Sirens pierced the air across downtown Tallahassee as lawmakers worked through budget and policy negotiations last Thursday.

Just a mile away, shots had been reported on the Florida State University campus. Phoenix Ikner, a 20-year-old student with a “troubling fascination with Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany” and a history of espousing hateful, racist rhetoric, opened fire in the bustling FSU student union, leaving two dead and six others, not counting the shooter, hospitalized.

The tragedy has rattled the city and intensified calls for action — including efforts in support of a pending state funding proposal aimed at protecting students from hate-fueled violence.

According to newly released records compiled by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), Ikner had a disturbing online history steeped in Nazi iconography, White supremacist messaging and references to hate groups including Patriot Front, a leading White nationalist organization in the U.S.

Ikner’s digital footprint included screen names referencing Hitler’s SS, memes glorifying Nazi Germany and livestream content referencing “scientific racism” and Confederate symbolism.

According to peers and former classmates, he was removed from a campus political group for expressing extremist views — including claims that Rosa Parks was “in the wrong” and that Black neighbors were “ruining” his community.

The April 17 victims were targeted randomly, officials say. But the shooter’s ideology — and its violent outcome — highlights the urgent need to counter radicalization and prevent hate crimes before they unfold.

That’s exactly what a bipartisan group of Florida lawmakers hope to do with a funding initiative to amplify Jewish student safety on college campuses. The proposal, under active consideration in both chambers, aims to enhance campus security, surveillance upgrades, mental health interventions, and educational initiatives to counter antisemitism and hate-fueled misinformation at FSU, the University of Florida and the University of South Florida.

If funded, this will mark the state — and nation’s — first large-scale effort of its kind.

Sen. Corey Simon, a Tallahassee Republican, and Rep. Allison Tant, a Democrat representing the FSU area, are leading the effort locally. For efforts at UF, Republican Sen. Stan McClain and Rep. Chad Johnson are co-sponsors. Republican Sen. Danny Burgess and House Democratic Leader Fentrice Driskell are championing the proposal for students at USF.

“We have an obligation to make sure every student, of every background, feels safe on campus,” Driskell said of the initiative. “Safety stems from a sense of understanding, and this project is focused on building those kinds of bridges.”

“Education should be a space for dialogue and learning, not fear and intimidation,” McClain added.

According to data released by the ADL, 83% of Jewish college students nationwide have experienced or witnessed antisemitism since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel. In Florida, ongoing survey research from Sachs Media shows disturbing trends in public sentiment, including a fourfold increase since 2022 in the number of Floridians who believe Jews were responsible for what happened to them in the Holocaust. Among Floridians under 45, 40% say Hamas was justified in its attacks, and 26% say violence against American supporters of Israel is warranted.

“This is about taking action — not just reacting to antisemitism but actively working to prevent it,” Burgess said. “USF, UF and FSU are leading the charge, and we hope these efforts can serve as a successful model elsewhere.”

For Brian Pelc, Executive Director of Hillel at FSU, last week’s shooting — tied to extremist ideology — shifts the conversation from whether this funding is necessary to how fast it can be implemented.

“Our community is grieving deeply, but we’re also resolved to act,” Pelc said. “This initiative is about more than security — it’s about building understanding, strengthening relationships, and confronting hate before it turns violent. We know that when someone glorifies Hitler, the harm doesn’t stop with the Jewish community. The consequences can reach anyone, as we’ve just seen.”

Prior to uncovering Ikner’s hateful digital footprint, the ADL had offered the organization’s support for Florida’s funding efforts.

“All students should be free to learn in an environment without fear for their safety and engage in campus activities without fear of harassment or intimidation,” said Daniel Frank, ADL’s Florida Regional Director.

As First Lady Casey DeSantis continues to draw scrutiny along with Hope Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis is urging people to differentiate that program’s “smashing success” from the finances of the Hope Florida Foundation.

“I think what they’re doing with this Foundation is they’re trying to smear the program by implication and trying to smear the First Lady, which is totally unfair in terms of what they’re trying to do,” he said to WINK.

The is an ongoing probe of the $10 million directed to the Hope Florida Foundation in a Medicaid settlement. DeSantis has called that funding pot a “cherry on top” of the overall settlement payment, while Attorney General James Uthmeier dubbed it a “sweetener.”

The semantic argument is new and comes after legalistic justifications from the Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) and Uthmeier, who was the Governor’s longtime Chief of Staff before his appointment as AG.

AHCA General Counsel Andrew Sheeran wrote lawmakers, including Senate President Ben Albritton, House Speaker Daniel Perez and Rep. Alex Andrade, the Chair of the House Health Care Budget Subcommittee.

Sheeran differentiated between the $57.8 million in “potential Medicaid-related damages to the state” and the sum that went to the Hope Florida Foundation as a direct support organization (DSO). That money reportedly ended up being used to enrich political consultants and help program message advertising, a move Sheeran framed as “neither illegal nor illicit.”

“The remaining $10,800,000 component of the offer was not to compensate the State for loss of Medicaid funds, but rather ‘to provide reimbursement … for any other potentially alleged damages (contractual or otherwise) as a result of the alleged covered conduct and to otherwise incent (the State) to pursue settlement on these terms without doing formalized claims audits that would cause further delay and cost to the parties.’ The $10,000,000 donated to the DSO was therefore not Medicaid funds,” the lawyer wrote.

Uthmeier has also urged a legalistic exoneration.

“I think the media misunderstands the difference between issue committees and political candidate committees under the IRS code,” he said. “An issue committee can fight against a ballot initiative and I’m very thankful those groups stepped up and helped us secure a big win.”

Uthmeier ran the issue committee that helped to deploy settlement funds that were routed through external political committees. Meanwhile, the Governor said critics are driven by personal animus against his wife.

DeSantis told WINK that the Foundation “acted totally appropriately” and that “people are doing this (probe of Hope Florida finances) … because they want to go after the First Lady, they want to try to demean the success of Hope Florida.”

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Elon Musk says he’ll be spending less time in Washington slashing government costs and more time running Tesla after his electric vehicle company reported a big drop in profits.

Musk said on a conference call with analysts Tuesday that “now that the major work of establishing Department of Government Efficiency is done,” that he will be “allocating far more of my time to Tesla” starting in May. Musk said he now expects to spend just “a day or two per week on government matters”

Tesla struggled to sell vehicles as it faced angry protests over Musk’s leadership of DOGE, a jobs-cutting group that has divided the country. The Austin, Texas, company reported a 71% drop in profits and a 9% decline in revenue for the first quarter.

“Investors wanted to see him recommit to Tesla,” said Wedbush Securities’ Dan Ives. “This is a big step in the right direction.”

Investors sent Tesla shares up more than 5% in after-hours trading, although they are still down more than 40% for the year.

The company reconfirmed that it expects to roll out a cheaper version of its best-selling vehicle, the Model Y sport utility vehicle, in the first half of this year. It also stuck with its predictions that it will be able to launch a paid driverless robotaxi service in Austin in June and have much of its fleet operating by itself next year.

“There will be millions of Teslas operating autonomously in the second half of the year,” Musk said in a conference call after the results were announced. He later added about the personal use of autonomous vehicles, “Can you go to sleep in our cars and wake up at your destination? I’m confident that will be available in many cities in the U.S. by the end of this year.”

Auto analyst Sam Abuelsamid at Telemetry Insight said he doubts Musk’s predictions.

“The system is not robust enough to operate unsupervised. It still makes far too many errors,” he said. “It will suddenly make mistakes that will lead to a crash.”

The planned rollout of the robotaxi without a steering wheel or pedals comes as federal regulators still have open investigations into whether the technology that Tesla hopes will allow cars to drive themselves is completely safe.

Tesla’s driver-assistance technology that can steer or stop a car but still requires humans to take over at any time — its so-called Autopilot — is being probed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for whether it alerts drivers sufficiently when their attention wanders. And the company’s Full Self-Driving, which is only partial self-driving and has drawn criticism for misleading drivers with the name, has come under scrutiny for its tie to accidents in low-visibility conditions like when there is sun glare.

Another challenge to Tesla, which once dominated the EV business: It is facing fierce competition for the first time.

Earlier this year, Chinese EV maker BYD announced it had developed an electric battery that can charge within minutes. And Tesla’s European rivals have begun offering new models with advanced technology that is making them real Tesla alternatives just as popular opinion has turned against Musk. The Tesla CEO has alienated potential buyers in Europe by publicly supporting far-right politicians there.

Tesla said Tuesday that quarterly profits fell from $1.39 billion to $409 million, or 12 cents a share. That’s far below analyst estimates. Tesla’s revenue fell from $21.3 billion to $19.3 billion in the January through March period, also below Wall Street’s forecast. Tesla’s gross margins, a measure of earnings for each dollar of revenue, fell from 17.4% to 16.3% .

Tesla has said it will be hurt less by the Trump administration’s tariffs than most U.S. car companies because it makes most of its U.S. cars domestically. But it won’t be completely unscathed. It sources some materials for its vehicles from abroad that will now face import taxes.

Tesla warned in announcing its results that tariffs will hit its energy storage business, too.

Retaliation from China will also hurt Tesla. The company was forced earlier this month to stop taking orders from mainland customers for two models, its Model S and Model X. It makes the Model Y and Model 3 for the Chinese market at its factory in Shanghai.

The company’s side business of selling “regulatory credits” to other automakers that fall short of emission standards boosted results for the quarter.

Tesla generated $595 million from credit sales, up from $442 million a year ago.

The company generated $2.2 billion in cash flow versus $242 million a year earlier.

Morningstar analyst Seth Goldstein said earlier reports of plunging sales that had tanked the stock made the quarterly results almost predictable.

“They’re not particularly surprising given that deliveries were down,” he said. “It was good to see positive cash flow.”

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Republished with permission of The Associated Press.

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