Texas Republicans set to approve Trump-backed new congressional map after prolonged combat
Texas Republicans on Wednesday will take up a brand new state congressional map supposed to flip 5 Democratic-held U.S. Home seats in subsequent yr’s midterm elections, after dozens of Democratic lawmakers ended a two-week walkout that had briefly blocked its passage.
Republican state legislators have undertaken uncommon mid-decade redistricting on the behest of Donald Trump, who’s in search of to enhance his occasion’s odds of preserving its slender US Home of Representatives majority regardless of political headwinds.
The gambit has triggered a nationwide redistricting battle, with governors of each events threatening to provoke related efforts in different states.
Democratic California governor Gavin Newsom is advancing an effort to offset Texas’ transfer by redrawing his state’s map to flip 5 Republican seats, pitting the nation’s most populous Democratic state towards Texas, its most populous Republican one. The Texas map goals to flip 5 Democratic seats.
Different Republican states together with Ohio, Florida, Indiana and Missouri are shifting ahead with or contemplating their very own redistricting efforts, as are Democratic states resembling Maryland and Illinois.
Redistricting sometimes happens each 10 years after the US Census to account for inhabitants adjustments, and mid-decade redistricting has traditionally been uncommon. In lots of states, lawmakers manipulate the traces to favor their occasion over the opposition, a observe often called gerrymandering.
Key occasions
Texas Democrat will pressure vote to launch Epstein information forward of GOP congressional map taking impact
In the present day, because the Texas home is ready to advance a GOP-drawn congressional map, the minority chief Gene Wu is ready to introduce an modification that might require the discharge of the Epstein information. In an try and pressure Republicans’ hand Wu stated the vote “forces Republicans to decide on between their loyalty to Trump and their obligation to show sexual predators.”
He added:
Everyone knows Trump is desperately afraid of what’s in these paperwork, and now we’ll see if Texas Republicans are keen to demand transparency or in the event that they’ll proceed the coverup.”
The legislature is ready to reconvene at round 11am ET, and we’ll deliver you the most recent because it occurs.
Trump administration says 66 arrests made on Tuesday
Lawyer basic Pam Bondi said that federal legislation enforcement made 66 arrests on Tuesday 19 August. Bondi added that brokers seized eight unlawful firearms.
Navy automobile crashes into automotive in DC – report
We’re getting extra details about a navy automobile that has crashed right into a automotive within the Capitol Hill space of DC.
The town’s native CBS station first reported on the incident, and cited affirmation from he DC hearth and emergency companies. On social media, the division stated that that one individual was extricated and transported with “minor accidents”. A Reddit consumer posted a video of the collision’s aftermath – exhibiting a Humvee-style automobile and a shattered silver SUV.
The DC hearth division hasn’t responded but to the Guardian’s request for remark and additional particulars on the crash.
This comes as six Republican-led states have all pledged to ship a minimum of 1,200 Nationwide Guard troops to DC, to help the president’s crackdown on “bloodshed, bedlam, and squalor” within the nation’s capital, despite a falling crime price.
Katie Thornton
In Sand Level, Alaska, the radio dial is generally empty. For a business broadcaster, operating a station on this Aleutian Island fishing city of about 600 folks simply isn’t value the price of doing enterprise.
However KSDP, the native public radio station for Sand Level, is a group anchor, bringing listeners music, emergency alerts, dwell shade commentary of highschool sports activities, state and native information. With out a newspaper particularly serving the city, the station is residents’ useful resource for all issues native.
On 1 August, for instance, KSDP hosted an interview with native fish biologist Matthew Keyes. Asking the questions was Austin Roof, basic supervisor of the station. Over fuzzy microphones, the 2 volleyed stats forwards and backwards concerning the escapement charges of “pinks” and “kings” (colloquialisms for 2 of essentially the most fished species of salmon).
In simply the previous few summer time months KSDP has introduced listeners not solely essential details about native fisheries, however additionally delivered updates and orders to get to excessive floor within the wake of two tsunamis. All of the whereas, legislators 4,000 miles away in Washington DC have been solidifying a call that can basically alter the media obtainable to thousands and thousands of People, particularly in rural areas: on 17 July, Congress voted to rescind all funding for public broadcasting.
Inside hours of Roof’s fishery interview, the hammer dropped: the Company for Public Broadcasting (CPB), by which federal funding is disbursed to public radio and tv stations, introduced it should shut down on the finish of September.
“The agricultural communities are undoubtedly gonna be hit the toughest,” Roof says. “How do you put together for the top of the world? The lack of federal funding is actually that seismic for us.”
On the subject of California’s fast plan to counteract Texas’s GOP-drawn map – Republican congressman Kevin Kiley has referred to as on Home speaker Mike Johnson to take up his invoice to finish mid-decade redistricting.
Kiley’s California seat could be weak if new maps are handed in a particular election in November.
“Mr. Speaker, these are good phrases however we’d like motion,” Kiley wrote on X. “You’ll be able to cease Newsom’s Redistricting Sham and save our taxpayers $250 million by bringing my mid-decade redistricting invoice to the Flooring.”
However Kiley’s efforts are in useless, on condition that Texas’ push to redraw the state’s congressional map was on the behest of Donald Trump. The president has additionally set his sights on different purple states – like Indiana, Ohio and Missouri – to stress Republican leaders to drum up new maps that would retain a GOP Home majority.
Kamala Harris stated Texas state consultant Nicole Collier, who has been protesting the most recent surveillance protocols set by Texas Republicans, is among the many “heroes of the second”.
On Tuesday, the previous vice chairman and Democratic presidential nominee called Collier as she camped out on the Home ground and refused to be escorted house by a state trooper – one of many situations set by the Texas GOP to make sure that Democratic lawmakers would return to the Capitol after their two-week quorum break.
“You recognize you might be amongst those that historical past will divulge to have been heroes of this second,” Harris stated on the telephone name.
Bondi says 550 arrested in DC since surge of federal legislation enforcement
Lawyer basic Pam Bondi has said that federal legislation enforcement has made 550 arrests because the surge in officers and brokers in DC, which started nearly two weeks in the past. She added that “76 unlawful firearms” have additionally been seized.
We’re ready on the White Home for the up to date variety of arrests made on Tuesday 19 August.
Additionally, in the case of the day’s schedule, and issues we’re watching. The Texas home vote on the GOP-drawn congressional map will happen as we speak. The decrease chamber will kick off the day’s legislative enterprise at 10am CT/11am ET, so we’ll be watching intently.
The map, which noticed Texas Democrats break quorum for 2 weeks, and has impressed a redistricting arms race throughout the nation, is ready to cross. It’ll then head to the state Senate.
The president’s schedule is fairly quiet as we speak for official enterprise, per the White Home. The one listed occasion is a swearing in-ceremony for the US ambassador to the EU at 4pm ET. That’s closed press for now, however I’ll let you recognize if that adjustments all through the day and the president opens it up.
Sam Levin
Greater than 2.8 million folks now establish as transgender within the US, together with an estimated 724,000 youth, based on a brand new information evaluation that’s the largest of its type so far.
Researchers from the College of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Williams Institute used federal surveys and information from state well being companies to establish the dimensions and demographics of the trans inhabitants in every state.
The evaluation, shared with the Guardian and released on Wednesday, documented 1000’s of trans youth dwelling in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The findings counter Donald Trump’s aggressive efforts to deny the existence of trans minors, as his administration removes references to trans folks throughout federal companies and broadly erodes protections and packages for LGBTQ+ communities.
The report builds on federal information assortment efforts that the White Home is now eliminating. The authors warn their examine could possibly be the final complete portrait of the nation’s trans inhabitants for a decade or extra as trans individuals are erased from very important US surveys, together with health reports and crime data analyses.
Lucy Campbell
Boston’s mayor Michelle Wu has hit again sharply on the Trump administration’s authorized threats over sanctuary metropolis immigration insurance policies, declaring that “Boston won’t again down”.
Wu informed a information convention outdoors Boston’s metropolis corridor on Tuesday: “The US lawyer basic requested for a response by as we speak, so right here it’s: cease attacking our cities to cover your administration’s failures. In contrast to the Trump administration, Boston follows the legislation. And Boston won’t again down from who we’re and what we stand for.”
Final week, the US Division of Justice sent letters to 13 states, from California to Rhode Island, and 22 native governments, from Boston to Seattle, that it has deemed “sanctuary jurisdictions”, threatening their leaders with prosecution for allegedly “undermining” and “obstructing” federal immigration enforcement.
The letters warned that they may lose federal funds or face authorized motion if they don’t help with Donald Trump’s sweeping, aggressive and highly controversial immigration enforcement and mass deportation efforts.
Lawyer basic Pam Bondi has warned that she intends to prosecute political leaders who will not be – in her view – sufficiently supportive of immigration enforcement.
Bondi’s letter requested recipients to offer a response by 19 August that “confirms your dedication with complying with federal legislation and identifies the speedy initiatives you take to eradicate legal guidelines, insurance policies and practices that impede federal immigration enforcement”.
Uganda has not agreed with US to take unlawful immigrants, international affairs official says
Uganda has not reached any settlement with the USA to absorb unlawful immigrants as a result of it lacks crucial infrastructure to take action, a senior international affairs ministry official stated on Wednesday.
“To the very best of my data we now have not reached such an settlement. We should not have the services and infrastructure to accommodate such unlawful immigrants in Uganda. So, we can’t soak up such unlawful immigrants,” Henry Okello Oryem, state minister for international affairs, informed Reuters in a textual content message.
On Tuesday, CBS Information, citing inside paperwork, reported that Washington had reached deportation offers with Honduras and Uganda as a part of its effort to strike extra agreements with nations that might settle for migrants deported from the US who weren’t their residents.
