampa over antisemitic remarks

Charlie Crist is joining calls to cancel Ye’s upcoming concerts at Raymond James Stadium, adding a prominent local Democratic voice to a bipartisan push against the Tampa performances over the artist’s history of antisemitic remarks.

Crist, a former Governor and a current St. Petersburg mayoral candidate, appeared at a news conference at the Florida Holocaust Museum alongside U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, U.S. Sen. Ashley Moody, Jewish community leaders and other officials calling for the Tampa Sports Authority to block the shows.

Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, is scheduled to perform at Raymond James Stadium on June 26 and June 28.

“This is right versus wrong,” Crist said. “My friend, Rick, is right. We need to call it out. We need to show up. We need to stand up and be there to stand up for what’s right, what is fundamentally true, and what we know is evil and wrong.”

Miami-Dade may be close to penning a taxpayer-funded deal with financially-strapped Brightline

For decades, Miami-Dade County has planned to build a coastal commuter train service along tracks owned by Florida East Coast Railway to provide much-needed local public transportation to its traffic-weary residents. The route, parallel to Biscayne Boulevard, is a key part of the county’s Strategic Miami Area Rapid Transit plan — or SMART plan.

Since 2022, Miami-Dade has been negotiating with Brightline Trains, the private passenger rail company that operates higher-speed trains on Florida East Coast Railway (FECR) tracks from Miami to Orlando. The broad plan is to use existing FECR tracks to connect Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach Counties in a transit corridor known as "Coastal Link."

" We have been working for several years on a project called the Coastal Link. Essentially what we're doing is we are providing the excess capacity in our network to Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach County so that they can operate a commuter system," Brightline CEO Patrick Goddard said at an economic forum in Miami last October.