Florida

DeSantis sending more FHP troopers, National Guard to Texas for border patrol efforts

Published

10 months ago

February 23, 2024

DeSantis sending more FHP troopers, National Guard to Texas for border patrol efforts

Governor Ron DeSantis was in Pensacola Friday, where he announced that he was sending 76 Florida Highway Patrol troopers and up to 200 members of the Florida National Guard to Texas to help with the fight against illegal immigration.

The FHP troopers will be assisting authorities in San Antonio with border patrol efforts for the next three weeks. The National Guard troops are also headed to Texas, but to a different location.

DeSantis said it’s part of his commitment to defend the country’s borders as people from around the world, including China, continue to “pour” into the United States illegally. He claimed the result is an increase in drugs across the country, such as fentanyl, and other issues that occur when people aren’t a legal part of the workforce or population.

“We think this is an American issue partially because we should have a secure country and then partially the effects of this border invasion go to all 50 states, so we’re thankful for our folks,” DeSantis said. “We’re supposed to be a great country and you can’t even maintain control of your own territory and your own border. We’re part of the solution here in Florida. We’re happy to continue to still be in this fight.”

The governor held the press conference outside the Florida Department of Law Enforcement office in Pensacola, where FHP officers and National Guard troops lined up behind him during the announcement.

Florida already has 90 officers from the Florida Highway Patrol, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement stationed at the border. DeSantis announced earlier that Florida will send up to 1,000 of its own National Guard members and State Guard volunteers to assist Texas, as the state has done with other Florida agencies over the past two years.

DeSantis revived the State Guard in 2022, and the Legislature increased funding from $10 million to $107.6 million. The force tripled from 400 to 1,500 members last year.

The Highway Patrol troopers and National Guard members left for Texas in their vehicles shortly after the press conference. Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles Executive Director Dave Kerner was there to wish the troops safe travels and encourage them in their mission.

Kerner said they’ll be assisting in a variety of ways. Some will team up with the Department of Public Safety and the Texas Highway Patrol. Others will partner with the criminal investigation division, and others have more discreet missions, said Kerner, who didn’t elaborate with details. He added what happens at the border in Texas impacts Florida, too.

“We’ve connected how it translates into the state of Florida,” said Kerner. “We see through our traffic enforcement and through our criminal investigations how, what I call the cartel industrial complex, is felt in Florida. How that fentanyl gets here. It’s been a very eye-opening experience for these troopers. Every time we send a wave of troopers out there, it is in defense of the state of Florida.”

DeSantis said increased security at the border is working, along with other policy initiatives like banning sanctuary cities in Florida, cracking down on smuggling, and people working in the state illegally. He said keeping up the pressure has discouraged people from coming here illegally.

“If you look at the people coming across the border now three years ago, Florida was one of the places that they said they wanted to go,” DeSantis said. “Now you don’t see as many that are talking about Florida, because I think they realize that if they go to sanctuary states or sanctuary cities that they’re going to have more benefits. That is the way that you do it and that is the way you get the job done.”

The FHP force headed to Texas includes troopers from departments across the state.

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Florida

3 most underrated signees in Florida State football's 2025 class

Published

2 hours ago

December 22, 2024

Press Room

3 most underrated signees in Florida State football's 2025 class

Florida State football had an embarrassing 2024 campaign where it finished with a 2-10 record. This is not the expectation of what the Seminoles are all about.

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Head football coach Mike Norvell understood the urgency as he could not allow the program to snowball into a laughing stock after a productive 13-1 season in 2023. Norvell was heading into a pivotal sixth season with his job on the line.

As a result, he went out and hired a ton of new coaches on his staff, including Gus Malzahn, Tim Harris Jr., Herb Hand, Tony White, Terrance Knighton, and Evan Cooper. This was uncharted territory for Norvell since he had never had to fire multiple coaches like that.

Nonetheless, we were wondering how the Seminoles’ 2025 recruiting class would play out with new coaches as well as the struggling year in 2024.

The recruiting class did well, and it finished with the 20th-best in the 247Sports Composite rankings (prospects can still sign in February). In this article, I want to highlight three of the most underrated signees from Florida State’s 2025 recruiting class.

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Florida

U.S. Amateur runner-up Noah Kent is transferring to Florida

Published

10 hours ago

December 22, 2024

Press Room

U.S. Amateur runner-up Noah Kent is transferring to Florida

Noah Kent is heading home.

The 2024 U.S. Amateur runner-up is transferring to Florida, he announced Saturday. The sophomore at Iowa, whose hometown is Naples, Florida, entered the transfer portal earlier this month, and he made his decision to join coach J.C. Deacon and the 2023 national champions come next fall.

Because of NCAA rules, Kent won’t be eligible to compete for Florida until the 2025-26 season, but he can finish his sophomore year with the Hawkeyes. This fall, he placed in the top 13 all four tournaments, his best finish being a T-5 at the Fighting Irish Classic.

And, of course, he has a tee time at Augusta National Golf Club in the spring.

Kent will essentially be the fourth member of Florida’s 2025 signing class, which ranked second in the country on signing day. He’ll join a talented roster that includes Parker Bell, Mathew Kress and Jack Turner, though with new NCAA roster limits coming, there’s bound to be some unprecedented roster turnover in college golf before the start of the 2025-26 season.

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State Your Case: Do Panthers or Lightning own state of Florida? | NHL.com

Published

18 hours ago

December 22, 2024

Press Room

State Your Case: Do Panthers or Lightning own state of Florida? | NHL.com

There are two NHL teams in Florida: the Florida Panthers and the Tampa Bay Lightning.

They are separated by about 250 miles and have been fierce rivals since the Panthers joined the NHL for the 1993-94 season. The Lightning joined the League a season earlier.

Florida (21-11-2) and Tampa Bay (18-10-2) meet for the first time this season at Amalie Arena in Tampa on Sunday (5 p.m. ET; FDSNSUN, CRIPPS, SN, TVAS).

The teams have played each other 157 times in the regular season; the Panthers have gone 77-51-19, and the Lightning are 70-64-13. There have been 10 ties.

For years, the rivalry was a parochial affair, deeply important to hockey fans in the state but under the radar nationally. Lately, though, Florida supremacy has often meant NHL supremacy.

The Panthers are the reigning Stanley Cup champions and defeated the Lightning in five games in the best-of-7 Eastern Conference First Round last season to start that title march. They reached the Stanley Cup Final two seasons ago, going on a miracle run before losing to the Vegas Golden Knights. The season before that, they won the Presidents’ Trophy with an NHL-best 122 points but lost to the Lightning in a second-round sweep, marking the second straight time that their noisy neighbors ended their season.

The Lightning won back-to-back Stanley Cup championships in 2020 and 2021 before reaching a third straight Final in 2022, losing to the Colorado Avalanche. Tampa Bay won the Presidents’ Trophy in 2018-19.

This season, each team is on course for another appearance in the Stanley Cup Playoffs and has a point percentage of better than .600.

So which team has the merits to claim bragging rights in this all-Florida showdown as the rivals face off for the first time this season? That’s the question debated by NHL.com senior writers Amalie Benjamin and Dan Rosen in the latest installment of State Your Case.

Benjamin: Let’s lay out what the Lightning have accomplished in their 32-season history: They’ve won the Stanley Cup three times, becoming the first team from Florida to win it when they took the championship in 2004. But that doesn’t come close to what they’ve accomplished during the past 11 seasons, starting in 2013-14, when they became a powerhouse. They’ve been to the Stanley Cup Playoffs 10 times in those 11 seasons, making the Stanley Cup Final in a whopping four of them. Let me repeat that: Four trips to the Cup Final in the past 11 seasons, winning twice, in 2020 and 2021. And if that’s not enough, they made two more trips to the Eastern Conference Final, in 2016 and 2018. Forget Florida’s team. They’re the team of the past decade in the entire NHL.

Rosen: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But what have you done for me lately? Florida’s team fluctuates. It was the Lightning. It is the Panthers. They’ve got the Stanley Cup. They went to the Stanley Cup Final two years in a row. Sure, a few years ago, this wasn’t even a debate. Florida’s team, the Panthers? Please. No shot. Even the top executives with the Panthers would tell you that. But things change. With success come the riches. Just think about the past three seasons for the Panthers: Presidents’ Trophy winners in 2021-22, Stanley Cup Final in 2022-23, Stanley Cup champions in 2023-24. The Lightning lost in the 2022 Cup Final, lost in the first round in six games the next season and lost in the first round in five games to the Panthers last season. Florida’s team is Florida.

Benjamin: OK, sure, you have a point. Florida has done pretty darn well lately. But let’s see how history will judge the state of Florida and its hockey teams. Hall of Famers? The Lightning have got ’em. Though Steven Stamkos has moved on to the Nashville Predators, the Hall of Fame is going to come calling, and the forward will go in as a member of the Lightning. Add in coach Jon Cooper, forward Nikita Kucherov, defenseman Victor Hedman and goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy, and you’re talking at least five future Hall of Famers on a single team. That’s not just good, that’s historically good. It’s a group whose names are synonymous with winning, with the Stanley Cup, with the state of Florida. That’s powerful. That says the Lightning win this debate, no question.

Rosen: I have a question. Is Aleksander Barkov not paving his way to the Hall of Fame? Is Sergei Bobrovsky, with a Stanley Cup ring, 400-plus wins and two Vezina Trophy wins as the NHL’s best goalie, not a lock for the Hall of Fame? Is Paul Maurice, who could finish his career with at least the second-most coaching wins of all time, along with his Stanley Cup ring, not also a lock for the Hall of Fame? In the way-too-early department, could Matthew Tkachuk and Sam Reinhart be future Hall of Famers? I lied. That’s four questions. But you get the point. You brought up the Hall of Fame and I countered. That’s why the Lightning do not win this debate without question. Could they win it? Yes, certainly, if we were having this debate in 2023. It’s almost 2025. It’s a different world. It’s the Panthers’ world, at least in Florida. The Lightning are just living in it. At least the sun is still shining on them too.

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