Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis got married at Disney World in 2009.

Joe Raedle/Getty Images and AaronP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images

• Disney will sue Florida for dissolving its self-governing status, predicted Democratic state Sen. Jason Pizzo.
• Florida lawmakers are deciding Disney’s financial fate this week. 
• DeSantis retaliated against Disney for saying it would fight the law critics call “Don’t Say Gay.”

Walt Disney World’s strategy to avoid taking on new costs amid its ongoing battle with Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis will be to simply run out the clock, a top Florida Democrat predicted Monday. 

Florida lawmakers are in Tallahassee for a special session over the next two weeks to decide the fate of Disney, one of the state’s biggest employers, in a costly dispute over who should take on the theme park’s considerable debt. 

DeSantis wants the legislature to give him the power to appoint a state-run oversight board, Fox News first reported, now that the company is set to soon lose its special self-governing status.

State Sen. Jason Pizzo, a Democrat representing parts of Broward and Miami-Dade, predicted Disney was angling to challenge the law in court, and then to resolve the problem when DeSantis leaves office, likely to run for the 2024 Republican nomination for president. 

“I think Disney anticipates having to litigate on this issue, to sue, hope to get a stay from the court to keep things status quo, and then basically just drag it out until DeSantis is gone and people need, or don’t care, about Disney,” Pizzo told reporters during a press conference in Tallahassee. 

Pizzo made it clear throughout the press conference that he anticipated DeSantis would run for president. Should DeSantis not seek the nomination, then he would have four more years at the helm of the state. 

“We are all hoping the governor makes a decision real soon about what he wants to do with his future, so he can leave the business of legislating in Florida to Floridians,” Pizzo said. 

Jeff Vahle, president of Walt Disney World Resort, told Insider through a spokesperson that the company was “monitoring the progression of the draft legislation,” saying it was complex given the history of the district. The company didn’t address any possible litigation plans. 

“Disney works under a number of different models and jurisdictions around the world, and regardless of the outcome, we remain committed to providing the highest quality experience for the millions of guests who visit each year,” Vahle said. 

The governor’s office did not immediately respond to an email from Insider seeking comment. During his 2022 reelection campaign, DeSantis said Disney was free to take a position on the bill but “they are not free to force all of us to subsidize their activism.” 

DeSantis signed the bill into law last year to sunset Disney’s self-governing status. His actions burnished his political brand as combative against what he calls “woke” corporations.

The Disney measure isn’t scheduled to take effect until June of this year, however, and lawmakers have to clarify the bill to abolish the possibility that Orange and Osceola County residents would face tax hikes, which could amount to more than $1 billion in bond debt. Residents filed a lawsuit over the matter last year, but a judge dismissed it. 

DeSantis has insisted that he won’t saddle residents with higher costs. The state board idea he proposed would have Disney pay $700 million dollars toward its debt, Fox News reported. House lawmakers introduced a formal proposal Monday afternoon, which would have the state Senate approve governor-appointed board members. 

Pizzo, the minority leader pro tempore  — which has a GOP supermajority — called the governor’s board proposal “socialism.”

“It’s the government controlling the means and production of goods and services and pricing, and governing over corporations,” he said.

Sen. Jason Pizzo, a Democrat from North Miami Beach, speaks to the media Monday, February 6, 2023 in the Senate Office Building at the Capitol in Tallahassee, Fla. Florida legislators are meeting in a two-week special session to take up a list of issues proposed by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Phil Sears/AP Photo

Disney’s power in Florida appears to be waning  

The regular legislative session in Florida isn’t expected to begin until March 7, though DeSantis called a special session early to have lawmakers address the Disney question, without explaining what necessitated the accelerated timeline.

Other areas state lawmakers will consider would allow Florida to transport migrants from other states and to give the state more power to prosecute election fraud. 

Democrats on Monday accused DeSantis of setting up the timeline to clean up legislative language dictating his political stunts on voting and immigration, contentious matter that have landed the governor national headlines. Pizzo is among those who has sued DeSantis after he authorized planes to transport migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. 

DeSantis’ actions against Disney last year were retaliatory after the company opposed his Parental Rights in Education Act.  Critics call the law “Don’t Say Gay” because it bans teachers from instructing students about sexual orientation and gender identity until third grade, and contains nebulous language that could further restrict discussions in higher grades. 

“Let’s not forget how this happened: Disney spoke out about something they didn’t feel was wright, that the governor was doing, and so he decided to punish them,” Sen. Lauren Book of Broward County, the minority leader, said at Monday’s press conference.  

Disney has long been powerful in Florida. The special taxing and governance district dates back to 1967, when Florida state legislators created the Reedy Creek Improvement District, in which Disney would fund its own municipal services, such as power, water, roads, emergency services, and fire protection.

Today, more than 40 lobbyists represent Disney before the Florida legislature, according to an Insider review of lobbying disclosures.

The feud originated under ex-CEO Bob Chapek. His successor, Bob Iger, hasn’t said how the company would fight Florida but told employees during a town hall leaked to CNBC that “one of the core values of our storytelling is inclusion and acceptance and tolerance.” 

This story has been updated to include a statement from Walt Disney World and to note the introduction of a House bill on Monday afternoon, after the initial story published.  

David Costabile as Mike “Wags” Wagner in “Billions,” a show that is getting two spinoffs: “Millions” and “Trillions.”

Showtime “Billions”

• Showtime is making spinoffs of some of its biggest shows, like “Billions” and “Dexter.”
• It reflects its owner Paramount’s larger content strategy of doubling down on franchises.
• It’s also the latest step in integrating Showtime fully with Paramount+.

Showtime is shaking up its content slate as it prepares to integrate with Paramount+.

The Paramount-owned network announced new spinoffs of its flagship series like the long-running financial drama “Billions” and “Dexter,” about a serial killer that targets other killers. 

Showtime is planning to make up to four spinoffs of “Billions,” including “Millions” and “Trillions.” It’s also ordered a prequel of “Dexter.”

The plan reflects Paramount’s larger content strategy of doubling down on its biggest hits and expanding them into franchises.

It’s found success in that regard with Paramount Network’s “Yellowstone,” the biggest series on cable. The company struck a deal with the show’s creator Taylor Sheridan to create TV shows for its Paramount+ streaming platform, including “Yellowstone” spinoffs.

Two of those, the prequels “1883” and “1923,” have been the streamer’s biggest original shows to date, and the latter was recently renewed for a second season.

But it also reflects Paramount’s grander strategy for Showtime. The company already offers an in-app bundle of Paramount+ and Showtime, in which Paramount+ subscribers can upgrade their membership to access the Showtime app within Paramount+.

And last week, the company announced it would rebrand Showtime, as well as the premium tier of Paramount+, to Paramount+ with Showtime later this year. Showtime content is being fully integrated within Paramount+, and some Paramount+ originals will air on Showtime linear programming.

It effectively ends Showtime as we know it, but the writing has been on the wall.

In 2020, Insider reported that people close to the network were worried about its future, as it was being overshadowed by rivals with more impressive content budgets and lost the “Halo” video-game adaptation to Paramount+.

At the time, a spokesperson for the company, which was then still called ViacomCBS, said that Showtime was “the adult premium-content provider” within the company and “targets an entirely different consumer” than Paramount+.

But a lot has changed in the streaming wars since then, and now, nearly two years later, the company is changing its tune.

The U.S. Coast Guard on Monday imposed a temporary security zone in waters off South Carolina during the military’s search and recovery of debris from a suspected Chinese spy balloon that a U.S. fighter jet shot down.

The White House said the balloon’s flight over the United States had done nothing to improve already tense relations with China and its national security spokesperson dismissed Beijing’s contention that the balloon was for meteorological purposes as straining credulity.

Beijing condemned the shooting down of the balloon and urged Washington to show restraint over the episode. White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters: “Nobody wants to see conflict here.”

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken postponed a planned Feb.5-6 visit to China because of the balloon’s flight into U.S. airspace last week. It was shot down off the Atlantic Coast on Saturday.

Kirby said Blinken would seek to reschedule the trip when the time is right.

The trip to Beijing would have been the first by a U.S. secretary of state since 2018 as the United States and China have sought to mend ties that have been under severe strain over a range of disagreements, including U.S. attempts to block Chinese access to some cutting-edge technologies.

The United States was able to study the balloon while it was aloft and officials hope to glean valuable intelligence on its operations by retrieving as many components as possible, Kirby said.

China called the shooting down of the balloon an “obvious overreaction”.

“China firmly opposes and strongly protests against this,” Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng said in remarks to the U.S. embassy in Beijing posted on the ministry’s website.

U.S. officials have played down the balloon’s impact on national security, although a successful recovery could potentially give the United States insight into China’s spying capabilities.

Senior U.S. officials have offered to brief former Trump administration officials on the details of what the White House said was three China balloon overflights when Donald Trump was president. U.S. officials said those balloons came to light after Trump left office in January 2021 and was succeeded by President Joe Biden.

A senior U.S. general responsible for bringing down the balloon said on Monday the military had not detected previous spy balloons before the one that appeared on Jan. 28 over the United States and called it an “awareness gap.”

However, Air Force General Glen VanHerck, head of U.S. North American Aerospace Defense Command and Northern Command said U.S. intelligence determined the previous flights after the fact based on “additional means of collection” of intelligence without offering further details on whether that might be cyber espionage, telephone intercepts or human sources.

On Monday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said China learned that its balloon had drifted over the United States after being notified by Washington.

“The unintended entry of this airship (into the U.S.) is entirely an isolated, accidental incident. It tests the sincerity the U.S. has in improving and stabilizing bilateral relations and the way it handles crises,” she said.

Mao said another balloon, spotted over Latin America, was an unmanned civilian airship on a test flight that “severely deviated and unintendedly entered the space above Latin America because it was affected by the weather and because it has limited self-steering capability.”

On Sunday, Colombia’s military said it sighted an airborne object similar to a balloon after the Pentagon said on Friday that another Chinese balloon was flying over Latin America.

While calling for U.S. restraint, China has warned of “serious repercussions” and said it will use the necessary means to deal with “similar situations”, without elaborating. Some policy analysts said they expect any response to be finely calibrated, however, to prevent diplomatic ties becoming even worse.

Brokerage ING said in a Monday note that the incident could exacerbate the “tech war” and would have a negative near-term impact on China’s yuan currency.

“Both sides will likely impose more export bans on technology in different industries. This is a new threat to supply chain disruption, although the risk of logistical disruption from COVID restrictions has now disappeared,” it said.

“This new risk is more of a long-term risk than an imminent one,” ING said.

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KAHRAMANMARAS, Turkey/DAMASCUS (Reuters) – A huge earthquake killed more than 3,000 people across a swathe of Turkey and northwest Syria on Monday, with freezing winter weather adding to the plight of the thousands left injured or homeless and hampering efforts to find survivors.

The magnitude 7.8 quake brought down whole apartment blocks in Turkish cities and piled more devastation on millions of Syrians displaced by years of war.

It struck before sunrise in harsh weather and was followed in the early afternoon by another large quake.

In Diyarbakir in southeast Turkey, a woman speaking next to the wreckage of the seven-storey block where she lived said: “We were shaken like a cradle. There were nine of us at home. Two sons of mine are still in the rubble, I’m waiting for them.”

She was nursing a broken arm and had injuries to her face.

“It was like the apocalypse,” said Abdul Salam al-Mahmoud, a Syrian in the northern town of Atareb. “It’s bitterly cold and there’s heavy rain, and people need saving.”

The earthquake was the biggest recorded worldwide by the U.S. Geological Survey since a tremor in the remote South Atlantic in August 2021.

Monday’s casualties already mark the highest death toll from an earthquake in Turkey since 1999, when a tremor of similar magnitude devastated the heavily populated eastern Marmara Sea region near Istanbul, killing more than 17,000.

In Turkey, the death toll stood at 1,762, Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) said, and 12,068 people were recorded as injured. At least 1,293 people were killed in Syria, according to figures from the Damascus government and rescue workers in the northwestern region controlled by insurgents.

Poor internet connections and damaged roads between some of the worst-hit cities in Turkey’s south, homes to millions of people, hindered efforts to assess and address the impact.

Temperatures in some areas were expected to fall to near freezing overnight, worsening conditions for people trapped under rubble or left homeless. Rain fell on Monday after snowstorms swept the country at the weekend.

In the Turkish city of Iskenderun, rescuers climbed an enormous pile of debris that was once part of a state hospital’s intensive care unit in search of survivors. Health workers did what they could to tend to the new rush of injured patients.

“We have a patient who was taken into surgery but we don’t know what happened,” said Tulin, a woman in her 30s, standing outside the hospital, wiping away tears and praying.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, preparing for a tough election in May, called Monday’s quake a historic disaster and the worst earthquake to hit the country since 1939, but said authorities were doing all they could.

“Everyone is putting their heart and soul into efforts although the winter season, cold weather and the earthquake happening during the night makes things more difficult,” he said.

The second quake was big enough to bring down more buildings and, like the first, was felt across the region, endangering rescuers struggling to pull casualties from the rubble.

In Syria, already wrecked by more than 11 years of civil war, the health ministry said 593 people had been killed and more than 1,326 injured. In the Syrian rebel-held northwest emergency workers said more than 700 people had died.

The United Nations says 4.1 million people, many of them displaced by the conflict and living in camps, depend already on cross-border humanitarian aid in northwest Syria and international support efforts are stretched and underfunded.

“Syrian communities are simultaneously hit with an ongoing cholera outbreak and harsh winter events including heavy rain and snow over the weekend,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters in New York.

In the government-controlled city of Aleppo, footage on Twitter showed two neighbouring buildings collapsing one after the other, filling streets with billowing dust.

Two residents of the city, which has been heavily damaged in the war, said the buildings had fallen in the hours after the quake, which was felt as far away as Cyprus and Lebanon.

In the Syrian government-held city of Hama, a Reuters journalist saw an apparently lifeless child carried from the ruins of a building.

‘NO ONE CAME OUT’

In the rebel-held town of Jandaris in Aleppo province, a mound of concrete, steel rods and bundles of clothes lay where a multi-storey building once stood.

“There were 12 families under there. Not a single one came out. Not one,” said a thin young man, his eyes wide open in shock and his hand bandaged.

Raed al-Saleh of the Syrian White Helmets, a rescue service in rebel-held territory known for pulling people from the ruins of buildings destroyed by air strikes, said they were in “a race against time to save the lives of those under the rubble”.

Syrian state television showed rescue teams searching for survivors in heavy rain and sleet. President Bashar al-Assad held an emergency cabinet meeting to review the damage and discuss next steps, his office said.

In the Turkish city of Diyarbakir, Reuters journalists saw dozens of rescue workers searching through a mound of debris, all that was left of a big building, and hauling off bits of wreckage as they looked for survivors. Occasionally they raised their hands and called for quiet, listening for sounds of life.

Erdogan said 45 countries had offered to help the search and rescue efforts in Turkey.

The earthquake also halted operations at Turkey’s major oil export hub in Ceyhan and stopped crude oil flows from Iraq and Azerbaijan. Authorities said the port of Iskenderun also suffered damage.

Turkey’s lira hit a record low of 18.85 in early trade and the country’s stocks tumbled around 5%, although both pared losses later with the currency ending the day flat and equity indexes closing 1.3%-2.2% lower.

In the Turkish city of Malatya, a rescue worker crawled into a collapsed building, trying to identify a survivor trapped under the wreckage, in footage released by emergency agency AFAD.

“What colour are you wearing? Are you wearing pink? Please take care of yourself for the moment, I cannot see anything else,” the rescue worker could be heard saying.

Private companies have committed to invest $4.2 billion in northern Central America as part of an effort by U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris to reduce migration by targeting economic development, the White House said on Monday.

The latest figures, up from $3.2 billion announced in June 2022, stem from pledges by 47 companies and organizations, including the retailer Target (TGT.N) and the Columbia Sportswear Company (COLM.O).

Among the new announcements on Monday, Target committed to increase its spending in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras by $300 million this year while Columbia said it would purchase $200 million in products in the region, creating more than 6,900 jobs over five years.

U.S. President Joe Biden, who delivers the annual State of the Union address on Tuesday, named Harris in March 2021 to lead efforts to reduce migration at the U.S.-Mexico border as crossings began to spike at the beginning of his administration, eventually reaching record highs.

Harris has focused her efforts on addressing the factors that led migrants to leave the three countries, known as the Northern Triangle, including a lack of economic opportunity.

In her remarks on Monday, Harris said migrants come to the United States to flee harm or because they cannot meet basic economic needs.

“People generally do not want to leave home,” she said.

Before a meeting with U.S. officials and private sector representatives, Harris announced a new phase of the effort called Central America Forward, which will focus on broader economic development, corruption and labor rights.

Corruption and governance concerns in the three nations have limited the effectiveness of the Harris push, leading to the cancellation or suspension of projects likely worth millions of dollars.

Arrivals from northern Central America have steadily declined following a sharp rise in 2021 after Biden took office.

During that time, hundreds of thousands of migrants from the region have been expelled back to Mexico without the chance to seek U.S. asylum under a COVID-19-related order known as Title 42.

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U.S. President Joe Biden will insist in his State of the Union address that raising the debt limit of the United States is not negotiable and should not be used as “bargaining chip” by U.S. lawmakers, his top economic adviser Brian Deese said on Monday.

“This bedrock idea that the United States has met all of its financial obligations for its existence as a country isn’t something that anybody should be using as a bargaining chip. It’s not a negotiable item,” Deese said.

He said the economic consequences of questioning that principle could be “quite severe” and could allow adversaries to claim the “full faith and credit” of the United States had been weakened.

The U.S. government hit its $31.4 trillion debt ceiling last month, prompting the Treasury Department to warn that it may not be able to stave off default past early June.

Biden, a Democrat, last week met with Republican U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy to discuss a path forward.

The White House has said Biden will discuss federal spending cuts with Republicans, but only after the debt ceiling is lifted, while McCarthy has said Republicans will only lift the ceiling if Biden agrees to spending cuts.

Deese said Biden would express an “openness and, in fact, an eagerness to have a real serious conversation about the fiscal and economic priorities of the country” and potential ways to lower costs for families while continuing to invest and create more manufacturing jobs.

A judge ruled Monday he will allow jurors to hear evidence that disgraced South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh was stealing money from his law firm and clients and committing other financial crimes long before his wife and son were killed in 2021.

Prosecutors have said those witnesses are key to their case in Murdaugh’s double murder trial to show he was worried his alleged crimes were about to be discovered and that Murdaugh killed his family to get sympathy and buy time to cover up the missing money.

Murdaugh, 54, is standing trial in the shootings of his 52-year-old wife, Maggie, and 22-year-old son, Paul, on June 7, 2021, at their Colleton County home. He faces 30 years to life in prison if convicted of murder.

The defense argued that prosecutors want to smear Alex Murdaugh with details of his finances because they have lots of evidence he stole money but none on the killings. Murdaugh’s lawyers said it is ridiculous that a lawyer would think scrutiny into his life would be diminished by the brutal deaths of his family.

In explaining his ruling, Judge Clifton Newman said the jury is entitled to consider whether Murdaugh’s “apparent desperation” and “dire financial situation” resulted in the killings of his family.

Newman said he didn’t think the financial crime evidence alone would persuade the jury to convict Murdaugh of murder.

The decision means jurors over the next several days will hear from witnesses who testified previously before a judge about how Murdaugh secured $4 million in settlements for the family of the longtime Murdaugh housekeeper who died in a fall. He allegedly kept the money for himself.

Other testimony includes the office manager confronting Murdaugh over almost $800,000 in missing law firm fees the day of the killings and how a key hearing in a wrongful death lawsuit that might reveal the true condition of Murdaugh’s finances was scheduled for three days after his wife and son were shot. The hearing was cancelled.

Early Monday afternoon, the woman taking care of Alex Murdaugh’s mother testified about how he stopped by to visit her the night of the killings. Murdaugh said he found the bodies after seeing his mother, who has dementia.

Shelley Smith testified Monday that was the first time she saw Murdaugh visit his mother during her 8 p.m. at 8 a.m. shift, although during cross-examination the defense brought up a statement Smith previously made to a state agent in which she said Murdaugh has visited late at night before and was the most frequent visitor among his siblings.

Alex Murdaugh stayed about 20 minutes or so, laying beside his mother and holding her hand, Smith said. She didn’t notice any blood on him.

Smith also testified that Alex Murdaugh visited nine days after the killings at 6:30 a.m. and was carrying a blue tarp. In their opening statement, prosecutors mentioned a blue rain coat with gunshot residue on it. Defense attorney Jim Griffin spent several minutes getting Smith to say the item was big, like a tarp, not a raincoat.

Judge Newman’s decision to allow evidence of Alex Murdaugh’s possible financial crimes came after hearing from a potential witness Monday — a lawyer representing a family suing Murdaugh over a boat crash killed 19-year-old Mallory Beach in 2019. Alex’s son Paul Murdaugh was driving the boat and faced a felony charge of boating under the influence at the time of his death.

When Alex Murdaugh called 911 and first spoke to investigators after his wife and son were killed, he mentioned people who knew Beach being angry with his son.

Beach family attorney Mark Tinsley said Alex Murdaugh and his lawyer were working hard to keep his financial information out of Tinsley’s hands when the killings happened.

“Pretty quickly I recognized, the case against Alex, if he was the victim of some vigilante, would in fact be over,” Tinsley said.

He said Murdaugh’s lawyer told him Alex Murdaugh was broke, but Tinsley didn’t believe it given what appeared to be a successful law practice and his family’s generational wealth. He said justice called for damages from Murdaugh because they could not bring Beach back.

“The Beach family stood on the causeway for eight days while their daughter’s body was in the water,” Tinsley said. “I don’t know there is any amount of money somebody would willingly take to go through what they went through.”

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A team of IsraAid relief workers has been dispatched to Turkey following the powerful earthquake that left at least 2,800 people dead on Monday. 

The non-governmental organization, which is dedicated to providing relief in areas affected by humanitarian crises, will send “seven or eight people,” said CEO Yotam Polizer. Those include specialists to help those on the ground with water access and medical logistics. 

“People who lost their homes, people who don’t have access to clean water, we are providing them with different water using different filtration systems and purification systems,” said Polizer. “We’ll also look at the hygiene and sanitation needs because again, those people don’t have access to toilets and stuff like that.”

“What we know right now is that the main urgent needs are winter supplies because it’s freezing cold, and people lost their homes,” he added. “It’s not rocket science. So we will focus a lot on winter supplies, whether it’s tents, sleeping bags, blankets, coats, hats.”

A member of the IsraAid team is also trained to help people going through trauma.

“Providing psychological first aid from the first moment after a trauma is crucial to help people stabilize,” said Polizer. 

Due to the chaos that follows a natural disaster, it’s unclear exactly what equipment will be required, but said the hope is that as the picture becomes clearer, they will procure supplies locally in order to help the economy of the affected area. 

The earthquake, which measured at 7.8 on the Richter scale, struck early in the morning. While the most severe damage occurred in Turkey and Syria, it was felt in neighboring countries, including Israel. 

The Israeli government has already committed to sending supplies and search-and-rescue teams to help in relief efforts. 

Polizer noted that IsraAid currently has teams in 14 other countries, including Ukraine and South Sudan. While the average length of an IsraAid mission is five years, he said it’s too soon to tell how long they will be on the ground in Turkey but that “the recovery will take a long time because of the level of devastation.”

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