On Tuesday, prosecutors asked the jury to send the girl's killer back to Florida's Death Row.

Prosecutor Abbe Rifkin told the jury that Quatisha Maycock, known as "Candy," was excited to start kindergarten, showing them a photo of her smiling. 

About a month after school started, Harrel Braddy took Quatisha to a remote part of Alligator Alley, the stretch of I-75 cutting through Florida's Everglades, where he knew she would vanish.

After Braddy was sentenced to death in 2007, his sentence was overturned in 2017 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Florida's death penalty law unconstitutional. The Florida Supreme Court ordered new sentencing hearings for several defendants, including Braddy. In this new penalty phase, Braddy could again face the death penalty under Florida's 2023 law, which allows an 8-4 jury vote to recommend death, with the judge making the final decision.

As the trial continued, the courtroom listened in silence to the harrowing details of Quatisha's final hours and the emotional devastation left behind. 

Prosecutors presented evidence painstakingly gathered over the course of decades, including photographs, forensic reports, and testimony from those who responded to the crime scene. Each piece reinforced the gravity of Braddy's actions and the tragic loss of an innocent child.

In her testimony, Shandelle Maycock recounted the long and difficult road to recovery. The physical scars from that night had faded, but the emotional wounds remained raw. 

"Every day I wake up, and I remember what happened to Quatisha," she told the jury, her voice trembling. "There is no justice that can bring her back, but I have to speak for her now, because she cannot."

Over the following days, jurors heard from detectives who had investigated the case, as well as medical experts who described the injuries Quatisha sustained. 

The prosecution argued that Braddy's history of violence, his calculated actions, and his lack of remorse warranted the harshest penalty the law allowed.

The defense, when it was their turn, presented mitigating evidence in an attempt to humanize Braddy. They spoke of his troubled upbringing, mental health struggles, and attempts at rehabilitation while incarcerated. But the prosecution reminded the jury of the pattern of violence that marked Braddy's life, emphasizing that Quatisha's death was not a tragic accident, but the result of deliberate cruelty.

After closing arguments, the jury retired to deliberate Braddy's fate. The weight of their decision was evident: not only were they asked to revisit the horrors of a decades-old crime, but they also carried the responsibility of determining whether Braddy should again face the death penalty.

When the verdict was finally read, the courtroom was tense. For Maycock and those who loved Quatisha, the outcome could never erase the pain of loss, but it offered a measure of accountability. Braddy, who had shown little emotion throughout the trial, remained stoic as the sentence was delivered.

Outside the courthouse, Maycock addressed reporters, holding a framed photo of Quatisha in her arms. "She was my world," she said softly. "This isn't just about one family. It's about protecting other children, about making sure monsters like this are never free again."

For prosecutors and victims' families, the lengthy process was emotionally exhausting but necessary.

As the sun set over Miami yesterday, the memory of Quatisha Maycock lingered—a reminder of a life cut short, and of a mother's resilience in seeking justice for her child.

Reporting contributed by the Miami Herald.

Zephen Xaver, 27, appeared to gulp but otherwise showed no emotion as Circuit Judge Angela Cowden pronounced the sentence at the Highlands County Courthouse in Sebring. After a two-week penalty trial, a jury in June voted 9-3 to recommend that Cowden sentence Xaver to death.

Cowden said the weeks of planning that Xaver performed before the 2019 murders at Sebring's SunTrust bank, the enormity of the crime and the fear the victims felt as they were shot greatly outweighed the two dozen mitigating factors his attorneys had presented, including his history of mental illness, his benign brain tumor and his jailhouse embrace of Christianity.

"May God have mercy on your soul," Cowden told Xaver.

Women ordered to lie on floor

Xaver pleaded guilty last year to five counts of first-degree murder for the slayings of customer Cynthia Watson, 65; bank teller coordinator Marisol Lopez, 55; banker trainee Ana Pinon-Williams, 38; teller Debra Cook, 54; and banker Jessica Montague, 31.

At gunpoint, Xaver ordered the women to lie on the floor and then shot each the head as they begged for mercy.

Kiara Lopez told Xaver and the court that her mother Marisol had welcomed him into the bank with a smile, an act he repaid by murdering her.

"You shattered me into a million pieces," Lopez said. "I will celebrate the day you die, whenever that might be. Let it be known that you will always be a killer, a coward, a nobody and a waste of human life."

Michael Cook, Debra's husband, also called Xaver a coward and told the judge, "I have absolutely no sympathy for him."

Defense attorney seeks to spare his life

Xaver's lead public defender, Jane McNeill, had asked that Cowden spare her client, saying a life sentence would put an end to the case instead of dragging it out for a decade of appeals and possibly a retrial if the sentence is overturned.

"The only way for this matter to be brought to an end so that the families of the victims and this community is able to move forward is a life sentence," McNeill argued. The sentence will be automatically appealed.

Under a new Florida law, death penalty sentences can be rendered by a jury vote of 8-4 rather than a unanimous recommendation. The change was adopted after the 2018 Parkland high school shooter could not be sentenced to death for murdering 17 people despite a 9-3 jury vote. McNeill called the new law unconstitutional.

Xaver moved to Sebring in 2018

Xaver moved to Sebring, a city of about 11,000, in 2018 from near South Bend, Indiana. In 2014, his high school principal contacted police after Xaver told others he was having dreams about hurting his classmates. His mother promised to get him psychological help.

He joined the Army in 2016. A former girlfriend, who met him at a mental hospital where they were patients, told police he said joining the military was a "way to kill people and get away with it." The Army discharged him after three months. In 2017, a Michigan woman reported him after he sent her text messages suggesting he might commit "suicide by cop" or take hostages.

Despite his psychological problems and dismissal from the Army, Florida hired Xaver as a guard trainee in November 2018 at a prison near Sebring. He quit two months later, two weeks before the shootings and the day after he bought his gun.

Hours before the murders, Xaver began a long, intermittent text message conversation with a former girlfriend in Connecticut, telling her "this is the best day of my life" but refusing to say why. Fifteen minutes before the shootings, he texted her, "I'm dying today,"

Then, from the bank parking lot he texted, "I'm taking a few people with me because I've always wanted to kill people so I am going to try it and see how it goes. Watch for me on the news."

15-year-old high school senior Gerbenn Seraphin and his mentor Webber Charles, director of student achievement at Breakthrough Miami, feel most at home walking the streets of Little Haiti.

Though not related, the two are both Haitian and formed a bond the minute they met when Gerbenn was in elementary school.

"I remember in 2nd grade, I met someone by the name of Webber Charles who was the chess coach at the time and he grew up in Little Haiti," said Gerbenn. "I felt like we had a similar bond and in the fifth grade, I mean in elementary school I wasn't doing so well."

A few years later Webber began working at Breakthrough Miami.

Breakthrough uses a student-teaching-students model to make sure bright, under-resourced middle school students have access to excellent high school opportunities, graduate and attend college.

Breakthrough scholars begin the program in the summer before 5th grade and remain in the program until graduation from high school.

Webber knew he had to bring this smart boy in.

"Fortunately for me, Gerbenn listened to me," said Webber. "Gerbenn's father listened to me after much negotiation,  much cajoling  and saying look you want Gerbenn to be in this space , he followed through."

"I remember Webber coming in with a group of other people from this program called Breakthrough Miami," said Gerbenn. "For me, I was just like I'm not doing anything for my summer anyway. I was just gonna chill in my neighborhood. Like, let me go and try to do something productive that's outside my shell."

The program currently serves 1,300 middle and high school students.

The Breakthrough program took Gerbenn beyond the only neighborhood he knew, Little Haiti, and into a teaching program where he quickly soared.

"That's what breakthrough really did for me that the first time I really got to sit in a classroom with different individuals that were a different color, different race than me, and it really taught me a lot," he said.

Now a graduating senior, Gerbenn received a full academic scholarship to the University of Miami where he'll start in fall.

He's also mentoring young kids himself paying it forward thanks to the mentor who helped him.

"While he's mentoring me I'm mentoring these little kids," Gerbenn said. "I don't know the impact I'm really having on these kids and I feel like Webber isn't understanding the impact he's had on me."

"Oh my God Gerbenn, his potential is endless," said Webber. "For me, Gerbenn's story is the story of many Haitian Americans in South Florida and there are many stories to be told. I'm just happy that I'm here to be able to tell Gerbenn's story and that he can be a shining example for all of the Haitian Americans in Miami-Dade County."

Webber was recently honored with the African American Achievers Award for 2019 in the category of Education.

As for Gerbenn, he's hoping to open a recording studio for students so they can create positive messages through music.

If you are a mentor and would like to share your story with us, please email us at mentoringmatters@cbs.com.

Click here for more Mentoring Matters.

Athletic director Scott Stricklin made the announcement in a "letter to Gator Nation" on Thursday that said the team is "building a foundation that promises greater success next season and beyond."

The Gators (4-4, 2-3 Southeastern Conference) have made significant strides since lopsided losses to Miami and Texas A&M during the first month of the season. Napier shored up the team's shaky defense, found a potential star in freshman quarterback DJ Lagway and developed young talent on both sides of the ball.

It's the kind of progress that made Stricklin's decision a relatively easy one despite Napier's 15-18 mark in Gainesville ahead of Saturday's game at No. 5 Texas.

"UF's commitment to excellence and a championship-caliber program is unwavering," Stricklin wrote. "In these times of change across college athletics, we are dedicated to a disciplined, stable approach that is focused on long-term, sustained success for Gator athletes, recruits and fans.

"I am confident that Billy will meet the challenges and opportunities ahead."

The Gators went toe-to-toe with then-No. 8 Tennessee in Knoxville last month and again with second-ranked Georgia last week in Jacksonville.

Florida lost 23-17 in overtime to the Volunteers after squandering several chances to pull off a stunner. And there are plenty who believe the Gators would have won "The World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party" had Lagway not pulled his hamstring in the second quarter while leading 10-3.

"Before the season started, nobody expected us to be anything," running back Ja'Kobi Jackson said Wednesday. "But we're proving to people day-in and day-out that we can play in the SEC, that we're capable of beating teams."

In September, no one saw that coming. And it appeared Napier wouldn't even finish the season.

Florida was inept on both sides of the ball in a 41-17 loss to rival Miami to open the season and showed no improvement in a 33-20 loss to Texas A&M two weeks later. Under first-year coach Mike Elko, the Aggies ran for 310 yards, got three touchdowns from a freshman quarterback making his first collegiate start and ended a 10-game road skid.

But Napier's popularity started to turn with a dominant victory at Mississippi State and then a bye week that became a series of ultra-competitive practices — on-field work that players point to as the key to getting on track.

While some wondered if the Gators would start giving up or opting out, they dug in for Napier.

"Everything Coach Napier says, everybody's bought into it," Jackson said. "We're playing for each other at the end of the day. We play for everyone that's in this building."

Florida would owe Napier roughly $26 million by firing him in 2024. His buyout drops to around $19 million in 2025, although that figure would be considerably higher with his legion of assistants and behind-the-scenes help.

Even with Napier remaining in place, he's still likely to open next year on the proverbial hot seat. And for good reason.

Florida is 2-12 against ranked teams and 1-10 against rivals Florida State, Georgia, LSU, Miami and Tennessee. And Napier's in-game mistakes continue to mount (see Tennessee), although at a much slower pace.

Nonetheless, growth outweighs growing pains. And with November being a key recruiting month, Florida administrators opted to give Napier a vote of confidence, especially with his team so banged up. The Gators could be down their top two quarterbacks, including Lagway, their top two running backs, two of their top four receivers and four cornerbacks when they take the field in Austin.

Le'Keian Woods, who said he still suffers migraines and eye pain, is suing Jacksonville officers Hunter Sullivan, Trey McCullough and former officer Josue Garriga for their roles in the Sept. 29, 2023, beating that drew national attention and local protests for its severity. Sheriff T.K. Waters has defended the beating as justified.

The beating left Woods with a ruptured kidney, a swollen face and bloodied lip. A fourth officer, Beau Daigle, is being sued for pointing his gun at Woods, who is seeking unspecified damages.

Attorneys Harry Daniels and Norman Harris accused the officers of targeting Woods, 25, and the two friends he was with because they are Black. They said the officers used the driver's failure to wear his seat belt as a pretext to pull over their pickup truck at gunpoint after Garriga claimed he'd seen Woods sell cocaine to a man at a gas station. The cocaine accusation was later dropped.

"This is a clear case of a miscarriage of justice and racial profiling," Harris said. "This is not a case where law enforcement saw young men who have warrants for violent offense allegations. This is a case where a stop was concocted based off a seat-belt violation and the officers got out with guns drawn."

While his two friends complied with the officers' demands to remain in the truck with their hands visible, Woods bolted.

"I got kind of scared that he was going to shoot me, that I had a serious situation, so I ran," said Woods, who was on probation for robbery.

Body camera video shows Sullivan chasing Woods, yelling he would shoot Woods with his Taser if he didn't stop. When Sullivan got close enough, he shot Woods twice with the stun gun and Woods fell on his face. Sullivan, Garriga and McCullough punched, elbowed and kneed him in the head and body as they tried to get him handcuffed.

Woods, who is 5 feet, 8 inches tall and 160 pounds (1.7 meters and 72 kilograms), squirmed and sometimes put one hand or the other behind his back, but then moved the other beneath him. The much-larger officers said they feared he was reaching for a gun. It took them two minutes to get Woods into handcuffs.

Daniels, a former police officer, said, in Florida, kneeing a suspect in the head is considered lethal force, the legal equivalent of shooting someone. It is only to be used if a life is endangered. He said federal and state lawsuits will be filed later against the sheriff's office.

The sheriff's office declined comment Thursday and the Jacksonville Fraternal Order of Police, the officers' union, did not return a call seeking comment.

At a press conference three days after Woods' arrest, Sheriff Waters, who is Black, said the body camera videos proved the beating was necessary to keep Woods from harming the officers.

"Just because force is ugly does not mean it is unlawful," Waters said then. He said no officers would be disciplined.

The U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights Division cleared the officers, saying their actions "did not rise" to a level where they could be prosecuted under federal law. Daniels said the department didn't do a proper investigation and the decision will be appealed.

Woods was originally charged with resisting arrest with violence, armed trafficking in cocaine and methamphetamine and other felonies.

But in April, six months after his arrest, prosecutors dropped those charges. He pleaded guilty to resisting arrest without violence for running from the truck and was sentenced to nine days in jail he had already served. Garriga hadn't recorded Woods' alleged sale on his video cameras and no other officers saw it.

"Running from the truck is the only crime he committed that day," said Nicole Jamieson, Woods' criminal defense attorney, in a Thursday telephone interview. Just because the officers were yelling at Woods to stop resisting arrest as they beat him doesn't mean he actually was, she said.

Garriga, 34, couldn't testify against Woods because earlier this year he pleaded guilty to federal charges that he'd had sex with a 17-year-old girl. He will receive a sentence of between 10 years and life at a hearing scheduled for Nov. 18.

In 2019, Garriga fatally shot a man in a traffic stop over an unbuckled seat belt. Prosecutors found the shooting was justified, and a lawsuit filed by the dead man's family was later settled for an undisclosed amount. Daniels was the family's attorney.

Sullivan and his father, who is also a Jacksonville sheriff's officer, were suspended in 2020 after they got into an off-duty fight with a woman at a bar. No criminal charges were filed.

At the time of the beating, Woods was on probation after pleading no contest to a 2017 Tallahassee robbery where he and his roommate tried to stick up an illegal marijuana dealer at gunpoint.

The dealer pulled his own gun and fatally shot the roommate as Woods fled. Woods was originally charged with second-degree murder in his roommate's death, but a plea bargain was reached in 2022 that released him without prison time.

Ocala police said officers responded to the home of Marion County Deputy Leslie Boileau late Thursday and found a woman with a fatal gunshot wound to her forehead and a 9mm handgun in her lap. A rifle was also found at the scene.

"The Ocala Police Department is working with the State Attorney's Office to ensure justice is served," Ocala Police Chief Mike Balken said in a statement.

Boileau told officers that the shooting occurred while he and his girlfriend were handling and dry firing the guns. After being taken into custody, Boileau told detectives that he accidentally discharged a loaded round while demonstrating the use of a rifle, killing the woman.

A search warrant executed at Boileau's home corroborated his account, police said. Officials didn't immediately release the girlfriend's name.

Boileau was arrested and charged with manslaughter. It wasn't immediately known whether he had an attorney. Online jail records didn't show a record of his booking, and his case wasn't showing up in the county clerk of courts website Friday.

Boileau was immediately fired from the Marion County Sheriff's Office, where he had served for eight years. Marion County Sheriff Billy Woods said in a statement that the Ocala Police Department has the support of his office.

"Tens of thousands of law enforcement officers do their job commendably every day," Woods said. "But unfortunately, the tragic actions of just one are felt through the entire law enforcement community."

This is because during this period, there is an increased number of fatal crashes, involving teen crashes.

Last year, teens in Florida were involved in nearly 20,000 crashes, 60 of them were fatal resulting in 83 deaths. 

Some risky behaviors for teen drivers include driving with loud music, texting and driving, other teen passengers, speeding, and not wearing seat belts.

AAA Advice for parents

The single most important thing parents can do to keep their teens safe behind the wheel is to be actively involved in the learning-to-drive process:

• Talk with teens early and often about abstaining from dangerous behavior behind the wheel, such as speeding, impairment and distracted driving.
• Teach by example- Maintain appropriate space around your vehicle, adjust your speed to the conditions and minimize risky behavior when you drive.
• Establish a parent-teen driving agreement that sets family rules for teen drivers.
• Conduct at least 50 hours of supervised practice driving with their teen.
• Enroll your teen in both online and in-person driving courses.
• Talk with your teens about anticipating other drivers' mistakes and how to adjust their driving to others.

A group of around 50 insurers reported $147.3 million in net income for 2023, compared to net losses of more than $1 billion in each of the previous two years, according to the analysis released last week.

The group excluded state-backed Citizens Property Insurance Corp., which is the insurer of last resort for Florida homeowners unable to get a policy anywhere else. Citizens is Florida's largest underwriter of home insurance policies, with 1.2 million policies at the end of last year.

While the group of insurers still had collective underwriting losses of $190.8 million, it was much smaller than in past years, when it was almost $1.80 billion in 2022 and $1.52 billion in 2021, S&P Global Market Intelligence said.

Florida has struggled to maintain stability in the state insurance market since 1992 when Hurricane Andrew flattened Homestead, wiped out some insurance carriers and left many remaining companies fearful to write or renew policies in Florida. Risks for carriers have also been growing as climate change increases the strength of hurricanes and the intensity of rainstorms.

Last year, Farmers Insurance said it was discontinuing new coverage of auto, home and umbrella policies in Florida, and AAA said it had decided not to renew "a very small percentage" of homeowners and auto insurance policies.

Nine insurers have been declared insolvent or merged into other companies in Florida since 2021. Average annual property insurance premiums jumped 42% last year to $6,000 in Florida, compared to a national average of $1,700.

The Legislature and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis grappled with the issue in 2021 and 2022, including holding a special session, but most of the focus was on shielding insurance companies from lawsuits and setting aside money for reinsurance to help protect insurers.

The insurance companies are optimistic that the changes have reduced expenses, particularly the costs to litigate claims. Additionally, Florida regulators this year have approved six property and casualty insurers to start writing residential property insurance policies, S&P Global Market Intelligence said.

A court docket Wednesday said the case will be considered during a "conference," a closed-door meeting that includes making decisions about which cases to hear. 

The conference will come after U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar and other Department of Justice attorneys filed a 25-page brief this month that said the Supreme Court should hear arguments about the Florida law and a similar Texas law. 

The brief also said justices should uphold an 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that blocked parts of the Florida law. 

The state and two industry groups challenging the law — NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association — also have urged justices to take up the case. 

The law (SB 7072) placed restrictions on large companies such as Facebook and Twitter, now known as X. 

Ron DeSantis made a priority of the law after Twitter and Facebook blocked former President Donald Trump from their platforms after Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. 

The law, for example, would prevent the platforms from banning political candidates from their sites and require companies to publish --- and apply consistently --- standards about issues such as banning users or blocking their content. 

Companies could face steep penalties for violating restrictions in the law. U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle issued a preliminary injunction against the measure, describing it as "riddled with imprecision and ambiguity." 

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year upheld much of the preliminary injunction, though it said parts of the law could take effect. 

In a supplemental brief filed Wednesday, the tech-industry groups argued, in part, that the Supreme Court should strike down the entire law. 

The brief said "all the law's provisions reflect the same viewpoint, content, and speaker discrimination that permeate, and should doom, the entire law."

Florida drew an estimated 33.092 million visitors during the quarter, keeping the state slightly ahead of an overall record pace of visitors in 2022. 

But the figure from April through June represented a 1.2 percent decrease from the second quarter of 2022, when it totaled 33.485 million.

Tourists from other parts of the U.S., who make up the bulk of Florida travelers, were off an estimated 2.4 percent from the same period in 2022.

Dana Young, president and CEO of the Visit Florida tourism-marketing agency, pointed to increased competition from other states and countries that shut down longer than Florida during the pandemic. 

But she also touted an increase this year in international tourists in Florida.

"We compete globally, not just here in the U.S.," Young told The News Service of Florida. 

"Destinations are opening up. And when they do, they're going to be using all those dollars they didn't spend (during the pandemic) to try and lure their people back. So, the fact that we have these massive increases in international visitation is great."

Groups such as the NAACP, Equality Florida and the League of United Latin American Citizens in recent months have issued travel advisories about Florida because of their opposition to a series of decisions on issues such as how Black history is taught and restricting diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

But Young said the advisories haven't impacted tourism in "any meaningful way."

"We are continuing to see a very diverse group of vacationers that are coming to Florida," Young said. 

"They are spending money here, supporting our state economy. We value all of them, and we continue to encourage people to come."

The tourism industry took a massive hit in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and International visitors have been slower to return than U.S. tourists. 

Factors have included now-lifted pandemic travel regulations, unfavorable currency exchange rates and lengthy visa wait times in foreign countries.

"We started really leaning in to bringing back international visitation in 2021," Young said. "And have continued that push."

During the second quarter of 2023, Florida drew an estimated 1.941 million overseas visitors, up from 1.748 million during the same period in 2022, according to the estimates.

Florida attracted 34.646 million U.S. visitors in the first quarter of this year and 30.305 million in the second. 

It also attracted 1.305 million Canadian visitors during the first quarter and 846,000 in the second quarter.

The overall drop in year-to-year tourism figures was the first for a quarter since the first three months of 2021. 

But Florida's total visitors for the first half of 2023 were up 1.3 percent from the first half of 2022. 

Also, the number exceeded the total in the first half of 2019, before the pandemic hit.

Some tourism officials had warned in recent weeks to expect a fall-off as other states try to catch up.

As an example, the Hillsborough County Tourist Development Council posted bed-tax collections for May that were 2.3 percent lower than a year earlier, with June 5.5 percent off the 2022 figure.

In his company's second-quarter earnings call on Aug. 9, Disney CEO Bob Iger said a decline in business at Walt Disney World properties stemmed from an overall "softening" of tourism in many pockets of Florida.

"As post-COVID pent-up demand continues to level off in Florida, local tax data shows evidence of some softening in several major Florida tourism markets. And the strong dollar is expected to continue tamping down international visitation to the state," Iger said. 

"However, Walt Disney World is still performing well above pre-COVID levels, 21 percent higher in revenue and 29 percent higher in operating income compared to fiscal 2019."

Young said Hurricane Ian recovery also has played a part in shifting numbers for U.S. travelers. She said hotel stays are down 13 percent in the Fort Myers area after months of near-capacity room demand driven by repair workers.

Despite the recent increases, international travel this year remains behind pre-pandemic totals.

For the first half of the year, the state had an estimated 2.15 million Canadians visitors and 3.74 million overseas travelers. During the first half of 2019, Florida reported 2.4 million Canadians and 5.2 million overseas visitors.

In a CNBC interview focused on the economy, the Republican presidential candidate said the state has "basically moved on" from issues surrounding the changes to the former Reedy Creek Improvement District.

Amid a feud between DeSantis and Disney, the Legislature this year replaced the Reedy Creek district with the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District. 

The changes have led to state and federal lawsuits, with Disney alleging the changes are retaliation for its opposition to a 2022 law that restricts instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in Florida schools.

"Your competitors all do very well here. Universal. SeaWorld. They have not had the same special privileges as you have," said DeSantis when pressed on what he'd say to Disney CEO Bob Iger about the federal lawsuit.

"So, all we want to do is treat everybody the same and let's move forward. I'm totally fine with that," DeSantis said. 

"But I'm not fine with giving extraordinary privileges, you know, to one special company at the exclusion of everybody else."

The former Reedy Creek Improvement District was created in the 1960s and largely gave Disney self-governance power. 

In revamping the district this year, the Republican-controlled Legislature gave DeSantis the power to appoint the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District board.

The state is seeking dismissal of the federal lawsuit filed in April by Disney.

Disney and DeSantis have locked horns since former Disney CEO Bob Chapek announced opposition to the law restricting instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity in schools. 

DeSantis has featured his stand against Disney in his presidential campaign.

In the federal lawsuit, Disney argues its First Amendment rights were violated and business harmed by a "relentless campaign" of retribution orchestrated by DeSantis and other officials for opposing the 2022 law.

The lawsuit also alleges a violation of a constitutional prohibition on altering contracts, an unconstitutional taking of property without proper compensation and violation of due-process rights.

Before the new DeSantis-appointed board could be seated, the former Reedy Creek board entered development-related agreements with Disney. 

The Central Florida Tourism Oversight District board has filed a state lawsuit challenging those agreements.

DeSantis, who during campaign stops has accused Disney of supporting the "sexualization" of children, said on Monday, "I think parents have lost some confidence that this is a company that's really speaking to what they want, the way it had been traditionally."

During an appearance last month on CNBC's "Squawk Box" show, Iger dismissed claims by DeSantis that the company's Orlando parks were experiencing a drop in attendance because of the fight with the governor.

Iger described as "preposterous" arguments by DeSantis that the company was "sexualizing children." 

Iger also defended the company's right to question the 2022 law.

"The last thing that I want for the company is for the company to be drawn into any culture wars," Iger said. 

"We've operated for almost 100 years as a company making product that we actually are proud of in terms of its impact on the world. I joke every once in a while we're there to manufacture fun."

Iger didn't bring up the lawsuit during a second-quarter company earnings call last week. 

He noted that Walt Disney World's business has slackened amid an overall "softening" of tourism in many pockets of Florida.

Having not to pack a lunch for your children when you're in a crunch can be very helpful, and this year there are some new menu items.

"We have a few new items we are featuring this year as items for lunch. We have a beef patty on a wheat bun. This clean label item has five ingredients, ground beef, sea salt, pepper onion and garlic," said MDCPS Food Nutrition Officer Angie Kasselakis.

The students approved all the new items through taste tests that were conducted throughout the school year.

"So they were a big part of selecting all the new menu items," said Kasselakis.

Meantime, hundreds of Miami-Dade School based nurses and health-care professionals attended an annual health-connect conference with The Children's trust.

"Today is a great day, we have 400 mental health professionals and social workers. The children's trust funds 150 clinics in schools. So, while teachers are getting ready for school to start and parents are excited but they also need the services for health," said James Haj, Children's Trust President and CEO.

One nurse spoke with CBS News Miami's Najahe Sherman, and talked about the importance of the event.

"For me, this is always vital because we network, we can see other people who work within different agencies, we get to learn from each other and learn from our experiences," said Eduardo Barrios a registered nurse.

The nurses and health care professionals were brought up to speed with the latest training. 

This is part of a two day event, an important resource for students and families this upcoming school year.

The School Board of Lake County and Florida education officials last week asked a federal judge to toss out a First Amendment lawsuit brought by students and the authors of "And Tango Makes Three" in June. 

Their complaint challenged the restrictions and Florida's new law prohibiting classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity in certain grade levels.

The lawsuit is moot since age restrictions on "And Tango Makes Three" have been lifted following a Florida Department of Education memo that said the new law only applied to classroom instruction and not school libraries, according to motions filed Friday by Florida education officials and school board members of the district located outside Orlando.

The "Don't Say Gay" law has been at the center of a fight between Disney and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is running to be the 2024 GOP presidential nominee and has made the culture wars a driving force of his campaign. 

DeSantis and Republican lawmakers took over control of the district after Disney publicly opposed the law.

"The Court lacks jurisdiction both because this case is moot and because plaintiffs never had standing in the first place," Florida education officials said in their motion to dismiss the lawsuit.

The school board and Florida education officials on Monday asked U.S. District Judge Brian Davis in Ocala, Florida, to postpone any further discovery until he rules on whether to dismiss the case.

Last week, the judge refused to issue a preliminary injunction that would have ruled immediately in favor of the students and authors without the need for a trial, agreeing that the question over getting access to the book was moot since the school board had lifted restrictions.

"And Tango Makes Three" recounts the true story of two male penguins who were devoted to each other at the Central Park Zoo in New York. 

A zookeeper who saw them building a nest and trying to incubate an egg-shaped rock gave them an egg from a different penguin pair with two eggs after they were having difficulty hatching more than one egg at a time. 

The chick cared for by the male penguins was named Tango.

The book is listed among the 100 most subjected to censorship efforts over the past decade, as compiled by the American Library Association.

Tyler Jay Marshall, 37, of Enid, pleaded guilty Wednesday to a charge of interstate transmission of threatening communications as part of a plea agreement, according to court documents.

In exchange for the plea, prosecutors dismissed a charge of threatening to murder a U.S. official.

"I want to take responsibility for my actions and acknowledge the evidence against me," Marshall wrote in a signed agreement.

Marshall made numerous threats against the officials on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, including telling DeSantis, "I'll see you dead in your home," a little more than a week before the Florida governor launched his presidential campaign in May.

Other posted threats included telling Sanders that he would murder her family, telling Cruz he planned to shoot him, and telling Stitt that he couldn't wait to watch him die.

Tyler Box, Marshall's attorney, declined to discuss Marshall's motivation for the posts.

"We just look forward to getting resolution to this, taking responsibility and moving on with his life," Box said.

Marshall was arrested days after the postings and told investigators that he created the social media account while drunk and for the purpose of "trolling" people "like senators," according to the indictment.

Marshall told investigators at the time that he does not own a gun and is not a violent person, the document states.

Marshall faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. 

A sentencing date has not been set.

The court issued an order Tuesday granting the extension, which Statewide Prosecutor Nicholas Cox's office sought on July 18. 

The Supreme Court last year approved a request by Gov. Ron DeSantis to impanel the grand jury. 

The request for an extension said the grand jury had been scheduled to end on Nov. 1. 

But the extension will allow it to continue operating until April 1. 

"Despite its diligent efforts, including the issuance of three interim reports, the statewide grand jury has not completed its investigation in the time allotted," the statewide prosecutor's request said. 

"A significant amount of work remains that may not be completed before the expiration of the term. An extension of the term is necessary to ensure completion of the statewide grand jury's work." DeSantis has made a high-profile issue of cracking down on illegal immigration. 

As an example of the grand jury's work, it called in December for the Legislature to expand a law targeting people who smuggle undocumented immigrants into the state. 

Lawmakers and DeSantis this spring approved a controversial measure that makes it a felony to transport into the state people who enter the country illegally.

The Central Florida Tourism Oversight District said in a statement that its diversity, equity and inclusion committee would be eliminated, as would any job duties connected to it. Also axed were initiatives left over from when the district was controlled by Disney supporters, which awarded contracts based on goals of achieving racial or gender parity.

Glenton Gilzean, the district's new administrator who is African American and a former head of the Central Florida Urban League, called such initiatives "illegal and simply un-American." Gilzean has been a fellow or member at two conservative institutions, the James Madison Institute and the American Enterprise Institute Leadership Network, as well as a DeSantis appointee to the Florida Commission on Ethics.

"Our district will no longer participate in any attempt to divide us by race or advance the notion that we are not created equal," Gilzean said in a statement. "As the former head of the Central Florida Urban League, a civil rights organization, I can say definitively that our community thrives only when we work together despite our differences."

An email was sent seeking comment from Disney World.

Last spring, DeSantis, who is running for the GOP presidential nomination, signed into law a measure that blocks public colleges from using federal or state funding on diversity programs.

DeSantis also has championed Florida's so-called "Stop WOKE" law, which bars businesses, colleges and K-12 schools from giving training on certain racial concepts, such as the theory that people of a particular race are inherently racist, privileged or oppressed. A federal judge last November blocked the law's enforcement in colleges, universities and businesses, calling it "positively dystopian."

The creation of the district, then known as the Reedy Creek Improvement District, was instrumental in Disney's decision to build a theme park resort near Orlando in the 1960s. Having a separate government allowed the company to provide zoning, fire protection, utilities and infrastructure services on its sprawling property. The district was controlled by Disney supporters for more than five decades.

The DeSantis appointees took control of the renamed district earlier this year following a yearlong feud between the company and DeSantis. The fight began last year after Disney, beset by significant pressure internally and externally, publicly opposed a state law banning classroom lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity in early grades, a policy critics call "Don't Say Gay."

As punishment, DeSantis took over the district through legislation passed by Republican lawmakers and appointed a new board of supervisors to oversee municipal services for the sprawling theme parks and hotels. Disney sued DeSantis and his five board appointees in federal court, claiming the Florida governor violated the company's free speech rights by taking the retaliatory action.

Before the new board came in, Disney made agreements with previous oversight board members who were Disney supporters that stripped the new supervisors of their authority over design and development. The DeSantis-appointed members of the governing district have sued Disney in state court in a second lawsuit stemming from the district's takeover, seeking to invalidate those agreements.

Speaking in a New Hampshire warehouse, the Florida governor promised to diversify and expand the economy by fighting for the middle class.

"Revitalizing economic freedom and opportunity will require building an economy where the concerns of average citizens are elevated over those deemed too big to fail," he said at Prep Partners Group, which coordinates warehousing, distribution and other logistics for other companies.

"We are a nation with an economy, not the other way around," DeSantis said. "We are citizens of a republic. We are not cogs in a global economic empire."

DeSantis said his top priority would be wresting economic control from China by ending the nation's preferential trade status, banning imports of goods made from stolen intellectual property and preventing companies from sharing critical technologies with China. Current polices, he said, have created an "abusive relationship" between the two countries.

"The elites sold us a bill of goods when it came to China. They were wrong, and we need to get it right," he said.

The 10-point economic plan is the third major policy proposal put forth by DeSantis, who remains a distant second to former President Donald Trump in most polls and is fighting for momentum in the midst of a campaign reset. He recently shed more than one-third of his staff as federal filings showed his campaign was burning through cash at an unsustainable rate.

But on Monday, his focus was on reckless federal government spending. His plan describes him as a "new sheriff in town" who will veto wasteful spending and mandate work requirements for welfare programs. He also claimed he could achieve 3% annual economic growth by keeping taxes low, eliminating bureaucracy and incentivizing investment.

On the education front, DeSantis said he will stop incentivizing "useless degrees" by making universities responsible for the loans their students accrue.

"It's wrong to say that a truck driver should have to pay off the debt of somebody who got a degree in gender studies," he said.

After the speech, in what was billed as a news conference, DeSantis sidestepped a question about Trump's mounting legal fees. That's even as the DeSantis campaign has been attacking Trump for devoting much of his political fundraising to his legal entanglements.

"We're here to talk about restoring this economy. We're here to talk about uplifting the middle class," DeSantis said. "To me, if you ask voters, are they more interested in hearing about that or the process stories about politics? I think that they want to hear about the country's future so that's what we're going to talk about."

Martin Garcia, chairman of the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District Board of Supervisors, credited staff members Wednesday with cutting "wasteful spending" by the former Reedy Creek Improvement District board, which was effectively controlled by Disney.

"As we are doing more work, it appears that there are a number of other naughty things that this old board did with district funds," Garcia said. "And so, we're going to look for further savings."

One area targeted for a reduction is overtime pay for law enforcement on Disney properties. 

Garcia said the tab for that pay came to $8 million a year.

"Now, Disney is not the only taxpayer in this district. We have other taxpayers," Garcia said.

District Administrator Glenton Gilzean said public safety will remain a priority.

The district includes 25,000 acres in Orange and Osceola counties used by Walt Disney World, along with utilities, roads and the cities of Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista.

The state in the 1960s created the Reedy Creek district for Disney. But DeSantis and Disney have been locked in a battle since the company opposed a 2022 state law that restricted instruction about gender identity and sexual orientation in Florida schools.

DeSantis and Republican lawmakers this year replaced the Reedy Creek Improvement District with the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District and put it under more state control. 

Among the changes, DeSantis was given the power to appoint members of the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District board.

Disney filed a federal lawsuit this spring that, in part, accuses the state of retaliation for the company's opposition to the 2022 law.

The district countered by filing a state lawsuit over development agreements that Disney and the former Reedy Creek board signed shortly before the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District board took over.

The Legislature and the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District board have also taken steps to invalidate the development agreements.

The district will hold budget hearings in September to finalize a spending plan and tax rate.

The Board on Wednesday tentatively set a tax rate of 12.95 mills for the fiscal year that will start Oct. 1, down from 13.9 mills in the current year. 

Millage represents the dollars assessed for each $1,000 of value.

For the owner of a $500,000 non-homesteaded home that didn't change in value over the past year, the proposed rate would drop property taxes from about $6,950 to $6,475.

Property-tax revenue is expected to cover $188.4 million of the district's costs next fiscal year, up from $183 million budgeted for the current year. 

Permits and fees are expected to generate another $5 million for the district, up from $3.25 million in the current fiscal year.

The district anticipates $198.7 million in expenses next fiscal year, covering costs such as employees and debt. 

The total is up from $185.86 million in the current year.

The cost of labor is expected to grow from $56.34 million in the current year to $67.1 million.

The board on Wednesday backed a three-year agreement with the Reedy Creek Professional Firefighters' Association IAFF Local 2117 that in part will bump minimum pay from $55,000 a year to $65,000.

The nonpartisan group Campaign Legal Center said it filed the complaint with the Federal Election Commission on Tuesday. The complaint says the business PassionForest, LLC, which sells artificial flowers on Amazon.com, did not have the financial means to make such a large contribution and was instead used to hide the identities of the true contributors to the political action committee America for Everyone, now called SOS America.

Campaign Legal Center also says the artificial flower shop accused in the scheme filed a trademark application listing a Chinese address and the seller information listed by Amazon.com shows a ZIP code in Shenzhen, in southeastern China. The group says the scheme could have been meant to hide foreign contributions, which are prohibited.

The super PAC said the complaint is an attack "intended to undercut the only Hispanic Republican candidate."

"It is our understanding that the complaint makes no accusations whatsoever against SOS America PAC or the Mayor. This is nothing more than a political attack and it will be seen for what it is," said SOS America PAC spokesperson Chapin Fay.

Suarez is one of the long shots running for the 2024 GOP nomination. The mayor is among the lesser-known candidates in a crowded field that include two other Floridians, former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The flower shop's Amazon storefront shows almost all of its products unavailable with a few options left in stock, and its trademark application was abandoned six days after the contribution was made.

The $500,000 contribution is among the largest listed as received by the super PAC, according to FEC records.

"Voters have a right to know who is spending money to influence their votes and our government," said Saurav Ghosh, director of federal campaign finance reform at Campaign Legal Center.

The law, championed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, is among a series of measures adopted by state Republican leaders in recent years targeting immigrants entering the country from Mexico.

The measure passed during this spring's legislative session included changes to a human-smuggling law to make it a felony to transport into the state an individual "whom the person knows, or reasonably should know" has entered the country illegally.

The law imposes penalties on people who transport an immigrant who "entered the United States in violation of law and has not been inspected by the federal government since his or her unlawful entry." 

People can be charged with a second-degree felony for each violation of the law.

But the lawsuit filed Monday in Miami argued that what is known as "Section 10" of the law does not include a definition of "inspected" and thus is "hopelessly vague and incoherent."

"Section 10 is phrased in a way that could sweep in all manner of immigrants, including people who are lawfully present in the United States or are in the process of seeking lawful immigration status. The statute does not define the term 'inspected' and does not explain what it means to be inspected 'since' entry," lawyers for the plaintiffs wrote in the 33-page complaint.

Plaintiffs include the Farmworker Association of Florida, Inc. and migrant workers and advocates, who are identified by their initials.

As an example, one of the plaintiffs, who works for a non-profit, helps bring immigrants from Georgia to Jacksonville for appointments with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officials.

Another plaintiff, identified as "CA", is a U.S. citizen who lives in Miami and is the legal guardian of her grandson, who was brought to the U.S. by his mother "who was fleeing from the country in fear for their lives," according to the lawsuit. 

CA's grandson is in the process of applying for what is known as "Special Immigrant Juvenile Status," and he and his mother "did not have contact with federal immigration authorities" when they entered the U.S., the lawsuit said.

Several of the plaintiffs, including CA, frequently traveled to other states to visit family members or for seasonal jobs as migrant workers before the law went into effect on July 1.

The law "inflicts enormous harm on people's ability to go about their daily lives," the plaintiffs' attorneys argued.

The law could prevent friends and family from visiting each other, hamper parents from seeking health care for their children and keep church members from bringing fellow congregants to worship, the lawsuit said.

The law "put thousands of Floridians and residents of other states — both citizens and noncitizens alike — at risk of being arrested, charged, and prosecuted with a felony for transporting a vaguely-defined category of immigrants into Florida," the plaintiffs' lawyers wrote.

The legal challenge also argued that the state law "usurps powers constitutionally vested in the federal government exclusively."

"This federal framework is comprehensive and does not permit parallel or supplemental state immigration laws, including laws regarding the smuggling and unlawful transport of noncitizens," the lawsuit said.

The Florida law "impedes the federal immigration scheme by preventing immigrants from entering Florida. 

And it puts state officials in the unlawful position of making complex determinations about people's immigration status and history," the plaintiffs' lawyers added.

DeSantis, a contender in the 2024 Republican race for president, has focused on immigration challenges at the southern border with Mexico as one of his top issues since he was first elected governor in 2018. 

The state has filed lawsuits during the past few years challenging the Biden administration over its handling of immigration.

The governor also has drawn national headlines for Florida-sponsored charter flights that brought migrants from Texas to Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts last September and Sacramento, Calif., in June. 

Alianza Americas and other plaintiffs filed a potential class-action lawsuit challenging the Massachusetts flights.

Plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed Monday are represented by lawyers from several immigration- and civil-rights groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Southern Poverty Law Center, Americans for Immigrant Justice, and the American Immigration Council.

The new law (SB 1718) also includes changes such as requiring businesses with more than 25 employees to use the federal E-Verify system to check the immigration status of workers.

At a ceremonial bill-signing event in May, DeSantis blasted federal immigration policies.

"This is just chaos," DeSantis told supporters in Jacksonville. "We are supposed to be the world's leading superpower, and yet we can't even maintain control of our own southern border. The Mexican drug cartels have more to say about what goes on at the southern border than our own U.S. government does."

The lawsuit pointed to comments DeSantis and his allies made about the proposed immigration changes.

Senate bill sponsor Blaise Ingoglia, R-Spring Hill, "framed the need" for the legislation as "the external force" that would compel the federal government to "fix the problem," the lawsuit said.

"This is the point we are at right now. We have to fix this system. And they continue to refuse to do it. They will only act when they have to and when an external force pushes back. Florida is that external force right now," Ingoglia told a Senate committee in March.

But Monday's lawsuit, which asks a judge to find that the disputed section of the law is unconstitutional and block its enforcement, alleged that the changes will put Farmworker Association of Florida workers — who transport migrants between states — at risk of "unlawful arrest, prosecution and harassment."

The law also will "impede the federal immigration system" by preventing people who live in neighboring states "with a variety of immigration statuses" from being able to travel to immigration courts and other appointments with federal agencies in Florida, the lawsuit said.

The law is "unconstitutionally vague because it fails to provide a person of ordinary intelligence fair notice of what is prohibited, and because it authorizes and encourages arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement," the plaintiffs' lawyers argued.

Here is a look at the picture in question.

The picture shows what appears to be a gap in the barrier wall on a bridge at the I-595 and Sawgrass Interchange.

CBS News Miami made a call and officials went to investigate.

They found all of the expansion joints were intact and holding up as they should.

Engineers say there are no concerns with the "gap" and say the bridge was designed and built that way in 1989.

U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks, siding with the U.S. Department of Justice, ruled that Florida has violated the Americans with Disabilities Act and the rights of children "who rely upon the provision of vital Medicaid services and are trying, in vain, to avoid growing up in nursing homes."

"Unjustified institutionalization of individuals with disabilities is unacceptable, especially given the advances in technology and in the provision of home-based care," Middlebrooks wrote in a 79-page decision. "Any family who wants to care for their child at home should be able to do so."

Middlebrooks criticized the state for not doing more to ensure services such as private-duty nursing that could enable children to live outside of nursing homes and to help children who are at risk of being institutionalized. 

The case centers on children in the Medicaid program with conditions that often require round-the-clock care involving such needs as ventilators, feeding tubes and breathing tubes.

"Those who are institutionalized are spending months, and sometimes years of their youth isolated from family and the outside world," Middlebrooks wrote. 

"They don't need to be there. I am convinced of this after listening to the evidence, hearing from the experts, and touring one of these facilities myself. If provided adequate services, most of these children could thrive in their own homes, nurtured by their own families. Or if not at home, then in some other community-based setting that would support their psychological and emotional health, while also attending to their physical needs."

The Justice Department filed the lawsuit in 2013, after conducting an investigation that concluded the state Medicaid program was unnecessarily institutionalizing children in nursing homes. 

The state has vehemently fought the allegations and the lawsuit, with the U.S. Supreme Court last year declining to take up a state appeal aimed at preventing the case from moving forward.

Friday's ruling said about 140 children in the Medicaid program are in three nursing homes in Broward and Pinellas counties. 

It also said more than 1,800 children are considered at risk of being institutionalized.

Middlebrooks wrote that the Americans with Disabilities Act requires the state to provide services in the most "integrated setting appropriate" to meet the needs of people with disabilities. 

He also cited a major 1999 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that said "undue institutionalization" of people with disabilities is a form of discrimination.

Most beneficiaries in Florida's Medicaid program receive services through managed-care organizations. 

A key part of Middlebrooks' ruling was that the Medicaid program and managed-care organizations were not providing adequate private-duty nursing that could enable children to receive care in their family homes or communities.

"By the close of the evidence, I was convinced that the deficit of PDN (private-duty nursing) in Florida is causing systemic institutionalization," wrote Middlebrooks, a South Florida-based judge who was appointed to the bench by former President Bill Clinton.

As part of the ruling and an accompanying injunction, Middlebrooks ordered that the Medicaid program provide 90 percent of the private-duty nursing hours that are authorized for the children. 

He also ordered the state to improve what are known as "care coordination" services and to take steps to improve the transition of children from nursing homes.

Middlebrooks, who held a two-week trial in May, also criticized the state's oversight of managed-care organizations and ordered a monitor to help carry out the order.

"One of the most perplexing aspects of this case is the apparent unwillingness of the state to enforce its contracts," he wrote. 

"The state has contracted with managed care organizations to establish complete medical provider networks to service the needs of children with medical complexity. Part of the required network is to provide home health care to eligible members in a clinically appropriate and timely manner. The managed care organizations have contracted to deliver, not endeavored to deliver, medical treatment to their members."

In an April 28 court document, attorneys for the state disputed that the Medicaid program was not properly providing services to the children.

"The United States claims that parents are demanding the return of their children, but cannot take them home because Florida fails to deliver Medicaid services," the state's attorneys wrote. 

"That assertion finds no basis in the evidence. Each child's circumstances are different and individualized, and each lives in a nursing home for reasons that seemed convincing to their parents. The ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) does not entitle the court to second-guess those decisions — even if the United States disagrees with them."

The GOP had 5,263,269 registered voters as of June 30, while the Democratic Party had 4,721,471, according to newly posted data on the state Division of Elections website. 

That 541,798-voter edge was up from a 496,150-voter advantage at the end of May. 

Meanwhile, 3,911,131 voters were registered without party affiliation as of June 30, while 286,493 were registered with third parties.

Democrats historically held a registration edge in the state, but Republicans overtook them in 2021 and have steadily expanded the lead. 

Republicans hold all statewide offices, a majority in Florida's congressional delegation and supermajorities in the Florida House and Senate.

The case in state court in Orlando is one of two stemming from the takeover, which was retaliation for the company's public opposition to the so-called Don't Say Gay legislation championed by DeSantis and Republican lawmakers. 

Disney is fighting DeSantis in one lawsuit and his Disney World board appointees in another.

The governor has touted his yearlong feud with Disney in his run for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, often accusing the entertainment giant of being too "woke." 

Disney has accused the governor of violating its free speech rights.

Attorneys for Disney argued before Circuit Judge Margaret Schreiber that any decision in state court would be moot since the Republican-controlled Legislature already has passed a law voiding agreements that the company made with a prior governing board of Disney supporters that gave design and construction powers to the company.

If the judge decides not to dismiss the state case, the entertainment giant asked that the state court case be put on hold until a federal lawsuit in Tallahassee is resolved since they cover the same ground and that lawsuit was filed first.

In that case, Disney sued DeSantis and his appointees to the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District in an effort to stop the takeover, claiming the governor was violating the company's free speech and "weaponizing the power of government to punish private business."

"We are dealing with the same issue in both cases," Daniel Petrocelli, an attorney for Disney, told the judge during an hourlong hearing watched remotely by several Disney executives.

Attorneys for the district's board asked that their case not be dismissed, telling the circuit judge that it wasn't moot and putting it on hold would be improper. 

They also argued that the board's lawsuit in state court was filed first since Disney's federal lawsuit wasn't properly served to the defendants.

DeSantis isn't a party in the state court lawsuit.

The judge didn't say when she would make a decision, but asked attorneys for both sides to prepare orders for her as if she had rendered a ruling in each of their favor by next Wednesday.

The fight between DeSantis and Disney began last year after the company, facing significant pressure internally and externally, publicly opposed a state law banning classroom lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity in early grades, a policy critics call "Don't Say Gay."

As punishment, DeSantis took over the district through legislation passed by Florida lawmakers and appointed a new board of supervisors to oversee municipal services for the sprawling theme parks and hotels. 

But before the new board came in, the company made agreements with previous oversight board members who were Disney supporters that stripped the new supervisors of their authority over design and construction.

In response, DeSantis and Florida lawmakers passed the legislation that repealed those agreements.

Disney announced in May that it was scrapping plans to build a new campus in central Florida and relocate 2,000 employees from Southern California to work in digital technology, finance and product development. 

Disney had planned to build the campus about 20 miles (30 kilometers) from the giant Walt Disney World theme park resort.

In an interview this week on CNBC, Disney CEO Bob Iger said the company didn't want to be involved in any culture wars.

"Our goal is to continue to tell wonderful stories and have a positive, positive impact on the world," Iger said.

Two friend-of-the court briefs, filed by media organizations and groups ranging from the Associated Press to the League of Women Voters of Florida, said the 1st District Court of Appeal should overturn a Leon County circuit judge's decision that backed DeSantis' arguments on executive privilege.

The briefs said such an executive privilege would undermine Florida's longstanding public-records law.

"Put simply, Florida's black-letter law holds that courts may not judicially create exemptions to Florida's constitutional right of access to public records," attorneys for 13 media organizations and the First Amendment Foundation wrote in a brief filed Monday.

Another brief filed Monday by a coalition that includes groups such as the League of Women Voters and the Florida Center for Government Accountability, said the circuit-court ruling "upends decades of jurisprudence interpreting" the public-records law.

"In the 178 years that Florida has existed, not a single (other) court decision has recognized the existence of any executive privilege," attorneys for the groups wrote.

The issue went to the Tallahassee-based appeals court in January after Circuit Judge Angela Dempsey rejected a public-records lawsuit on a series of grounds, including executive privilege. 

Dempsey wrote, in part, that the "purpose underlying the executive privilege supports its recognition here."

"To effectively discharge his constitutional duty, the governor must be permitted to have access to candid advice in order to explore policy alternatives and reach appropriate decisions," she wrote, citing rulings from the U.S. Supreme Court and other states.

"The interest in maintaining the confidentiality of the executive is vital to the public, as it fosters informed and sound gubernatorial deliberations and decision making."

The case is rooted in an Aug. 25, 2022, interview in which DeSantis told conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt that a group of "six or seven pretty big legal conservative heavyweights" had helped him screen candidates for appointment to the Florida Supreme Court.

A person identified in court documents as J. Doe filed a public-records request seeking information from DeSantis' office about the group of people involved in the Supreme Court appointment process.

The anonymous requester, after not receiving records, filed a lawsuit in circuit court.

In a Jan. 3 decision, Dempsey rejected the lawsuit on a series of grounds, including saying the requester did not provide a "sufficiently specific" request for records. 

But the part of the ruling that backed the DeSantis administration on executive privilege has spurred most of the interest in the case.

As an example, partially quoting from a federal court precedent, Dempsey wrote that what is known as the communications privilege "allows a chief executive to withhold materials that reflect executive decision making and deliberations and that the chief executive believes should remain confidential. The privilege applies not only to materials viewed by the chief executive, but also to records solicited or received by the chief executive or his or her immediate advisers who have 'broad and significant responsibility' for advising the chief executive. The privilege is rooted in the separation of powers doctrine and 'derives from the supremacy of the Executive Branch within its assigned area of constitutional responsibilities.'"

But attorneys for J. Doe wrote in a June 29 brief at the appeals court that Dempsey "invented something previously unknown to Florida law: an 'executive privilege' against the constitutionally mandated disclosure of public records. In doing so, the trial court disregarded the unambiguous text of the Florida Constitution, which creates a right of access to public records in the absence of specified circumstances that are not present here."

The media organizations and other groups that filed briefs this week were the Associated Press; Cable News Network, Inc.; CMG Media Corp., doing business as Cox Media Group; Gannett Co., Inc.; Graham Media Group, Inc.; The McClatchy Company LLC, doing business as the Miami Herald; The New York Times Co.; Nexstar Media Group, Inc.; Orlando Sentinel Media Group; The E.W. Scripps Co.; Sun Sentinel Media Group; Times Publishing Co.; NBC Universal Media, LLC; the First Amendment Foundation; the Florida Center for Government Accountability; Integrity Florida Institute, Inc.; the League of Women Voters of Florida and the League of Women Voters of Florida Education Fund; and American Oversight.

The News Service of Florida is not one of the media organizations involved in the case.

That changed Wednesday, as heart-wrenching private tours began for relatives of the 14 students and three staff members who died.

The 17 wounded and their loved ones will also be able to visit the 1200 building, now that it is no longer needed as evidence in the trials of the convicted killer and the deputy who was just acquitted of failing to stop him.

The school district plans to demolish the three-story building, likely replacing it with a memorial.

Four families were led through the building Wednesday by prosecutors. 

Others are scheduled in the coming weeks. There might also be a reenactment of the Valentine's Day shooting for a still-pending civil lawsuit against the deputy.

"I needed to see where my son was murdered," said Linda Beigel Schulman, whose 35-year-old son, geography teacher Scott Beigel, died while directing his students to safety.

"I needed to see where he tried to close the door that saved 31 of his students. I needed to be where my son was when he took his last breath," she said, beginning to weep as she spoke to reporters across the street from the school. "I tried to say goodbye, but I can tell you, I can't say goodbye. I can't say goodbye. It has been five years and 151 days, it's been 1,961 days and I still can't say goodbye."

Behind a chain-link fence, the building has remained a constant, looming reminder of the tragedy for the school's 3,000 students, staff and anyone who drives past.

The building was preserved as evidence so that the jurors in last year's penalty trial of shooter Nikolas Cruz could tour the building, which they did in August at the conclusion of the prosecution's case. 

Cruz, a 24-year-old former Stoneman Douglas student, received a life sentence after the jury couldn't unanimously agree that he deserved the death penalty. 

The Associated Press was one of five media outlets allowed inside the building last year after the jurors left.

There are still bloodstains and broken glass on the floor, along with deflated Valentine's Day balloons, wilted flowers and discarded gifts. 

Opened textbooks and laptop computers remain on students' desks — at least the ones that weren't toppled during the chaos. In one classroom, an unfinished chess game one of the slain students had been playing still sat, the pieces unmoved.

Tony Montalto, whose 14-year-old daughter Gina was fatally shot on the first floor, said stepping inside the building and walking its halls was one of the hardest things he has ever done, "superseded, of course, by seeing her cold body."

"My first born. My only daughter. My beloved," he told reporters.

Beigel Schulman took several items from her son's classroom, including his sunglasses, a student's exemplary paper he had mentioned to her on one of their last calls, his computer and his lesson plan. She also took photographs of his classroom.

"I took away memories of Scott's last day," she said.

Prosecutors had hoped that the jury in the trial of former Deputy Scot Peterson could also tour the building, but the judge denied their request. 

Peterson, the school's on-campus deputy, was acquitted last week on charges he failed to confront Cruz during the six-minute attack.

Peterson has insisted that because of echoes, he could not pinpoint where the shots were coming from.

He got to within 10 yards (9 meters) of a hallway door, but backed away without opening it or looking through its window. He took cover next to an adjoining building and made radio calls.

Montalto brought a tape measure with him Wednesday, saying the body of his daughter, one of the first killed, was 63 feet (18 meters) from the door — she could have been easily seen if Peterson had looked. 

Prosecutors and families have said that if Peterson had gone into the building, he could have shot Cruz or at least distracted him long enough that some victims could have taken cover or escaped.

Beigel Schulman said that if Peterson had delayed Cruz's arrival on the third floor by just 15 seconds, her son could have gotten to safety inside his classroom.

Peterson's defense attorney, Mark Eiglarsh, has called Peterson a "hero" who did everything he could given the echoes. He says that the families have been misled by former Sheriff Scott Israel and other officials who made Peterson a scapegoat to deflect from their own failures to prevent the shooting.

The school district wants to demolish the building soon, but five students' families want a reenactment as part of a civil lawsuit targeting Peterson, the sheriff's office and others.

Attorney David Brill wants recordings made outside the 1200 building while someone inside fires blanks from an AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle like the one Cruz used. 

If the judge approves the unusual request, the recordings would be played for the jury. The trial has not been scheduled.

"The evidence we already have in this regard — which includes evidence that the State failed to introduce in the prosecution of Peterson — is substantial and powerful. But we don't want to leave anything to chance for Peterson to escape justice in our civil case like he escaped justice in the criminal case," Brill said.

Peterson's civil attorney, Michael Piper, declined direct comment Wednesday.

"Our benchmarks of professionalism include respect for our community and respect for and deference to our trial judge in such matters. Extrajudicial comment on attorney Brill's motion to restage Nicolas Cruz's murderous rampage compromises those benchmarks," Piper said in a statement.

The sheriff's office declined comment.

The potential class-action lawsuit, filed Monday in U.S. district court in Tallahassee, alleges that the state has violated federal laws, in part by not establishing high-demand academic programs at FAMU and by shortchanging the school financially.

"Defendants' (state officials') acts and omissions in determining what programs FAMU can and cannot offer and which of these programs are also offered or only offered at neighboring TWIs (traditionally white institutions), perpetuates the segregation era policy of defining an institution by race rather than by its programmatic offerings," the lawsuit said. 

"FAMU has always been and remains the 'Black School.' Its identity as an institution of higher learning is not based on what programs it offers (or other academic criteria such as the strength of its facilities, professors and faculty research productivity)."

Attorneys for six FAMU students initially filed the lawsuit last year, and this week's revised version names as defendants state university system Chancellor Ray Rodrigues, Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. and members of the state university system's Board of Governors. 

The plaintiffs contend that state practices violate the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution and what is known as Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle last month dismissed the lawsuit but gave plaintiffs' attorneys until Monday to file a revised version. 

Hinkle said the attorneys would have to provide more evidence to show that alleged discrimination could be traced to segregation.

"The first amended complaint (the version dismissed last month) alleges differences between FAMU and other public universities, including in funding, quality of faculty, graduation rates, and mission statements, but the first amended complaint is short on facts tying these differences to the segregated-by-law system," Hinkle wrote in the June 12 ruling.

Hinkle focused, in part, on allegations that FAMU has suffered because of duplication of programs with nearby Florida State University and other schools. 

But Hinkle pointed to the massive growth in Florida since passage of Title VI.

"When Title VI was adopted, Florida's population was about 5.7 million, and the state had only three public universities — two white and one black," Hinkle wrote.

"Florida now has 12 public universities serving a population of over 22 million. Of course there are duplicated programs at the 12 universities, but the assertion they were created to maintain segregation, rather than to accommodate the enormous population increase, is implausible."

While maintaining the underlying arguments, the 100-page revised version filed Monday includes comparisons of issues such as academic programs, funding and faculty salaries to try to show that vestiges of segregation remain in the university system.

In part, the lawsuit contends that FAMU needs to have high-demand, unique academic programs to help draw a wide range of students. 

As an example, it points to a decision in the 1980s that created a joint engineering program for FAMU and Florida State students, rather than having the program only at FAMU.

"Part and parcel of eliminating unnecessary program duplication is to create unique and/or high demand programs at FAMU, thus giving it the ability to have its own distinctive academic identity," the lawsuit said. "A program is only 'unique' to FAMU if it is not offered at FSU, the only TWI that is geographically proximate to FAMU. Once a 'unique' program is duplicated, it is no longer unique. A 'high demand' program is one that a disproportionately large number of students are likely to choose as their major program(s) of study."

The lawsuit also alleges that FAMU faculty members are paid less than counterparts at other Florida universities and that FAMU has been hurt financially by issues such as the state's performance-based funding system, which helps determine how much money goes to schools.

"The metrics used to determine the funding awarded to Florida's public universities favor students who have more resources and support that help ensure academic success at the college level," the lawsuit said. "This includes, by way of example, college preparatory coursework and standardized testing support, thereby supporting these students to more likely achieve higher testing scores, complete their first year of university, and ultimately graduate, among other things. Underrepresented minority students and socioeconomically challenged students are often the first-generation college student in their family, may have social or economic barriers, may work while pursuing their course of study, and have less access to resources and support. These challenges have an impact on institutions such as FAMU, who need the funding that will enable them to adequately serve students facing these challenges."

They are specifically looking at five drownings that recently happened in the Panama City Beach area.

Police say in all the cases parents allowed their children to swim in the Gulf of Mexico despite double red flag warnings.

The parents were fined $500, but now, they could also face child neglect charges.   

"To me, it's no different than having a fire inside of a house, and allowing a kid to go over there that doesn't know any danger to that fire and letting them go over there and get their cell burned or leaving them home alone with a fire going and something bad happened," said Bay County Sheriff's Office Capt. Jason Daffin. 

"You know, it is the adults, it's the adult's responsibility to protect their children."

Authorities said they don't generally resort to such measures.

Drownings have been such a problem in the area.

They want to get the word out about how dangerous the water can be.

The measure (SB 1416) includes doing away with what is known as permanent alimony. DeSantis' approval came a year after he nixed a similar bill that sought to eliminate permanent alimony and set up a formula for alimony amounts based on the length of marriage.

The approval drew an outcry from members of the "First Wives Advocacy Group," a coalition of mostly older women who receive permanent alimony and who assert that their lives will be upended without the payments.

"On behalf of the thousands of women who our group represents, we are very disappointed in the governor's decision to sign the alimony-reform bill. We believe by signing it, he has put older women in a situation which will cause financial devastation. The so-called party of 'family values' has just contributed to erosion of the institution of marriage in Florida," Jan Killilea, a 63-year-old Boca Raton woman who founded the group a decade ago, told The News Service of Florida in a text message Friday.

The years-long effort to do away with permanent alimony has been a highly contentious issue. 

It elicited tearful testimony from members of the First Wives group. But it also spurred impassioned pleas from ex-spouses who said they had been forced to work long past the age they wanted to retire because they were on the hook for alimony payments.

Michael Buhler, chairman of Florida Family Fairness, a group that has pushed for doing away with permanent alimony, praised the approval of the bill.

"Florida Family Fairness is pleased that the Florida Legislature and Gov. DeSantis have passed a bill that ends permanent alimony and codifies in statute the right to retire for existing alimony payers," Buhler said in a statement.

"Anything that adds clarity and ends permanent alimony is a win for Florida families."

Along with DeSantis' veto of the 2022 version, former Gov. Rick Scott twice vetoed similar bills. 

The issue spurred a near-fracas outside Scott's office in 2016.

This year, however, the proposal received relatively little public pushback and got the blessing of Florida Family Fairness and The Florida Bar's Family Law Section, which fiercely clashed over the issue in the past.

Along with eliminating permanent alimony, the measure will set up a process for ex-spouses who make alimony payments to seek modifications to alimony agreements when they want to retire.

It will allow judges to reduce or terminate alimony, support or maintenance payments after considering a number of factors, such as "the age and health" of the person who makes payments; the customary retirement age of that person's occupation; "the economic impact" a reduction in alimony would have on the recipient of the payments; and the "motivation for retirement and likelihood of returning to work" for the person making the payments.

Supporters said it will codify into law a court decision in a 1992 divorce case that judges use as a guidepost when making decisions about retirement.

But, as with previous versions, opponents remained concerned that the bill would apply to existing permanent alimony agreements, which many ex-spouses accept in exchange for giving up other assets as part of divorce settlements.

"He (DeSantis) has just impoverished all the older women of Florida, and I know at least 3,000 women across the state of Florida are switching to Democrat and we will campaign against him, all the way, forever," Camille Fiveash, a Milton Republican who receives permanent alimony, said in a phone interview Friday.

In vetoing the 2022 version, DeSantis pointed to concerns about the bill allowing ex-spouses to have existing alimony agreements amended.

In a June 24, 2022, veto letter, he wrote that if the bill "were to become law and be given retroactive effect as the Legislature intends, it would unconstitutionally impair vested rights under certain pre-existing marital settlement agreements."

But Senate bill sponsor Joe Gruters, R-Sarasota, tried to assure lawmakers that the 2023 version would not unconstitutionally affect existing alimony settlements. 

This year's proposal "went to what is currently case law," Gruters told a Senate committee in April, pointing to the court ruling.

"So what you can do right now, under case law, we now codify all those laws and make that the rule of law. So we basically just solidify that. So from a retroactivity standpoint, no, because if anything could be modifiable before, it's still modifiable. If it's a non-modifiable agreement, you still can't modify that agreement," he said.

The bill, which will take effect Saturday, also will set a five-year limit on what is known as rehabilitative alimony. 

Under the plan, people married for less than three years will not be eligible for alimony payments, and those who have been married 20 years or longer will be eligible to receive payments for up to 75 percent of the term of the marriage.

The new law will also allow alimony payers to seek modifications if "a supportive relationship exists or has existed" involving their ex-spouses in the previous year. Critics argued the provision is vague and could apply to temporary roommates who help alimony recipients cover living expenses for short periods of time.

Fiveash, a 63-year-old with serious medical conditions, said she can't afford another legal fight over alimony.

"My fears are that they can take you back to court, and I don't have the money for an attorney. I literally live off a little bit I get for alimony. I work part-time, because I have all kinds of ailments. And now I'm going to be left without anything, absolutely anything," she said.

Health insurance, Fiveash added, will "probably be the first thing to go" if her payments are reduced or eliminated.

"This is a death sentence for me," she said.

The rules include "informed consent" forms containing language that says gender-affirming care "is purely speculative, and the possible psychological benefits may not outweigh the substantial risks of medical treatments and, in many cases, the need for lifelong medical treatments."

The forms also say that "medical treatment of people with gender dysphoria is based on very limited, poor-quality research with only subtle improvements seen in some patient's psychological functioning in some, but not all, research studies."

The advisories in the forms run counter to what most experts say about gender-affirming care and research supporting it — that treatment is medically safe, effective and can be life-saving.

The language is "inflammatory, unnecessary and not even true," Yale University School of Medicine professor Meredithe McNamara told The News Service of Florida in a phone interview Thursday.

"It is not abnormal for youth, minors, to undergo informed-consent processes with their parents that are guided by forms that are similar in structure to the ones Florida has. But when it comes to adults, that's not standard practice whatsoever. And what we're finally seeing is what we feared for a long time, which is that bans on care for youth have made legal interference into totally undisputed care for adults more acceptable and more palatable," McNamara, who specializes in adolescent medicine, added.

Numerous speakers at a joint meeting Friday of the state Board of Medicine and the state Board of Osteopathic Medicine opposed the rules and forms, which include a laundry list of dangers associated with puberty blockers and hormone-replacement therapy.

"What you're proposing is not an informed consent. You're going far further, essentially trying to create a new standard of care, when one already exists," physician Michael Haller, a professor and chief of endocrinology at the University of Florida, told members of the boards. "The ongoing emphasis on the idea that there's low-grade, low-quality evidence for gender affirming care is extremely problematic."

Doing nothing to treat children diagnosed with gender dysphoria can have harmful effects, Haller said.

"This is a conversation that physicians have with their patients all day every day. And so to try to put this specific language in the consent form is, again, entirely disingenuous. And you all know that, and it's shameful. The bias that's being represented by medical organizations," Haller said, before being interrupted by Board of Medicine Chairman Scot Ackerman.

"I take offense to your comments. Don't tell us what we know, and don't call us shameful," Ackerman, a Jacksonville-based oncologist, said.

Board of Medicine member Hector Vila, a Tampa physician, offered an explanation for the use of the term "poor-quality" studies.

"It's not like an adjective. It's not like we're who proscribe it. That is very standard medical terminology that describes the absence of the highest quality of studies that exist, and that's prospective, randomized, controlled studies that have large numbers of patients and follow those patients over an adequate period of time to provide good predictive value," Vila said. "That would be good studies. So this is just a medical term, and all of us doctors are used to using it for quality studies. … It just means that they don't meet the standard of what we in medicine refer to as high-quality studies."

The approval of the rules and the forms helped carry out a new law, signed by DeSantis on May 17, that banned physicians from using puberty blockers or hormone-replacement therapy for children diagnosed with gender dysphoria, which the federal government defines clinically as "significant distress that a person may feel when sex or gender assigned at birth is not the same as their identity."

The law included an exception that allows children currently receiving puberty blockers or hormone therapy to continue the treatment and required the state medical boards to establish standards of care for such children.

In addition, the law required the boards, which regulate physicians, to create informed-consent forms for transgender patients seeking gender-affirming care. 

Adults, children and parents of kids who receive puberty blockers or hormone therapy must sign the forms.

Doctors who violate the law could be stripped of their licenses and face felony charges.

Steven Rocha was among speakers during Friday's meeting who disputed that gender-affirming care is speculative.

Trans people "have been taking hormones for decades, and to say that only subtle improvements were seen in patients' mental health would be laughable if it weren't so dangerous," Rocha, a trans man who is policy director for the LGBTQ youth-advocacy group PRISM Florida. "That kind of thinking is what gets critical health care ripped away from those who need it most. Gender-affirming care helped me, and I'm nowhere near alone."

Florida is among a number of Republican-led states that have approved measures to curb or prohibit gender-affirming care for transgender children and adults. DeSantis, who is running for president, has made the issue one of his priorities.

"We cannot speak something into existence that doesn't exist. We cannot change our sex," Rep. Ralph Massullo, a Lecanto Republican who is a dermatologist, said in May before the House gave final approval to the bill (SB 254) that included requiring the rules and forms.

"And for those children that this bill addresses, they cannot change their sex, and they need to learn that fact."

Restrictions approved by DeSantis and the GOP-controlled Legislature, however, have not fared well in federal court.

U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle this month blocked Florida's ban on the use of puberty blockers and hormone therapy to treat children diagnosed with gender dysphoria, calling the prohibition "an exercise in politics, not good medicine."

"The statute and rules at issue were motivated in substantial part by the plainly illegitimate purposes of disapproving transgender status and discouraging individuals from pursuing their honest gender identities. This was purposeful discrimination against transgenders," Hinkle wrote.

The judge on June 22 also blocked a state ban of Medicaid coverage for transgender children and adults, saying the effort was "invidious discrimination." The state is appealing both decisions.