The five DeSantis-appointed board members to the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District unanimously voted to approve a 15-year development deal in which the district committed to making infrastructure improvements in exchange for Disney investing up to $17 billion into Disney World over the next two decades.

The agreement followed a detente in March in which both sides agreed to stop litigating each other in state court and work towards negotiating a new development agreement and a new comprehensive plan no later than next year. The district provides municipal services such as firefighting, planning and mosquito control, among other things, and was controlled by Disney supporters before the takeover by the DeSantis appointees.

District board member Brian Aungst said at Wednesday night’s board meeting that the agreement provides a lasting and stable framework for Disney and the board to work together.

“This is the day we all have been looking forward to,” Aungst said. “I was always extremely optimistic and knew we would get here because it was the right outcome.”

Under the deal, Disney will be required to donate up to 100 acres (40 hectares) of Disney World’s 24,000 acres (9,700 hectares) for the construction of infrastructure projects controlled by the district. The company also will need to award at least half of its construction projects to companies based in Florida and spend at least $10 million on affordable housing for central Florida.

Disney would then be approved to build a fifth major theme park at Disney World and two more minor parks, such as water parks, if it desired. The company could raise the number of hotel rooms on its property from almost 40,000 rooms to more than 53,000 rooms and increase the amount of retail and restaurant space by more than 20%. Disney will retain control of building heights due to its need to maintain an immersive environment.

Leaders of Orlando’s tourism industry praised the agreement, telling the district’s board members that it will bring boundless jobs, tourists and attention to central Florida.

“It very clearly demonstrates to the world that the district and Disney are eager to resume working together for the great state of Florida,” said Robert Earl, founder and CEO of Planet Hollywood International, Inc.

Still up in the air was an appeal of a federal lawsuit Disney had filed against DeSantis and his appointees. After the settlement was reached in March, Disney asked the appellate court to put that case on hold while the development agreement was negotiated. The company has until next week to file a brief with the court if it wants to move ahead with the case.

Disney didn’t respond to an email Wednesday afternoon seeking comment on how the company planned to proceed. The DeSantis appointees to the district had planned to hold a closed-door discussion about the lawsuit after their board meeting Wednesday but cancelled that meeting.

Matthew Oberly, a spokesperson for the district, said Wednesday night that the district didn’t have any comment on the future of the federal litigation.

The March settlement ended almost two years of litigation sparked by DeSantis’ takeover of the district following the company’s opposition to the 2022 law that bans classroom lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity in early grades. The law was championed by the Republican governor, who used Disney as a punching bag in speeches during his run for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination until he suspended his campaign earlier this year.

As punishment for Disney’s opposition to the controversial law, DeSantis took over the governing district through legislation passed by the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature and appointed a new board of supervisors. Disney sued DeSantis and his appointees, claiming the company’s free speech rights were violated for speaking out against the legislation. A federal judge dismissed that lawsuit in January, but Disney appealed.

Before control of the district changed hands early last year, the Disney supporters on its board signed agreements with the company shifting control over design and construction at Disney World to the company. The new DeSantis appointees claimed the “eleventh-hour deals” neutered their powers, and the district sued the company in state court in Orlando to have the contracts voided.

Disney filed counterclaims that included asking the state court to declare the agreements valid and enforceable. Those state court lawsuits were dismissed as part of the March settlement.

—

The post DeSantis appointees bury the hatchet with Disney by approving new development deal appeared first on The Florida Daily Post.

The new theme park attraction updates Tiana’s storyline from the 2009 animated film “The Princess and the Frog” and is opening this year in the space previously occupied by Splash Mountain. The water ride had been themed to “Song of the South,” a 1946 Disney movie filled with racist cliches about African Americans and plantation life.

Tiana’s Bayou Adventure keeps Splash Mountain’s DNA as a log-flume ride, but it’s infused with music, scenery and animatronic characters inspired by “Princess,” set in 1920s New Orleans. It opens to the public later this month at Walt Disney World in Florida and at Disneyland in California later this year.

“For little Black girls, Tiana has meant a lot. When a little child can see somebody who looks like them, that matters,” said Neal Lester, an English professor at Arizona State University, who has written about Tiana.

Disney’s announcement that it would transform its longstanding Splash Mountain ride into Tiana’s Bayou Adventure was made in June 2020 following the social justice protests sparked by the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody. At the time, Disney said the change had already been in the works. But it came as companies across the U.S. were reconsidering or renaming decades-old brands amid worldwide protests.

The “Song of the South” film is a mix of live action, cartoons and music featuring an older Black man who works at a plantation and tells fables about talking animals to a white city boy. The film has been criticized for its racist stereotypes, hasn’t been released in theaters in decades and isn’t available on the company’s streaming service Disney+.

Disney has been criticized for racist tropes in films made in earlier decades. The crow characters from the 1941 film “Dumbo” and the King Louie character from 1967’s “The Jungle Book” were viewed as African American caricatures. The depiction of Native Americans in the 1953 movie “Peter Pan” and the Siamese cats — often deemed as Asian stereotypes — from the 1955 film “Lady and the Tramp” also have been derided.

Not everyone is sold on the belief that opening a ride based on Tiana’s story solves Disney’s past problematic racial depictions.

By refurbishing Splash Mountain into Tiana’s Bayou Adventure instead of dismantling the attraction completely, Disney has linked “Song of the South” with “The Princess and the Frog.” Both are fantasies that are silent, for the most part, on the racial realities of the segregated eras they depict, said Katie Kapurch, an English professor at Texas State University who has written widely about Disney.

“We might see the impulse to replace rather than dismantle or build anew as a metaphor for structural racism, too,” Kapurch said. “Again, this is unintentional on Disney’s part, but the observation gets to the heart of how Disney reflects America back to itself.”

Imagineers who design the Disney rides are always attempting to look at the attractions with fresh eyes and ways to tell new stories “so that everybody feels included,” said Carmen Smith, a senior vice president for creative development at Walt Disney Imagineering.

“We never want to perpetuate stereotypes or misconceptions,” Smith said Monday. “Our intention is to tell great stories.”

It’s also important for the Imagineers to tell a variety of stories for its global audience, said Charita Carter, an executive creative producer at Walt Disney Imagineering who oversaw the development of the attraction.

“Society does change, and we develop different sensibilities,” Carter said. “We focus our stories differently depending what our society needs.”

The transformation from Splash Mountain to Tiana’s Bayou Adventure is one of several recalibrations at the entertainment giant’s theme parks for rides whose storylines are considered antiquated or offensive.

In 2021, Disney announced it would remodel Jungle Cruise, one of the original Disney parks’ rides, which had been been criticized in years past for being racially insensitive because of its depiction of animatronic Indigenous people as savages or headhunters. Three years before that, Disney eliminated a “Bride Auction” scene, deemed offensive since it depicted women lining up for auction, from its “Pirates of the Caribbean” ride.

It’s a positive step for Disney to have a ride based on a character from a background not seen in previous versions of Disney princesses replacing an attraction from a film steeped in racist tropes since “representation matters,” Lester said.

“Disney is first and foremost about money and getting people into the park, and you can make money, still have representation and be aware of social justice history and make everyone feel like they belong there,” Lester said.

—

The post Attraction starring Disney’s first Black princess replaces ride based on film many viewed as racist appeared first on The Florida Daily Post.

The girl was pronounced dead at a hospital on Wednesday, a day after she was found unresponsive in a pool at Discovery Cove, the Orlando marine park where visitors can swim with dolphins and tropical fish, according to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office.

The 58-acres (23-hectare) park is adjacent to SeaWorld Orlando.

The medical examiner’s office in Orlando on Thursday said that the manner of death was accidental and the cause was drowning.

A spokeswoman for the theme park didn’t immediately respond to an email asking about the death.

Discovery Cove is part of the family of theme parks owned by United Parks & Resorts Inc., formerly called SeaWorld Entertainment, Inc. The company changed its corporate name in February. Other park brands owned by the company include SeaWorld, Busch Gardens, Discovery Cove and Sesame Place.

—

The post Teen dies from accidental drowning at Orlando marine-themed park appeared first on The Florida Daily Post.

The man accused of causing Tuesday’s crash has a lengthy driving record and is being held in jail without bond.

The farmworkers were from Mexico, working on seasonal or temporary visas. Some of their names were released Wednesday afternoon.

Here’s what to know about the crash.

WHAT HAPPENED?
Around 6:40 a.m. on Tuesday, a 2001 Ford Ranger driven by Bryan Howard, 41, crossed the center line of State Road 40 and sideswiped a bus carrying 53 farmworkers to a watermelon patch at Cannon Farms in Dunnellon. The bus veered off the two-lane road that passes through horse farms, hit a tree and rolled over.

The crash happened about 80 miles (130 kilometers) north of Orlando.

WHO ARE THE VICTIMS?
All eight people killed were in the U.S. from Mexico on H-2A farmworker visas, officials said.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Wednesday morning that 44 Mexican citizens were on the bus, hired by a Mexican American farmer to work on the watermelon farm under temporary or seasonal visas. Mexico’s government later said six of the injured were in serious condition and three more were in critical condition.

Lucas Benitez, the co-founder of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, said Wednesday that it learned from the Mexican consulate that the farmworkers who were killed were from at least five different states in Mexico.

Six of the dead have been identified: Evarado Ventura Hernández, 30; Cristian Salazar Villeda, 24; Alfredo Tovar Sánchez, 20; Isaías Miranda Pascal, 21; José Heriberto Fraga Acosta, 27; and Manuel Pérez Ríos, 46.

Gamaliel Marcel, of Tallahassee, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that he and Salazar Villeda were childhood friends in Mexico. Salazar Villeda got married in March and the couple had a 5-year-old daughter, Marcel added.

“I feel so bad, especially because I knew him my whole life,” he said. “He was always the most respectful but brought out a smile when you needed it.”

Evarado Ventura Hernández’s mother, Rosalina Hernández Martínez, said Wednesday that her son had told her the work he did on Florida farms was “very hard,” but that he was happy.

“It hurts,” she said. “A piece of my heart is gone.”

The Mexican consulate in Orlando was providing support at the AdventHealth Ocala hospital, where many of the injured were taken.

Andres Sequera, a director of mission and ministry for AdventHealth hospitals, said chaplains were visiting the injured workers, and that they “were in good spirits for what they have been through.”

WHY WERE THE WORKERS IN FLORIDA?
Farms across Florida use about 50,000 H-2A workers each year, more than any other state, according to the Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association.

The workers travel to Florida on seasonal or temporary visas to harvest farm fruits and vegetables.

These workers were in Marion County, which is in the north-central part of Florida. The county is best known for its rolling countryside, which stands out from much of the state’s typical flat geography. Thoroughbred horse farms are common in the hills outside of Ocala, which is the largest city in the region. Interstate 75 also cuts through Marion County.

WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT THE DRIVER ACCUSED IN THE CRASH?
Bryan Maclean Howard, 41, was arrested hours after the crash and remained jailed without bond in Ocala.

At a brief court appearance on Wednesday morning, Howard pleaded not guilty to driving under the influence-manslaughter charges in the deaths of eight farmworkers. He spoke by teleconference from jail.

An arrest report said Howard had bloodshot and watery eyes and slurred speech after the crash, which he told Florida Highway Patrol troopers he didn’t remember.

Howard also told investigators he had crashed his mother’s car into a tree a few days earlier while avoiding an animal. The report said Howard had smoked marijuana oil and took his prescribed medications before bed — two anti-seizure drugs and another for high blood pressure. Five hours later, he was driving to a methadone clinic where he receives daily medication for a chipped vertebra.

Troopers had arrested Howard after he failed several sobriety tests.

Howard told the judge he’s a self-employed painter and drywall installer. He said he had $700 in the bank, no other assets and no dependents.

On Wednesday, his head was bandaged and he wore a protective gown typically given to inmates on suicide watch. The judge denied bond, appointed a public defender and set his next court appearance for next month. The public defender’s office declined to comment about the case.

Marion County court records show Howard has had at least three crashes and numerous traffic tickets dating back to 2006. He was cited previously for crossing the center line, and his driver’s license has been suspended at least three times, the latest in 2021 for getting too many citations within a year.

In 2013, he was convicted of grand theft. A year later, his probation was revoked after he tested positive for cocaine.

WHAT’S NEXT?
A memorial service for the victims was held Wednesday evening outside the Farmworker Association of Florida office north of Orlando in Apopka. About two dozen people gathered, some holding white crosses with the names of the people killed, and sang songs in Spanish.

“They were here to do honest work,” Jeannie Economos, an official with the Farmworker Association of Florida, said of the farmworkers. “Agricultural work is hard. They came here to work hard to support themselves and their families back in their home country.”

The post What to know about a bus crash that killed 8 Mexican farmworkers in Florida appeared first on The Florida Daily Post.

The revisions to the minimum categories on race and ethnicity, announced Thursday by the Office of Management and Budget, are the latest effort to label and define the people of the United States. This evolving process often reflects changes in social attitudes and immigration, as well as a wish for people in an increasingly diverse society to see themselves in the numbers produced by the federal government.

“You can’t underestimate the emotional impact this has on people,” said Meeta Anand, senior director for Census & Data Equity at The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. “It’s how we conceive ourselves as a society. … You are seeing a desire for people to want to self-identify and be reflected in data so they can tell their own stories.”

Under the revisions, questions about race and ethnicity that previously were asked separately on forms will be combined into a single question. That will give respondents the option to pick multiple categories at the same time, such as “Black,” “American Indian” and “Hispanic.” Research has shown that large numbers of Hispanic people aren’t sure how to answer the race question when that question is asked separately because they understand race and ethnicity to be similar and they often pick “some other race” or do not answer the question.

A Middle Eastern and North African category will be added to the choices available for questions about race and ethnicity. People descended from places such as Lebanon, Iran, Egypt and Syria had been encouraged to identify as white, but now will have the option of identifying themselves in the new group. Results from the 2020 census, which asked respondents to elaborate on their backgrounds, suggest that 3.5 million residents identify as Middle Eastern and North African.

“It feels good to be seen,” said Florida state Rep. Anna Eskamani, a Democrat from Orlando whose parents are from Iran. “Growing up, my family would check the ‘white’ box because we didn’t know what other box reflected our family. Having representation like that, it feels meaningful.”

The changes also strike from federal forms the words “Negro” and “Far East,” now widely regarded as pejorative, as well as the terms “majority” and “minority,” because they fail to reflect the nation’s complex racial and ethnic diversity, some officials say. The revisions also encourage the collection of detailed race and ethnicity data beyond the minimum standards, such as “Haitian” or “Jamaican” for someone who checks “Black.”

Grouping together people of different backgrounds into a single race and ethnicity category, such as Japanese and Filipino in the Asian classification, often masks disparities in income or health, and advocates argued having the detailed data will allow the information about the subgroups to be separated out in a process called disaggregation.

“To be able to disaggregate can really be helpful to distinguish different kinds of discrimination, the ability to enforce laws around discrimination and do research on public health and economic outcomes,” said Allison Plyer, chief demographer of The Data Center in New Orleans.

The changes to the standards were hammered out over two years by a group of federal statisticians and bureaucrats who prefer to stay above the political fray. But the revisions have long-term implications for legislative redistricting, civil rights laws, health statistics, and possibly even politics as the number of people categorized as white is reduced.

Donald Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee for president, recently alluded to arguments made by people who allege Democrats are promoting illegal immigration to weaken the power of white people. As president, Trump unsuccessfully tried to disqualify people who were in the United States illegally from being included in the 2020 census.

Momentum for changing the race and ethnicity categories grew during the Obama administration in the mid-2010s, but was halted after Trump became president in 2017. It was revived after Democratic President Joe Biden took office in 2021.

The changes will be reflected in data collection, forms, surveys and the once-a-decade census questionnaires put out by the federal government, as well as in state governments and the private sector because businesses, universities and other groups usually follow Washington’s lead. Federal agencies have 18 months to submit a plan on how they will put the changes in place.

The first federal standards on race and ethnicity were produced in 1977 to provide consistent data across agencies and come up with figures that could help enforce civil rights laws. They were last updated in 1997 when five minimum race categories were delineated — American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Black or African American, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander and white; respondents could pick more than one race. The minimum ethnic categories were grouped separately as not Hispanic or Hispanic or Latino.

Racial and ethnic categories used by the U.S. government reflect their times.

In 1820, the category “Free Colored People” was added to the decennial census to reflect the increase in free Black people. In 1850, the term “Mulatto” was added to the census to capture people of mixed heritage. American Indians were not explicitly counted in the census until 1860. Following years of immigration from China, “Chinese” was included in the 1870 census. There was not a formal question about Hispanic origin until the 1980 census.

Not everyone is on board with the latest revisions.

Some Afro Latinos feel that combining the race and ethnicity question will reduce their numbers and representation in the data, though previous research by the U.S. Census Bureau did not find significant differences among Afro Latino responses when the questions were asked separately or together.

Mozelle Ortiz, for instance, is of mixed Afro Puerto Rican descent. She feels the changes could eliminate that identity, even though people can choose more than one answer once the race and ethnicity questions are combined.

“My entire lineage, that of my Black Puerto Rican grandmother’s and all other non-white Spanish speaking peoples, will be erased,” Ortiz wrote the interagency group.

Others are unhappy about how some groups of people such as Armenians or Arabs from Sudan and Somalia were not included in the examples used to define people of Middle Eastern or North African background.

Maya Berry, executive director of the Arab American Institute, said that while she was “incredibly happy” with the new category, that enthusiasm was tempered by the omissions.

“It is not reflective of the racial diversity of our community,” Berry said. “And it’s wrong.”

—

The post US changes how it categorizes people by race and ethnicity. It’s the first revision in 27 years appeared first on The Florida Daily Post.

Over the past three years or so, many Republican officials have been trying to limit those rights, imposing rules on which sports transgender students can play and which bathrooms they can use, among other policies.

The conservative pushback has coincided with more younger people identifying as LGBTQ+.

A Gallup poll released this week based on telephone interviews of more than 12,000 Americans finds that about 1 in 13 U.S. adults identify as LGBTQ+, including less than 1 in 100 of the total population who say they are transgender. But a higher proportion of the youngest adults identified as LGBTQ+ — a little over one-fifth of those born from 1997 through 2005.

The legal and legislative issues at the heart of the debates remain in flux.

Some things to know about this week’s flurry of developments.

FLORIDA AGREES STUDENTS, TEACHERS CAN SAY ‘GAY’
Florida this week settled a legal challenge to its 2022 law that bars instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in public schools, a measure that critics had dubbed “Don’t Say Gay.”

Under the deal, the law remains in place but some of the restrictions that resulted will be lifted.

The agreement clarifies, for example, that students and teachers are allowed to discuss LGBTQ+ issues. In addition, schools don’t have to remove library books that feature LGBTQ+ characters, halt anti-bullying programs that address bullying of LGBTQ+ people, censor valedictorian speeches in which the speaker talks about their gender identity or sexual orientation, or force teachers to remove rainbow flags from classroom doors.

Florida’s law barring the instruction of sexual orientation and gender identity, championed by the state’s Republican governor and former presidential primary candidate Ron DeSantis, was one of the highest-profile among dozens of measures adopted in Republican-controlled states over the past few years to try to rein in what can be taught about LGBTQ+ issues — and the rights of LGBTQ+ people.

A handful of other states have also limited school curriculums in similar ways.

STATES PUSH TO ALLOW ONLY SEX AT BIRTH ON DRIVERS LICENSES
Arkansas this week stopped allowing residents to use “X” rather than “F” or “M” to designate their sex on driver’s licenses and official identifications.

On Thursday, a predominantly Republican subcommittee endorsed the move, approving the emergency rules for the new policy despite some Democratic lawmakers’ objections. The full panel upheld that vote on Friday, allowing them to take effect immediately.

Earlier in the week, a judge in Kansas left in place the state’s policy of not allowing transgender people to change the listing for sex on their driver’s licenses to something other than their sex at birth.

The policy grew out of a 2023 law that recognizes people’s legal gender identities based only on their anatomy at birth. Lawmakers passed the measure by overriding the veto of Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly, whose administration had previously allowed people to change the sex designation on their licenses and birth certificates.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas announced Thursday that it will appeal the latest ruling on behalf of transgender clients.

LAWMAKERS CONSIDER RESTRICTIONS ON GENDER-AFFIRMING CARE FOR MINORS
Lawmakers in Kansas are trying to do what most Republican-controlled states have done already: ban gender-affirming care for minors.

The Kansas House this week approved a ban on puberty blockers, hormones and gender-affirming surgery — which is rarely used — for those under 18. Senate Republicans delayed a vote that had been planned for Thursday to allow time to tweak the bill with the intent of getting two-thirds of the chamber to support it.

If they can do it, it would put the legislature in position to override an expected veto from Gov. Kelly.

Under the bill, doctors who violate the ban could lose their licenses.

At least 23 states have adopted bans on gender-affirming care for minors in recent years. One of those laws — in Arkansas — was struck down by a court. Judges have put the Idaho and Montana versions on hold while their constitutionality is considered.

Tennessee lawmakers are planning a hearing for Wednesday on a measure that would allow lawsuits against anyone who takes a minor to another state for gender-affirming care without a parent’s consent.

The bill, framed as a parental rights measure, in some ways echoes an Idaho abortion law that was adopted last year and later put on hold by a court while its constitutionality is considered.

The move to prohibit helping minors travel for care is one of several Tennessee proposals that LGBTQ+ rights advocates are concerned about. Others include a bill that would block businesses from setting their own rules about bathroom access — a move that critics say could target transgender people. One measure would bar the state from requiring adoptive or foster parents to agree with a child’s sexual orientation or gender identity. Another would require educators to tell the school’s administration and student’s parents of any request to affirm the student’s gender identity.

None of these proposals have made it to Republican Gov. Bill Lee’s desk for his signature.

IDAHO CONSIDERS BAN ON MEDICAID MONEY FOR GENDER-AFFIRMING CARE
An Idaho state Senate committee advanced a bill Thursday to block using public funding for gender-affirming care.

The ban would apply to Medicaid and the state employees heath insurance plan. It has already passed the House and could be up for a final vote in the Senate next week.

The issue of paying for gender-affirming care has been a big one in Idaho. In 2022, the state lost a lawsuit filed by a transgender prison inmate who said she was wrongly denied gender-affirming surgery. In a separate lawsuit, plaintiffs accuse the state’s Medicaid program of moving too slowly to approve such surgeries.

The advocacy and information organization Movement Advancement Project says that nine states ban Medicaid funding for gender-affirming health care for people of all ages.

COLLEGE ATHLETES SUE OVER ALLOWING TRANSGENDER WOMAN TO COMPETE
More than a dozen current and former women’s college athletes on Thursday filed a lawsuit against the NCAA in U.S. District Court in Atlanta, accusing the college sports governing body of violating their rights by allowing transgender women to compete in women’s sports.

The highest-profile plaintiff in the case is Riley Gaines, a former University of Kentucky swimmer who tied for fifth in the Division I 200-meter freestyle championship two years ago with Lia Thomas, a University of Pennsylvania swimmer. Thomas, who is transgender, also won the 500 freestyle and finished eighth in the 100 that year.

Gaines has remained a major voice against allowing transgender women to compete in women’s events.

She and others assert in their legal claim that the NCAA violated the federal Title IX education equity legislation. A proposed federal rule would go the other way by barring outright bans on transgender women in sports.

At least 25 states have passed restrictions on transgender women and girls competing, though some of those measures have been put on hold by courts.

—

The post Things to know about developments impacting LGBTQ+ rights across the US appeared first on The Florida Daily Post.

Glen Gilzean was appointed Monday by the Republican governor to oversee voting in Florida’s fifth-largest county, where more than 1.4 million residents live among the largest theme park resorts in the U.S. Just last May, Gilzean was chosen to be administrator of the Central Florida Tourism Oversight Committee after DeSantis’ allies took over the Disney World governing district.

Gilzean previously served as a DeSantis appointee on the Florida Commission on Ethics and was president and CEO of Central Florida Urban League.

The county’s longtime elections supervisor Bill Cowles retired in January, about a year before his term was up. Cowles, a Democrat, was first elected in 1996 to the job, which oversees elections in Orlando and surrounding communities.

Gilzean didn’t respond to an emailed inquiry.

Responding to an email, the district’s office of public information said the “transition should be completed in one week,” without offering further details. As the district’s administrator, Gilzean had an annual salary of $400,000. He’ll earn about half that as elections supervisor.

In a joint statement, a group of federal and state Democratic lawmakers in the Orlando area, including U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost, said Gilzean’s appointment was just the latest example of DeSantis naming unqualified loyalists to elected positions “so he can control every part of our state and local governments and warp our democracy to his will.”

“Glen Gilzean is a Ron DeSantis loyalist who’s top priority seems to be making Ron DeSantis happy, not protecting the integrity of our elections,” the Democratic lawmakers said. “This move signals the Governor’s focus on silencing the voices of Central Florida voters as one of the most northern progressive hubs in our state. We cannot let this happen.”

Gilzean’s new appointment comes at a time of turmoil for the district, which has seen an exodus of experienced staffers since the takeover and lots of litigation. The district provides municipal services such as firefighting, planning and mosquito control, among other things.

A fight between DeSantis and Disney began in 2022 after the company, facing significant internal and external pressure, publicly opposed a state law that critics have called “Don’t Say Gay.” The 2022 law bans classroom lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity in early grades and was championed by DeSantis, who used Disney as a punching bag in speeches until he suspended his presidential campaign this year.

As punishment, DeSantis took over the district through legislation passed by the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature and appointed a new board of supervisors, which named Gilzean as administrator.

Disney sued DeSantis and his appointees, claiming the company’s free speech rights were violated for speaking out against the legislation. A federal judge dismissed that lawsuit in January. Disney has appealed.

A separate lawsuit over who controls the district is still pending in state court in Orlando.

In his new job, Gilzean will oversee the GOP presidential primary this month, primaries in August and the November general election. He has no previous experience running elections. Currently, five Democrats, a Republican and an independent have filed to run for elections supervisor in Orange County later this year. Gilzean is not among them.

—

The post DeSantis names Disney World district administrator to run elections in Democratic Orange County appeared first on The Florida Daily Post.

U.S. District Judge Allen Winsor in Tallahassee said in his decision that Disney lacked standing in its First Amendment lawsuit against the Republican governor and the secretary of the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity. The judge also said Disney’s claim against DeSantis’ appointees to the Disney World governing district lacked merit.

Disney said it plans to appeal the federal judge’s decision. A separate lawsuit over who controls the district is still pending in state court in Orlando.

Disney had argued that legislation signed by DeSantis and passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature that transferred control of the Disney World governing district from Disney supporters to DeSantis appointees was in retaliation for the company publicly opposing the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” law. The 2022 law banned classroom lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity in early grades and was championed by DeSantis, who had used Disney as a punching bag in speeches on the campaign trail until he recently suspended his campaign for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.

Disney supporters had run the district, which provides municipal services such as firefighting, planning and mosquito control, for more than five decades after the Legislature created it in 1967.

Winsor, who was appointed to the bench by President Donald Trump in 2019, said in his decision that Disney didn’t have standing to sue the governor because DeSantis already had picked the appointees to the board of the governing district.

“Because Disney seeks injunctive relief, it must allege an imminent future injury … and it has not alleged facts showing that any imminent future appointments will contribute to its harm,” the judge wrote.

In dismissing the claim against the DeSantis appointees to the district’s board, Winsor wrote that when a law on its face is constitutional, plaintiffs can’t make free-speech claims challenging it because they believe lawmakers acted with unconstitutional motives. The law that revamped Disney World’s district didn’t single out Disney by name but rather special districts created before the ratification of the Florida Constitution, a group that included the Disney district and a handful of other districts, he said.

“Here, similarly, no one reading the text of the challenged laws would suppose them directed against Disney,” the judge wrote. “The laws do not mention Disney.”

The DeSantis-appointed chairman of the revamped district, Martin Garcia, called the lawsuit a distraction. He said now that it is behind them, board members can focus on making appropriate changes to the district’s operations “to promote transparency and accountability while bringing more prosperity to more people in Florida.”

Disney said the case was too important for it to end, with serious implications for the rule of law.

“If left unchallenged, this would set a dangerous precedent and give license to states to weaponize their official powers to punish the expression of political viewpoints they disagree with,” Disney said in a statement.

The governor’s press secretary, Jeremy Redfern, said the judge’s decision supported DeSantis’ belief that Disney doesn’t have a right to its “own special government.”

“The days of Disney controlling its own government and being placed above the law are long gone,” Redfern said.

Before control of the district changed hands from Disney allies to DeSantis appointees early last year, the Disney supporters on its board signed agreements with Disney shifting control over design and construction at Disney World to the company. The new DeSantis appointees claimed the “eleventh-hour deals” neutered their powers, and the district sued the company in state court in Orlando to have the contracts voided.

Disney has filed counterclaims that include asking the state court to declare the agreements valid and enforceable.

Since the takeover of the district by the DeSantis appointees, about 50 of its 370 employees have departed, with many complaining that the district has become politicized and the backgrounds of the five DeSantis appointees have been distracting.

Disney, which employs more than 75,000 workers in central Florida, has said it plans to make $17 billion in investments at Disney World over the next decade that will create an additional 13,000 jobs.

But Disney CEO Bob Iger last year described the actions taken by DeSantis and the Florida Legislature as “anti-business” and “anti-Florida.” Last year, Disney scrapped plans to build a new campus in central Florida and relocate 2,000 employees from Southern California to work in digital technology, finance and product development following a year of attacks by DeSantis and Republican lawmakers.

—

The post Federal judge dismisses Disney’s free speech lawsuit against DeSantis appeared first on The Florida Daily Post.

Acting on tips that poured in since the Dec. 23 shooting at Paddock Mall, officers surrounded a north Florida home around 1 a.m. Monday, Ocala police Chief Mike Balken said during a news conference. They negotiated with Albert Shell Jr. for about two hours before he was taken into custody without incident, he said, sharing a body cam video showing a shirtless Shell walking out of the house and surrendering to officers.

Shell was taken to the Marion County Jail in Ocala on charges of premeditated first-degree murder in the killing of David Nathaniel Barron, 40, and attempted premeditated first-degree murder for shooting an innocent bystander in the leg, the chief said. Court records did not list an attorney for Shell.

The chief did not expand on a relationship between Barron and Shell, other than to say they possibly had worked together.

“No reason to believe this was anything other than a beef between two individuals that was resolved in a mall with a gun,” Balken said.

He thanked the United States Marshals Service, specifically the Florida Caribbean Regional Fugitive Task Force, and the Marion County Sheriff’s Office for their help, and said increasing the reward for information leading to an arrest to $20,000 likely helped solve the case.

—

The post Police arrest suspect in a killing that sent holiday shoppers scrambling in a Florida mall appeared first on The Florida Daily Post.

But about seven hours after liftoff, Astrobotic Technology reported the solar panel on the lander wasn’t properly pointed toward the sun to generate and store power and it was investigating the issue.

The Pittsburgh company’s lander caught a ride on a brand new rocket, United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan. The Vulcan streaked through the Florida predawn sky, putting the spacecraft on a roundabout route to the moon for a landing attempt on Feb. 23.

The company aims to be the first private business to successfully land on the moon, something only four countries have accomplished. But a Houston company also has a lander ready to fly, and could beat it to the lunar surface, taking a more direct path.

NASA gave the two companies millions to build and fly their own lunar landers. The space agency wants the privately owned landers to scope out the place before astronauts arrive while delivering NASA tech and science experiments as well as odds and ends for other customers. Astrobotic’s contract for the Peregrine lander: $108 million.

The last time the U.S. launched a moon-landing mission was in December 1972. Apollo 17’s Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt became the 11th and 12th men to walk on the moon, closing out an era that has remained NASA’s pinnacle.

The space agency’s new Artemis program — named after the twin sister of Apollo in Greek mythology — looks to return astronauts to the moon’s surface within the next few years. First will be a lunar fly-around with four astronauts, possibly before the end of the year.

Highlighting Monday’s moonshot was the long-delayed initial test flight of the Vulcan rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The 202-foot (61-meter) rocket is essentially an upgraded version of ULA’s hugely successful workhorse Atlas V, which is being phased out along with the company’s Delta IV. Jeff Bezos’ rocket company, Blue Origin, provided the Vulcan’s two main engines.

ULA declared success once the lander was free of the rocket’s upper stage, nearly an hour into the flight. “Yee-haw!” shouted chief executive Tory Bruno. “I am so thrilled, I can’t tell you how much.”

The Soviet Union and the U.S. racked up a string of successful moon landings in the 1960s and 70s, before putting touchdowns on pause. China joined the elite club in 2013 and India in 2023. But last year also saw landers from Russia and a private Japanese company slam into the moon. An Israeli nonprofit crashed in 2019.

Next month, SpaceX will provide the lift for a lander from Intuitive Machines. The Nova-C lander’s more direct one-week route could see both spacecraft attempting to land within days or even hours of one another.

The hourlong descent to the lunar surface — by far the biggest challenge — will be “exciting, nail-biting, terrifying all at once,” Thornton said.

Besides flying experiments for NASA, Astrobotic drummed up its own freight business, packing the 6-foot-tall (1.9-meter-tall) Peregrine lander with everything from a chip of rock from Mount Everest and toy-size cars from Mexico that will catapult to the lunar surface and cruise around, to the ashes and DNA of deceased space enthusiasts, including “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry and science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke.

The Navajo Nation recently sought to have the launch delayed because of the human remains. saying it would be a “profound desecration” of a celestial body revered by Native Americans. Thornton said the December objections came too late but promised to try to find “a good path forward” with the Navajo for future missions.

One of the spaceflight memorial companies that bought room on the lander, Celestis, said in a statement that no single culture or religion owns the moon and should not be able to veto a mission. More remains are on the rocket’s upper stage, which was boosted into a perpetual orbit around the sun reaching as far out as Mars.

Cargo fares for Peregrine ranged from a few hundred dollars to $1.2 million per kilogram (2.2 pounds), not nearly enough for Astrobotic to break even. But for this first flight, that’s not the point, according to Thornton.

“A lot of people’s dreams and hopes are riding on this,” he said.

—

The post First US lunar lander in more than 50 years rockets toward moon with commercial deliveries appeared first on The Florida Daily Post.