News Service of Florida

Siding with publishers and authors, a federal judge Wednesday ruled that a key part of a 2023 Florida law that has led to books being removed from school library shelves is “overbroad and unconstitutional.”U.S. District Judge Carlos Mendoza issued a 50-page decision in a First Amendment lawsuit filed last year against members of the State Board of Education and the school boards in Orange and Volusia counties. He focused primarily on part of the law that seeks to prevent the availability of reading material that “describes sexual conduct.”

A federal judge last week approved ending a Hendry County school-desegregation lawsuit that started in 1970, after the U.S. Department of Justice and the district agreed that “vestiges of the prior de jure segregation” had been eliminated.

Citing “significant concerns about environmental degradation” and threats to “traditional and religious ceremonies,” members of the Miccosukee Tribe are trying to join a lawsuit challenging the immigrant-detention center in the Everglades.The facility, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” by Gov. Ron DeSantis and other Republican leaders, neighbors 10 villages that are home to the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida in the Big Cypress National Preserve — including a village 1,000 feet away from one of the detention center’s boundaries — as well as areas where tribal members work and attend school.

A federal judge Tuesday stood behind a ruling that blocked restrictions the city of Naples tried to place on a drag show as part of an upcoming LGBTQ “Pridefest.”

With another potentially active Atlantic hurricane season on the horizon, Florida is preparing for the possibility the federal government won’t respond like it has in the past.After the state was hit by three hurricanes in 2024, Gov. Ron DeSantis jokes that Florida is due for a “break.” But he also said the state has the emergency-response infrastructure and financial reserves available in case Florida doesn’t catch a break and the Federal Emergency Management Agency scales back.

State budget talks won’t resume until after the Memorial Day holiday weekend, legislative leaders announced Thursday.In a memo to senators, Senate President Ben Albritton, R-Wauchula, said that he and Senate Appropriations Chairman Ed Hooper, R-Trinity, “have continued to have productive discussions with our partners in the House on joint budget allocations.”Allocations are overall amounts of money that would be divided in different areas of the budget, such as education, health and transportation, and need to be set before conference committees can begin formally negotiating details of the state spending plan.

After asserting the Democratic Party in Florida is “dead,” Sen. Jason Pizzo says he’s running for governor as an independent and will make that official in a couple of months.Orlando attorney John Morgan, describing the Democratic Party as “broken,” believes Pizzo is making a mistake if he runs without party affiliation.

As budget talks remain stalled, House Speaker Daniel Perez said Tuesday the House has offered possibilities including a “lean, critical-needs budget with minimal spending and no tax cuts.”But in a quest to lower state spending, the Miami Republican described a proposal by Gov. Ron DeSantis to send $1,000 checks to homeowners as an “irresponsible idea.”

Days after a mass shooting at nearby Florida State University, the state Senate appears poised to scuttle a controversial proposal that would allow people under age 21 to buy rifles and other long guns.Senate Rules Chairwoman Kathleen Passidomo, R-Naples, said Monday her committee won’t take up a House measure (HB 759) that would lower the minimum age to 18.

President Donald Trump emerged as the biggest winner Thursday as the Republican-controlled Legislature and Gov. Ron DeSantis approved a suite of measures aimed at strengthening enforcement of illegal immigration.Quickly signed into law by the governor, the wide-ranging plan toughens penalties for crimes committed by undocumented immigrants; creates a statewide immigration enforcement panel; imposes the death penalty for undocumented immigrants who commit first-degree murder or rape children; and makes it a state crime for undocumented immigrants to enter the state.