Kate Payne | Associated Press/Report for America

Jennifer Jenkins made headlines when she unseated Tina Descovich on the Brevard County School Board in 2020 in a southeast Florida county that President Donald Trump had carried by nearly 20 points.

A Florida appeals court on Wednesday declared unconstitutional a state law banning the open carrying of firearms, calling the law incompatible with the Second Amendment right to bear arms.

A video showing officers punching and dragging William McNeil from his car during a stop in February went viral online this summer and sparked nationwide outrage. The lawsuit filed in federal court on Wednesday says deputies with the Jacksonville Sheriff's office violated McNeil's civil rights when they pulled him from his car and beat him.

Across the country, tens of thousands of college students without legal status are losing access to in-state tuition as part of an immigration crackdown carried out by President Donald Trump and his allies.

Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis' administration is preparing to open a second immigration detention facility at a state prison in north Florida, as a federal judge decides the fate of the state's holding center for immigrants at an isolated airstrip in the Florida Everglades dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz."

A video showing officers punching and dragging William McNeil from his car sparked nationwide outrage, but an investigative report released by the State Attorney's Office for the area says the actions of Officer D. Bowers of the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office did not constitute a crime.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has tapped Republican state Sen. Jay Collins to be his lieutenant governor. It’s a closely watched appointment by the two-term governor, who can’t run for reelection in 2026. The seat has been vacant since February, when then-lieutenant governor Jeanette Nuñez was appointed to lead one of the state’s public universities.

Two more people were arrested and charged under the law in July, according to a report Florida's attorney general is required to file as punishment for defying the judge's ruling. The state attorney's office dismissed the illegal entry charges against the men, according to the court filing.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' administration is apparently preparing to build a second immigration detention center, awarding at least one contract for what's labeled in state records as the "North Detention Facility."

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' administration has already signed at least $245 million in state contracts to set up and run the new immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades. That's according to a public database that tracks state spending.

The Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida is seeking to join a federal lawsuit aimed at halting the construction of a new immigration detention facility in the Everglades, which tribal members consider their sacred ancestral homelands.

Another former Republican lawmaker and ally of Gov. Ron DeSantis is officially taking the helm of one of Florida’s public universities. Manny Diaz, who DeSantis previously appointed to be his state commissioner of education, started his first day on the job Monday as the interim president of the University of West Florida in Pensacola.