truthout: “Around the country, LGBTQ+ students and the campus groups founded to support them have become a growing target in the culture wars. In 2023 alone, 542 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced by state legislatures or in Congress, according to an LGBTQ-legislation tracker, with many of them focused on young people. Supporters of the bills say…

WaPo: “Nikki Haley continues to do damage control for her omission of slavery in response to a question about the causes of the Civil War last month, and on Thursday defended her response in part by noting, “I had Black friends growing up.” …. “If you grow up in South Carolina, literally in second and third…

NY Times: “Since the indictment of former President Donald J. Trump and 18 of his allies last summer on election interference charges in Georgia, a delicate question has gone unanswered: Would criminal charges also be coming for Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, a longtime Trump supporter and one of the most ambitious politicians in the Southern…

Politico: “Prominent Florida trial attorney John Morgan, known as the godfather of Florida’s medical marijuana amendment and a Democratic fundraiser, may add another title to his résumé: Florida governor. Morgan this week teased a potential 2026 run on social media, saying “maybe I should run for Governor… as an Independent” in response to a recent story about Gov….

Politico: “Florida abortion rights advocates, who have seen access to the procedure erode in the state and nationally in recent years, reached a major milestone that could shape abortion access throughout the south. Groups seeking a constitutional amendment protecting abortion on Friday secured enough state-certified signatures by the Feb. 1 deadline to put a referendum on the…

TX Tribune: “The Southern Baptist Convention and others have reached a confidential settlement in a high-profile lawsuit that accused a former leader of sexual assault, ending a six-year legal drama that helped prompt a broader reckoning over child sexual abuse in evangelical churches, expanded victims’ rights in Texas and showed that a prominent conservative activist…

The Austin Chronicle: “Wednesday, Texas’ 3rd Court of Appeals denied Attorney General Ken Paxton’s request for a stay of a Travis County judge’s ruling ordering depositions in the ongoing whistleblower lawsuit that led to his impeachment earlier this year. The judge is seeking Paxton and his staff to appear for depositions; Paxton must now respond by Jan. 3. The whistleblowers’ 2020 lawsuit…

Lexington Herald Leader: “Like many states across the country, Kentucky has enacted laws restricting abortion access and gender-affirming health care for transgender youth. Both over the past year have brought lawsuits by Kentuckians who call them unconstitutional. … Since the trigger law and six-week ban took effect last summer, abortion has remained illegal. Health care…

The New Republic: “Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear is an increasingly rare phenomenon: a Democrat able to win a deep-red state not once but twice. Beshear’s November reelection victory over Republican Daniel Cameron has raised his profile, leaving political observers to wonder whether a Democrat who won a statewide race in Kentucky—which supported Trump by a…

Political Wire: “A federal judge upheld Georgia’s new political districts that preserve Republican power, ruling Thursday that state legislators ‘fully complied’ with his order to create more districts with a majority of Black voters,” the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports. “The decision leaves in place political maps safeguarding the Republican Party’s 9-5 advantage in Georgia’s U.S. House delegation…