Tag: florida

This Company Is Running a High-Speed Train in Florida—Without Subsidies

It comes as no surprise that President Joe Biden—who has reportedly ridden Amtrak trains over 8,000 times—supports pouring endless amounts of taxpayer money into the outdated, slow-moving system. In 2021, as part of the massive federal infrastructure law, the Biden administration gave Amtrak $66 billion, the largest government subsidy for passenger rail since the creation of Amtrak in 1971. But private companies, like Brightline in Florida, are trying to find profitable ways to bring passenger rail to the United States.

On September 22, Brightline opened service between Orlando and Miami. Topping out at 125 mph, it completes the trip in about three hours. For comparison, Amtrak takes roughly 6.5 hours to complete the same route, depending on the direction.

Brightline is the first privately funded intercity rail line in the U.S. in over 100 years, as well as the second-fastest train in the country (after Amtrak’s Acela line in the Northeast). It may not be truly high-speed rail by the global definition, but it’s certainly better than the region’s 80 mph Amtrak alternative.

Michael Reininger, CEO of Brightline, says that passenger rail can make commercial sense under certain conditions—such as in Florida, where it connects two populous, tourist-friendly cities that are over 230 miles apart. At that distance, Reininger says, “it is too far to drive and too short to fly. You can approximate the time of flying significantly, improve the time of driving, and you can offer it at a price point that makes it an economic proposition.”

In order to get the most out of $5 billion in private investments, Brightline had to be mindful of its bottom line—but others attempting to build high-speed rail in the U.S. don’t seem to care how much they spend and have no shame in asking for more taxpayer money.

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DeSantis vs. Disney: Florida’s Fight Over Private Governance

On April 22, 2022, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill dissolving the Reedy Creek Improvement District, ending perhaps the most successful experiment in private governance in U.S. history. The bill ended an arrangement that turned a swamp on the edges of Orlando into the home of Walt Disney World, one of the busiest tourist destinations on Earth. The governor’s victory is not yet final—while the district was formally dissolved earlier this year, Disney attorneys quickly outfoxed DeSantis, delegating many of the district’s powers back to the company. The company is now suing to reverse the change altogether.

For all the media sound and fury over the duel between the would-be president and the Mouse, experts seem to agree that Disney will retain most of its longstanding autonomy when all the lawsuits are through.

Whatever your views of the “Don’t Say Gay” law that kicked off the DeSantis-Disney feud, or of the increasingly regrettable quality of the live-action Disney feature film reboots of its animated classics, DeSantis’ attempt to dissolve the district is a blatant effort to bully a private company because he disapproved of its constitutionally protected speech. At best, it reveals DeSantis as a culture warrior rather than a small-government conservative. At worst, it exposes DeSantis as a politician willing to toss out the rule of law and free markets to score cheap political points, in the lead-up to a Republican presidential primary in which he’s struggling to meet expectations.

For the most frivolous reasons imaginable, the fate of “the happiest place on Earth” now hangs in the balance.

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Florida school is slammed for forcing a TWO-year-old black girl to take part in a Rosa Parks reenactment that involved white toddler ‘handcuffing her and taking her fingerprints’

A two-year-old black girl has been subjected to a ‘horrific’ Rosa Parks reenactment involving a lighter-skinned child ‘handcuffing’ her in front of her peers in a Florida preschool classroom.

Civil rights group the NAACP shared shocking photographs of the incident online as it is called on the Florida Department of Children and Families to investigate Building Brains Daycare in Saint Cloud, Osceola County. 

In a letter to the department, the NAACP said the black pupil was ‘subject to an alarming act of simulation, where she was handcuffed and fingerprinted by a white peer’ in early December. 

The NAACP’s National Director of Education, Dr Ivory Toldson, shared the photographs on Facebook with the pupils’ faces blurred. In unedited versions of the images seen by DailyMail.com, the children appear visibly disturbed and upset. 

The toddler’s outraged parents described the lesson as ‘horrific’ and immediately pulled her from the school. The female teacher involved has not been named and continues to work at the daycare. 

Building Brains Daycare told DailyMail.com the reenactment was a spontaneous incident rather than a planned part of their curriculum, and that the teacher involved felt ‘horrible’ and has ‘apologized profusely’ to the child’s parents. 

They said there were ‘no physical restraints’ in the classroom. 

The toddler’s parents, who did not want to be identified, said they first became aware of the incident after seeing the photographs of their daughter through the school app. 

‘Her hands (were) restrained behind her back as if she was being taken into custody,’ they told FOX 35. 

‘Then the next image was her hands being placed on a table as if she was being booked, and the look on her face alone, it was horrific.’ 

They added that ‘there’s so many ways to teach the Rosa Parks story’ and that they saw a change in their daughter after the incident. 

‘As we were approaching the school where the incident happened, she got very quiet and very, very reserved,’ they said. ‘But then we passed it, we had our daughter back. She was bubbly.’ 

The NAACP voiced ‘deep concern and profound disappointment regarding the disturbing incident’ which it said would cause the student ‘psychological harm’ by reliving a ‘traumatic moment in American history’.

It also said in the letter it would be ‘exploring all legal avenues to address this grave matter and ensure such incidents are not repeated.’ 

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Mystery over ‘inexplicable’ death of ‘very happy chap’ student, 21, who accidentally drowned in a Florida swimming pool after travelling to the US to work at a tortoise sanctuary

The death of a British university student who accidentally drowned in a swimming pool in the US remains a mystery after a coroner described the incident as ‘inexplicable’.

Jack Chisholm, 21, was found unresponsive at the home of a friend in Bokeelia, Florida, where he had been staying for a month while he was working at a tortoise sanctuary during the university holidays.

Jack, who was described as a ‘very happy chap’ and a strong swimmer, was a student at Newcastle University and lived with his family in Burford, Oxfordshire. 

Oxfordshire coroner Darren Salter heard that an investigation by US detectives concluded Jack had drowned but that there was no third party involvement.

Mr Salter said: ‘There was uncertainty as to how and why Jack entered the water. It is to an extent inexplicable how he ended up in the water and how he could not get himself out.’ 

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Florida Medical Marijuana Company Asks Court To Block Legalization Initiative That Would ‘Significantly Impact’ Its Business And Patients

A Florida medical marijuana certification company is seeking to block an adult-use cannabis legalization ballot initiative in the state Supreme Court, arguing that the reform “disproportionately prioritizes” profits from recreational sales and that it would “significantly impact our business operations and the well-being of our clients.”

My Florida Green, a service that connects patients seeking medical cannabis cards to doctors who can certify them, is asking the court to allow it to submit an amicus curiae brief in the case contesting the Smart & Safe Florida legalization measure that was brought by state Attorney General Ashley Moody (R).

The company says that it’s not opposed to adult-use legalization in principle, but it’s arguing that there are “potential consequences” of the 2024 constitutional amendment that could impact “patient care and public health.”

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Florida’s revival of death penalty fuels rise in US executions in 2023

The US saw a rise in executions in 2023 as a result of Florida’s revival of the death penalty, amid Ron DeSantis’s “tough on crime” campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.

DeSantis scheduled six executions this year – the first time the state has judicially killed people since 2019 and the largest number in almost a decade. Florida also handed down five new death sentences this year, more than any other state.

Florida’s sudden return to the death business accounts for the increase in execution numbers nationwide, which rose to 24 in 2023 from 18 in 2022 – a startling reversal of the death penalty’s historical decline across the US.

The flurry of executions greenlit by DeSantis is highlighted in the annual review of capital punishment released on Friday by the authoritative Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC). The report points to a sharp dichotomy that while the ultimate punishment is generally on the wane in the US – this year was the ninth in a row when fewer than 30 prisoners were put to death – there is rising concern about the visceral unfairness of the practice.

In Florida’s case, the number of executions carried out this year raises a disturbing ethical prospect: can the cost of DeSantis’s bid for the White House be counted not only in the millions of dollars spent on the campaign trail, but also in human lives?

This is not the first time that the death penalty has been injected into presidential posturing. Bill Clinton, keen to quash claims that he was soft on crime, memorably quit the campaign trail in 1992 to return to Arkansas, where he was then governor, for the execution of a mentally impaired prisoner, Rickey Ray Rector.

DeSantis has similarly made law and order a central pillar of his challenge to Donald Trump for the Republican nomination. In addition to increasing penalties for drug traffickers, DeSantis has passed two new death penalty laws this year designed to make it easier to send people to death row.

The first allows the death sentence to be meted out in cases of the non-fatal sexual assault of a child – a direct contravention of a 2008 US supreme court ruling that prohibits such penalties.

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Official lay dying unnoticed in DeSantis’ office for 24 minutes: law enforcement report

Peter Antonacci left a meeting with Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) on Sept. 23, 2022, and several moments later, he was dead mere steps from the room. No one noticed. It has been over a year, and the information about the incident is only now being revealed.

Florida Bulldog reported Sunday that the man DeSantis hired to head up his so-called “elections fraud unit” lay dead or dying in the governor’s office before anyone noticed. With security cameras turned to watch, for 24 minutes, Antonacci lay motionless on the ground.

At the time, authorities claimed “he died while at work in the Capitol building, of which the governor’s office is a part,” said the Bulldog.

The information is only coming to light now because the Florida Bulldog filed a public records request about the matter in February after being tipped off that Antonacci died in the governor’s office.

The report by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) continues: “At approximately 1:46 p.m., Mr. Antonacci is observed standing up and walking out of the conference room [redacted]. … “He steadies himself on the left wall. The hall [redacted] when he falls and appears to strike his head on the door on the [redacted] (sic). There appeared to be no foul play in the Room (sic) or hallway. At approximately 2:10:05pm, FDL Comm. [Mark] Glass appears to notice Antonacci down the hallway to his aid (sic).”

The 911 call from a staffer in the governor’s office reported that someone was doing CPR and they were searching for a defibrillator. She thought he had a heart attack.

“By the time a Capitol police officer arrived a minute or two later and hooked the pulseless Antonacci up to an automated external defibrillator (AED), the machine that can administer a life-saving electrical shock to victims of sudden cardiac arrest, assessed Antonacci and advised that ‘no shock’ was needed,” the site explains.

His doctor confirmed that Antonacci had heart disease and other cardiac issues, signing off on the cause of death being related to that condition.

The local news site also observed that the report went into detail about what Antonacci was wearing, but couldn’t identify all 11 people who were in the meeting at the time. FDLE chief of staff Shane Desguin noted that he knew there was an emergency because he heard the “thud” of Antonacci hitting on the floor and then, about 25 minutes later, heard Glass shouting for help. The law enforcement official did not investigate the “thud.”

The Bulldog spoke to a Florida medical examiner who called it unusual not to have an autopsy in such a case.

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Florida Trantifa activist allegedly murdered man, set his home on fire

Antifa-linked far-left militants are fundraising for the release and legal aid of a Florida far-left trans activist accused of murdering a man, setting fire to his home and burglarizing his property. 

Matthew Daniel Temael, who uses the alias and trans name “Dandelion,” was arrested in September over the March murder of a man in Hawthorne, Putnam County, Fla. The 23-year-old Minnesota native is accused of stabbing Louis Stackhouse to death and then setting his mobile home on fire before going on the run with the victim’s vehicle. Temael was found driving the stolen 2008 Saturn Sky in Tampa during a traffic stop. Temael attempted to flee but was caught.

The website of extremist antifa-linked group, Anarchist Federation, put out a fundraising notice on Nov. 19 about Temael, who uses “she/her” pronouns.

“Dandelion is a transfemme Palauan youth anarchist incarcerated in Florida,” reads the post. “We aim to free her and help support her needs while she is inside.” 

Temael was indicted by a Putnam County grand jury on charges of first-degree homicide, first-degree arson, burglary and vehicle theft. Because a judge denied Temael bond, the far-left activists say funds raised for their comrade will go to “maintaining inside contact, software, or other materials,” as well as support for other “marginalized relatives in captivity with her.” Toward the end of the campaign, it says the money will also go to the unnamed people running the campaign.

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FBI Arrests Miami Police Officer Accused Of Stealing Cash, Drugs During Traffic Stops

A Miami cop was arrested by the FBI after being accused of stealing drugs and money from suspects during traffic stops – some of whom turned out to be undercover agents, according to NBC Miami.

Frenel Cenat, 40, was arrested on Thursday on charges which include attempted Hobbs Act extortion, theft of government funds, and attempted possession with intent to distribute cocaine, according to the report, citing jail and court records.

Cenat, a Miami Police officer since September 2008, had worked for the property and evidence unit since 2020. After a confidential source tipped off the FBI to Cenat’s behavior – conducting traffic stops of people known to have just engaged in drug transactions, and then stealing the money or drugs they were transporting, they launched an investigation.

Cenat would use his official police vehicle to conduct the traffic stops and would be in his police uniform, the affidavit said.

Cenat was recorded on video and audio “coordinating schemes and conducting traffic stops of two individuals who he was told had just engaged in drug transactions, with the intention of stealing the money and/or drugs involved in those illegal transactions,” the affidavit said. –NBC Miami

 According to the affidavit, Cenat admitted that he would pull the schemes while off duty and outside his jurisdiction.

“On duty they (MPD) got computers on and can track you and s— like that…you know what I mean…ping your phone… what you are doing in this area,” he said, according to the affidavit. “You don’t wanna do that s— bro while you are on duty…If I work down there I will never f— down there bro.”

Cenat also described several prior incidents involving drug transactions in which he coerced individuals to give up their stash, money, or both in order to avoid going to jail.

In October, he discussed stopping a person who had just done a drug deal, from whom he stole $50,000 – saying “I just need bread now.”

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Stacey Abrams’ brother-in-law arrested in Tampa for human trafficking, attacking teen: police

Jimmie Gardner, the brother-in-law of former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, was arrested on allegations of human trafficking, according to Tampa authorities.

Tampa police said they arrested the 57-year-old Friday for allegedly attempting to engage in sexual acts with a 16-year-old girl.

A release from the Tampa Police Department stated Gardner met the minor at 1:43 a.m. and invited her to his room at the Renaissance Hotel at International Plaza.

The girl accepted his invitation, and when she got there, he allegedly offered her money for sex, police said.

“The victim initially agreed but later told Gardner that she no longer wanted to engage and he became angry,” the release said. “Gardner advised the victim that she needed to leave his hotel room. The two got involved in a verbal altercation that escalated to a physical dispute after Gardner placed his hands around the victim’s neck, impeding her breathing. After the dispute, Gardner left the hotel room, and the victim called 911.”

When officers arrived, Gardner had already left the hotel, but they found the victim at the scene, according to police.

Meanwhile, police said Gardner reported to the Tampa Police District 1 Office. He was arrested on charges of human trafficking for commercial sexual activity (victim less than 18), lewd or lascivious touching of minor 16 or 17 years of age by person 24 years of age or older, and a misdemeanor count of battery.

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