Ron DeSantis teases 2024 bid amid Disney and NAACP spats – latest news

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis appears to have dropped the letters “FL” from his personal Twitter handle and acquired the @RonDeSantis handle from its previous owner.

His team appears to have also dropped the Sunshine State from their handle, becoming @TeamRonDeSantis.

The official announcement of his candidacy is expected this week as he files the paperwork and meets with donors, having already visited many early primary states and embarked on a short international trip.

On Monday, Senator Tim Scott entered the race to be the Republican nominee and got a surprisingly warm welcome from the current leader of the pack Donald Trump (who unsurprisingly also dissed DeSantis in the same post).

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is brushing off any concern about the NAACP issuing a formal advisory warning travelers that the Sunshine State is “openly hostile” towards Black people, people of colour and LGBT+ people.

The Independent approached Mr DeSantis’ office on Monday about the advisory issued by the largest and oldest civil rights organisation in the United States on 20 May.

Governor Ron DeSantis is asking that a federal judge be disqualified from the First Amendment lawsuit filed by Disney against the Florida governor and his appointees, claiming the jurist’s prior statements in other cases have raised questions about his impartiality on the state’s efforts to take over Disney World’s governing body.

During his own tenure in the White House in 2018, Mr Trump loudly cheered Mr DeSantis’s bid for the governor’s mansion, throwing his weight behind the former congressman and appearing at rallies to stump for him, playing an important role in the candidate’s narrow defeat of Democratic rival and Tallahassee mayor Andrew Gillum.

Since then, however, a great deal of water has passed beneath the bridge and the two men are now increasingly antagonistic towards each other.

Organisers based in the town of St Cloud outside Orlando announced on Thursday that they have cancelled the upcoming 10 June event, saying they are aware that it is “unsafe to hold the event”.

Texas Senator Ted Cruz found himself denounced by the daughter of late civil rights champion Dr Martin Luther King Jr on Sunday after he attempted to invoke Dr King’s legacy in order to attack the modern incarnation of the anti-racism movement.

Mr Cruz used Dr King’s name in his own tweet attacking the NAACP, one of America’s oldest and best-known anti-racist institutions.

John Bowden has the story.

Jack Sweeney, a student at the University of Central Florida, created a Twitter account called “@DeSantisJet”, which tracks the whereabouts of the aircraft that Mr DeSantis uses.

Alisha Rahaman Sarkar reports.

On Monday, Ron DeSantis teased his 2024 bid while speaking at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention in Orlando.

In what appeared to be a subtle swipe at Donald Trump he announced his plans to run for eight years – something Mr Trump cannot do after already serving four years.

Mr DeSantis also vowed to “protect” faith and family during the Christian event.

“My first job as governor, after getting sworn in on the steps of the Capitol, was to go back to the governor’s residence … to get our son Mason baptised,” he said.

Gustaf Kilander has the story.