Some central Florida lawmakers said they were considering “all legislative, legal and executive options available” to stop business owners in a small town from voluntarily displaying rainbow decals in their windows indicating that they are “safe place” for LGBTQ+ people who feel threatened.

Four Republican lawmakers wrote a letter to officials in Mount Dora two weeks ago warning that the new, optional city-sponsored program could put the central Florida community outside Orlando “in the crosshairs of potentially detrimental and absolutely unnecessary economic harm.”

The lawmakers cited boycotts of Bud Light and Target, which followed the brands’ efforts to promote diversity and inclusion of the LGBTQ+ community.

Mount Dora’s city council approved the Safe Place Initiative last month. The city of 17,000 residents is known for its antique shops and weekend festivals.

“The mission of the Safe Place Initiative is to provide the community with easily accessible safety information and safe places throughout the city they can turn to if they are the victims of an anti-LGBTQ+ or other hate crimes,” the city of Mount Dora said on its website.

Safe Place programs are visible throughout metro Orlando — as well as throughout the U.S. — including ones sponsored by the Orlando Police Department, Orange County Sheriff’s Office and Osceola County Sheriff’s Office, all in central Florida.

The council’s decision to approve the program has coincided with an uptick in anti-LGBTQ+ incidents, including vandalism last month at two LGBTQ+ centers in Orlando.

Democratic state lawmaker Anna Eskamani posted the Republican lawmakers’ letter on social media, saying it “might be the weirdest letter I’ve ever read.”

“Let LGBTQ+ (people) exist and stop politicizing everything!” wrote Eskamani, whose district is in Orlando. “So much manufactured panic from the right. Meanwhile families can’t even afford to live in Florida. Focus on that instead.”

In May, the Humans Rights Campaign, the largest LGBTQ+ rights organization in the U.S., joined other civil rights organizations in issuing a travel advisory for Florida, warning that newly passed laws and policies may pose risks to minorities, immigrants and gay travelers.

The wording of a proposed constitutional amendment on Ohio’s fall ballot to ensure abortion rights seems straightforward: It would enshrine the right “to make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions.”

Yet as the campaigning for and against the nation’s latest tug-of-war over abortion begins in earnest this weekend, voters are getting a different message from the measure’s opponents. They are characterizing it as threatening a wide range of parental rights.

“As parents, it’s our worst nightmare,” one particularly ominous online ad funded by Protect Women Ohio, the opposition campaign, says of November’s Issue 1. That ad suggests the amendment would let minors end pregnancies without parental permission, calling it “a potential reality so grim it’s hard to even imagine.” Another suggests parents would have no say in minors’ ”sex change surgery.”

It’s no surprise that anti-abortion groups opposed to the amendment are promoting that message. They are trying to flip the script in how they talk to voters after a string of losses in statewide ballot fights since the U.S. Supreme Court ended a nationwide right to abortion last year.

Measures protecting access to abortion have succeeded in Democratic- and Republican-leaning states, including California, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana and Vermont.

Data collected last year by AP VoteCast, a broad survey of the electorate, showed that 59% of Ohio voters believe abortion should generally be legal. Just last month, Ohio voters soundly defeated a measure that GOP lawmakers placed on a special election ballot that would have raised the threshold to pass constitutional amendments to 60% — a proposal seen as a first step to defeating the abortion amendment.

Before what is expected to be the highest profile national issue in November’s elections, Ohio also is serving as a testing ground for political messaging headed into next year’s presidential race. Abortion rights groups are trying to qualify initiatives in more states in 2024, potentially including the perennial battleground of Arizona.

To try to reverse their string of losses, anti-abortion groups are using the Ohio campaign to test arguments over parental rights and gender-related health care as potentially a winning counterpunch.

“It’s clear that the misinformation about abortion is not winning,” said Elisabeth Smith, director of state policy and advocacy at the Center for Reproductive Rights. “It didn’t win in Michigan. It didn’t win in Vermont. It didn’t win in Kansas. It didn’t win in Kentucky. So instead, we are seeing anti-abortion factions in search for that new, winning talking point.”

Legal experts disagree over what effect, if any, the Ohio amendment would have on parents’ ability to control their children’s access to abortion and gender-related health care, including surgery.

An election-fraud crusader in Nevada withdrew his latest federal lawsuit in an ongoing feud with county officials in Reno after their lawyers threatened to seek sanctions for filing a baseless complaint laced with “rantings of a conspiracy theorist.”

But Robert Beadles, a wealthy ex-California businessman and right-wing activist who has embraced many Republicans’ disproven claims of election fraud, is vowing to continue his legal battle in state court. He has filed a new lawsuit in Washoe County District Court with similar allegations of fraud and other wrongdoing.

Beadles, who once briefly ran for Congress in California in 2010, made his money in construction, software, real estate and cryptocurrency investments. Now affiliated with the conservative blog Operation Sunlight, he has helped lead attempts to recall or otherwise oust numerous county officials since he moved to Reno from Lodi, Nevada, in 2019.

He claims the election system is rife with “flaws and irregularities” that robbed him of his vote in 2020. He lost another lawsuit last year that sought heightened observation of Washoe County’s vote-counting process.

Federal and state election officials and former President Donald Trump’s own attorney general have said there is no credible evidence the election was tainted. The former president’s allegations of fraud were also roundly rejected by courts, including by judges Trump appointed.

The Reno Gazette Journal first reported this week that county lawyers sent Beadles letters warning of potential punitive action unless he dropped his lawsuit, which was moved to U.S. court last week because of related federal jurisdiction.

Billionaires, burner phones, alleged bribes: The impeachment trial of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is going to test the will of Republicans senators to oust not only one of their own, but a firebrand who has helped drive the state’s hard turn to the right for years.

The historic proceedings set to start in the state Senate Tuesday are the most serious threat yet to one of Texas’ most powerful figures after nine years engulfed by criminal charges, scandal and accusations of corruption. If convicted, Paxton — just the third official in Texas’ nearly 200-year history to be impeached — could be removed from office.

Witnesses called to testify could include Paxton and a woman with whom he has acknowledged having an extramarital affair. Members of the public hoping to watch from the gallery will have to line up for passes. And conservative activists have already bought up TV airtime and billboards, pressuring senators to acquit one of former President Donald Trump’s biggest defenders.

“It’s a very serious event but it’s a big-time show,” said Bill Miller, a longtime Austin lobbyist and a friend of Paxton. “Any way you cut it, it’s going to have the attention of anyone and everyone.”

The build-up to the trial has widened divisions among Texas Republicans that reflect the wider fissures roiling the party nationally heading into the 2024 election.

At the fore of recent Texas policies are hardline measures to stop migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, battles over what is taught in public schools, and restrictions on LGBTQ+ rights — many of which are championed loudest in the Senate, where Republicans hold a dominant 19-12 majority and have Paxton’s fate in their hands.

The Senate has long been a welcoming place for Paxton. His wife, Angela, is a state senator, although she is barred from voting in the trial. Paxton also was a state senator before becoming attorney general in 2015 and still has entanglements in the chamber, including with Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who will preside over the trial and loaned $125,000 to Paxton’s reelection campaign.

If all 12 Democrats vote to convict Paxton, they would still need at least nine Republicans on their side. Or the Senate could vote by a simple majority to dismiss the charges altogether. It was a GOP-dominated House that decided by an overwhelming majority that Paxton should be impeached.

“You’re seeing a fracture within the party right now,” said Matt Langston, a Republican political consultant in Texas. “This is going to impact the leadership and the party for a long time.”

The trial also appears to have heightened Paxton’s legal risks. The case against him largely centers on his relationship with Nate Paul, an Austin real estate developer who was indicted this summer after being accused of making false statements to banks to secure $170 million in loans.

Last month, federal prosecutors in Washington kicked a long-running investigation of Paxton into a higher gear when they began using a grand jury in San Antonio to examine his dealings with Paul, according to two people with knowledge of the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity because of secrecy rules around grand jury proceedings. The grand jury’s role was first reported by the Austin American-Stateman.

Chris Toth, the former executive director of the National Association of Attorneys General, said Paxton has for years weathered scandals unique among top state lawyers. He said the outcome of the trial will send a message about what is acceptable to elected officials across the country.

Impeachment managers in the GOP-controlled Texas House filed nearly 4,000 pages of exhibits ahead of the trial, including accusations that Paxton hid the use of multiple cellphones and reveled in other perks of office.

A federal judge has struck down a Texas law requiring age verification and health warnings to view pornographic websites and blocked the state attorney general’s office from enforcing it.

In a ruling Thursday, U.S. District Judge David Ezra agreed with claims that House Bill 1181, which was signed into law by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in June, violates free speech rights and is overbroad and vague.

The state attorney general’s office, which is defending the law, immediately filed notice of appeal to the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans.

The lawsuit was filed Aug. 4 by the Free Speech Coalition, a trade association for the adult entertainment industry and a person identified as Jane Doe and described as an adult entertainer on various adult sites, including Pornhub.

Judge Ezra also said the law, which was to take effect Friday, raises privacy concerns because a permissible age verification is using a traceable government-issued identification and the government has access to and is not required to delete the data.

“People will be particularly concerned about accessing controversial speech when the state government can log and track that access,” Ezra wrote. “By verifying information through government identification, the law will allow the government to peer into the most intimate and personal aspects of people’s lives.”

Ezra said Texas has a legitimate goal of protecting children from online sexual material, but noted other measures, including blocking and filtering software, exist.

“These methods are more effective and less restrictive in terms of protecting minors from adult content,” Ezra wrote. The judge also found the law unconstitutionally compels speech by requiring adult sites to post health warnings they dispute — that pornography is addictive, impairs mental development and increases the demand for prostitution, child exploitation and child sexual abuse images.

“The disclosures state scientific findings as a matter of fact, when in reality, they range from heavily contested to unsupported by the evidence,” Ezra wrote.

The Texas law is one of several similar age verification laws passed in other states, including Arkansas, Mississippi, Utah and Louisiana.

The once-powerful Roman Catholic Cardinal Theodore McCarrick will not stand trial on charges he sexually assaulted a teenage boy decades ago, as a Massachusetts judge dismissed the case against the 93-year-old on Wednesday because both prosecutors and defense attorneys agree he is experiencing dementia.

McCarrick, the ex-archbishop of Washington, D.C., was defrocked by Pope Francis in 2019 after an internal Vatican investigation determined he sexually molested adults as well as children. The McCarrick scandal created a crisis of credibility for the church, primarily because there was evidence Vatican and U.S. church leaders knew he slept with seminarians but turned a blind eye as McCarrick rose to the top of the U.S. church as an adept fundraiser who advised three popes.

During Wednesday’s hearing, Dr. Kerry Nelligan, a psychologist hired by the prosecution, said she found significant deficits in McCarrick’s memory during two interviews in June, and he was often unable to recall what they had discussed from one hour to the next. As with any form of dementia, she said there are no medications that could improve the symptoms.

“It’s not just that he currently has these deficits,” Nelligan said. “There is no way they are going to get better.” Without being able to remember discussions, he could not participate with his lawyers in his defense, she said.

McCarrick appeared via a video link during the hearing. He was slightly slumped in his chair wearing a light green shirt and what appeared to be a grey sweater vest or sweater around his shoulders. He did not speak during the hearing.

The once-powerful American prelate faced charges that he abused the teenage boy at a wedding reception at Wellesley College in 1974.

McCarrick has maintained his innocence and pleaded not guilty in September 2021. He was also charged in April with sexually assaulting an 18-year-old man in Wisconsin more than 45 years ago.

In February, McCarrick’s attorneys asked the court to dismiss the case, saying a professor of psychiatry and behavioral science at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine had examined him and concluded that he has dementia, likely Alzheimer’s disease.

At that time, lawyers said McCarrick had a “limited understanding” of the criminal proceedings against him.

A University of North Carolina graduate student walked into a classroom building, shot his faculty adviser and quickly left, authorities said a day after the attack paralyzed campus as police searched for the gunman.

Tailei Qi, 34, was charged Tuesday with first-degree murder and having a gun on educational property in Monday’s killing of Zijie Yan inside a science building at the state’s flagship public university.

Chapel Hill police arrested Qi without force in a residential neighborhood near campus within two hours of the attack, UNC Police Chief Brian James said at a news conference.

Investigators were trying to determine a motive and searching for the gun, James said. He declined to specify where in Caudill Labs Yan was killed, saying officers are still looking at evidence. Qi was already gone when a team of officers reached the building, James said.

On Wednesday afternoon, the school’s iconic Bell Tower will ring in honor of Yan’s memory and students are encouraged to take a moment of silence, he said. The school also canceled classes until Thursday.