Reason

IT USUALLY ISN’T great news for a politician when a newspaper reports that you threatened the Special Olympics, but it was just another day for Florida state Rep. Randy Fine, a bombastic Republican millionaire. Last April, Florida Today obtained text

2 ½ ounces dark aged rum, preferably El Dorado 81 ½ ounces coffee liqueur, preferably Kahlúa1 ounce crème de cacao, preferably Tempus Fugit1 teaspoon orange liqueur, preferably Grand Marnier2 ounces whole milk1 ½ ounce coconut cream, preferably Coco

THE PUBLIC SECTOR remains the last stand for the antiquated, lifetime career–focused approach to pensions. Nationwide, state-run pensions have accrued debts exceeding $1 trillion, generating massive new costs for taxpayers. Resolving this issue is no

THE NEWS ABOUT Florida’s property insurance market is not particularly sunny these days. Headlines are full of insurers pulling out of the state, premiums shooting up, and homeowners with insurance bills higher than their mortgages. But for all the d

SINGER/SONGWRITER/ENTREPRENEUR JIMMY BUFFETT, who died of complications of skin cancer at age 76 in September 2023, seemed like a representative Florida Man. He embraced a popular image of louche, loose, canvas-flapping, soused insouciance, like the

FLORIDA IS A land of attainable possibilities. It’s sunny, it’s warm, there’s a magic castle anyone can visit, there’s no income tax, and there’s enough beach for everyone. It lacks the pristine glamour of California or Hawaii, but it’s cheaper and m

ABOUT FOUR HOURS after the polls closed on Election Day, the major TV networks and the Associated Press declared a winner in the crucially important and always bitterly contested state of Florida. And that was it. There were no takebacks. No correcti

FROM BUCKHEAD TO Bucks County—and of course “crucial Waukesha County”—political analysts have plenty of geographic areas they cite as bellwethers, the sorts of places populated by oodles of swing voters who cast the most decisive votes in our electio

THERE HAVE BEEN several theories floated about why former President Donald Trump refused to hand records back to the National Archives, choosing instead to keep sensitive government documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in what has become Palm Beach’s m

I’M KIND OF hating how much I love it,” my wife Lindsey says to me on a Thursday evening stroll through Market Square in Lake Sumter Landing at The Villages. I’m a fully fledged Florida Man now, having moved my family from Los Angeles to Jacksonville

IT COMES AS no surprise that President Joe Biden—who has reportedly ridden Amtrak trains over 8,000 times—supports pouring endless amounts of taxpayer money into the outdated, slow-moving system. In 2021, as part of the massive federal infrastructure

IF YOU SIT on the bench outside Natural Beautiii Haircare in Eatonville, Florida, and stare across East Kennedy Boulevard, you’ll see the grassy lot where Zora Neale Hurston’s house once stood. Hurston was a novelist and a folklorist, a champion of t

IT WOULD BE more accurate to describe Jeff Brandes as a Republican from Florida than a Florida Republican. The former legislator—who left the state Senate in 2022 after term limits precluded another run—is a heterodox conservative who breaks with sta

WHEN STORM DAMAGE caused by Hurricane Ian cut off access to Sanibel Island on Florida’s Gulf Coast in fall 2022, the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) had to act quickly. It set out to repair the bridge and hoped to have the entire project

THE UNITED STATES acquired the island of Key West through neither military conquest nor diplomatic treaty. In good American fashion, it was purchased with private funds. The island was uninhabited except by foliage and flamingos when John Whitehead s

IN1980, FLORIDA experienced an immigration restrictionist’s worstnightmare: ahuge, rapid, and unauthorized influx of largely unskilled migrants. That event was the Mariel boatlift, a mass migration that followed Cuban dictator Fidel Castro’s April 19

IN HIS 1904 campaign for governor, Napoleon Bonaparte Broward vowed to turn the vast South Florida marsh into an “Empire of the Everglades.” The ensuing efforts to tame the natural landscape set off a century of miraculous growth and development, but

ANY DISCUSSION OF Florida’s education system is incomplete without mentioning this: Nearly 50 percent of the state’s K-12 students attend a school other than the one in their neighborhood or geographically closest to them. That’s about 1.6 million st

THE RACE TO save the only barrier reef in the U.S. hit a major setback this summer when a heat wave turned the waters off the Florida Keys into a Jacuzzi. The Florida Reef Tract is used to weathering warm water during fall months, but unseasonably ho

There are currently 1,967 special districts across Florida, according to the Florida Department of Commerce. Most aren’t like the big, quasi-autonomous districts that cover The Villages and Disney World, though. Some just cover local or county librar

PYTHON COWBOY MIKE Kimmel and Python Huntress Amy Siewe are just two of the legendary characters trying to keep the rising population of Burmese pythons in check in Florida’s Everglades. Both were once snake killers for hire for the South Florida Wat

ANATIVE TEXAN, Jeb Bush moved to Florida in 1980. He was governor of the Sunshine State from 1999 to 2007, where he quickly became known as a champion of school choice. In 2016, he made an unsuccessful run for president. Now he resides in Miami-Dade

ON APRIL 22, 2022, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill dissolving the Reedy Creek Improvement District, ending perhaps the most successful experiment in private governance in U.S. history. The bill ended an arrangement that turned a swamp on the

No state banned more books than Florida in the most recent school year, according to free expression nonprofit PEN America. Over 40 percent of school book bans in the U.S. happened in Florida, though a slight majority of Florida school districts had

ON APRIL 24, 2000, a day after Easter and two days after she sent 130 federal agents to storm Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood, Attorney General Janet Reno received reverential treatment on NBC’s Today show. “One of the things that is so very impor

FOR THE AVERAGE American, the phrase “Florida drug kingpin” is more likely to evoke cocaineslinging Cubans or meth-cooking bikers than a middle-aged science-fiction nerd who invited the police to inspect his facilities. Yet in the eyes of federal pro

Even though the Cuban sandwich is essentially just a fancy ham, pork, and cheese sandwich, the controversy over its origin is piping hot. In the late 19th century, the sandwich was a lunchtime staple of Cuban cigar factory workers. So it’s no surpris

February 2013 “In October police arrested Joseph Harris of Bradenton, Florida, for employing two unlicensed telemarketers at his air conditioning business. Calling people without a license is a third-degree felony in Florida, legally equivalent to co

1. Sullum who wrote Saying Yes: In Defense of Drug Use 6. Soldiers, for short 9. Elizabeth who gave us the drinking age of 21 13. Light on one’s feet 14. Feature of the U.S. Capitol building 15. Sign that can be good or bad 16. Defeated in a chess ga

Kary Jarvis spent more than a year behind bars facing multiple felony charges after a traffic stop that left two Daytona Beach police officers injured. But video of the stop showed that after officers gave Jarvis a warning they asked multiple times t