As the Florida governor prepares to take the national stage this week, attention is likely to turn towards his personal history and family life.

Here’s an overview of what we know about the year he spent teaching high school history at the Darlington School in Rome, Georgia, during the 2001/02 academic year, shortly after he graduated from Yale.

If you need an introduction to Mr DeSantis’s unlikely beef with the beloved entertainment brand, who hosted his own wedding back in September 2009, Alex Woodward has this comprehensive explanation.

Mr DeSantis is asking that a federal judge be disqualified from the First Amendment lawsuit filed by Disney against him and his appointees, claiming the jurist’s prior statements in other cases have raised questions about his impartiality on the state’s efforts to take over Disney World’s governing body.

Mr DeSantis’ attorney filed a motion in federal court in Tallahassee on Friday seeking to disqualify US district judge Mark Walker from overseeing the lawsuit filed by Disney last month.

The lawsuit alleges that Mr DeSantis and his appointees violated the company’s right to free speech, as well as the contracts clause, by taking over the special governing district that previously had been controlled by Disney supporters after Disney opposed Florida legislation that critics have dubbed “Don’t Say Gay.”

The Republican governor’s motion was filed a day after Disney announced that it was scrapping plans to build a new campus in central Florida and relocate 2,000 employees from Southern California to work in digital technology, finance and product development, amid an ongoing feud with DeSantis.

More than 600 Iowa Republicans filed into the exhibit hall in Dean’s Classic Car Museum in Sioux Center, Iowa, over the weekend, past the display’s brochures about Ron DeSantis and cards to sign pledging their support for him in next year’s Republican presidential caucuses.

The display, with all the earmarks of a presidential campaign, was the work of Never Back Down, a super political action committee promoting Mr DeSantis while he moves toward a 2024 bid.

It was also an early glimpse of how this group – able to receive unlimited sums from wealthy donors, unlike a presidential campaign – plans to build a network of supporters necessary to compete in the caucuses.

Essentially, it’s a caucus campaign that, for legal reasons, cannot attach itself explicitly to a candidate.

The novel approach, aimed at maximising super PAC dollars, underscores the stakes in Iowa for Mr DeSantis.

He needs to show early that he is a viable threat to former president Donald Trump, whose team says it has already signed up thousands of Iowa volunteers and supporters before Mr DeSantis has even declared his candidacy.

Chatting with a mom in a New Hampshire diner on Friday, Ron DeSantis paid no attention to the Mickey Mouse shirt worn by her young son. But the woman said she has been paying attention to him.

“If DeSantis announced a campaign to run for president I would probably vote for him over anybody else,” Jillian Sybert, of Deerfield, said later.

Mr DeSantis made the swing to the early voting state as he prepares to launch a 2024 Republican presidential campaign. He spent the morning meeting with state GOP lawmakers still licking their wounds a day after the New Hampshire House rejected a bill that would have required school officials to inform inquiring parents if their child was using a different name or being referred to as a different gender.

Republicans hold a razor-thin majority in the 400-member House, but Democrats had a one-vote edge in attendance for Thursday’s session.

In contrast, GOP supermajorities in the Florida Statehouse have helped DeSantis push through an aggressive agenda on multiple fronts, including gender identity, and he has made anti-LGBTQ+ legislation a large part of his messaging as he prepares to seek the Republican presidential nomination.

For Indy Voices, Eric Garcia reflects on two embarrassing defeats sustained by candidates endorsed by Mr DeSantis within the last week: Daniel Davis’s failed bid to become mayor of Jacksonville and Kelly Craft’s poor showing in pursuit of the Republican nomination to be the next governor of Kentucky.

The largest and oldest civil rights organisation in the United States has issued a formal advisory warning travelers to Florida that the state is “openly hostile” towards Black people, people of colour and LGBT+ people.

An advisory issued by the NAACP on 20 May comes as a response to a series of laws signed by Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis targeting classroom instruction around race and racism, gender and sexuality, and bills and administration policy aimed at LGBT+ people.

“Let me be clear – failing to teach an accurate representation of the horrors and inequalities that Black Americans have faced and continue to face is a disservice to students and a dereliction of duty to all,” NAACP president and CEO Derrick Johnson said in a statement.

With less than two years remaining until US voters will decide who will serve as president of the United States from January 2025 to January 2029, former Republican government officials are starting to jockey for position in the coming fight for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, while at least one prominent Democrat (California governor Gavin Newsom) has reportedly pledged not to challenge President Joe Biden in a Democratic primary.

As the campaign takes shape, here are the names you need to know.

Ron DeSantis is expected to officially enter the 2024 presidential race this week following months of speculation.

The Florida governor is tipped to file formal paperwork with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) on Thursday 25 May, coinciding his candidacy declaration with a donor meeting in Miami, Reuters reported last week.

Mr DeSantis, 44, is eyed as Donald Trump’s biggest rival for the Republican vote and has been expected to throw his hat into the ring for some time.

Following the GOP party’s disappoining midterms – where the “red wave” failed to appear and Mr Trump-endorsed candidates fell flat – several Republican lawmakers and right-wing media have rallied behind Mr DeSantis as their candidate of choice.

However, latest polls show Mr DeSantis trailing Mr Trump, with the RealClearPolitics polling average giving the former president a 36-point lead.

Mr DeSantis will join an already crowded race, with Nikki Haley, Asa Hutchinson, Vivek Ramaswamy, Larry Elder and Tim Scott already announcing bids.

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