Florida
Florida’s Fatal Attraction
Boats on roofs; automobiles out to sea; coastal cities below water. The sand from Naples Seaside now chokes Naples streets. Hurricane Ian’s 150-mph winds yanked homes off of their basis in Fort Myers, a reasonably city as soon as identified for its avenues of royal palms. As many as 50 folks reportedly are useless in Florida. In a few of our glossiest, most prosperous, most densely populated communities, survivors now sift by the ruins of their slice of paradise.
Up north in Tallahassee, the place I stay, we have been simply past Ian’s western attain, however a couple of days in the past it regarded as if the storm was heading straight for us. Like most everybody else in Florida, we prepped for it: filling our fuel tanks, anchoring our terrace furnishings, trotting by the grocery retailer shopping for batteries, rest room paper, cans of tuna, baggage of ice, six-packs of beer. Metropolis-power crews equipped. Florida State and Florida A&M universities geared down, canceling courses.
We knew it may have been us. 4 years in the past this month, it was us. The Class 5 Hurricane Michael roared ashore at Mexico Seaside, drowning the coast with a 20-foot surge, washing out a piece of U.S. 98, laying waste to the land all the best way into Georgia. A pecan tree fell on my mom’s home; an outdated cedar barely missed mine.
I’m a local Floridian, an ever-rarer species in a state the place most individuals come from some place else. My household goes again eight generations, to a farm boy who fought for the colonists within the Revolutionary Struggle, then deserted his newly free nation for Spanish East Florida. King Charles IV was making a gift of massive tracts of land—already, proto-Floridians beloved a superb real-estate deal. I grew up in Florida’s capital, 25 miles north of the Gulf of Mexico, a form of anti-Miami—luxuriously empty, with pink clay hills and forests stuffed with oak, magnolia, and pine bushes—and on what’s now known as the Forgotten Coast, lengthy stretches of seaside with out condominium towers or resorts or pastel mansions.
Earlier than the local weather started to heat so precipitously, this a part of Florida acquired fairly chilly in winter. Not Wisconsin chilly, however some years it snowed. Horrified northerners stopping for the evening on their manner right down to a brand new life couldn’t wait to get again on the street to the tropical Eden promised by their realtors. Over latest years, virtually 1,000 folks have moved to Florida on daily basis, drawn by comparatively low cost property, no state earnings tax, and (for some) Florida’s belligerent politics. Governor Ron DeSantis has made a nationwide title for himself—maybe in service of a 2024 presidential run—by attacking federal COVID coverage, decrying “essential race idea,” and flying Venezuelan asylum seekers to Martha’s Winery, all within the title of proudly owning the libs. However many incomers are seduced just by the fantasy of countless summer season and by no means once more having to shovel snow.
Florida’s inhabitants has been mushrooming for many years. In 1960, not fairly 5 million folks lived right here. Now it’s almost 22 million, most desirous to settle as near water as they will afford. The Florida dream is that once you look out over your condominium balcony, you see the Gulf or the Atlantic, or a lake ringed with cypresses. Killer hurricanes don’t determine in these visions of sea and solar. The issue is that this torrent of individuals endangers what they arrive for: the sugar-sand seashores, the boating, the fishing, and the charismatic wildlife (panthers, manatees, and bottlenose dolphins).
In Florida’s magnificence lies Florida’s downfall. For increasingly folks to stay right here, we should destroy increasingly of the land. The once-plentiful marshes and swamps filtered floor water and slowed down flooding, however Florida has destroyed almost half of its wetlands since 1845: We’ve drained, paved, and constructed on them. Mangrove bushes stabilize coastlines, present habitat for every kind of animals, and mitigate storm surges. But builders, generally abetted by the state Division of Environmental Safety, rip them out and erect ineffective seawalls.
There are some 3 million extra folks in Florida than there have been in 2010, a inhabitants surge that’s depleting the Biscayne and Floridan aquifers—the drinking-water sources for 90 p.c of us right here—sooner than they will replenish themselves. We pump an excessive amount of out of the bottom, permitting salt water to seep in. Our rivers and lakes are choking below mats of noxious blue-green algae, produced by runoff from overbuilding, farming, and all that Miracle-Gro we dump on our lawns and golf programs. It’s poisonous for people and kills fish too. And it hurts property values. No person desires to purchase a home on the inland waterway or on a river that’s lined in slime and stinks like rotten meat, with useless manatees floating by the dock.
But for the northerners and midwesterners and everybody else flocking to Florida like so many piping plovers, Florida stays a contemporary Arcadia (there may be, in fact, a city in Florida known as Arcadia). For those who’re over 55 and wish to settle someplace that feels in some way resistant to the standard pressures and tasks of society, you should purchase a home within the Villages, a 98 p.c white growth of 33,000 acres with “city facilities” sporting pretend-old buildings and “historic” markers commemorating occasions that by no means occurred. Or maybe you’d purchase in Latitude Margaritaville, which guarantees countless pickleball, tiki huts, and perhaps even a go to from Jimmy Buffett himself. In case you are significantly wealthy, Palm Seaside or Sarasota or Indian Creek Island, the place Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner have a home, will insulate you from the uncomfortable inequities of latest America.
That, no less than, is the fantasy—the state’s most well-known resident is, in any case, a speaking mouse. Florida has traded in make-believe because the 1770s when the botanist William Bartram explored the St. Johns nation and rhapsodized Florida’s chilly, clear springs as “the blue ether of one other world.” Within the late nineteenth century, the industrialist Henry Flagler ginned up a luxury-tourism enterprise by constructing motels that regarded just like the Alhambra palace or the Villa d’Este.
Regardless of entrepreneurs’ greatest efforts at Disneyfication, although, Florida is an precise place, with precise folks. Our pure ecosystem can deal with wind and flood, however our constructed setting can not. In some unspecified time in the future, everybody—the Chambers of Commerce, the development foyer, Massive Agriculture, Floridians outdated and new—must acknowledge that our state is in deep peril. The seas are rising an inch each three years. It’s raining extra, flooding extra, and staying hotter for longer, protecting the water heat, fueling larger, badder storms.
Hurricane Ian must put an finish to local weather denialism. But it surely received’t, though 1000’s will lose their homes and companies, and value insurers tens of billions of {dollars}. Solely about 20 p.c of residents in Ian’s path have protection for flooding. Some insurers will now not write insurance policies in Florida. Why take a threat on waterfront property in a state identified for devastating hurricanes? The governor known as the legislature right into a particular session this previous Could, however the measures handed to assist Floridians get reasonably priced insurance policies have but to be applied. Many victims of Ian must depend on FEMA and the kindness of strangers.
Few of Florida’s elected leaders wish to speak about local weather change, a lot much less do something about it. Senator Marco Rubio permits that the local weather is altering, however says that perhaps it’s not brought on by human exercise, perhaps we have to examine it some extra, perhaps let the personal sector cope with it. Senator Rick Scott refused to utter the phrase local weather change throughout the eight years he was governor (besides to name it into query), and he let or not it’s identified that no state worker ought to both. Regardless of points akin to sunny-day flooding in Miami or the saltwater incursions that compelled town of Hallandale Seaside to shut six of its eight municipal wells, he would shrug off climate-change questions with “I’m not a scientist.”
When Ron DeSantis was elected governor in 2018, he at first appeared to take the local weather disaster significantly. He appointed a “chief resilience officer” and created a job power to fight the poisonous algae. But it surely quickly grew to become clear that DeSantis regards local weather change as primarily a political downside reasonably than an environmental one. He’s made Everglades restoration a precedence, maybe impressed by polls displaying that it’s additionally a precedence for many Floridians, however he refuses to deal with the causes of local weather change, which he refers to as “left-wing stuff.” In June, he banned state funding in firms that use sustainability rankings. I discover it exhausting to see how combating a tradition struggle helps us survive the following monster storm.
Florida’s restoration from Ian will likely be gradual. The injury will take months, perhaps years, to repair. Some folks nonetheless have blue tarps on their roofs from Hurricane Michael, almost 4 years in the past. I can look out my window and see the underside half of a pine tree that snapped like a pencil within the excessive winds 4 years in the past. However the horror will finally recede within the thoughts, the best way concern of the pandemic has receded. Individuals will nonetheless come to Florida to stay on the coast. They assume they’ll be the fortunate ones.
Ron DeSantis likes to name Florida “the freest state in America.” Right here we’re free to refuse life-saving vaccines, simply as we’re free to insist that local weather change is faux and assume we will go on constructing on the gorgeous coasts, subsequent to the gorgeous sea, whilst the gorgeous sand washes away beneath our toes and the tide rises sooner than we will outrun it.
There’s good news at the pump as the average price for gas in Florida went down last week after a brief uptick.
The state average rose 2 cents early in the week and then dropped 10 cents in the past four days, according to AAA..
Sunday’s state average was $3.11 per gallon. That’s the lowest daily average price in two weeks.
Drop in oil prices leads to good news at the pump
“The recent drop in crude oil prices now appear to be impacting prices at the pump,” AAA spokesman Mark Jenkins said in a statement. “The state average could drift back down near the $3 per gallon threshold this week.”
The price for U.S. crude oil plummeted by more than $7 a barrel during the past two weeks, according to AAA.
Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, said nearly every state has seen prices fall.
“While I do expect gas prices to continue trending lower, any abrupt change in the current tariff situation could eventually bring the decline to a halt. For now, the good news is that gas prices typically reach their yearly peak around April 10, so we may have already witnessed ‘peak pain’ at the pump for 2025,” he said in an online statement.
De Haan said as refiners near the end of seasonal maintenance and supply begins to rise, “it’s increasingly likely that gas prices have already hit their high for the year.”
South Florida pump prices
In Miami-Dade, drivers were looking at an average of $3.04 a gallon on Monday, that’s down 7 cents from a week. In Broward, the average was $3.06, compared to $3.17 a week ago.
West Palm Beach and Naples were the most expensive places in the state for gas, with averages over $3.20 a gallon. Conversely, Panama City and Pensacola were the cheapest areas for gas, it averaged around $2.85 a gallon.
President Trump walked into Kaseya Center in Miami, Florida, for UFC 314 fight as Kid Rock’s ‘American Bad Ass’ was playing.
President Trump makes entrance at UFC314 in Miami, greets Joe Rogan
President Trump made his entrance for UFC 314 alongside UFC CEO Dana White in Miami and greeted Joe Rogan and other notables cageside.
- Other guests near Donald Trump’s VIP seats? Elon Musk, RFK Jr., his wife, actress Cheryl Hines, Kash Patel, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Byron Donalds.
- Kai Madison Trump is the eldest child of Donald Trump Jr. and Vanessa Trump. She plays golf at the Benjamin School in Florida.
- Elon Musk and his son, Little X, flew to Palm Beach, Florida, on board Air Force One with Trump a day before the UFC 314 fight in Miami.
The Super Bowl. The Daytona 500. NCAA wrestling championship finals. LIV Golf Tournament. Now UFC. President Donald Trump has made high-profile sporting events part of his legacy during his second administration.
At times, members of his inner circle, including the Trump family, accompanied Donald Trump to these big events. Below is information about the games, matches or competitions he attended and who sat in the VIP box with the commander-in-chief.
Did Trump attend UFC MMA fight in Miami, Florida?
At the UFC 314 fight Saturday, April 12, at the Kaseya Center in Miami, Florida, Trump and three of his grandchildren, walked alongside UFC CEO Dana White for their big entrance into the arena. Kai Madison Trump, Donald Trump III and Spencer Trump, children of Donald Trump Jr. and ex-wife Vanessa Trump, walked out beside the president as part of his entourage. Kid Rock’s “American Bad Ass” was playing.
After the fight, Trump introduced Kai Trump to a group of reporters as “the fake news” aboard Air Force One on the way back to Palm Beach, Florida, and invited them to ask her questions.
Kai Trump will graduate from the Benjamin School in 2026, where she currently plays golf with Charlie Woods, son of golf legend Tiger Woods. Sam Alexis Woods, older sister of Charlie Woods and daughter of Tiger Woods and ex-wife Elin Nordegren, also attends the Benjamin School with Kai Trump. Last month, Tiger Woods announced his relationship via Instagram (or “Instagram official”) with Vanessa Trump, mother of Kai Madison Trump, Donald Trump III, Tristan Trump, Spencer Trump and Chloe Trump.
Was First Lady Melania Trump at UFC fight in Miami, Florida, with Donald Trump?
No, First Lady Melania Trump did not attend the UFC 314 fight in Miami, Florida, on Saturday, April 12.
She also did not attend the 2025 LIV Golf Tournament festivities or activities the weekend of April 4, 2025, at any of her husband’s clubs, Trump National Doral Golf Club in Miami, Florida, Trump International Palm Beach Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, or Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter, Florida.
Melania Trump also did not attend the NCAA Wrestling Championship final in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the 67th annual Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida, Super Bowl LIX (aka Super Bowl 59 or Super Bowl 2025) in New Orleans, Louisiana, with her husband, President Donald Trump.
Though Donald Trump has visited Florida 10 times since his second term started Jan. 20, 2025, Melania Trump has not accompanied him on Air Force One during any of those trips home, though a few special guests have such as Elon Musk and his son Little X, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and her father, Viktor Knavs.
Though his father and three of his children were at the Kaseya Center in Miami, Florida, for the UFC 314 fight on April 12, 2025, Donald Trump Jr. did not attend, nor did his girlfriend, model and socialite Bettina Anderson.
Donald Trump Jr., eldest son of Donald Trump and the late Ivana Trump, attended LIV Golf Tournament festivities the weekend of April 4, 2025, and shared coverage from his VIP access to his Instagram followers.
Anderson, posted LIV Golf activity to her Instagram followers, too.
Donald Trump Jr. and Anderson did not attend the NCAA Wrestling Championship in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, or the 2025 Daytona 500 in Daytona Beach, Florida. The pair did attend Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 9, 2025, the day they became “Instagram official.”
The couple has attended other high-profile events such as Donald and Melania Trump’s New Year’s Eve 2024 party at Mar-a-Lago and Inauguration Day festivities in Washington, D.C.
Was Ivanka Trump at UFC 314 fight in Miami, Florida?
Donald Trump’s oldest daughter, Ivanka Trump, did not attend the UFC 314 fight in Miami, Florida, on April 12, 2025, nor did she attend the 2025 LIV Golf Tournament at Trump National Golf Club in Miami, Florida, or the 2025 Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida.
Ivanka Trump did attend Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans and stood next to her father in the VIP box, posting about her trip via Instagram Story and her Instagram feed. She gave her 8.2 million followers a peek of her window-seat view (with a prompt to turn the sound up) aboard Air Force One. A former senior adviser to Donald Trump during his first term in office, from 2017 to 2021, Ivanka Trump, who’s married to Jared Kushner, brought their youngest son, Theodore James Kushner, to the Super Bowl.
Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner are parents to three children, Arabella Rose Kushner, Joseph Frederick Kushner and Theodore James Kushner.
Was Eric Trump at UFC 314 fight in Miami, Florida?
Eric Trump, youngest child of Donald Trump and the late Ivana Trump, did not attend the UFC 314 fight in Miami, Florida, on April 12, 2025. Of all of his children, Eric Trump has accompanied his father to most of the high-profile sporting events in this story.
For example, Eric Trump did play golf the weekend before the UFC fight alongside the pros in the LIV Golf Pro-Am Tournament at Trump National Doral Golf Club in Miami, Florida, teaming up with Gov. Ron DeSantis. Florida’s first lady Casey DeSantis and their son, Mason DeSantis, attended LIV Golf events. Fox News host Lara Trump, wife of Eric Trump, posted photos of the couple and their children at LIV Golf festivities. Lara and Eric Trump also sported matching lavender purple outfits for LIV Golf at Trump National Doral Golf Club, according to her Instagram feed: “(Two purple heart emojis) We didn’t even plan it!”
Eric Trump also attended the 67th annual Daytona 500 in Daytona Beach, Florida. With him were his wife, Lara Trump, former chair of the Republican National Convention, and their two children, Luke Trump and Carolina Trump. Carolina stood on the racetrack with her famous grandfather.
Eric and Lara Trump also attended Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans on Feb. 9, 2025, along with his father, his sister Ivanka Trump and her son Theo Kushner, and brother Donald Trump Jr. with three of his children and girlfriend Bettina Anderson.
Was Tiffany Trump at UFC 314 fight in Miami, Florida?
Tiffany Trump, daughter of Donald Trump and model Marla Maples, did not attend the UFC 314 fight at the Kaseya Center in Miami, Florida, on April 12, 2025.
She also did not attend any 2025 LIV Golf Tournament activities or festivities at Trump National Doral Golf Club in Miami the weekend of April 4, 2025, the NCAA Wrestling Championship final in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on March 2025, the Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida, on Feb. 16, 2025, or Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans, Louisiana, on Feb. 9, 2025.
Tiffany Trump and her husband, businessman Michael Boulos, are expecting their first child. The couple’s last public appearance at a Trump family event was during Donald Trump’s primetime address to Congress on March 4, 2025. Before that, it was on Inauguration Day, when her father was sworn in as the 47th president of the U.S.
Was Barron Trump at UFC fight in Miami, Florida?
Barron Trump, sole child of Donald and Melania Trump, did not attend the UFC 314 fight in Miami, Florida, on April 12, 2025.
He also was not at any of the golf clubs that bear his last name during the 2024 LIV Golf Tournament weekend in Florida (Trump National Golf Club in Miami, Trump National Doral Golf Club or Trump National Golf Club in West Palm Beach).
The youngest son of Donald Trump also did not travel to Caesars Superdome stadium in New Orleans for Super Bowl LIX on Sunday, Feb. 9, 2025, or to Daytona Beach, Florida, Feb. 14, 2025, for the 2025 Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway, or to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for the NCAA Wrestling Championship final in March 2025. The 19-year-old, 6-foot-9-inch-tall Barron Trump, a freshman at New York University’s Stern School of Business, last made a public appearance when his father was sworn in at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., for Inauguration Day (Jan. 20, 2025).
Who is Kai Madison Trump? Where does Kai Trump go to school? Where will Kai Trump go to college?
Kai Madison Trump, Donald Trump’s oldest grandchild, is the daughter of Donald Trump Jr. and Vanessa Trump. She’s the oldest of five children and a year younger than her uncle, Barron Trump (Donald Trump Jr.’s half-brother).
She was born and mostly raised in New York, but now lives in Jupiter, Florida, with her mom and siblings: Donald Trump III, Tristan Milos Trump, Spencer Trump and Chloe Sophia Trump.
Kai Trump attends high school at The Benjamin School in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, and will graduate in spring 2026. In fall 2024, Kai Trump had committed early to stay in Florida and play golf at the University of Miami after high school graduation.
During the Republican National Convention in July 2024, Donald Trump’s oldest granddaughter, Kai Madison Trump, became the first of his grandchildren to talk about what it’s like to have one of the most famous people in the world as a grandfather.
In her speech, Kai Trump mostly focused on the side of Trump that no one sees, calling him a “normal grandpa.”
Who was with Trump at UFC 314 in Miami, Florida?
At the UFC 314 fight at the Kaseya Center in Miami, Florida, here’s who sat with President Donald Trump in the VIP seats:
- Elon Musk, SpaceX and Tesla CEO who leads the Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE
- X Æ A-12 Musk or “Little X” Musk, son of Elon Musk and singer Grimes
- Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Health and Human Services Secretary
- actress Cheryl Hines (“Curb Your Enthusiasm,” “A Bad Moms Christmas”), wife of RFK Jr. In a viral video, Trump was seen “ignoring” a handshake from Hines when greeting RFK.
- FBI Director Kash Patel
- Texas Sen. Ted Cruz
- Secretary of State Marco Rubio
- Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard
- Florida congressman Byron Donalds
Florida
Sen. Bernie Sanders delivers ranting speech at Coachella festival as Trump thrills UFC crowd in Florida
While President Trump thrilled crowds in Miami — Senator Bernie Sanders found a more left-leaning audience at Coachella Saturday where the socialist firebrand took the stage to rant about his pet causes.
The independent Vermont senator was the surprise opening act for singer-songwriter Clairo, who Sanders thanked for “allowing him” to speak to the captive audience ahead of her much-anticipated performance — a speech he used to rail against the 1%, President Trump, and the war in Gaza.
“This country faces some very difficult challenges and the future of what happens to America is dependent on your generation,” Sanders said at the opening of his remarks to the crowd of partygoers at the event in Indio, Calif.
“We need you to stand up to fight for justice. To fight for economic justice. Social justice. And racial justice,” the Vermont senator pontificated to an enthusiastic crowd.
While Trump got a thunderous reaction from the crowd in Miami at the UFC 314 event, his name didn’t get a warm welcome when Sanders referenced him before the music fans in blue California.
“Now we got a president of the United States,” Sanders started before being interrupted by a loud chorus of boos, to which he replied, “I agree.”
“He thinks that climate change is a hoax. He is dangerously wrong. And you and I are going to have to stand up to the fossil fuel industry and tell them to stop destroying this planet,” Sanders raged with the approval of Coachella revelers.
Sanders also harped on issues such as women’s rights, raged against the “billionaire class,” and harped on the inadequacies of the American healthcare industry.
“We need you to stand up to insurance companies and the drug companies and understand that healthcare is a human right,” Sanders roused.
The 83-year-old revealed in the speech that he is a major fan of Gen-Z musician Clairo, who he characterized as a proper liberal advocate.
“I’m here because Clairo has used her prominence to fight for women’s rights, to try and end the terrible brutal war in Gaza, where thousands of women and children are being killed. So I want to thank Clairo for not only being a great band, but for the great work she is doing,” Sanders said before introducing the musical set.
Sanders is currently on a speaking tour entitled “Fighting Oligarchy: Where We Go from Here,” which drew the senator massive crowds in Tempe, AZ., Denver, CO., and Los Angeles, Calif., in the last three days.
Slight raises, budget cuts proposed in NC Senate state spending plan
North Dakota Senate passes bill to standardize election laws, remove power from localities
Former Cleveland Police officer cited in Ohio City crash that prompted 2 moms to investigate
OU Softball: Oklahoma Wastes Late Chances, Falls to Alabama in Extra Innings
Redshirt-freshman cornerback Ify Obidegwu has been a ‘freak’ this spring for Oregon
-
Politics1 week agoDems slam Elon Musk, Melania Trump with xenophobic attacks: ‘Go back to South Africa!’
-
News1 week ago‘White Lotus’ Takes On Touchy Subjects. The Southern Accent Is One of Them.
-
News1 week agoFiring of National Security Agency Chief Rattles Lawmakers
-
News1 week ago
Trump goes all in with bet that the heavy price of tariffs will pay off for Americans
-
Politics1 week agoUS revokes all South Sudan visas, bars future issuance until deportees accepted
-
News1 week agoAnti-Trump Protests Get Underway Across the Country
-
Politics1 week agoH2Go: How experts, industry leaders say US hydrogen is fuel for the future of agriculture, energy, security
-
News1 week agoAmericans Wrestle With How Trump’s Tariffs May Change Shopping Lists