Michael Moline, Florida Phoenix

Today, June 19, or “Juneteenth,” commemorates the end of slavery in the defeated South. The date reflects the timing of the announcement by Union General Gordon Granger in Galveston, Texas, the day after he’d arrived to occupy the city.

A similar announcement had already happened in Florida’s capital city on May 20, 1865 — the different timing reflecting the uncertainties surrounding the end of the Civil War and difficulties of communications as rebel states fell under federal control.

Per an account on the website of the State Archives and Library of Florida ...

Twenty-four Republican state attorneys general have interceded in the classified-documents prosecution of Donald Trump, opposing special counsel Jack Smith’s request that the trial judge bar Trump from making hostile statements against federal law enforcement.

In a 27-page amicus brief filed by Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, the states complain that Smith’s motion to amend the former president’s bail conditions amounts to interference in the presidential election.

“The free-speech right is at its strongest when it protects political speech,” the brief says. ...

Florida bade farewell Friday to Bob Graham during a public memorial at Florida’s Old Capitol, with hundreds of people filing up to the second-floor rotunda where Graham lay in state and sharing memories with his family and friends.

Among the mourners was Graham’s wife, Adele, his daughters, Gwen (a former congresswoman), Cissy, Suzanne, and Kendall, and their families. A military honor guard conveyed the casket to its bier and stood watch throughout the event.

Adele Graham took a few moments before the flower-festooned coffin and then greeted mourners from an armchair nearby. ...

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation Friday designed to make it harder for undocumented immigrants to live in the state — thereby, he said, possibly deterring them from coming here.

The measures include driving without a license, “non-official ID cards,” and bumping up certain criminal penalties, all to highlight immigration restrictions just days before the state’s Republican presidential preference primary. (There’s no Democratic primary on Tuesday.)

DeSantis staged the press conference before a friendly crowd at the Polk County Sheriff’s Office in Central Florida. Keep in mind that DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Chris Christie, Asa Hutchinson, Vivek Ramaswamy and Ryan L. Binkley are still on the Florida ballot though they’ve dropped out of the race. But Donald Trump is the only major Republican who hasn’t suspended his campaign. ...

Amid the weekend’s commemorations of Roe v. Wade and lamentations over Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, some observers acknowledged the elephant in the room: two pending Florida Supreme Court rulings governing abortion rights.

The state’s high court heard oral arguments on Sept. 8, 2023 in a challenge by Planned Parenthood affiliates and other providers to Florida’s 15-week abortion ban but, more than four months later and now in 2024, has yet to issue its ruling.

If the court does uphold the 2022 law, which anticipated the Dobbs ruling that same summer, a second law banning abortions after six weeks’ gestation would take effect 30 days later. That’s before most people realize they are pregnant. ...