A ‘mean-spirited’ Texas map goes before a conservative appeals court that could make it a new standard
CNN
A county redistricting plan in Texas that a Donald Trump-appointed judge deemed “a clear violation” of the Voting Rights Act is back before a notoriously conservative appeals court.
Conservative judges on the federal appeals court that oversees a large swath of the South questioned a longstanding legal mandate in the circuit that allows multiple minority groups to join together to seek representation under the Voting Rights Act. Judge Edith Jones of the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals said that if it was “obvious” the Voting Rights Act contemplated so-called coalition districts that aim to bolster minority voting power, the Supreme Court would have said so in previous rulings about the law. “But it isn’t,” she told Justice Department attorney Nicolas Riley, who is defending the current precedent and how it was used by a Donald Trump-appointed judge to strike down the county commission map of Galveston, Texas. The trial judge agreed with the Biden administration – and the civil rights groups and Black and Hispanic voters that also sued over the plan – that the commission map drawn by Republicans was a “clear violation” of the Voting Rights Act. US District Judge Jeffrey Vincent Brown last year struck down the new map, saying that how the commissioners went about their “obliteration” of a majority-minority district was “stark,” “jarring,” “egregious” and “mean-spirited.” The 5th Circuit has already voted to pause Brown’s ruling, as it considers reversing the coalition district precedent. The new GOP-drawn map will be in effect for the 2024 election.
Brian Walshe on Thursday came face-to-face for the first time with the man who had been having an affair with his wife before her death, as he took the stand to testify in Walshe’s murder trial.
The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed Texas to use a congressional map that will boost President Donald Trump’s effort to keep Republicans in control of Congress, blocking a lower court decision that found the new boundaries were likely unconstitutional because they were drawn based on race.
The US military carried out a strike Thursday on a suspected drug boat in the Eastern Pacific, killing four people on board, according to a social media post from US Southern Command.
A grand jury voted against indicting New York Attorney General Letitia James after being asked to look at the mortgage fraud case against her a second time, according to multiple people familiar with the development Thursday.
National Guard troops deployed to Washington, DC, can remain there for now, after a federal appeals court on Thursday temporarily froze a judge’s ruling that would have soon required them to leave the city’s streets.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s bad week just got worse. That’s after the long-awaited release Thursday of an inspector general’s report on his sharing of highly sensitive military attack plans on the unclassified app Signal earlier this year.
President Donald Trump has hired a new architect for the White House ballroom amid disputes between the president and his architect originally contracted to complete the project, several sources have told CNN.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth risked compromising sensitive military information that could have endangered US troops through his use of Signal to discuss attack plans, a Pentagon watchdog said in an unclassified report released Thursday. It also details how Hegseth declined to cooperate with the probe.
If nothing else, the controversy over the Trump administration’s second strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean has surfaced a long-overdue debate about its already legally dubious first strikes.
Two top House lawmakers emerged divided along party lines after a private briefing with the military official who oversaw September’s attack on an alleged drug vessel that included a so-called double-tap strike that killed surviving crew members, with a top Democrat calling video of the incident that was shared as part of the briefing “one of the most troubling things” he has seen as a lawmaker.
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Young Americans are “a generation under profound strain” with little confidence in institutions and widespread economic concerns, according to a Harvard Institute of Politics survey of adults younger than 30 released Thursday.
As lawmakers demand answers over reports that the US military carried out a follow-up strike that killed survivors during an attacked on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean, a career Navy SEAL who has spent most of his 30 years of military experience in special operations will be responsible for providing them.