Florida Decides Healthcare, a political committee and nonprofit that is fighting for expanded Medicaid eligibility in the Sunshine State, on Sunday sued the Florida secretary of state and other state officials, challenging a law Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed last week that makes it tougher for citizens to get constitutional amendments on the ballot. According to the lawsuit…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
For almost a decade now, Florida has served as a laboratory for hardline immigration policies that are later exported to other state legislatures across the country. The recent arrest of Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez, a U.S.-born citizen who was mistakenly detained under an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) hold in Leon County, shows the threat that these persecutory laws pose for the civil…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Tallahassee, FL – On Thursday, April 16, about 75 community members rallied at the Leon County Jail to demand the immediate release of Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez, a U.S. citizen illegally detained by ICE. The emergency mobilization was called by the Tallahassee Immigrant Rights Alliance (TIRA).
Lopez-Gomez, who lives in Georgia and works in Tallahassee, was detained by Florida Highway Patrol during a traffic stop after crossing state lines Wednesday morning. Despite presenting his U.S. birth certificate to the court, ICE formally requested that Lopez-Gomez be held in jail for pickup and processing, superseding Leon County Judge LaShawn Riggans’s assessment that the birth certificate was in fact legitimate.
The post Tallahassee Demands Release Of US Citizen Illegally Detained By ICE appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
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Melissa Calhoun, a public school teacher in Florida, has been informed that her contract will not be renewed after she used a student’s chosen name without parental consent. While several states have enacted similar anti-trans legislation, Calhoun’s case appears to be the first publicly reported instance where a teacher’s job has been directly impacted for affirming a student’s identity.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Tallahassee, FL – On Thursday, April 3, Students for a Democratic Society crashed the FSU president’s ice cream social, demanding answers about the university’s subservience to President Trump’s and Governor Desantis’ attacks on DEI initiatives and free speech.
Four members of SDS approached President Richard McCullough with a banner reading “Fight Trump and the GOP agenda! Stand with Palestine! Stop attacks on immigrants! Defend women’s and LGBTQ+ rights!”
After waiting in line for ice cream, SDS member JJ Glueck was refused service by McCullough. The president hid behind student volunteers upon seeing SDS.
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This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
Florida Atlantic University’s police department has a pending agreement with the federal government that would allow campus officers to question and detain people they suspect are in the country without authorization. The public university in Boca Raton could be the first to enter such an agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which lists the campus police department as one…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Republican lawmakers in Florida are advancing a bill that would rescind protections for teenage workers, a move that critics say will allow employers to exploit children. The legislation was crafted to address worker shortages, which have come about due to Florida’s harsh laws targeting immigrant workers. In part because of those laws, there are currently only 53 workers available for every…
Organizing in the South has always been challenging, and Florida’s latest union-busting legislation has only made it harder.
Public sector unions had successfully fought off these attacks for years, but the tide turned in May 2023. The new law imposed severe restrictions: requiring public sector unions to maintain 60 percent membership, banning payroll dues deductions, and mandating a cumbersome four-page membership form. Notably, police, fire, and corrections unions were exempt.
We left the State Capitol before the ink was dry and returned home to start organizing.
The post Florida’s Union-Busting Regime: A Report From The Front Lines appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
A cinema house in Miami Beach, Florida, is urging city residents to oppose the city’s attempt to censor them and terminate their lease agreement after the theater showed an Oscar-winning documentary film that focuses on Israel’s apartheid and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. City leaders, including Mayor Steven Meiner, have accused the theater, O Cinema, of promulgating “pro-Hamas” and…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Last May, Florida enacted a law deleting any reference to climate change from most of its state policies, a move Republican Governor Ron DeSantis described as “restoring sanity in our approach to energy and rejecting the agenda of the radical green zealots.”
That hasn’t stopped the Sunshine State from becoming a national leader in solar power.
In a first, Florida vaulted past California last year in terms of new utility-scale solar capacity plugged into its grid. It built 3 gigawatts of large-scale solar in 2024, making it second only to Texas. And in the residential solar sector, Florida continued its longtime leadership streak. The state has ranked number two behind California for the most rooftop panels installed each year from 2019 through 2024, according to data the energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie shared with Canary Media.
“We do expect Florida to continue as number two in 2025,” said Zoë Gaston, Wood Mackenzie’s principal U.S. distributed solar analyst.
Florida is expected to again be neck and neck with California for this year’s second-place spot in utility-scale solar installations, said Sylvia Leyva Martinez, Wood Mackenzie’s principal utility-scale solar analyst for North America.
Overall, the state receives about 8 percent of its electricity from solar, according to Solar Energy Industries Association data. The vast majority of its power comes from fossil gas.
The state’s solar surge is the result of weather — both good and bad — and policies at the state and federal level that have made panels cheaper and easier to build, advocates say.
“Obviously in Florida, sunshine is extremely abundant,” said Zachary Colletti, the executive director of the Florida chapter of Conservatives for Clean Energy. “We’ve got plenty of it.”
The state is also facing a growing number of extreme storms. Of the 94 billion-dollar weather disasters that federal data shows unfolded in Florida since 1980, 34 occurred in the last five years.
“Floridians have long understood that not only is solar good for your pocket, it’s also good for your home resilience,” said Yoca Arditi-Rocha, the executive director of The CLEO Institute, a Miami-based nonprofit that advocates for climate action. “In the face of increasing extreme weather events, having access to reliable energy is a big motivator.”
The tax credits available under former President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, have also made buying panels cheaper than ever before, she said.
“A lot of people took advantage of that. I’m one of them,” Arditi-Rocha said. “As soon as I saw that the federal government was going to give me 30 percent back on my taxes, I decided to make the investment and got myself a solar system that I could pay back in seven years. It was a win-win proposition.”
But solar started growing in Florida long before Democrats passed the IRA in 2022, and that’s thanks to favorable state policies.
Municipalities and counties have little say over power plants, giving the Florida Public Service Commission ultimate control over siting and permitting. Plus, solar plants with a capacity under 75 megawatts are exempt from review and permitting altogether under the Florida Power Plant Siting Act.
The latter policy in particular has made building solar farms easy and inexpensive for the state’s major utilities, said Leyva Martinez. Companies such as NextEra Energy–owned Florida Power & Light, the state’s largest electrical utility, have for years patched together gigawatts of solar with small farms.
“We’re seeing this wave of project installations at gigawatt scales, but if you look at what’s actually being built, it’s a small 74-megawatt [project] here or a 74.9-megawatt project there,” she said. “It’s just easier to permit in the state, and developers have realized that they can keep installations at this range and they don’t need to go through the longer process.”
The solar buildout has prompted some backlash in rural parts of the state. A bill Republican state Senator Keith Truenow filed last month proposes granting some additional local control over siting and permitting solar farms on agricultural land.
“You’re starting to see a lot more complaining about the abundance of solar installations in more rural areas,” Colletti said. The legislation, he said, “would add some hurdles and ultimately add costs” but “wouldn’t necessarily reverse the state’s preemption” of local permitting authorities.
NextEra and Florida Power & Light did not respond to an email requesting comment. Nor did Truenow return a call.
While the bill is currently making its way through the Legislature, DeSantis previously vetoed legislation that threatened Florida’s solar buildout.
In 2022, the governor blocked a utility-backed bill to end the state’s net metering program, which pays homeowners with rooftop solar for sending extra electricity back to the grid during the day.
“The governor did the right thing by vetoing that bill that would have strangled net metering and a lot of the rooftop solar industry in Florida,” Colletti said. “I know Floridians are much better off for it because we are able to offset our costs very well and take more control and ownership over our households.”
A telephone survey conducted by the pollster Mason-Dixon in February 2022 found that among 625 registered Florida voters, 84 percent supported net metering, including 76 percent of self-identified Republicans.
“It’s not about left or right,” Arditi-Rocha said. “It’s about making sure we live up to our state’s name. In the Sunshine State, the future can be really sunny and bright if we continue to harness the power of the sun.”
This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Florida is now a solar superpower. Here’s how it happened. on Mar 15, 2025.
This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Alexander C. Kaufman.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Marvin Burton has taught public middle and high school in Prince George’s County, Maryland, for 19 years. Although he is a certified music and special education instructor, like thousands of other educators throughout the country, he has periodically been assigned classes in other subjects. The reason? Teacher shortages. This reality has caused school districts throughout the U.S. to try and fill…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
You may be asking: does America even have free and fair elections in GOP-gerrymandered hostage states like Florida? Under a wannabe-autocrat like Ron DeSantis, voting becomes a defiant fact check of the legitimacy of the GOP’s power. If they were truly effective at governing, why would they resort to gerrymandering and other forms of voter suppression to maintain control?
By voting, even if your vote is illegally not counted, your presence casting the vote adds up, and together the exit polls can indicate whether the election was stolen. Look to Venezuela’s grassroots powerhouse effort to count votes before they were conveniently misplaced. In Venezuela, the voters proved the opposition leader Edmundo González, not Russian-backed dictator Nicolás Maduro, won the election. Several independent investigations confirmed their victory. While Maduro clings to power, voting remains a powerful fact check, confronting him with his own illegitimacy and galvanizing the movement to oust him.
In Florida, two special elections will take place on April 1—to replace pedo Putin-puppet Matt Gaetz in the Congressional 1st District with Democratic challenger Gay Valimont, and to replace Zelenskyy co-extortionist Mike Waltz in the Congressional 6th District. Longtime public educator and champion of public schools Josh Weil stops by Gaslit Nation to discuss how you can help support his campaign to hold Elon Musk and MAGA accountable. Early voting is March 22nd to 29th. To phonebank for Josh Weil, check out these virtual phone get-out-the-vote events!
Show Notes:
Join a get-out-the-vote virtual phonebank for Josh Weil in Florida! https://www.mobilize.us/joshweilforcongressionaldistrict6/
Josh Weil for Congress https://joshweil.us/
How Venezuela’s opposition proved its election win: ‘A brilliant political move’ https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/10/gonzalez-proof-win-venezuela-election-vote-tally-maduro
The best freedom money can buy: How the Party of Reagan became the Party of Putin https://www.themarysue.com/the-best-freedom-money-can-buy-how-the-party-of-reagan-became-the-party-of-putin/
This content originally appeared on Gaslit Nation and was authored by Andrea Chalupa.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
On November 4, 2024, the Miami Jewish Film Festival screened June Zero, an Israeli American film about the 1962 Israeli execution of Nazi official Adolf Eichmann. Miami Beach Mayor Steve Meiner opened the showing with remarks about the threat of antisemitism. In the speech, Meiner glorified Miami Beach as the best place in the entire world for Jews to live. The audience began to grumble…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Florida filed a lawsuit against Target on Thursday, accusing the company of misleading investors by failing to disclose the financial risks associated with its LGBTQ Pride merchandise line after the collection sparked conservative boycotts two years ago. The lawsuit is the latest in a series of Republican-led legal challenges to corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
At the start of the Spring 2025 semester, FSU Admin secretly axed LGBTQ+ Housing – which provides much needed accommodations to transgender and queer students living on campus without communicating their decision to any students, or even the Inter-Residence Hall Council (IHRC). This comes amid escalating attacks on the rights and autonomy of queer and trans people by the reactionary Trump administration and the ruling Florida Republican Party.
As soon as the student body found out, Tallahassee SDS and other student organizations, including the IHRC and Pride Student Union, condemned FSU Admin for putting queer students in danger by removing this program which was meant to protect them from being forced into potentially unsafe gender-segregated living arrangements that don’t align with their gender.
The post Queer Students Fight Back; LGBTQ+ Housing Restored! appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
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With every extreme weather event, housing is damaged and belongings are lost. Insurance is supposed to be the safety net that helps people to recover and restart their lives. But as major disasters like hurricanes, wildfires, and hailstorms increase in frequency and severity thanks to climate change, more insurance companies are cutting back on policies, jacking up premium rates, or refusing to cover whole areas of the country. This change is leaving people who live in affected homes—including everything from single-family houses to multifamily rental buildings—facing financial hardship and even homelessness, among other ruinous consequences.
The post A Public Model For Home Insurance appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
We must reimagine our disaster risk finance system so it reduces exposure and provides protection fairly.
This post was originally published on Dissent Magazine.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s administration has revoked the driver’s license of a transgender content creator who publicly shared how they updated the gender marker on their license. Last year, the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles (FLHSMV) issued a letter stating that transgender residents would no longer be allowed to change the gender marker on their driver’s licenses.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
The Florida Board of Medicine recently fined an obstetrician and gynecologist $10,000 and issued a reprimand for violating a 2022 anti-abortion law requiring a 24-hour waiting period before performing abortions. Florida’s 24-hour waiting period law, enacted in 2015, requires pregnant people to receive information about abortions from their doctor and then wait at least 24 hours before…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
The U.S. House Ethics Committee has released its damning report on former Republican Representative Matt Gaetz, whom Trump had picked to be his attorney general before the Florida politician was forced to withdraw from consideration. The bipartisan committee’s report found Gaetz “regularly paid women for engaging in sexual activity with him” and possessed illegal drugs, including cocaine and ecstasy, on “multiple different occasions.” The report also found Gaetz had violated Florida’s statutory rape law by paying a 17-year-old high school student for sex in 2017. The Ethics Committee also investigated a trip Gaetz made in 2018 to the Bahamas where he accepted transportation and lodging in violation of the House rules and laws on gifts. “The report is detailed. There are extensive records showing these payments,” says Naomi Feinstein, staff writer at Miami New Times.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
In late September, during the last stages of preparing for an exhibition, Miami artist Les Gomez-Gonzalez received notice that they had to sign a vendor registration form in order to participate in “Ebb & Flow: Exploring the Womanhood Continuum” at the Frank C. Ortis Art Gallery in Pembroke Pines. The artist was initially invited to participate in February without prior notice of this requirement.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific presenter/Bulletin editor
Palau’s President Surangel Whipps Jr is inviting US President-elect Donald Trump to “visit the Pacific” to see firsthand the impacts of the climate crisis.
Palau is set to host the largest annual Pacific leaders meeting in 2026, and the country’s leader Whipps told RNZ Pacific he would “love” Trump to be there.
He said he might even take the American leader, who is often criticised as a climate change denier, snorkelling in Palau’s pristine waters.
Whipps said he had seen the damage to the marine ecosystem.
“I was out snorkelling on Sunday, and once again, it’s unfortunate, but we had another heat, very warm, warming of the oceans, so I saw a lot of bleached coral,” he said.
“It’s sad to see that it’s happening more frequently and these are just impacts of what is happening around the world because of our addiction to fossil fuel.”
“I would very much like to bring [Trump] to Palau if he can. That would be a fantastic opportunity to take him snorkelling and see the impacts. See the islands that are disappearing because of sea level rise, see the taro swamps that are being invaded.”
Americans experiencing the impacts
Whipps said Americans were experiencing the impacts in states such as Florida and North Carolina.
“I mean, that’s something that you need to experience. I mean, they’re experiencing [it] in Florida and North Carolina.
“They just had major disasters recently and I think that’s the rallying call that we all need to take responsibility.”
However, Trump is not necessarily known for his support of climate action. Instead, he has promised to “drill baby drill” to expand oil and gas production in the US.
Palau International Coral Reef Center researcher Christina Muller-Karanasos said surveying of corals in Palau was underway after multiple reports of bleaching.
She said the main cause of coral bleaching was climate change.
“It’s upsetting. There were areas where there were quite a lot of bleaching.
Most beautiful, pristine reef
“The most beautiful and pristine reef and amount of fish and species of fish that I’ve ever seen. It’s so important for the health of the reef. The healthy reef also supports healthy fish populations, and that’s really important for Palau.”
University of Hawai’i Manoa’s Dr Tarcisius Tara Kabutaulaka suspects Trump will focus on the Pacific, but for geopolitical gains.
“It will be about the militarisation of the climate change issue that you are using climate change to build relationships so that you can ensure you do the counter China issue as well.”
He believed Trump has made his position clear on the climate front.
“He said, and I quote, ‘that it is one of the great scams of all time’. And so he is a climate crisis denier.”
It is exactly the kind of comment President Whipps does not want to hear, especially from a leader of a country which Palau is close to — or from any nation.
“We need the United States, we need China, and we need India and Russia to be the leaders to make sure that we put things on track,” he said.
For the Pacific, the climate crisis is the biggest existential and security threat.
Leaders like Whipps are considering drastic measures, including the nuclear energy option.
“We’ve got to look at alternatives, and one of those is nuclear energy. It’s clean, it’s carbon free,” he told RNZ Pacific.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
Donald Trump defeated Kamala Harris on Tuesday night to become only the second president in US history to win two nonconsecutive terms. (The last one? Grover Cleveland in 1892.) Trump won the presidency following one of the most tumultuous election years in modern US history—one that included an incumbent president pulling out of his reelection bid, the vice president becoming the Democratic nominee a few short months before Election Day, and two assassination attempts on Trump.
A majority of voters elected Trump to return to the White House following a campaign often filled with violent rhetoric, misinformation, and disparaging comments about women, immigrants, and people of color. Harris was unable to build a coalition to defeat Trump, losing both the Electoral College and the popular vote after a campaign that initially energized Democrats around the country after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race.
“America has never had a Black woman governor,” says Mother Jones editorial director Jamilah King. “So the fact that America’s never had a Black woman president is not surprising. I don’t think we as a country were quite ready for it.”
In this Reveal podcast extra, host Al Letson sits down with King, as well as Mother Jones’ David Corn and Ari Berman, to break down how Trump won, why Harris’ campaign faltered, and where the nation goes from here.
Listen: Red, Black, and Blue (Reveal)
Read: America Meets Its Judgment Day (Mother Jones)
Read: Republicans Defeat Ohio Anti-Gerrymandering Initiative With Brazen Anti-Democratic Tactics (Mother Jones)
Read: Trump Wins the White House in a Political Comeback Rooted in Appeals to Frustrated Voters (Associated Press)
This post was originally published on Reveal.
Florida’s houseless communities are reeling in the aftermath of Hurricane Milton, the second Category 5 hurricane of the season. The storm pummeled Central Florida with catastrophic rainfall, storm surges, and 100 mph wind gusts. It made landfall on Oct. 9 near Siesta Key, Florida, as a Category 3 storm. The storm left thousands of people displaced, raising concerns about the challenges faced by…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Content warning: The story discusses childhood sexual abuse.
In Polk County, Florida, where its sheriff has said his department will “go to the ends of the earth” to arrest child predators, one child victim was left wondering how she ended up on the other side of the law.
Taylor Cadle was 12 years old when she disclosed to a trusted adult that her adoptive father had been sexually abusing her since she was 9. Law enforcement was quick to respond, and almost just as quick to suspect that Taylor had made up the allegations. The lead detective, Melissa Turnage, began to question Taylor aggressively, even threatening her with returning to foster care if she continued with her allegations.
“I told her time and time and time and time again that I am not the liar here,” Taylor said of the detective.
Despite Taylor’s pleas, Turnage eventually sought criminal charges against her for lying to police.
For the Emmy Award-winning Center for Investigative Reporting and Netflix documentary Victim/Suspect, I found hundreds of others who, like Taylor, began as alleged victims reporting sexual assaults to police and ended up criminal suspects. My reporting uncovered shocking police missteps in several of those investigations. All of those alleged victims remain adamant that their reports were truthful.
In a surprising development in her case, Taylor vindicated herself. With our partner PBS NewsHour, I went to Polk County to meet Taylor—and hear how she finally put her abuser in prison.
A Florida Teen’s Remarkable Fight to Put Her Rapist Behind Bars is a story from Reveal. Reveal is a registered trademark of The Center for Investigative Reporting and is a 501(c)(3) tax exempt organization.
This post was originally published on Reveal.
Dr. Cherise Felix says a recent patient yelled and swore at her before eventually hugging her, grateful she would no longer have to carry the planned-for baby that had died inside her. Felix provides abortions at Planned Parenthood clinics in Florida, which on May 1 banned abortion at six weeks’ gestation. She was able to see this patient, who was about 17 weeks pregnant…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
In the wake of two back-to-back hurricanes, abortion care providers across the South are grappling with the compounded challenges of extreme weather and restrictive state laws. Abortion rights organizers and advocates say the hurricanes have exacerbated existing challenges related to abortion access, especially for those in heavily affected areas like Tampa Bay, the Carolinas, and Georgia.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
