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Florida initiative to enshrine abortion protections in state constitution collects enough signatures to appear on 2024 ballot

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Florida initiative to enshrine abortion protections in state constitution collects enough signatures to appear on 2024 ballot


The Florida Division of Elections released data Friday confirming that the group Floridians Protecting Freedom (FPF) successfully gathered the required number of signatures to put an amendment on the Florida ballot to enshrine abortion protections in the state constitution.

FPF Campaign Director Lauren Brenzel celebrated the milestone, stating, “The fact that we only launched our campaign eight months ago and we’ve already reached our petition goal speaks to the unprecedented support and momentum there is to get politicians out of our private lives and health care decisions.” Florida Governor and 2024 presidential candidate Ron DeSantis, who signed a six-week abortion ban into law in 2023, dismissed the ballot initiative, telling reporters, “I’m confident that something that’s very, very extreme is not going to be able to pass in Florida.”

The proposed amendment states:

No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider. This amendment does not change the Legislature’s constitutional authority to require notification to a parent or guardian before a minor has an abortion.

According to the Florida Constitution, state constitutional amendments must receive at least 60% of the vote during a ballot initiative to be enshrined into law.

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Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody has challenged the proposed amendment in the Florida Supreme Court, alleging that the measure’s language is “misleading” and “conceals the amendment’s potentially sweeping legal effects.” Moody also asserts that the proposed amendment fails to define key terms such as “viability” and “patient’s health.” Moody also argues that partial-birth abortion would continue to be illegal after viability due to conflicting federal law, and the amendment does not properly clarify this. Several groups, including the National Center for Life and Liberty, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops and Florida Voters Against Extremism support Moody’s challenge.

FPF responded to the challenge, claiming that the amendment conforms to all state requirements and is not unclear or misleading, writing:

The Court withholds a proposed amendment from the voters only when it finds the amendment is clearly and conclusively defective, i.e., when it violates the single subject rule or its ballot title and summary affirmatively mislead voters. This amendment does neither. It is ready for a popular vote.

FPF is supported in the Florida Supreme Court by a group of former Republican Florida officials, a group of legal professors and educators and a group of Florida doctors. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists also filed with the Florida Supreme Court, criticizing Moody’s use of the organization’s research to argue that the word “viability” in the amendment is “misleading,” with the group writing, “[t]he Attorney General’s assertion that voters will be misled by the ballot summary’s use of the word “viability” is belied by the decades of use of the term in connection with abortion legislation and jurisprudence.” The Florida Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments in the case on February 7.

Florida is only one of many states with upcoming or recently voted upon ballot initiatives surrounding the issue of abortion since the Supreme Court released its ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, overturning its prior precedent, Roe v. Wade. In 2022, voters in California, Michigan, Kentucky, Montana and Vermont voted in favor of abortion access or against strict abortion restrictions. In 2023, abortion rights advocates in Arizona filed paperwork to include the issue on the November 2024 ballot, and Ohio voters voted in favor of enshrining abortion rights into the state’s constitution. A study from Care Post-Roe in 2023 alleged that abortion bans and restrictions across the US are causing healthcare delays and complications. According to the Guttmacher Institute, fifteen states currently have total or near total abortion bans. 





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Florida

Florida college Republicans group chat reveals racist texts: ‘Avoid the coloreds like the plague’

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Florida college Republicans group chat reveals racist texts: ‘Avoid the coloreds like the plague’


It only took three weeks for a group chat for conservative students at Florida International University (FIU) to become a place where participants eagerly used racist slurs, prompting widespread condemnation from community leaders.

Abel Alexander Carvajal, secretary of Miami-Dade county’s Republican party and a student at FIU’s College of Law, reportedly started the chat after the killing of Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, in September 2025.

But on Wednesday, the Miami Herald published leaked WhatsApp conversations in which the college Republicans made racist, sexist, antisemitic and homophobic comments, including variations of the N-word used more than 400 times. Knowledge of the chat’s existence was revealed on the same day that Republican lawmakers in Florida pushed forward a bill to rename a one-mile stretch of road alongside FIU in honor of Kirk.

William Bejerano, who the Herald noted once tried to start an anti-abortion group at Miami Dade College, was the most prolific user of the N-word. Using the slur, Bejerano called for dozens of acts of extreme violence against Black people, including crucifying, beheading and dissecting.

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Dariel Gonzalez, then the College Republicans’ recruitment chair, who has recently applied to become a GOP committee member, responded to the calls for violence by saying: “How edgy.” He repeatedly used “colored” to describe Black people, including writing: “Ew you had colored professors?!” and “Avoid the coloreds like the plague,” according to the Herald.

Carvajal, who was appointed to a two-year role on the city of Hialeah’s planning and zoning board earlier this year, confirmed to the paper that the group chat was his doing, but he denied knowledge of the problematic comments until the publication contacted him about its logs last week.

“It’s been five months since this was sent and this is the first time I’ve seen this message,” Carvajal told the Herald.

“I guess to an extent, I bear some responsibility, cause I created a chat. But if I had seen this at the moment, I would have removed [Bejerano] from the chat. I probably would have even blocked his number.”

The Herald found that Carvajal had deleted 14 messages sent by other participants in the chat and 42 of his own messages before the publication obtained the chat’s logs.

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He also participated in some of the racist discussions. While referring to a Black student who allegedly left FIU’s College Republicans after a member of the group “called her a [N-word]”, the Floridian reported that Carvajal wrote: “Why didn’t miggress leave?” Elsewhere in the chat, the publication reported that Carvajal used “Miggress”, “Migglet” and “Migger” to refer to Black women, Black children and Black people, in general.

At one point, Gonzalez wrote: “You can fuck all the [K-word, a slur for Jewish people] you want. Just don’t marry them and procreate.”

Ian Valdes, the Turning Point USA FIU chapter president, responded, “I would def not marry a Jew,” before changing the group chat’s name from “Uber [R-word slur for disabled people] Yapping” to “Gooning in Agartha”. “Gooning” is a gen-Z slang term for male masturbation, while “Agartha” is a mythical white civilization promoted by Heinrich Himmler, one of the most powerful leaders in Nazi Germany next to Hitler.

Gonzalez reportedly described Agartha to the group chat as “Nazi heaven sort of”.

Kevin Cooper, the first Jewish chair of the Miami Dade Republican party, condemned the group chat in a statement published to X and called for Carvajal’s resignation.

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“The majority of our board voted to request Carvajal’s resignation. We have commenced removal proceedings and look forward to resolution from the Republican Party of Florida,” he wrote.

That call was echoed by Juan Porras, a Republican state representative and Miami-Dade GOP state committee member, who said in a statement: “Leadership carries responsibility. When someone in a leadership role engages in this kind of behavior, it damages the trust placed in our party by voters across Florida. For that reason, I am asking the Miami Dade Republican party secretary to step down from this position.”

In a joint statement, Florida Republican state senators Alexis Calatayud, Ileana Garcia and Ana Maria Rodriguez denounced the chats and called for the expulsion from party leadership of its participants.

“The individuals in the group chat have exposed how profoundly misaligned their beliefs are to the views of the Republican party of Florida,” their statement said. “We call for the immediate expulsion of the individuals disseminating from any level of leadership of the Miami-Dade Republican Party … We will not tolerate bigotry or discrimination.”

Multiple leaked group chats from young Republicans have created controversy in recent years.

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Last year, Politico published messages from a group chat of more than 100 conservatives across the country in which users also made racist and antisemitic comments. In 2022, a Young Republican group chat from North Dakota was revealed as a cesspool of homophobic and antisemitic rhetoric.



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Federal judge blocks DeSantis executive order declaring CAIR a 'terrorist organization'

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Federal judge blocks DeSantis executive order declaring CAIR a 'terrorist organization'


A federal court in Tallahassee has issued a temporary injunction blocking Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ executive order designating the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) a “terrorist organization.” U.S. District Judge Mark Walker’s order comes nearly three months after DeSantis signed his executive order on Dec. 8. The order directed Florida’s executive and Cabinet agencies, as […]



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Gas prices rise in South Florida amid U.S. and Israel’s conflict with Iran, as the stock market also reports a dip

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Gas prices rise in South Florida amid U.S. and Israel’s conflict with Iran, as the stock market also reports a dip



Four days into the Iranian conflict, gas prices are rising at many stations in South Florida.

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“I’ve traveled all over the United States,” says Stacey Williams. CBS Miami spoke to him as he was gassing up on the turnpike. He paid $66 for 20 gallons of diesel to fill his pickup truck. Williams has noted the fluctuations in fuel as he drives to locations for his work on turbines. He just spent three weeks at the Turkey Point Nuclear Power Plant south of Miami.

“The salary we get paid per hour does not add up to what we pay for gas, housing, and food,” he says.

Mitchell Gershon is also dealing with the higher gas prices. He has to fill three vehicles constantly for his business—Thrifty Gypsy, a pop-up store at musical venues. He’s back and forth from Orlando to Miami and says fuel is costing him 20% more. When asked how he handles these fluctuations, he said, “Have a little backup cash so you are ready for it.”

The rise in oil prices contributed to a drop in the stock market on Tuesday, which means some retirement accounts dipped, too. CBS Miami talked to Chad NeSmith, director of investments at Tobias Financial Advisors in Plantation, for perspective on the drop.

“We are seeing most of the pullback today. Yesterday was a shock,” he says. He’s not expecting runaway oil prices but says investors should stay in the loop: “Pay attention to your portfolio. Stick to your goals. Have a plan because these things are completely unpredictable.”

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That unpredictability has Williams adjusting his budget. “You just cut back, cut corners, all you can do,” he says.



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