Disney scraps plans for new Florida campus amid spat with Governor Ron DeSantis
The Walt Disney Company has announced it is scrapping plans to build a new campus in central Florida following a year-long dispute with Governor Ron DeSantis.
Mr DeSantis has been attacking the company after it opposed a state law banning classroom lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity in early years.
Disney filed a First Amendment lawsuit against Mr DeSantis and other officials last month.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Pic: AP
The company had planned to build the campus around 20 miles (30km) from the giant Walt Disney World theme park resort and relocate 2,000 employees from Southern California.
But Josh D’Amaro, chairman of the parks, experiences and products division, said in a memo to employees that “new leadership and changing business conditions” prompted the company to abandon those plans.
“I remain optimistic about the direction of our Walt Disney World business,” Mr D’Amaro said.
“We have plans to invest $17bn (£13.8bn) and create 13,000 jobs over the next 10 years. I hope we’re able to do so.”
Mr DeSantis has been criticised for his ongoing row with Disney as he prepares to launch an anticipated presidential bid.
‘DeSantis is not who you want for president’
Democratic representative Anna Eskamani, who represents the Orlando area in the Florida House, released a statement saying: “Governor Ron DeSantis is a job-killing moron who cares more about his own political ambitions and culture wars than Florida and our future.
“According to him, ‘woke makes you go broke’ but this is another example of how it’s actually the complete opposite. DeSantis is not who you want for president – ever.”
Florida senator Joe Gruters said Disney’s decision was a huge loss.
“I hope we can put this conflict behind us and get back to a more normal working relationship with a company that’s been one of our best business and tourism partners that we’ve had over the last 50 years,” Mr Gruters said.
“Two thousand jobs and a billion dollars worth of investments into our state, I would say that’s a serious blow.”
Feud over ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill
The feud began after Disney publicly opposed the state concerning lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity in early years critics called “Don’t Say Gay”.
As punishment Mr DeSantis took over Disney World’s self-governing district through legislation and appointed a new board of supervisors.
Before the new board came in, the company signed agreements with the old board stripping the new supervisors of design and construction authority.
In response, the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature passed legislation allowing the DeSantis-appointed board to repeal those agreements and made the theme park resort’s monorail system subject to state inspection, when it had previously been inspected in-house.
Disney’s suit against Mr DeSantis alleges he waged a “targeted campaign of government retaliation”.
It asks a federal judge to void the takeover of the theme park district, as well as the DeSantis oversight board’s actions, on the grounds they were violations of the company’s free-speech rights.
Donald Trump has said he is considering “taking away” the US citizenship of actress and comedian Rosie O’Donnell, despite a Supreme Court ruling that expressly prohibits a government from doing so.
In a post on Truth Social on Saturday, the US president said: “Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship.”
He also labelled O’Donnell, who has moved to Ireland, as a “threat to humanity” and said she should “remain in the wonderful country of Ireland, if they want her”.
O’Donnell responded on Instagram by posting a photograph of Mr Trump with Jeffrey Epstein.
“You are everything that is wrong with America and I’m everything you hate about what’s still right with it,” she wrote in the caption.
“I’m not yours to silence. I never was.”
Rosie O’Donnell moved to Ireland after Donald Trump secured a second term. Pic: AP
O’Donnell moved to Ireland with her 12-year-old son in January after Mr Trump had secured a second term.
She has said she’s in the process of obtaining Irish citizenship based on family lineage and that she would only return to the US “when it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there in America”.
O’Donnell and the US president have criticised each other publicly for years, in an often-bitter back-and-forth that predates Mr Trump’s move into politics.
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This is just the latest threat by the president to revoke the citizenship of someone he has disagreed with, most recently his former ally Elon Musk.
But the two situations are different as while Musk was born in South Africa, O’Donnell was born in the US and has a constitutional right to American citizenship.
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Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, said the Supreme Court ruled in a 1967 case that the fourteenth amendment of the constitution prevents the government from taking away citizenship.
“The president has no authority to take away the citizenship of a native-born US citizen,” he added.
“In short, we are nation founded on the principle that the people choose the government; the government cannot choose the people.”
A farmer who fell from a greenhouse roof during an anti-immigrant raid at a licensed cannabis facility in California this week has died of his injuries.
Jaime Alanis, 57, is the first person to die as a result of Donald Trump’s Immigration Compliance and Enforcement (ICE) raids.
His niece, Yesenia Duran, posted on the fundraising site GoFundMe to say her uncle was his family’s only provider and he had been sending his earnings back to his wife and daughter in Mexico.
The United Food Workers said Mr Alanis had worked on the farm for 10 years.
“These violent and cruel federal actions terrorise American communities, disrupt the American food supply chain, threaten lives and separate families,” the union said in a recent statement on X.
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The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said it executed criminal search warrants at Glass House Farms facilities on Thursday.
Mr Alanis called family to say he was hiding and possibly fleeing agents before he fell around 30ft (9m) from the roof and broke his neck, according to information from family, hospital and government sources.
Agents arrested 200 people suspected of being in the country illegally and identified at least 10 immigrant children on the sites, the DHS said in a statement.
Mr Alanis was not among them, the agency said.
“This man was not in and has not been in CBP (Customs and Border Protection) or ICE custody,” DHS assistant secretary for public affairs Tricia McLaughlin said.
“Although he was not being pursued by law enforcement, this individual climbed up to the roof of a greenhouse and fell 30ft. CBP immediately called a medivac to the scene to get him care as quickly as possible.”
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Four US citizens were arrested during the incident for allegedly “assaulting or resisting officers”, the DHS said, and authorities were offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of a person suspected of firing a gun at federal agents.
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In a statement, Glass House, a licensed Cannabis grower, said immigration agents had valid warrants. It said workers were detained and it is helping provide them with legal representation.
“Glass House has never knowingly violated applicable hiring practices and does not and has never employed minors,” it added.
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