TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Even as university presidents, campus police and student government leaders rose up against it, the Florida Senate's Higher Education Committee has given its approval to a controversial bill (SB 176) that would allow concealed firearms on college campuses.

State Rep. Michelle Rehwinkel Vasilinda is one of the few Democrats in favor of the legislation. She says for her, it's personal.

"I was sent to college with a handgun by my father who trained me to use one, and thank God, because I had a rape attempted and was able to get to my gun, and was able to stop the rape," she relates.

Florida is one of 20 states that outlaw guns on campus, but the debate was renewed last fall after two students and an employee were wounded at Florida State University's main library by a gunman later killed by police.

Florida lawmakers in favor of the bill say it comes down to 2nd Amendment rights, and the National Rifle Association argues it will make colleges safer.

But a litany of university presidents, campus police and student body leaders have come out strongly against the legislation.

Testifying before lawmakers, Florida State student Harrison DuBosar said he believes it would only make matters worse.

"This is our number one student concern right now on campus,” he stated. “We are confident in our law enforcement. We are not confident in untrained students over the age of 21 with a concealed carry permit and a one hour class, to carry guns on campus."

The bill next faces the judiciary and rules subcommittees before reaching the full Senate. A companion bill is also being considered in the Florida House. Both branches are majority Republican.






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A Kent State University shooting survivor is warning Ohioans and others to take note of the U.S. military's involvement in immigration-related protests. She says it echoes a dark chapter in Ohio history -- when four students were shot by the National Guard at Kent State in 1970.

Chic Canfora, then a student protester and now a journalism professor at Kent State, said this weekend's deployment of National Guard troops and U.S. Marines to Los Angeles to contain protests feels chillingly familiar.

"It's just unconscionable that now the U.S. Marines, and not just the National Guard, are being deployed to an American city - not to respond to some foreign threat, but to stand in opposition to peaceful protests in Los Angeles," she said. "That does not belong in a democracy."

More than 350 protest-related arrests have been made across the country. California officials are suing for military withdrawal, while federal leaders defend the move as essential for public safety.

Canfora said protesters today -- in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Seattle, Austin, Las Vegas, Washington, D.C. and elsewhere -- are part of a long American tradition of speaking truth to power. She said they deserve protection, not repression.

"All of you who are doing this important work are part of a long line of Americans who have refused to be silenced," she said, "and you are what democracy looks like."

She also cautioned activists to stay vigilant, saying infiltrators may try to incite violence and discredit peaceful protests.

"It's very, very important for activists today and for all the protesters out there to be aware of people among them that don't belong," she said, "to isolate and expose those who are trying to make them look violent when they're not."

Canfora said history is watching. She believes the use of military force against civilian protestors anywhere in the United States threatens democracy everywhere, and urged Ohioans not to look away.


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As global conflicts and natural disasters escalate, groups like the Nonviolent Peaceforce, which works to protect civilians in conflict zones, faces severe funding challenges. The Trump administration's cancellation of nearly 90% of funding for USAID programs has sent shockwaves through the humanitarian sector.

The funding cuts also reverberate in the Sunshine State, home to more than 120 registered international relief organizations - among the highest concentrations in the country - including Miami-based World Relief and Coconut Creek's Food for the Poor.

The group Nonviolent Peaceforce said its Myanmar program is among the casualties.

Megan Rodgers, U.S. policy and advocacy manager for Nonviolent Peaceforce, said the timing couldn't be worse, as Myanmar grapples with the aftermath of devastating earthquakes.

"The stop-work order from the Trump administration in January, followed by cancellation of nearly 90% of all USAID programs, has definitely hit the sector really significantly. At a time when humanitarian needs have really never been higher, the funding available for those needs is really significantly contracting," she contended.

Despite partial 2025 funding restored after January's initial cuts, Nonviolent Peaceforce said critical gaps remain - from wars in Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine to climate-driven disasters displacing millions. Rogers added they are now racing to protect 2026 budgets through the House subcommittee overseeing foreign aid, chaired by Florida Republican Mario Diaz-Balart.

Rodgers warned that merging USAID with the State Department, as proposed in a Trump administration memo, could slow critical aid responses. But she pointed to hope in South Sudan, where women from rival communities work together to protect children from violence.

"So, that's an example of community organizing that has actually protected a lot of children from abduction, from violence. Because women are stepping up and saying that they don't want to be part of this violence and they want to protect themselves from it - so, stepping away from that cyclical process of violence," she continued.

As congressional budget negotiations unfold, peacekeeping groups stress that the stakes extend far beyond politics - and that millions of lives hang in the balance.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ties with a controversial church based in Idaho and critics said the church's Christian nationalist views could guide his role in the Trump administration.

Hegseth is part of a church in Tennessee associated with the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, founded by Doug Wilson in Moscow, Idaho, in the 1970s. The church holds extreme beliefs, including that the United States should follow biblical law.

Julie Ingersoll, professor of religious studies at the University of North Florida, has studied Christian Reconstructionists like Wilson. She said Hegseth's church is not like a megachurch in which you walk in and think of yourself as a member.

"That's just not how this kind of a church system works," Ingersoll explained. "In order to join, you have to attest to believing the same things and in order to remain a member you have to continue to believe those things."

Ingersoll added membership is strict and if people's beliefs change, they can be brought before the church courts on heresy charges. Wilson began his movement in part because he found a lack of sufficient Christian school options for his daughter. Hegseth has expressed similar views for his children.

The Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches has congregations in almost every state and holds other extreme views, such as criminalization of people in the LGBTQ+ community. They are also deeply patriarchal, which Ingersoll noted is a label the church itself uses, with some arguing women should not have the right to vote.

Ingersoll pointed out Hegseth backtracked during his confirmation hearing on whether women should serve in the military.

"He kind of switched it in a soft way to not believing that women should be in combat," Ingersoll recounted. "That gives a flexibility to allow people to hear what he's saying and go, 'Oh, yeah. Maybe that's not a terrible thing.'"

In 2020, Hegseth published a book which mischaracterized the Islamic faith and positioned Muslims as historic enemies of the West. Ingersoll stressed the belief also flows from the church to which he belongs.

"For him, Islam and all other world religions and all other ideological systems, all isms, flow out of original sin in the Garden of Eden because they're all based in this idea that humans can reason apart from God," Ingersoll explained.


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