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☆ White House 'in touch' with airlines as hurricanes Helene, Milton spark price-gouging fears
▼ + stars: | 2024-10-08 | by ( Rebecca Picciotto | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Price gouging is the practice of retailers artificially inflating prices dramatically when the retailer's costs have not increased. In times of crisis, when urgent demand vastly outpaces supply, consumers can be especially vulnerable to price gouging. Florida is preparing for Hurricane Milton to make landfall on its western coast Wednesday, deepening the wounds left by the devastation of Hurricane Helene, which ravaged the southeastern U.S. about a week earlier. The attorney general's office has received more than 450 consumer contacts alleging price gouging related to Helene, which "mostly concern fuel," a spokesperson told CNBC. Though the price-gouging panic is normal during natural disasters, just the term "price gouging" has political implications, less than a month out from a presidential election that is extremely close.

Persons: Pete Buttigieg, Joe Biden, Hurricane Helene, Hurricane Milton, Milton, Helene, Kamala Harris, Harris, Howard Stern, — CNBC's Leslie Josephs Organizations: White, The Department of Transportation, Hurricane, CNBC, Transportation, —, Tampa International, Orlando International Airport, . American Airlines and United Airlines, Florida Attorney General's, Democratic Locations: Washington ,, Florida, Hurricane, U.S, Tampa, Milton

REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo Acquire Licensing RightsAug 17 (Reuters) - A U.S. judge in Florida on Thursday declined to block the state's law barring citizens of China and other "countries of concern" from owning homes or land in the state. Winsor, an appointee of Republican then-President Donald Trump, denied a bid by four Chinese nationals to block the law pending the outcome of their lawsuit filed in May. Florida's law prohibits individuals who are "domiciled" in China and are not U.S. citizens or green card holders from purchasing buildings or land in the state. The ACLU claims the law violates the U.S. Constitution's guarantees of equal protection and due process and the federal Fair Housing Act (FHA), which prohibits housing discrimination based on race and national origin. The Biden administration filed a brief last month agreeing that the Florida law violates the FHA.

Persons: Dado Ruvic, District Judge Allen Winsor, Winsor, Donald Trump, Ashley Gorski, general's, Ron DeSantis, Biden, Daniel Wiessner, Alexia Garamfalvi Organizations: REUTERS, District, Republican, American Civil Liberties Union, U.S, Chinese Communist Party, ACLU, Housing, Thomson Locations: U.S, Florida, China, Tallahassee , Florida, Cuba, Venezuela, Syria, Iran, Russia, North Korea, Albany , New York

May 2 (Reuters) - A lawyer for a Florida prosecutor on Tuesday urged a federal appeals court to reinstate his client after the state's Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, indefinitely suspended him over his pledge not to prosecute people seeking or providing abortions. "This governor punishes dissenting voices," David A. O'Neil, a lawyer for suspended prosecutor Andrew Warren, told a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Henry Whitaker, a lawyer in the Florida Attorney General's office representing DeSantis, said Warren was suspended for his conduct of refusing to enforce the law, not for his speech. Whitaker urged the court to uphold a January ruling in favor of DeSantis by U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle. Warren, who won re-election in 2020 as the Hillsborough County state attorney, sued DeSantis last August.

Law Firms Boies Schiller Flexner LLP FollowMay 1 (Reuters) - A lawyer in the Florida attorney general's office has left to join U.S. law firm Boies Schiller Flexner, the firm said Monday. Deputy Solicitor General Evan Ezray has rejoined the firm's Fort Lauderdale, Florida office as a partner, the firm said. Ezray previously worked at the law firm co-founded by prominent lawyer David Boies from 2017 to 2020, according to his LinkedIn profile. The solicitor general is the chief appellate attorney for the state of Florida and part of the Florida attorney general's office. Read more:Florida board to countersue DisneyU.S. appeals court upholds Florida voting law that judge found discriminatoryDisney sues Florida's DeSantis for 'weaponizing' governmentFlorida judge blocks Republican-backed voting law as discriminatoryOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Florida is ground zero for moving scams where companies demand extra fees — or steal your stuff
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-12 | by ( Eliza Relman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Moving company scams are on the rise, and almost half originate in Florida. But the Sunshine State is also increasingly home to scammers operating fraudulent moving companies targeting Florida residents and people across the country. No one's regulating," Susan Chana Lask, a New York-based consumer rights attorney who settled a lawsuit last year with a Florida-based moving company, told Insider. Her office announced last November that it had shut down 19 fraudulent moving companies and recovered $27 million in fines and restitution from the scammers. The sharp increase in moving scams across the country has also prompted the Biden administration to announce it's taking action.

☆ Florida's attorney general says Americans from blue states are moving to the Sunshine State because it's tough on crime: 'It's not rocket science'
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-28 | by ( Isabella Zavarise | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Florida AG Ashley Moody says Americans are moving to Florida because it's a law and order state. Americans have flocked to the Sunshine State largely due to its low taxes, and business-friendly policies, according to the state's CFO, Jimmy Patronis. Using data from the FBI's 2018 Uniform Crime Reporting Program, USA Today ranked states from lowest violent crime rate to highest. Florida ranked 21st with a violent crime rate of 384.9 per 100,000 people, while California — the most populous state — ranked 14th with a violent crime rate of 447.4 per 100,000 people, according to the news outlet. New York was 25th on the list with a violent crime rate of 350.5 per 100,000 people.

Nov 17 (Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Thursday blocked key provisions of a Florida state law that curbs professors from endorsing particular viewpoints in public university classrooms, calling the measure "positively dystopian" in the latest blow to the Republican-enacted measure. Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker in Tallahassee said in a 139-page ruling that Florida's Individual Freedom Act, also known as the Stop WOKE Act, would have unlawfully required public university professors to self-censor. His ruling came in consolidated lawsuits filed by professors and students challenging the Individual Freedom Act, which Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis championed and signed into law in April. A spokesperson for DeSantis did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment, nor did the Florida attorney general's office, which defended the law in court. Attorneys for Florida had argued that the state had full power to restrict what public university professors, as state employees, could say in their classrooms.

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