On Saturday, former President Donald Trump said he supported Florida's Amendment 3, which would make recreational marijuana legal in the state, and Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign kicks off a reproductive rights bus tour on Tuesday.
Trump announces support for Florida marijuana amendment
The 2024 general election is just two months away and voters will decide if recreational marijuana should be legalized in the state.
On Saturday, former President Donald Trump came out in support of the amendment.
Trump voiced his opinion on Truth Social, saying in part, “Whether people like it or not, this will happen through the approval of the voters, so it should be done correctly. We need the state legislature to responsibly create laws that prohibit the use of it in public spaces. Someone should not be a criminal in Florida when this is legal in so many other states.”
Democratic Presidential Candidate Kamala Harris has previously voiced her support for legalizing marijuana.
She says it’s absurd that the federal government classifies marijuana as more dangerous than fentanyl.
If it passes, the amendment would allow adults 21 years old and older to possess, purchase, and use marijuana products recreationally.
U.S. seizes plane used by Venezuelan president, citing sanctions violations
The U.S. government has seized a plane used by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro that officials say was illegally purchased through a shell company and smuggled out of the United States in violation of sanctions and export control laws.
The Dassault Falcon 900EX was seized in the Dominican Republic and transferred to the custody of federal officials in Florida, the Justice Department said Monday. The plane landed at Ft. Lauderdale Executive Airport shortly before noon Monday, according to flight tracking websites.
U.S. officials say associates of the Venezuelan leader in late 2022 and early 2023 used a Caribbean-based shell company to hide their involvement in the purchase of the plane, valued at the time at $13 million, from a company in Florida. The plane was then exported from the U.S. to Venezuela, through the Caribbean, in April 2023 in a transaction meant to circumvent an executive order that bars U.S. persons from business transactions with representatives of the Maduro regime.
The plane, registered to San Marino, was widely used by Maduro for foreign travel, including in a trips earlier this year to Guyana and Cuba. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement that it had been smuggled out of the U.S. for use by “Maduro and his cronies.”
The seizure announcement comes just over a month after Venezuelans headed to the polls for a highly anticipated presidential election in which ruling party-loyal electoral authorities declared Maduro the victor without showing any detailed results to back up their claim. The lack of transparency has drawn international condemnation against Maduro’s government.
Harris allies kick off reproductive rights bus tour in Florida
Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign kicked off a bus tour on Tuesday aimed at amplifying the issue of reproductive rights in the lead up to November's election.
And they did so in West Palm Beach, Florida, choosing not only to begin the tour in a state with a high-profile abortion amendment on the ballot in November, but in former President Donald Trump's backyard.
The event on Tuesday featured Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who herself ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, Republican television personality Ana Navarro, Harris-Walz campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez, Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and others.
Sonia Suter, a professor of law at The George Washington University, told Spectrum News that the event's setting in Florida was aimed at emphasizing Trump's role in the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. Trump nominated three justices to the high court who were part of the majority that overturned the landmark 1973 ruling.
"The location is intended to sort of emphasize the fact that Roe was overturned because of the appointment of Supreme Court justices by former President Trump," Suter said.
It comes just days after Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, unveiled his new campaign promise to have the federal government or insurance companies cover the cost of in vitro fertilization, which the Harris campaign panned as "gaslighting," and separately announced his opposition to Florida's abortion amendment. Known as Amendment Four, the ballot initiative would bar restrictions or bans on abortion before fetal viability, which is typically around 23-24 weeks. The amendment needs 60% support to pass.
The state currently has a six-week ban in effect, which many experts say is before most women know they are pregnant.