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      Democrats bank on abortion in 2024 as Arizona and Florida push stakes higher

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      Kamala Harris’s Friday visit to Arizona was planned before the state’s top court upheld a 160-year-old law that bans almost all abortions. But the news galvanized the vice-president’s message, one that has already yielded stunning victories for liberals since Roe v Wade fell nearly two years ago.That message is simple: abortion bans happen when Republicans are in charge.“Women here live under one of the most extreme abortion bans in our nation. … The overturning of Roe was without any question a seismic event, and this ban here in Arizona is one of the biggest aftershocks yet,” Harris said at the Tucson event. “Overturning Roe was just the opening act of a larger strategy to take women’s rights and freedoms … We all must understand who is to blame. Former president Donald Trump did this.”The ruling from the Arizona supreme court arrived on Tuesday, just days after a Florida supreme court ruling cleared the way for a six-week abortion ban, a decision that will cut off access to the procedure before many women even know they are pregnant. These back-to-back rulings roiled the United States, raising the already high stakes of the 2024 elections to towering new heights. Activists in both states are now at work on ballot measures that would ask voters to enshrine abortion rights in their states’ constitutions in November.Democrats are hopeful these efforts – and the potential threat of more bans under a Trump administration – will mobilize voters in their favor, because abortion rights are popular among Americans, and Republicans have spent years pushing restrictions. Democrats have made abortion rights a central issue of their campaigns in Arizona, which was already expected to be a major battleground, and Florida, a longtime election bellwether that has swung further to the right in recent years.For Joe Biden, who is struggling to generate enthusiasm among voters, turning 2024 into a referendum on abortion may be his best shot at defeating Donald Trump. But it remains an open question whether the backlash to Roe’s overturning will continue to drive voters in a presidential election year, when they may be more swayed by concern over the economy and immigration.“In public polls that might just ask: ‘What’s your most important issue?’ You’re going to see abortion in the middle, maybe even towards the bottom,” said Tresa Undem, a co-founder of the polling firm PerryUndem who has studied public opinion on abortion for two decades. “But when you talk to core groups that Democrats need to turn out, it’s front and center.”A recent Wall Street Journal poll found that Trump held double-digit leads when swing state voters were asked who would best handle the economy, inflation and immigration, but they trusted Biden more on abortion. A Fox News poll in March found that most voters in Arizona believe Biden will do a better job handling the issue of abortion, but it was less of a priority than the economy, election integrity and foreign policy.For Biden, abortion is “the best issue for him right now”, Undem said. “All of the data I’ve seen on this upcoming election, young people are not nearly as motivated to vote as they were in 2020. And so in places like Arizona, the total ban – and I don’t make predictions ever – I do think it is going to turn out young people, especially young women.”The Biden campaign has released two abortion-focused ads this week, including one that features a Texas woman who was denied an abortion after her water broke too early in pregnancy. (She ended up in the ICU.) Indivisible, a national grassroots organization with a local presence in states across the country, said volunteer sign-ups to knock on doors in Arizona spiked 50% following the state supreme court’s ruling. Its members in Arizona are helping to organize rallies in support of reproductive rights as well as events to collect signatures for the ballot measure.When Roe fell, abortion rights’ grip on voters was far from guaranteed. Mitch McConnell, Senate Republicans’ longtime leader and an architect of the conservative supreme court majority that overturned Roe, brushed off outrage over its demise as “a wash” in federal elections. Although most Americans support some degree of access to the procedure, anti-abortion voters were more likely to say the issue was important to their vote than pro-abortion rights voters.The fall of Roe changed that. Anger over Roe was credited with halting Republicans’ much-promised “red wave” in the 2022 midterm elections, while pro-abortion rights ballot measures triumphed, even in crimson states such as Kansas and Kentucky. Last year, when Virginia Republicans tried retake control of the state legislature by championing a “compromise” 15 week-ban, they failed. Democrats now control both chambers in the state.“When Republicans offer compromises, I think a lot of voters are inclined not to see those as what the Republican party really wants long-term but what the Republican party thinks is necessary to settle for in the short term,” said Mary Ziegler, a University of California at Davis School of Law professor who studies the legal history of reproduction. “They know that Republicans are aligned with the pro-life movement and the pro-life movement wants fetal personhood and a ban at fertilization.”In the hours after the Arizona decision, several Republican state lawmakers and candidates with long records of opposing abortion rushed to denounce the near-total ban (which has not yet taken effect). The Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake, who once called abortion the “ultimate sin” and said Arizona’s impending near-total abortion ban was “a great law”, attempted to clarify her position on the issue in a meandering, five-minute-plus video. The ban she once favored – which passed in 1864, before Arizona even became a state or women gained the right to vote – is now “out of line with where the people of this state are”, Lake said.“The issue is less about banning abortion and more about saving babies,” she said, as instrumental music swelled against images of pregnant women and pregnancy tests. She repeatedly stressed the importance of “choice” – language associated with people who support abortion rights – while simultaneously invoking the value of “life”.Lake also emphasized that she “agrees with President Trump” on abortion. Over the course of his campaign, Trump has alternated between taking credit for overturning Roe – since he appointed three of the justices who ruled to do so – toying with the idea of a national ban, and insisting that states can decide their own abortion laws, as he did in a video this week.In that video, released on Monday, Trump declined to endorse a federal ban on the procedure, after months of teasing his support. On Wednesday, Trump criticized the Arizona law and predicted that state lawmakers would “bring it back into reason”. Florida’s six-week ban, he suggested, was “probably, maybe going to change”. He reiterated his criticism on Friday, posting on his social media platform that the Arizona supreme court went “too far” in upholding an “inappropriate law from 1864” and calling on the Republican-led state legislature to “ACT IMMEDIATELY” to remedy the decision. “We must ideally have the three Exceptions for Rape, Incest, and Life of the Mother,” he wrote. (The 1864 ban only includes an exception to save the life of the pregnant person.)“He’s simply trying to have it, I think, both ways,” Ziegler said of Trump.Come November, Democrats are counting on the real-world consequences of the bans overriding other concerns. “The economy is still important. Immigration is still important, but this is immediate,” said Stacy Pearson, an Arizona-based Democratic strategist.“A woman just wants to be in her OB-GYN’s office, having a conversation with her doctor about her medical care without concerns about whether or not old white men in cowboy hats were right in 1864,” Pearson added. “It’s nuts.” More

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      Trump bemoans lack of immigrants from majority-white countries to the US

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      Donald Trump bemoaned a lack of immigrants to the US from “nice” countries “like Denmark [or] Switzerland”, offering millionaire donors at a Florida fundraiser a reprise of infamous racist Oval Office remarks about people coming to America from “shithole countries”.Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee for president again, despite facing 88 criminal charges and multimillion-dollar civil penalties for tax fraud and defamation, the latter arising from a rape allegation a judge called “substantially true”.According to the New York Times, which cited an unnamed attendee at the Saturday event in Palm Beach, Trump told his audience: “These are people coming in from prisons and jails. They’re coming in from just unbelievable places and countries, countries that are a disaster.“And when I said, you know, ‘Why can’t we allow people to come in from nice countries,’ I’m trying to be nice. Nice countries, you know like Denmark, Switzerland? Do we have any people coming in from Denmark? How about Switzerland? How about Norway?”The millionaires in the crowd “chuckled”, the Times said.Trump made his “shithole countries” remark in January 2018, in a White House meeting on immigration reform.“Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” Trump said, according to the Washington Post, which cited aides briefed on the meeting.Trump then “suggested that the US should instead bring more people from countries such as Norway [and] suggested he would be open to more immigrants from Asian countries because he felt that they help the US economically”.That kicked off a storm over Trump’s racism. Six years later, the remarks about “nice countries” reported by the Times landed in a country well used to the 45th president’s vulgarity, racism and lying.Trump is using so-called chaos at the southern US border as a central campaign issue, to the extent of directing Republicans to block bipartisan reform.On Saturday, the Times said, Trump complained of criticism over his “shithole countries” comment: “And you know, they took that as a very terrible comment, but I felt it was fine.”He also complained that migrants were coming to the US from Yemen, “where they’re blowing each other up all over the place”, and said migrants from Latin America “make the Hells Angels look like extremely nice people.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“They’ve been shipped in, brought in, deposited in our country, and they’re with us tonight. In fact, I don’t think they’re on this island, but I know they’re on that island right there. That’s West Palm. Congratulations over there. But they’ll be here. Eventually, they’ll be here.”Palm Beach, where Trump spoke at the home of a billionaire, is 93.8% white. West Palm Beach, across a waterway, is nearly a third people of color.The Times also reported that Trump claimed Joe Biden had “soiled” the Resolute desk in the Oval Office at the White House.“The attendee who witnessed the moment said that dinner guests laughed and that Mr Trump’s remark was interpreted as the former president saying that Mr Biden had defecated on the desk,” the paper said.
      Biden v Trump: What’s in store for the US and the world?On Thursday 2 May, 8-9.15pm GMT, join Tania Branigan, David Smith, Mehdi Hasan and Tara Setmayer for the inside track on the people, the ideas and the events that might shape the US election campaign. Book tickets here or at theguardian.live More

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      Melania Trump to Attend Fund-Raiser for the Log Cabin Republicans

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      Melania Trump, who has been mostly absent from public view while her husband, Donald J. Trump, campaigns for president this year, will appear at a fund-raiser at Mar-a-Lago on April 20 for the Log Cabin Republicans, the group’s president said.The event, which was first reported by Politico, is a return of sorts to the political arena for Mrs. Trump, who has consistently stayed away from campaign events.Mr. Trump has insisted for months that Mrs. Trump would join him on the trail. He invokes her often during his rallies, to cheers from the crowd, even as she has not traveled with him. And she did not join him at a Super Tuesday party at Mar-a-Lago, the couple’s home in Palm Beach, Fla.Last month, Mrs. Trump made a rare public appearance with Mr. Trump, accompanying him when he cast his ballot during Florida’s primary. When asked if she would appear more regularly this year, Mrs. Trump replied, “Stay tuned.”Mrs. Trump remains a popular surrogate for the former president, but she has shown little interest in hitting the campaign trail.The fund-raiser for the Log Cabin Republicans, a group of L.G.B.T. conservatives, will still keep her largely out of the public eye. The group’s president, Charles T. Moran, said that Richard Grenell, Mr. Trump’s former ambassador to Germany, was also set to appear.Mrs. Trump has maintained ties to the Log Cabin Republicans for years. In a financial disclosure last year, she reported receiving a $250,000 payment from the group in December 2022. On Twitter that month, the group posted a photo saying she was the special guest at a “private dinner” and thanking her for “continuing the projects she worked on while in the White House.”Mrs. Trump’s few public appearances over the last year have been largely disconnected to Mr. Trump’s campaign. Last month, she joined Mr. Trump as he hosted Viktor Orban, the prime minister of Hungary, at Mar-a-Lago.In January, she delivered a eulogy at the funeral for her mother, Amalija Knavs. And she gave a speech last December at a naturalization ceremony in Washington, where she told new American citizens that citizenship meant “actively participating in the democratic process and guarding our freedom.”In November, she joined Mr. Trump at a funeral for his older sister. And she attended a memorial service for Rosalynn Carter with other first ladies from both parties. It was the first occasion that all of the living first ladies had been in one place since George H.W. Bush’s funeral in 2018. More

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      Florida just crushed abortion rights. But it also created a tool to fight back | Moira Donegan

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      It’s hard to imagine a scenario in which the Florida state supreme court would not have allowed Governor Ron DeSantis’s six-week abortion ban to go into effect. In a challenge to a previous 15-week ban, the court’s seven judges, all of whom were appointed by DeSantis, overturned 35 years of precedent this week in order to find that the right to privacy enshrined in the state constitution does not protect the right to an abortion, as Florida state law has acknowledged it does since 1989.The court’s approval of the 15-week ban will allow a stricter, previously stayed six-week ban to go into effect on 1 May. Justice Charles Canady did not recuse himself from the case, despite calls for him do so from no less an authority than the Florida supreme court’s former chief justice, Barbara Pariente. Justice Canady’s wife, the state representative Jennifer Canady, is a legislative co-sponsor of the newly approved six-week ban. There is no rape or incest exception.The harm this decision will do to women across the American south is immeasurable. Like many states, Florida dramatically restricted access to abortion in 2022, in the wake of the US supreme court’s Dobbs v Jackson decision that overturned Roe v Wade. Florida’s 15-week abortion ban, signed into law by DeSantis in April 2022, went into effect just days after the ruling. Despite those new restrictions, however, abortion remained much more available in Florida than it did elsewhere in the south.The south-east corner of the continental United States is home to some of the most restrictive abortion bans. A woman living in Florida finds herself without a right to an abortion at any stage of pregnancy as far west as Texas and Oklahoma and as far north as Missouri, Indiana and West Virginia. Abortion is also banned outright in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Kentucky and Tennessee; it is banned after six weeks in Georgia and South Carolina. Florida’s 15-week ban was a dramatic reduction of women’s healthcare rights from the pre-Dobbs status quo. But due to the even more sadistic anti-choice zealotry of its neighbors, it was among the most permissive states in the region.Under these circumstances, Florida became a haven for abortion seekers. Despite the new 15-week ban, abortions soared in Florida in the year after Dobbs, as women from across the south fled their homes in search of the care that was still legal in the Sunshine state. According to the abortion and contraception data project #WeCount, the number of abortions in Florida increased by a total of 20,460 in the 12 months following the Dobbs decision. Now, both Floridian women and those who traveled from out of state for care will be forced to look further afield, to more distant and more expensive locations, in search of legal abortions. Many will not be able to get them.View image in fullscreenBut in addition to this catastrophe for women’s rights, the Florida court also upended this fall’s election in the state. That’s because, in a narrow vote, the justices allowed a ballot measure to appear before voters this fall that would enshrine abortion rights explicitly in the state constitution.The proposed constitutional amendment would declare Floridians have a right to an abortion before “viability”, the medically imprecise but politically palatable standard that governed the Roe v Wade legal regime for 30 years and is usually interpreted to allow abortion until about 24 weeks of pregnancy. After that, women whose medical providers declare their pregnancies a danger to their health would also be able to receive abortions.The ballot measure would need to receive approval from at least 60% of Florida voters in order to be enshrined in the state constitution. But if the measure is successful, it would invalidate both the six- and 15-week bans, and could theoretically be used to expand abortion access even beyond pre-Dobbs levels.The addition of the abortion rights ballot measure to the November election has dramatically changed the political calculus in Florida overnight. Long the home of a growing sunbelt Republican base and an uncommonly weak state Democratic party, Florida has been considered a shoo-in for Donald Trump, who won the state by three points in 2020. But abortion ballot measures have proven a persistent electoral winner, with measures to preserve or expand access to the procedure winning every time they have been put to voters since Dobbs – including in heavily Republican districts such as Kansas, Kentucky and Ohio, as well as in swing states like Michigan.And the salience of abortion to an election has been an excellent predictor of Democratic success since Dobbs, with the 2022 midterms and subsequent special elections all delivering Democratic victories whenever the abortion question is at the front of voters’ minds.In Florida, the new ballot measure may not just influence the presidential election, but the re-election bid of the Republican senator Rick Scott – a one-time governor and fierce abortion rights opponent who has said that he would have signed the six-week ban if he were still in the governor’s mansion. That stance has come under harsh criticism in Florida, where even the comparatively less strict 15-week ban has had horrible human costs.Anya Cook, a Florida woman whose water broke too early in her pregnancy, almost died from blood loss after the 15-week ban prevented her doctors from administering miscarriage care. Deborah Dorbert was forced to remain pregnant for months after her fetus was given a fatal diagnosis; she delivered an infant who died in her arms. These stories have made an indelible impression on the public. In Florida, more than 60% of voters say that they oppose the six-week ban. Now that it is slated to actually go into effect, that opposition is likely to grow.If the post-Dobbs era has shown us anything, it is that abortion is controversial only in theory. When faced with the material consequences of banning it, Americans find themselves unequivocally on freedom’s side.Democrats, then, may find that they have an unusual asset in the Republican opposition to abortion. The bans are consistently unpopular, and the issue has proved persistently salient, moving voters to the polls even two years after the Dobbs decision. But this political boon for the Democrats has come at an unbearable cost: women’s health, happiness and freedom.
      Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist More

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      in Elections

      Revisiting Florida 2000 and the Butterfly Effect

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      The evidence is strong that Al Gore would have won had it not been for an infamous ballot design in Palm Beach County.Theresa LePore, who designed Palm Beach County’s butterfly ballot, with old ballots three years after the 2000 election. David FriedmanWe’re still in a post-primary lull before the campaign starts to heat up — and before Donald J. Trump goes on trial. Here are a few quick notes to end the week.Joe Lieberman and the butterfly ballotJoe Lieberman, the former Democratic senator, died this week at 82. He was Al Gore’s vice-presidential nominee in 2000, when the Gore-Lieberman ticket came less than 600 Florida votes away from winning the White House.We’ll never know what would have happened if the Supreme Court had allowed the recount to continue. But I don’t think it’s always appreciated that we probably do know that Mr. Gore would have won Florida, and therefore the presidency, if it weren’t for the infamous “butterfly ballot” in Palm Beach County.If you don’t remember — it has been a while — the butterfly ballot was very unusual. Candidates were listed on both sides of the ballot, and voters cast a ballot by punching a corresponding hole in the middle. What made it so unusual was that the ordering of the candidates on the ballot didn’t have the same logic as the corresponding punch hole: George W. Bush and Mr. Gore were the first two candidates listed on the left-hand side, but they corresponded to the first and third hole on the punch. The second punch corresponded with the first candidate on the right-hand side of the ballot: the paleoconservative Pat Buchanan, running as a Reform Party candidate.After the election, many voters from Palm Beach claimed they had inadvertently voted for Mr. Buchanan when they meant to vote for Mr. Gore. This is clear in the data. Mr. Buchanan fared far better in Palm Beach County than he did on the other side of the county line. Indeed, Mr. Buchanan fared far better in Palm Beach County than any politically or demographically comparable area in the country.You can see this pattern quite clearly in this map, courtesy of Matthew C. Isbell, a Democratic data strategist and consultant:We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Biden and Trump shift to new phase of urgent fundraising in 2024 US election

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      Joe Biden and Donald Trump are entering a new phase of a heavyweight election fundraising smackdown after the US president raised a record $26m at a glitzy event with Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, while Trump’s Republican campaign tried to steal Biden’s thunder by claiming it would outdo him next week with a $33m event.Biden and his Democratic predecessor headlined a star-studded fundraiser with Clinton at the Radio City Music Hall event in New York, hosted by Mindy Kaling and featuring Lizzo and Queen Latifah, while the TV satirist Stephen Colbert interviewed the three men on stage in front of an audience that paid up to $500,000 for a ticket.Obama and Biden flew from Washington to New York on Air Force One together on Thursday in a show of unity and Democratic campaign heft as the 2024 election enters an important phase between the main primary season and the summer nominating conventions, which are expected to anoint Biden and Trump as their parties’ candidates for the November vote.The glittering Democratic fundraiser was punctuated by protests inside the sold-out auditorium, as attendees rose at several different moments to shout over the discussion, referencing Biden’s backing of Israel’s war in Gaza.“Shame on you, Joe Biden,” one yelled, according to Reuters.Obama said Biden had “moral clarity” on the Israel issue and was willing to listen to all sides in this debate and find common ground.When a protester inside the theater interrupted Obama, the former president said: “You can’t just talk and not listen … That’s what the other side does.”The protests drew a pledge from Biden to keep working to stop civilian deaths, particularly of children. But he added, “Israel’s existence is at stake.” Hundreds more protested outside in the drizzling rain, many demanding a ceasefire and waving Palestinian flags.On the money raised during the event, which had been estimated at $25m and then came in at a record-breaking $26m for a single campaign event, Jeffrey Katzenberg, the Hollywood mogul turned Biden campaign co-chair, said: “This historic raise is a show of strong enthusiasm for President Biden and Vice-President [Kamala] Harris and a testament to the unprecedented fundraising machine we’ve built.”But on Friday, it was reported that Trump believes he can out raise the Biden event with a billionaires’ power party at his Mar-a-Lago residence and resort club in Palm Beach, south Florida, on 6 April, where tickets will run from $250,000 to more than $800,000, the Financial Times first reported and Politico later detailed.The Trump campaign’s goal is at least $33m, with featured super-rich American business leaders such as the casino and hotel developer Steve Wynn, the hedge funder John Paulson and Robert Bigelow, a property and aerospace billionaire with an offbeat obsession with the paranormal and UFOs.Trump has been struggling for money and owes hundreds of millions in fines in civil cases he has lost, on top of sky-high legal bills, for which he is paying with funds from donors. Biden’s campaign had $71m in available cash at the end of last month, more than twice as much as Trump, with the Democratic National Committee also swilling with more than double what is in the Republican National Committee’s coffers, the Hill reported.On Thursday, a Trump campaign adviser said the candidate would not be able to match Biden’s totals, blaming the disparity on the Democrat’s “billionaire” supporters and painting a picture of a Trump campaign as being fueled by grassroots, working-class supporters. However, the Trump campaign is suffering from both large and small donor fatigue, CNBC has reported.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAt a wake on Thursday for a police officer shot dead on duty in New York, Trump called for a focus on “law and order” even though he stands to be the first former US president to be a defendant in a criminal trial and is facing a total of 88 charges across four cases, relating to campaign finance impropriety, election interference and hiding classified documents after leaving office.At the Democratic fundraiser, the presidents toggled between humor and campaign talk. Biden lit into Trump, recalling how he pleaded with the then occupant of the White House on 6 January 2021, to “call these people off” when his supporters invaded the US Capitol in an insurrection to try, in vain, to stop the certification of Biden’s victory over him in the 2020 election.“He sat there in the dining room off the Oval Office for several hours and watched [the attack on TV], didn’t do a damn thing,” Biden said.He pointed out how Trump was proud to have tilted the supreme court so that it ruled to take away the national right to abortion, with the overturning of Roe v Wade in 2022, while Democrats defend reproductive choice, with the vice-president, Kamala Harris, taking a lead on the issue on the campaign trail.Biden also challenged Trump to golf, but only if his rival carried his own bag.Biden, Obama and Clinton ended the night donning Biden’s trademark aviator-style sunglasses.The Associated Press contributed reporting More

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      in Elections

      A New Law Would Remove Many Architectural Protections in Miami Beach

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      Lawmakers say preservationists held too much power over decisions on whether buildings should be demolished and what should be allowed to replace them.The oceanfront Eden Roc Hotel is an icon of Miami Modernist architecture, a style that epitomized the postwar glamour and grandeur of Miami Beach. Two turquoise panels wrap the white facade. The oval canister perched atop the building resembles a cruise ship’s funnel. Crooners like Frank Sinatra, Harry Belafonte, and Sammy Davis, Jr., stayed and played there.But a new Florida law could make it easier for hotels like the Eden Roc and other architectural icons along Miami Beach’s coastline to be demolished. The battle pits the pressures of development and climate change against the benefits of historical preservation, in a city that has long paved over its past and prizes the new, shiny, and glitzy.Supporters say the law addresses environmental and safety challenges of aging properties after the deadly 2021 collapse of the Champlain Towers South condo. But critics believe the legislation is a pretext to facilitate the demolition of historical buildings — ones that give Miami Beach its distinct look — to make way for high-rise luxury condos.The new law effectively strips Miami Beach Historic Preservation Board of its long-held power to say whether historic structures can be demolished and, if a structure is knocked down, to ensure that at least some elements of its design are preserved or replicated. “Let’s just bulldoze the past — that’s their idea,” said Daniel Ciraldo, the executive director of the nonprofit Miami Design Preservation League. “I don’t think we’ve seen such an attack on our local controls since the 1980s, back when the city first started to do historic preservation.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      DeSantis Signs Social Media Bill Barring Accounts for Children Under 14

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      A new Florida law also requires apps like TikTok and Snapchat to obtain a parent’s consent before giving accounts to 14- and 15-year-olds.Florida on Monday became the first state to effectively bar residents under the age of 14 from holding accounts on services like TikTok and Instagram, enacting a strict social media bill that is likely to upend the lives of many young people.The landmark law, signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, is one of the more restrictive measures that a state has enacted so far in an escalating nationwide push to insulate young people from potential mental health and safety risks on social media platforms. The statute both prohibits certain social networks from giving accounts to children under 14 and requires the services to terminate accounts that a platform knew or believed belonged to underage users.It also requires the platforms to obtain a parent’s permission before giving accounts to 14- and 15-year-olds.In a press conference on Monday, Mr. DeSantis hailed the measure, saying it will help parents navigate “difficult terrain” online. He added that “being buried” in devices all day long was not the best way to grow up.“Social media harms children in a variety of ways,” Mr. DeSantis said in a statement. The new bill “gives parents a greater ability to protect their children”Mr. DeSantis had vetoed a previous bill that would have banned social media accounts for 14- and 15-year-olds even with parental consent. The governor said the earlier bill would impinge on parents’ rights to make decisions about their children’s online activities.The new Florida measure is almost certain to face constitutional challenges over young people’s rights to freely seek information and companies’ rights to distribute information.Federal judges in several other states have recently halted less-restrictive online safety laws on free speech grounds in response to lawsuits brought by NetChoice, a tech industry trade group that represents firms including Meta, Snap and TikTok.Judges in Ohio and Arkansas, for instance, have blocked laws in those states that would require certain social networks to verify users’ ages and obtain a parent’s permission before giving accounts to children under 16 or 18. A federal judge in California has halted a law in that state that would require certain social networks and video game apps to turn on the highest privacy settings by default for minors and turn off by default certain features, like auto-playing videos, for those users.In addition to social media age restrictions, the new Florida statute requires online pornography services to use age-verification systems to keep minors off their platforms.Apps like Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram already have policies prohibiting children under the age of 13. That is because the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act requires certain online services to obtain parental permission before collecting personal information — like full names, contact information, locations or selfie photos — from children under 13.But state regulators say millions of underage children have been able to sign up for social media accounts simply by providing false birth dates. More