"Help wanted" banners are Florida’s new normal, and the results will translate into competitive wages, longer waits for professional and domestic services, and higher costs of living — for everyone. Florida is unlike many other states because of its fast growth, aging population and dependence on migrants for both skilled and unskilled labor, said Ron Hetrick, senior labor economist at labor market analytics firm Lightcast. But a beefed-up state law that attempts to crack down on undocumented labor is exacerbating the deep hole in the work force that may take years to close.

The former head of the Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Tiffany Carr, was arrested Monday on criminal corruption charges accusing her of defrauding the state of $3.4 million, using government funds provided through grants to help fund domestic violence shelters across Florida.

Richard Gonzmart, the fourth-generation owner of the iconic Columbia Restaurant chain based in Tampa, says it’s time for politicians to start listening on immigration. When federal immigration authorities arrived at his Sand Key restaurant in Clearwater in 2021 to find outdated and noncompliant work documents for 19 of his employees, he was forced to fire them all — including seven people who had worked with his family for decades.

Florida farmers rely on the federal guest worker program more than any other state and businesses now want the program expanded to provide a relief valve to the border problem and to address their labor shortages.

Elected as a Trump-embracing conservative who promised to expand school choice and protect clean air and water, DeSantis morphed into an advocate of the aggressive use of state power to usher in a radical shift in education and healthcare policy, a bigger role for state government in business and personal life, new limits on local government control, and, in the process, less government transparency.

Ron DeSantis has now formally announced he is running for president — but the Florida governor has been preparing a campaign for months, rolling out his vision for America on a book tour and through legislative actions that detail his views on policies expected to define the upcoming race. On some issues, that record puts DeSantis far to the right of any past Republican presidential nominee, including his chief rival, former President Donald Trump, who maintained relatively moderate positions on social issues throughout his first two campaigns.

The entertainment company quietly put a plan in motion that, for now, has muted the governor’s attempt to exert leverage over it. Days before Florida legislators voted to advance the governor’s proposal to take control of the Reedy Creek Improvement District, the Disney-aligned board voted to undercut the authority of its successor. It also made sure the plan remains in effect until 21 years after the death of the last descendant of King Charles III - a very long time. Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article273766880.html

Most governors bristle at having to turn over internal musings, emails and transactions to the public, but Gov. Ron DeSantis, who came to office with an aggressive approach to exercising executive authority, has been more combative than most of his predecessors. Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article273295735.html#storylink=cpy

In his new book to be released on Tuesday, Gov. Ron DeSantis describes what he thinks it takes to govern America in an era of grievance politics and partisan polarization, but what the Florida governor leaves out of his 256-page telling is often as interesting as what he includes.

As protesters marched to the Florida Capitol on Wednesday for the second rally in three weeks to oppose what they say is Gov. Ron DeSantis’ “assault” on Black history, the state’s battle over the future of education started to take shape as a war over the future of civil rights in America.

As Gov. Ron DeSantis mounts a political attack on what he calls the “woke mob,” he claims that certain instruction of Black history is the equivalent of political indoctrination. And educators and advocates who pushed for the Black history standards say the governor’s policies are threatening to reverse the modest progress they have made.

Documents released by the aviation company that helped manage Florida’s $12 million migrant relocation program shed new light on behind-the-scenes dealings as the administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis, working with the politically connected vendor, wriggled around a requirement that Florida use the money to export Florida migrants — not those living in some other state.

Weeks before the state signed a contract with a Destin-based aviation company to ship migrants from San Antonio to Democratic-leaning states at Florida taxpayer expense, executives with the politically connected firm were already in Texas with Florida officials planning the secret mission, text messages released by the governor’s office late Monday show.

Top aides to Gov. Ron DeSantis played key roles in planning and executing Florida’s controversial migrant flight program, records obtained by the Miami Herald showed.

Documents obtained from the state agency charged with managing the controversial migrant relocation program explicitly say that its mission was “to relocate out of the State of Florida foreign nationals who are not lawfully present in the United States,’’ according to records obtained Friday by the Miami Herald.

Two weeks after Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state’s top election officials stood in a Broward County courtroom and announced the arrest of 20 people for voting illegally, the state’s case is starting to fall apart.

Florida Power & Light's political consultants secretly used the company's money to pay for a spoiler candidate's salary and rent as he challenged then-Miami-Dade County Commissioner Daniella Levine Cava. The scheme appears to have violated campaign finance law.

Florida Power & Light had a problem. A strong Democratic challenger was threatening to unseat a friendly Republican incumbent in a Gainesville-area state Senate race in 2018. FPL, one of the country’s largest utilities, needed to make sure the GOP held onto the seat. So FPL used a shadowy nonprofit group to secretly bankroll a spoiler candidate, a longtime Democrat named Charles Goston, according to new documents obtained by the Miami Herald. Running as a no-party candidate in the general election, Goston helped split the liberal vote, siphoning off enough votes from the Democratic challenger to swing the race to the GOP incumbent.

Gov. Ron DeSantis surprised many in Florida’s environmental community when he vetoed Florida Power & Light’s priority bill that was intended to reduce rooftop solar expansion in Florida. Solar advocates said it was a signal the governor had put “energy freedom ahead of monopoly utility profit margins.” But in conservative Northwest Florida, residents say they deserve some of the credit, as their outrage at FPL and it’s handling of winter price hikes became a catalyst in the bill’s demise.

Republican Senate President Wilton Simpson wants to be the next Florida agriculture commissioner, and he is using his power over the $105 billion state budget to give the agency a gift: $331 million in new spending. But it also comes with a catch: It can’t be spent until after the election. The money — $300 million for land acquisition, plus aerial drones, agriculture promotion and new jobs — must be held in reserve and not used by Nikki Fried, the current agriculture commissioner who is a Democratic candidate for governor.