Another insurer is leaving Florida, where homeowners are paying more than ever for insurance, despite the state’s attempt to shore up the wobbling market.

Tuesday, Farmers Insurance informed the state it was dropping home, auto and umbrella policies across Florida, potentially affecting tens of thousands of people. It’s the fourth company to leave the Florida market in the last year — most citing rising risks from hurricanes. Farmers, a large company with a national presence, also has reduced new business in California, citing extreme weather and wild fire threats.

“This business decision was necessary to effectively manage risk exposure,” the company wrote in a statement.

Farmers said the decision to withdraw affects about 30% of its overall policies around the state, but not ones issued through its subsidiary companies. Those — including auto insurer Bristol West and home insurer Foremost — are unaffected.

The company declined to speak on the record about how many people would lose coverage. Figures from Florida’s Office of Insurance Regulation show that Farmers has about 93,000 current home and auto policies, but an industry source suggests that number is currently closer to 100,000.

The worst federal court decisions may not have come from the Supreme Court. If you are concerned about contempt for precedent, partisan hackery and judicial hubris, take a look at what district court judges have been doing.

There was U.S. District Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk’s atrocious ruling in April reversing the Food and Drug Administration’s 2-decades-old approval of the abortion pill mifepristone. He obliterated any notion of standing, ignored the six-year statute of limitations for challenging FDA approvals, spewed a raft of right-wing disinformation and ignored decades of medical data. The Biden administration is appealing the ruling.

And let’s not forget the unsupportable ruling from U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon of Florida putting her finger on the scale to try to block the Justice Department from reviewing secret documents hoarded by former president Donald Trump. Cannon never had jurisdiction to hear the case (her ruling was overturned on appeal), invented a new category of protection for a former president and utterly ignored national security interests.

But not to be outdone, U.S. District Judge Terry A. Doughty in Louisiana, in a case involving government contacts with social media companies, “effectively issued a prior restraint on large swaths of speech, cutting short an essential dialogue between the government and social media companies about online speech and potentially lethal misinformation,” explained Leah Litman and Laurence H. Tribe in Just Security. (Buying into the right-wing conspiracy theories about the Biden administration trying to quash views on social media now comes not just from MAGA lawmakers but from MAGA judges.)

Kacsmaryk’s and Cannon’s decisions were forcefully overturned, while, as of this writing, the Biden administration is seeking a stay of Doughty’s mischief. But Americans should not take solace in “it all worked out in the end.” These three Trump-appointed judges betray their ideological fervor and lack of judicial restraint. Their radical rulings are indicative of the corruption of federal courts beyond the Supreme Court. (The blame rests not only with Trump: Doughty was confirmed 98-0.)

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — In roughly two months the Florida Supreme Court will hear arguments for and against the state’s 15-week abortion ban.

The outcome will determine the fate of the more restrictive six-week ban passed earlier this year.

The case revolves around the privacy clause in the Florida Constitution.

Specifically, whether that constitutional right to privacy applies to abortions.

Florida’s privacy clause was adopted by voters in 1980.

“For over 40 years it has been clear that Florida’s constitution guarantees Floridians the fundamental right to decide whether to carry a pregnancy to term,” said Caroline Sacerdote, a staff attorney with the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is representing clinics challenging the 15-week ban.

Sacerdote argued prior court rulings dating back to 1989 linking the right to privacy to abortion were correctly decided.

“The state has argued here, has made the extreme argument here, that the Florida Supreme Court should essentially ignore decades of precedent,” said Sacerdote.

But in its briefs, the State of Florida argues when the privacy clause was put on the ballot by lawmakers, the issue of abortion was rarely discussed.

A Nebraska woman took a plea deal Friday in a case that involved her ordering abortion pills for her teenage daughter. Self-managed abortion isn’t explicitly illegal in the state—only Nevada and South Carolina ban it—but prosecutors can and do criminalize people for abortion, miscarriage, and stillbirth by charging them under other statutes. (In this case, the mother had five charges brought against her, including concealing a death and false reporting.) Advocates worry these kinds of charges will only become more frequent as millions of people live under state abortion bans.

Jessica Burgess, 42, admitted to helping her daughter end her pregnancy in the spring of 2022—before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Madison County prosecutors claim that, in April 2022, Burgess gave abortion pills to her then-17-year-old daughter, Celeste, who gave birth to a stillborn fetus estimated to be at about 29 weeks’ gestation. The pair then burned and buried the remains with the help of another person; a 21-year-old man who only got probation.

Someone tipped off the police that Celeste had a stillbirth and buried the remains, and then cops obtained a warrant for Facebook messages between her and her mother. Facebook parent company Meta complied and provided the messages, in which the pair allegedly discussed ending Celeste’s pregnancy with pills. A friend of Celeste’s also told the police she was there when Celeste took the first abortion pill. (Most people charged for self-managed abortion were reported by health care workers or friends and acquaintances.) Celeste was charged as an adult and plead guilty in May; she faces a two-year prison sentence.

Jessica Burgess initially plead not guilty to five charges, for which she faced eight years in prison. On Friday, she plead guilty to three charges (tampering with human skeletal remains, false reporting, and abortion after 20 weeks gestation) and the state dismissed the other two (concealing the death of another person and abortion by someone other than a licensed physician). She now faces up to two years in prison.

Jessica’s sentencing is set for September 22; Celeste will be sentenced on July 20.

In recent months, Republican lawmakers in many states enacted laws targeting LGBTQ Americans, attempting to shut down their right to free expression and even deny them medical care, among other things. Until Saturday, however, civil rights lawyers challenging these laws fared surprisingly well in federal court, convincing even many Republican judges.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit’s decision in L.W. v. Skrmetti, threatens to upend all of that. Before L.W. was handed down this past weekend, there was a consensus among federal courts that the Constitution prohibits states from banning gender-affirming medical care.

L.W. destroys that consensus. It reinstated a Tennessee law, previously blocked by a federal trial court, that prohibits gender-affirming care for transgender patients under the age of 18. And the Sixth Circuit’s opinion was written by Chief Judge Jeffrey Sutton, a widely respected judge, especially among the Supreme Court’s GOP-appointed majority.

Sutton, a George W. Bush appointee, is one of the federal judiciary’s leading “feeder” judges, meaning that his law clerks are frequently hired to clerk for the Supreme Court justices — a sign that the justices are likely to pay careful attention to Sutton’s views when deciding how to resolve a case like L.W.

Sutton’s decision to reinstate Tennessee’s anti-trans law is temporary, and he ends his opinion by saying his court will reconsider this question “with the goal of resolving it no later than September 30, 2023.” So it is possible that the Sixth Circuit will reconsider and join the other courts that have blocked bans on transgender health care.

In the fairly likely event that the Sixth Circuit hews to Sutton’s position, however, that will make it very likely that the Supreme Court will take up this issue, and soon. The justices pay special attention to legal questions that have divided lower federal appeals courts when deciding which cases to hear.

And if they do, and Sutton’s opinion is embraced by a majority of the justices, that would be a devastating blow to LGBTQ rights.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas must stop allowing transgender people to change the sex listed on their driver’s licenses, a state-court judge ordered Monday as part of a lawsuit filed by the state’s Republican attorney general.

District Judge Teresa Watson's order will remain in effect for up to two weeks, although she can extend it. But it's significant because transgender people have been able to change their driver's licenses in Kansas for at least four years, and almost 400 people have done it. For now, Kansas will be among only a few states that don't allow any such changes.

The judge issued the order three days after Attorney General Kris Kobach sued two officials in Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly's administration. Kelly announced last month that the state's motor vehicles division would continue changing driver's licenses for transgender people so that their sex listing matches their gender identities.

Kobach contends that a law, which took effect on July 1, prevents such changes and requires the state to reverse any previous changes in its records. It defines “male” and “female” so that Kansas law does not recognize the gender identities of transgender, non-binary or gender non-conforming people.

Florida is America’s inflation hotspot, thanks to a persistent problem with sky-high housing costs.

The Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach area has the highest inflation rate of metro areas with more than 2.5 million residents, with a 9% inflation rate for the 12 months ended in April.

That’s more than double the national average of 4%, according to data from the Consumer Price Index. The Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater metro had the third-highest inflation rate in the country, at 7.3% for the year ended in May.

Other metro areas, however, have seen some welcome progress. Minneapolis had an inflation rate of 1.8% in May from a year earlier, the lowest of the 23 metro areas for which the Labor Department publishes inflation data. Urban Hawaii had the second lowest inflation rate at 2% — mirroring the Federal Reserve’s target for its preferred inflation gauge, the Personal Consumption Expenditures index.

Here are some notable inflation trends for the biggest metros in the US and the dynamics behind those shifts.

Hernando County elementary school students no longer have access to the book “Marvin Redpost: Is He a Girl?”

The school board banned it in June, with two of the five members voicing concerns that it could expose children to the topic of gender identity. But the tie-breaking vote from board chairperson Gus Guadagnino is what has parent Kim Mulrooney most upset.

Guadagnino told Suncoast News, a subsidiary of the Times Publishing Company, that he thought the book was “stupid” and he’d rather see children reading something more substantial. That’s not a legally valid reason for removing materials, said Mulrooney, who sat on the Pine Grove Elementary advisory panel that unanimously backed the book after a resident challenged it.

Mulrooney wants to appeal, but the district says the board vote is final. Soon, though, that should change.

This past spring, lawmakers added a provision to the law governing book objections that would allow parents to request a state magistrate review if they disagree with a school board’s action on a challenge. After hearing information from all sides, the magistrate would recommend a resolution to the State Board of Education, which would make a final decision.

School districts would be responsible for the cost of the review.

Hernando County elementary school students no longer have access to the book “Marvin Redpost: Is He a Girl?”

The school board banned it in June, with two of the five members voicing concerns that it could expose children to the topic of gender identity. But the tie-breaking vote from board chairperson Gus Guadagnino is what has parent Kim Mulrooney most upset.

Guadagnino told Suncoast News, a subsidiary of the Times Publishing Company, that he thought the book was “stupid” and he’d rather see children reading something more substantial. That’s not a legally valid reason for removing materials, said Mulrooney, who sat on the Pine Grove Elementary advisory panel that unanimously backed the book after a resident challenged it.

Mulrooney wants to appeal, but the district says the board vote is final. Soon, though, that should change.

This past spring, lawmakers added a provision to the law governing book objections that would allow parents to request a state magistrate review if they disagree with a school board’s action on a challenge. After hearing information from all sides, the magistrate would recommend a resolution to the State Board of Education, which would make a final decision.

School districts would be responsible for the cost of the review.