Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
3 officials have exited a pro-DeSantis super PAC, AP sources say
DES MOINES, Iowa — Three senior members of a super PAC backing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis left the group on Saturday, the latest sign of instability within the 2024 hopeful’s political operation just six weeks before the Iowa Republican caucuses.
Kristin Davison parted ways with Never Back Down just after she took over leading the group following the departure of CEO Chris Jankowski less than two weeks ago. Also leaving Saturday were communications director Erin Perrine and director of operations Matt Palmisano, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss Never Back Down’s internal operations.
Davison’s departure was first reported by Politico.
Longtime DeSantis ally Scott Wagner, who had been a member of the group’s board, was named interim CEO and board chairman.
Never Back Down has carried the bulk of DeSantis’ presidential organizing duties and advertising loads since he announced his candidacy in May. The shake-up of its leadership comes as DeSantis is under growing pressure to cut into former President Donald Trump’s huge leads in Iowa and nationally. And more voters and donors are considering backing the campaign of Trump’s former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley.
DeSantis’ campaign has relied heavily on Never Back Down for basic campaign functions, though the two sides cannot directly coordinate under federal campaign finance rules. Of the 99 counties DeSantis visited in Iowa, he appeared in 92 of them at Never Back Down events, according to the group’s schedule.
Jankowski, who was among those who helped initially conceive of the super PAC’s outsized role, quit on Nov. 22. Former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt, who had been board chairman, left the group Friday.
Among some of those close to the situation, the rash of departures is seen as an aggressive step by DeSantis’ loyalists to reassert control over Never Back Down.
The super PAC was seeded with more than $80 million from DeSantis’ political accounts this spring, but, once he became a formal candidate, DeSantis and his campaign were legally prohibited from having any direct control over the group or the money.
Pope’s health: For a second Sunday, an ailing Pope Francis skipped his popular window appearance to the public in St. Peter’s Square, but in televised remarks said he’s doing better even though his voice wouldn’t let him read all his comments aloud.
As he did a week earlier, Francis delivered very brief remarks from the chapel of the Vatican hotel where he lives and where he is recovering from what he has said is infectious bronchitis. Thousands of people in the square followed his words from giant screens set up outdoors.
Francis, whose 87th birthday is later this month, said he is following from afar the workings of the U.N. climate conference in Dubai. The pontiff was due to go to the COP28 conference on Friday to address the gathering.
Earthquake in Philippines:
A powerful earthquake that shook the southern Philippines killed at least one
villager and injured several others as thousands scrambled out of their homes in panic and jammed roads to higher grounds after a tsunami warning was issued, officials said Sunday.
The U.S. Geological Survey reported that the quake Saturday night had a magnitude of 7.6 and struck at a depth of 20 miles. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said it expected tsunami waves to hit the southern Philippines and parts of Indonesia, Palau and Malaysia, but later dropped its tsunami warning.
The USGS recorded further earthquakes Sunday with magnitudes of 6.6 and 6.9, but there were no tsunami alerts.
In Japan, authorities issued evacuation orders late Saturday in various parts of Okinawa prefecture, including for the entire coastal area, affecting thousands of people.
A pregnant woman died after she, her husband and daughter were hit by a 15-feet concrete wall that collapsed in their neighborhood as the ground shook and prompted them to flee from their house in Tagum city in Davao del Norte province, the city’s disaster-mitigation chief, Shieldon Isidoro, said.
Philippine bombing: The Philippine president blamed “foreign terrorists” for a bomb blast that killed four people on Sunday, wounded dozens of other Catholic worshippers in the south and sparked a security alarm, including in the capital, Manila, where state forces were put on alert.
The suspected bomb, which the police said was made from a mortar round, went off and hit students and teachers who attended a Mass in a gymnasium at Mindanao State University in southern Marawi city, Taha Mandangan, the security chief of the state-run campus, told The Associated Press by phone.
Dozens of students and teachers dashed out of the gym, and the wounded were
taken to hospitals.
Regional military commander Maj. Gen. Gabriel Viray III said four people were killed by the explosion, including three women, and 50 others were taken to two hospitals.
Venezuela referendum:
Venezuelans voted in a referendum Sunday called by the government of President Nicolás Maduro to claim sovereignty over a large swath of neighboring Guyana, arguing the oil- and mineral-rich territory was stolen when the border was drawn more than a century ago.
Guyana considers the referendum a step toward annexation, and the vote has its residents on edge. It asks Venezuelans whether they support establishing a state in the disputed territory, known as Essequibo, granting citizenship to current and future area residents and rejecting the jurisdiction of the United Nations’ top court in settling the disagreement between the two South American countries.
Tourist killed: France’s anti-terrorism prosecutor said Sunday he has opened an investigation into the fatal stabbing of a 23-yearold German-Filipino tourist near the Eiffel Tower in Paris, allegedly by a man who had been under surveillance for suspected Islamic radicalization.
Jean-Francois Ricard said in a news conference that suspect Armand Rajabpour-Miyandoab could face a preliminary charge of murder in connection with a terrorist enterprise. He said Rajabpour-Miyandoab is a French national being held in police custody.
Rajabpour-Miyandoab recorded a video before the attack in which he swore allegiance to the Islamic State group and expressed support for Islamic extremists operating in various areas, including Africa, Iraq, Syria, Egypt’s Sinai, Yemen, Iran and Pakistan, Ricard said.