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Florida’s News in 90: Trump in court, extreme weather and cruise passengers assault
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Trump in Fort Pierce live updates: Crowd awaits his exit from courthouse; could be hours
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2 women on cruise out of Florida reported being drugged, raped in Bahamas. What we know
Rob Landers is a veteran multimedia journalist for the USA Today Network of Florida. Contact Landers at 321-242-3627 or rlanders@gannett.com. Instagram: @ByRobLanders Youtube: @florida_today
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FDA upgrades recall severity of salmon sold at Florida Costcos
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. â The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has upgraded a recall over smoked salmon sold at Costco locations in Florida.
It could be contaminated with listeria, according to the department.
The recall for Kirkland Signature Smoked Salmon was first issued in October 2024 for possible contamination.
The upgrade is now Class 1, and the FDA’s website says the use of a recalled product in that category âwill cause serious adverse health consequences or death.â
The product hasn’t been available for months, but customers who bought it previously and put it in their freezer are urged to not use it.
No illnesses have been reported.
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South Florida weather for Monday 1/27/25 11PM
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Florida Republicans deliver humiliating rebuke to DeSantisâs immigration plan
Republicans in the Florida legislature on Monday delivered a humiliating rebuke to Ron DeSantis by shutting down the governorâs planned crackdown on immigration in the state and moving ahead with their own proposals.
Lawmakers in the Florida House and Senate abruptly âgaveled outâ a special legislative session that DeSantis had called to seek their approval for measures he drew up in support of Donald Trumpâs hardline immigration agenda.
They included the appointment of a new state âimmigration officerâ who would be appointed by the governor to liaise with the White House, and report directly to him.
Republican Senate president Ben Albritton accused DeSantis of trying to usurp the legislatureâs authority to write laws, and said the chambers would pursue their own immigration bill following the âspirit and letterâ of the presidentâs immigration policies without the governorâs input.
âPresident Trump is clearly leading from the Oval Office and has everything under control. Sometimes leadership is not about being out in front. Itâs about following the leaders you trust, and I trust President Trump,â Albritton said.
Trump previously praised DeSantis for calling the session in a post on Truth Social, but was on his golf course in Miami on Monday morning and had no immediate comment about the dayâs developments.
The Miami Herald said the Republican lawmakersâ action amounted to a âkneecappingâ for DeSantis, who previously commanded their absolute loyalty until his failed challenge to Trump for the partyâs 2024 presidential nomination.
Daniel Perez, the Republican House speaker, had previously said that DeSantisâs early summoning of lawmakers to Tallahassee, and demands they approve his proposals ahead of the regular 60-day legislative session that begins next month, was âoverreachâ.
âWe have the opportunity to move both expeditiously and thoughtfully. We do not have to choose between right now and getting it right,â he said on Monday.
Both Florida chambers were planning to come back into session on Monday afternoon to begin debating legislation expected to be introduced by Republican state senator Joe Gruters, who has been a vocal critic of DeSantis in the past.
Under his 75-page bill, there would still be a state immigration officer, but he would report to the legislature, and not to the governor. One name floated to fill the role is Wilton Simpson, the stateâs agriculture commissioner, who has been tipped as a possible successor as governor in 2028, and who has had what observers describe as an âicyâ relationship with DeSantis.
Among other measures, DeSantis had wanted to make it a state crime for undocumented migrants to enter Florida; sought to pressure local authorities and law enforcement to join in deportation purges; and end in-state university tuition rates for non-citizens.
He also wanted another expansion of his much-maligned unauthorized alien transport program (UATP), an âact of calculated deceptionâ according to critics in which migrants were tricked onto buses and planes with false promises of accommodation and jobs, then dumped in Democratic states.
Immigration advocates criticized the position of both DeSantis and the Florida legislature on Monday.
âUnidosUS is deeply concerned by the stateâs focus on immigration policies designed to posture for national political ambitions rather than address the urgent needs of Floridians,â the groupâs Florida director Jared Nordlund said in a statement.
â[They] serve primarily as a platform for advancing extreme immigration enforcement reminiscent of the Trump administrationâs policiesââ rather than being laser-focused on lowering the cost of living or increasing wages. DeSantis is choosing to ignore the economic crises he has created and is instead using the state as a testing ground for divisive immigration measures to bolster his political image.â
Over the weekend, a number of raids by federal immigration authorities took place in south Florida, with more than 950 arrested on Sunday, the Miami New Times reported.
In a further act of independence Monday, the Florida legislature voted almost unanimously to override DeSantisâs veto last year of large chunks of the stateâs budget, the first such challenge to his financial authority since he took office in 2019. Among DeSantisâs cuts that angered both Democrats and Republicans was the near-wholesale stripping of the stateâs arts budget.
In condemning the governorâs veto on Monday, Perez noted that over those six years, the legislature had increased funding for the executive office of the governor by 70%.
âThis veto was at best a misunderstanding of the importance of the appropriation, or, at worst, an attempt to threaten the independence of our separate branch of government. Whatever the rationale, this Special Session represents the first opportunity to correct this veto,â Perez said, reported by Politico.
Nikki Fried, the chair of the Florida Democratic party, said in a post on Twitter/X that the abrupt ending of the session and budget rebuke had delivered âa small dose of democracyâ.
âThe Florida legislature just overrode Ron DeSantisâs veto of millions of dollars from the leg operating budget and gave him the middle finger for his BS special session call,â she wrote.
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