Free Republic

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Manny Diaz, the former Miami mayor who had pledged to rebuild the Florida Democratic Party after years of losses, abruptly announced his immediate resignation as party chair on Monday amid growing calls for his ouster. Diaz’s departure came after Florida Democrats suffering some of their worst losses ever, including the re-election of Gov. Ron DeSantis by 19 points over Charlie Crist, the election of a supermajority in the Florida Legislature and the flipping of several counties including once-reliable blue Miami-Dade County. Diaz, in a statement to Democrats Monday, said he was unable to carry out his plans...

The roommate of a gay rights activist who was found dead in a Florida landfill earlier this year has been arrested and charged with his murder On Thursday, a grand jury indicted Steven Yinger, 36, on charges of first-degree murder of 54-year-old Jorge Diaz-Johnston Diaz-Johnston, the brother to former Miami Mayor Manny Diaz, had been missing since January 3, was discovered in a trash pile at a landfill on January 12 Diaz-Johnston had been married to his husband, Don Diaz-Johnston, since March 2015 The couple were among five other same-sex couples who sued the Miami-Dade County Clerk's Office in 2014...

MIAMI - City commissioners decided to raise Mayor Manny Diaz's salary by 54 percent in a last-minute vote that was not listed on the meeting agenda. Commissioner Johnny Winton said he proposed the hike from $97,000 to $150,000 on Thursday because, among other things, Diaz was easily elected to a second term last month. "Manny's done the most remarkable job of any mayor that we can go back and think of," Winton said. Winton introduced the salary hike at the end of the meeting as a "pocket item" — a term for a last-minute, typically time-sensitive city action that is...