Economist Digest

Mr DeSantis is using Florida as a peninsular podium to advertise his policies. In his proposed $100bn budget, he is pushing a special police force to oversee state elections, which he calls “an election integrity unit”, and wants to make it easier to penalise companies that “facilitate illegal immigration” to Florida. He envisages bonuses for police officers who move to Florida, and wants to create a state militia of volunteers that could work with the National Guard in emergencies.

A report from the Mojave:

Since the 1980s the population [of desert tortoises] has declined by about 90%. Michael Vamstad, a wildlife ecologist at the park, describes what is happening as “thirty to three”: where once researchers would count 30 or more tortoises per square kilometre, now they count three.

A tortoise can store a quart of water for about a year.

And: a failed coup attempt in Guinea-Bissau.

People linked to the trade have tried to [overthrow the gov’t] several times in the past in order to control or protect a cocaine route linking South America to Europe.