Kelly Sills paid a small fortune for an enchanting trip to “the most magical place on Earth.”

Instead, the Baton Rouge resident — like several other Disney World guests who have defied coronavirus restrictions — visited Orange County Jail.

Amid heightened precautions for the virus at the major Florida tourist attraction, Sills, 47, skipped the temperature screening required of guests, authorities said. He was confronted by security about it at a Disney Springs restaurant, the Boathouse, when he yelled and refused to leave, according to an Orange County Sheriff’s Office arrest report from Feb. 13. When deputies insisted he would be charged with trespassing, he pointed to how much he spent on his vacation, according to body camera footage released this week.....

The confrontations at Disney World come as other parts of Florida have had to ramp up enforcement when rowdy tourists flocked to the state that Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has promoted as less restrictive. While spring break revelers descended on South Florida, DeSantis praised how busy the area was compared to cities in other states with stricter covid-19 guidelines, such as New York City. He has touted the state’s distribution of vaccines and argued it is safe to visit.

Texas Republicans are pushing legislation that advocates say will "gerrymander" the state's appeals courts after Democrats swept judicial races in districts serving Dallas, Houston and Austin.

The Texas Senate Jurisprudence Committee on Thursday advanced SB 11, a bill introduced by Republican committee chair Joan Huffman to redraw the boundaries of the state's court of appeals districts. The bill and its state House counterpart in their current form propose only minor tweaks to several districts — but voting advocates warn they are "shell" bills that will soon be loaded with much bigger changes based on proposals from a powerful group to "gerrymander" court districts just months after Democratic judges swept appellate races in five of the state's 14 districts.

The bill is expected to be based on proposals by Texans for Lawsuit Reform, a deep-pocketed legal advocacy group that urged lawmakers to merge the state's 14 districts into five to seven mega-districts, which advocates say are designed to dilute the power of urban areas and make it difficult for Democrats to win in the future.

"This is 100% partisan driven," Anthony Gutierrez, executive director of the voter advocacy group Common Cause Texas, said in an interview with Salon. "The political party they don't like is winning too many districts, so they just want to change them so that can no longer happen." Gutierrez testified at Thursday's hearing.

Texas is one of two states where Republicans are seeking to redistrict courts after the 2020 election, and GOP legislators in several other states have advanced legislation seeking to reform their judicial systems for partisan gain. Pennsylvania Republicans are also pushing an amendment that could "gerrymander" the state's courts, Alicia Bannon, who heads the Fair Courts Project at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School, said in an interview with Salon. Though the effort was originally born out of a ruling striking down a partisan Republican gerrymander, in recent months "the court's also been targeted for its role in some of the decisions in connection with the 2020 election ensuring that people had a meaningful opportunity to vote," she said.

Texas Republicans are pushing legislation that advocates say will "gerrymander" the state's appeals courts after Democrats swept judicial races in districts serving Dallas, Houston and Austin.

The Texas Senate Jurisprudence Committee on Thursday advanced SB 11, a bill introduced by Republican committee chair Joan Huffman to redraw the boundaries of the state's court of appeals districts. The bill and its state House counterpart in their current form propose only minor tweaks to several districts — but voting advocates warn they are "shell" bills that will soon be loaded with much bigger changes based on proposals from a powerful group to "gerrymander" court districts just months after Democratic judges swept appellate races in five of the state's 14 districts.

The bill is expected to be based on proposals by Texans for Lawsuit Reform, a deep-pocketed legal advocacy group that urged lawmakers to merge the state's 14 districts into five to seven mega-districts, which advocates say are designed to dilute the power of urban areas and make it difficult for Democrats to win in the future.

"This is 100% partisan driven," Anthony Gutierrez, executive director of the voter advocacy group Common Cause Texas, said in an interview with Salon. "The political party they don't like is winning too many districts, so they just want to change them so that can no longer happen." Gutierrez testified at Thursday's hearing.

Texas is one of two states where Republicans are seeking to redistrict courts after the 2020 election, and GOP legislators in several other states have advanced legislation seeking to reform their judicial systems for partisan gain. Pennsylvania Republicans are also pushing an amendment that could "gerrymander" the state's courts, Alicia Bannon, who heads the Fair Courts Project at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School, said in an interview with Salon. Though the effort was originally born out of a ruling striking down a partisan Republican gerrymander, in recent months "the court's also been targeted for its role in some of the decisions in connection with the 2020 election ensuring that people had a meaningful opportunity to vote," she said.

Federal health officials gave the green light Friday for fully vaccinated people to resume travel as an estimated 100 million Americans have had at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine, and evidence mounts of the shots’ effectiveness.

The long-awaited guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is welcome news for the growing number of vaccinated adults who want greater freedom to visit family members and take vacations for the first time in a year. It is also expected to help boost the travel and airline industries that have been seeking a relaxation of restrictions. Until Friday’s announcement, officials were still discouraging people who had been fully vaccinated from traveling.

The agency updated its guidance because of several newly released studies documenting the strong real-world effectiveness of coronavirus vaccines in protecting against infection and spread of the virus, and the rapid pace of vaccinations, now close to 3 million people a day.