Florida
What is Project 2025, and what does it mean for Florida?
Former President Donald Trump wants to distance himself from Project 2025, the much-discussed conservative policy platform that has divided Republicans and enraged Democrats.
The plan is a blueprint for a hoped-for Republican presidency in 2025. Organized by conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation and dozens of other conservative organizations, Project 2025 calls for an overhaul of the executive branch and a dramatic expansion of presidential power.
Trump says he knows little of the project, though many of his allies contributed. The Biden campaign, meanwhile, has worked to tie Trump to the conservative plan as it tries to shift attention away from growing concerns over the leader’s age.
Here’s what to know about the proposal.
What is Project 2025?
Project 2025 is a roadmap for the GOP’s transition to the next Republican president. It includes a 900-page policy agenda, a roster of personnel who could serve in the administration, training tools and a playbook for the first 180 days in office.
The Heritage Foundation, which led the effort, has shaped Republican policies and personnel since the 1980s. More than 100 conservative organizations contributed to the new proposal, Heritage said.
Kevin D. Roberts, the group’s president, said he thinks the country is becoming more conservative.
“We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be,” Roberts said in July on Real America’s Voice, a right-wing cable channel. The “radical left” are “losing their minds daily … because our side is winning,” he said.
Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, said attempts to tie him to Project 2025 are “pure disinformation.”
“I know nothing about Project 2025,” Trump said in a Truth Social post last week. “I have not seen it, have no idea who is in charge of it.”
But dozens of people in Trump’s orbit are involved.
Top advisers during his first term in the White House, including six Cabinet secretaries and his first deputy chief of staff, worked on the policy document. Russell T. Vought, Trump’s former budget director and the policy director for the Republican National Convention, authored a section on executive orders.
What does Project 2025 propose?
Project 2025 claims four broad goals: Restore family as the centerpiece of American life, dismantle the administrative state, defend the country against global threats and “secure our God-given individual rights to live freely.”
The plan rejects abortion as health care and decries “woke extremism” in government agencies, corporations and schools. It recommends restructuring the U.S. tax code, deploying the military along the U.S.-Mexico border and banning pornography.
Project 2025 also seeks to disband federal agencies like the Commerce and Education departments and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, which it dubs “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry.”
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In addition to hot-button policy proposals, Project 2025 recommends that the entire executive branch, including the Department of Justice, fall under direct control of the president.
Are there Florida-specific proposals?
The 900-page agenda doesn’t lay out federal proposals that would specifically target Florida. Instead, in numerous instances, it proposes the opposite: Florida laws that have passed that the authors want to see enacted federally.
For example, Project 2025 recommends national legislation modeled after Florida’s Parents’ Bill of Rights, which was used during the 2021 fight over mask mandates in schools. Project 2025 also proposes a “pro-fatherhood messaging campaign” similar to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ 2022 fatherhood bill, which includes education and mentorship programs to encourage involved fatherhood in Florida.
The Sunshine State is mentioned by name about a dozen times in the document.
What do Florida politicians think?
Florida Democrats say Project 2025 is a dangerous and oppressive measure.
“The most concerning part is this far-right neo-fascist lens of how government should work,” said Rep. Maxwell Frost, an Orlando-area Democrat. “What they want to do is tear apart the federal government.”
To Democrats like Frost, the conservative vision for governing is aimed at consolidating power. If crucial parts of the government are privatized, they leave the realm of public accountability, Frost said.
That idea is in line with the Biden campaign. Biden on Thursday posted an ad on X that said Project 2025 would “dismantle democracy as we know it.”
The Democratic National Committee paid for several billboards across South Florida that denounced Project 2025 ahead of a Trump rally in Doral on Tuesday. Towering above I-95 and the Palmetto Expressway, the signs declared the plan “Donald Trump’s blueprint for revenge and retribution.”
“Project 2025 is Republican’s diabolical blueprint to destroy everything we’ve fought for: healthcare, environmental protections—EVERYTHING,” said U.S. Rep. Federica Wilson, a Miami-area Democrat, in a post on X Wednesday. “WE CANNOT ALLOW this heinous agenda to become reality!”
Evan Power, chairperson of the Republican Party of Florida, said the party is “focused on endorsing the Republican Party platform at our convention in Milwaukee and President Trump’s agenda that will ensure a safer and prosperous future for our country.”
The Republican National Committee adopted a new policy platform ahead of the convention next week. It includes some overlap with Project 2025. For example, both platforms call for more aggressive deportation of people living in the country illegally.
U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, reportedly on Trump’s vice president shortlist, distanced the candidate from Project 2025 in an interview on CNN earlier this week.
“Think tanks do think tank stuff. They come up with ideas, they say things,” Rubio said. “But our candidate for president is Donald Trump.”
Times staff writer Kirby Wilson contributed to this report.
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tbt/4DLXMJBS6JDU3N75Q6AVJCW4H4.jpeg?w=400&resize=400,240&ssl=1 "Rubio, Scott call fast-tracking of Florida state park golf course plan ‘ridiculous’")
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tbt/4DLXMJBS6JDU3N75Q6AVJCW4H4.jpeg?w=80&resize=80,80&ssl=1 "Rubio, Scott call fast-tracking of Florida state park golf course plan ‘ridiculous’")
A 40-year-old man accused of using an AR-style rifle to threaten another man in a Wawa parking lot was arrested, according to a recently-obtained affidavit.
Jeremy Vigil, of the 700 block of Southwest Estate Avenue in Port St. Lucie, was arrested June 15 on aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and battery charges after the incident at a Wawa at Southwest Becker Road and Southwest Port St. Lucie Boulevard.
A man about 10 p.m. June 15 told Port St. Lucie police that he and Vigil completed a job together the weekend before, and Vigil was angry about payment.
The man said Vigil contacted him, telling him to meet with his money. He arrived at Wawa and met Vigil, with their vehicles positioned window to window.
He described Vigil as “extremely angry,” and accused Vigil of pointing an AR-style rifle out of his truck at him.
“I’m a gangster (expletive),” Vigil is quoted as saying. “I’ll (expletive) kill you.”
The man said Vigil’s son was in the truck, and tried to get the rifle away from his father.
The man reportedly tried to record the encounter on his phone but said Vigil knocked the phone from his hand.
The man said he drove off and circled around to get his phone from the ground near the air pumps.
Ultimately, he said Vigil approached again without the rifle. Vigil reportedly “prevented him from leaving by chest-bumping (the man’s) vehicle.”
Vigil and the man got in a physical altercation near the gas pumps. Vigil then is accused of chasing the man into Wawa and yelling before leaving the scene.
Police viewed video surveillance of the incident.
Police reported they couldn’t definitively see a firearm in the video, noting the quality of the footage and distance away made it difficult.
The store manager told investigators it was the third incident involving Vigil at the location.
Police went to Vigil’s home, and he finally came outside after officers used a public address system and made a number of phone calls.
Vigil allowed officers to search his home, and they reported finding an AR-style rifle inside a safe.
Vigil initially denied the allegations.
Parts of the affidavit that appear to contain some of Vigil’s statements with police were redacted.
Vigil was taken to the St. Lucie County Jail, but it couldn’t immediately be determined June 22 whether he’d been released on bond. Attempts to reach the booking desk via phone were unsuccessful.
Will Greenlee is a breaking news reporter for TCPalm. Follow Will on X @OffTheBeatTweet or reach him by phone at 772-267-7926. E-mail him at will.greenlee@tcpalm.com.
Cape Coral has one. So do Fort Myers, Bonita Springs and Naples.
And now it’s Fort Myers Beach’s turn to get its very own food truck park.
Access 26 Family Food Truck Park is expected to open early next year at 2500 Estero Blvd. and Beach Access 26. On June 8, Stevens Construction broke ground on the project, which will highlight five yet-to-be-announced food trucks, all with unique menus.
And there’s more. A bar with covered seating, Manny’s Scoops ice cream and retail area will be featured in a two-story, 3,000 square-foot structure. Storage, office space, restrooms, coolers, a freezer and a dumbwaiter system for beer kegs and supplies will take up the second floor.
A 569-square-foot comfort center with restrooms, storage and three outdoor showers is also planned, along with a curbside table rail, artificial turf play area, three shade canvas structures, guest parking lot and beach access.
And it’s designed with storms and hurricanes in mind — the building’s generator and mechanical equipment will be above flood level, metal flood panels and waterproof walls will help with storm surge and flooding, and the foundation’s design lets water flow through more easily.
Southwest Florida’s expanding food truck scene
Access 26 is the latest food truck park to join Southwest Florida’s growing eatertainment scene. Slipaway Food Truck Park & Marina opened a year ago on July 4 with food trucks, a large covered central bar, live music daily and more in Cape Coral.
Bay Street Yard first brought its vibrant food and entertainment concept to downtown Fort Myers in May 2024, while Backyard Social debuted its food trucks and family-fun daytime and 21-and-up nightlife format in south Fort Myers in October 2023.
Bonita Springs welcomed Rooftop at Riverside’s two-story, two-bar (one on the rooftop) open-air venue with food trucks in January 2024.
Naples’ Celebration Park — a waterfront destination with gourmet food trucks, bar and live music — led the way, opening in November 2018.
Robyn George is a food and dining reporter for The News-Press. Connect at rhgeorge@fortmyer.gannett.com
Please support local community journalism and stay informed about Southwest Florida news by subscribing to The News-Press and Naples Daily News; download the free News-Press or Naples Daily News app, and sign up for daily briefing email newsletter, food & dining and growth & development newsletters here and here.
NASA’s next great observatory, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, arrived at the Kennedy Space Center aboard the agency’s massive Pegasus barge late Sunday morning.
The spacecraft was nestled inside its protective case, which NASA nicknamed the “Chariot” in keeping with the “Roman” theme. That said, telescope is named not for the ancient empire, but instead for NASA’s first Chief of Astronomy, Nancy Grace Roman.
“She was a key person in our exploration of space. She understood that in order to better understand the universe, you have to go in space,” said Lucas Paganini, the program executive for Roman. “That’s why she’s called the ‘Mother of Hubble’ because she made Hubble possible.”
The 43-foot-tall observatory disembarked from the barge shortly after 7 p.m. EDT (2300 UTC), following a stream of thunderstorms that delayed its departure by about an hour. The spacecraft will travel to the south end of the KSC campus to a building called the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility.
There it will undergo a roughly 70-day prelaunch campaign involving checkouts, fueling, and finally the encapsulation inside the payload fairing of a Falcon Heavy rocket. The observatory is set to launch from Launch Complex 39A no earlier than August 30, moved up from the original September launch date.
“A lot of credit to this great team. They’ve been able to accommodate schedules, to accelerate to be able to launch earlier,” Paganini said. “There’s a lot of things going on at the Cape and of course the team has been amazing.”
This was the second trip to Florida for the Pegasus barge this year after it dropped off the propellant tank section of the core stage for the Artemis 3 Space Launch System rocket back in late April. While the spacecraft arrived safely, Neil Patel, the Roman mechanical engineer who traveled with the observatory, said it wasn’t entirely smooth sailing after leaving from Massachusetts.
“We do have a tight temperature tolerance on the observatory. We need to stay below 74 degrees. We have two cooling units: we had a primary and a redundant unit and they just weren’t getting the job done down here, so we had to make a stop, add additional rental units,” Patel said.
“Again, it was an amazing effort to have a team come down on an emergency basis. Basically, a MacGyver crew came in and we added additional units and those units did maintain the temperature quite well.”
Roman is designed to operate near a fixed point in space called Lagrange Point 2, about 1.5 million km away from the Earth on the side opposite the Sun. It’s designed to operate there for a minimum of five years, but Paganini said with the propellant onboard, it will likely last for 10 years or more.
The telescope is+ equipped with a 300 megapixel camera called the Wide Field Instrument, which features 18 detectors. It was developed by BAE Systems (formerly Ball Aerospace).
“It’s going to allow us to observe at least 100 times wider field of view than what we can do with Hubble. Same resolution, but a wider area, 1000 times faster,” Paganini said. “So what takes Roman a year to observe, it would take Hubble thousands of years. So it’s definitely much more efficient.”
The observatory also features a chronograph instrument, developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which will allow Roman to observe the faint light of exoplanets near their stars.
Paganini said Roman will also help scientists better understand dark matter and dark energy, the combination of which he calls the “dark universe”.
“100 years ago, we discovered that the universe was expanding. 25 years ago, we discovered that it was expanding at an accelerated pace and that’s what led to a Nobel Prize,” Paganini said. “What we don’t quite know yet is if that acceleration is changing in ways. We don’t know if it’s actually dark energy, what is producing it, or is it simply that we don’t understand gravity at all.
“So eventually, we’ll see if the laws of physics that we use these days are the right ones for what we are observing. But at the end is, we’re trying to understand a very human question, which is where do we come from and where are wea heading in this universe that is our neighborhood?”
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