Jim Saunders/News Service of Florida

A U.S. district judge Wednesday said a 2023 Florida law restricting pronouns that transgender teachers can use to identify themselves violates a federal civil-rights law — but the outcome of the issue might ultimately hinge on an appeals-court ruling in a Georgia case.U.S. District Judge Mark Walker sided with Hillsborough County teacher Katie Wood and a Lee County teacher, identified as Jane Doe, in finding that the state law discriminates in violation of what is known as Section VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. That section bars employment discrimination because of a person’s “race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.”

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.”

Speaking to a hometown crowd, Senate President Ben Albritton, R-Wauchula, tried to ease concerns about the effects of potential property-tax cuts — particularly the effects on financially strapped rural communities.

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.

A Florida federal judge Wednesday refused to allow conservation groups to intervene in a lawsuit to help defend a rule aimed at protecting endangered North Atlantic right whales, after the groups expressed concerns about the Trump administration’s commitment to the protections.

Florida Power & Light says its proposed base-rate increases will provide stability and keep customers’ electric bills below the national average.Opponents describe the multibillion-dollar proposal in terms such as “extravagant” and “excessive” and say it needs to be reduced.

Environmental groups Friday gave formal notice that they could sue federal and state agencies over alleged violations of the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act at an immigrant-detention center in the Everglades dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz.”The notice was in addition to a lawsuit filed June 27 that alleges violations of the National Environmental Policy Act, a federal law that requires evaluating potential environmental impacts before such a project can move forward.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a request by Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier that would have at least temporarily allowed enforcement of a new state law targeting undocumented immigrants who enter the state.Uthmeier last month asked the Supreme Court for a stay of a temporary injunction that U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams issued in April to block the law. Such a stay, if granted, would have allowed enforcement of the law while an underlying legal battle about the injunction played out.

Jacob Rodgers was a passenger in a friend’s pickup truck on the evening of Oct. 7, 2015, when the driver of a Gainesville city utility vehicle ran a stop sign and hit the pickup.Rodgers, then 20, was thrown from the pickup and suffered injuries that left him paralyzed. Now, nearly a decade later, Florida lawmakers and Gov. Ron DeSantis have approved a bill directing the city to pay $10.8 million to Rodgers.The bill (HB 6521) was one of nine “claim” bills that lawmakers approved this year directing state and local government agencies to provide compensation for injuries, a death and a case of wrongful incarceration.