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TEXAS – The battlefield is narrowing and the timeline is tightening in a congressional redistricting contest among states seeking a partisan advantage ahead of the November midterm elections.

Virginia voters on Tuesday approved a constitutional amendment authorizing a Democratic redistricting plan that could help the party win several additional House seats in this year’s elections. Next up could be Florida, where lawmakers are to begin a special session April 28 for a Republican attempt at congressional redistricting.

Voting districts typically are redrawn once a decade, after each census. But President Donald Trump triggered an unusual round of mid-decade redistricting last year when he urged Texas Republicans to redraw House districts to give the GOP an edge in the midterm elections. California Democrats reciprocated, and redistricting efforts soon cascaded across states.

So far, Republicans believe they could win up to nine additional seats in states where they have redrawn congressional districts while Democrats think they could gain up to 10 seats elsewhere because of redistricting. But that presumes past voting patterns hold in November. And that’s uncertain, especially since the party in power typically loses seats in the midterms and Trump faces negative approval ratings in polls.

Democrats need to gain just a few seats in November to wrest control of the House from Republicans, potentially allowing them to obstruct Trump’s agenda.

Next up on redistricting: Florida

Current map: eight Democrats, 20 Republicans

Proposed map: Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has called a special legislative session to begin April 28 on congressional redistricting. Republicans haven’t yet publicly released a specific plan.

Challenges: The state constitution says districts cannot be drawn with intent to favor or disfavor a political party or incumbent.
Where new House districts were approved

New U.S. House districts have been adopted in seven states since last summer. Five took up redistricting voluntarily, one was required to by its state constitution and another did so under court order.

Texas

Current map: 13 Democrats, 25 Republicans

New map: Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed a revised House map into law last August that could help Republicans win five additional seats.

Challenges: The U.S. Supreme Court in December cleared the way for the new districts to be used in this year’s elections. It put on hold a lower-court ruling that blocked the new map because it was “racially gerrymandered.”

California

Current map: 43 Democrats, nine Republicans

New map: Voters in November approved revised House districts drawn by the Democratic-led Legislature that could help Democrats win five additional seats.

Challenges: The U.S. Supreme Court in February allowed the new districts to be used in this year’s elections. It denied an appeal from Republicans and the Department of Justice, which claimed the districts impermissibly favor Hispanic voters.

Missouri

Current map: two Democrats, six Republicans

New map: Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe signed a revised House map into law last September that could help Republicans win an additional seat.

Challenges: A Cole County judge ruled the new map is in effect as election officials work to determine whether a referendum petition seeking a statewide vote complies with constitutional criteria and contains enough valid petition signatures. The Missouri Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit claiming mid-decade redistricting is illegal. It’s scheduled to hear arguments in May on claims the new districts violate compactness requirements and should be placed on hold pending the potential referendum.

North Carolina

Current map: four Democrats, 10 Republicans

New map: The Republican-led General Assembly gave final approval in October to revised districts that could help Republicans win an additional seat.

Challenges: A federal court panel in November denied a request to block the revised districts from being used in the midterm elections.

Ohio

Current map: five Democrats, 10 Republicans

New map: A bipartisan panel composed primarily of Republicans voted in October to approve revised House districts that improve Republicans’ chances of winning two additional seats.

Challenges: None. The state constitution required new districts before the 2026 election, because Republicans had approved the prior map without sufficient Democratic support after the last census.

Utah

Current map: no Democrats, four Republicans

New map: A judge in November imposed revised House districts that could help Democrats win a seat. The court ruled that lawmakers had circumvented anti-gerrymandering standards passed by voters when adopting the prior map.

Challenges: A federal court panel and the state Supreme Court, in February, each rejected Republican challenges to the judicial map selection.

Virginia

Current map: six Democrats, five Republicans

New map: Voters approved a constitutional amendment authorizing new U.S. House districts backed by Democrats that could help the party win up to four additional seats.

Challenges: The state Supreme Court allowed the referendum to proceed, but it has yet to rule whether the effort is legal. The court is considering an appeal of a Tazewell County judge’s ruling that the amendment is invalid because lawmakers violated their own rules while passing it.
Where redistricting efforts were denied

Governors, lawmakers or partisan officials pushed for congressional redistricting in numerous states. In at least five states, those efforts gained some initial traction but ultimately fell short in either the legislature or court.

Maryland
Current map: seven Democrats, one Republican

Proposed map: The Democratic-led House in February passed a redistricting plan backed by Democratic Gov. Wes Moore that could help Democrats win an additional seat.

Challenges: The legislative session ended in April without the Democratic-led Senate voting on the redistricting plan. The state Senate president said there were concerns it could backfire on Democrats.

New York

Current map: 19 Democrats, seven Republicans

Proposed map: A judge in January ordered a state commission to draw new boundaries for the only congressional district in New York City represented by a Republican, ruling it unconstitutionally dilutes the votes of Black and Hispanic residents.

Challenges: The U.S. Supreme Court in March granted Republicans’ request to halt the judge’s order, leaving the existing district lines in place for the 2026 election.

Indiana

Current map: two Democrats, seven Republicans

Proposed map: The Republican-led House passed a redistricting plan in December that would have improved Republicans’ chances of winning two additional seats.

Challenges: Despite pressure from Trump to adopt the new map, the Republican-led Senate rejected it in a bipartisan vote on Dec. 11.

Kansas

Current map: one Democrat, three Republicans

Proposed map: Some Republican lawmakers mounted an attempt to take up congressional redistricting.

Challenges: Lawmakers dropped a petition drive for a special session on congressional redistricting in November, after failing to gain enough support.

Illinois

Current map: 14 Democrats, three Republicans

Proposed map: The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in October proposed a new U.S. House map that would improve Democrats’ chances of winning an additional seat.

Challenges: The Democratic-led General Assembly declined to take up redistricting, citing concerns about the effect on representation for Black residents.

AUSTIN – A jackpot-winning ticket worth an estimated annuitized $41 million for the Lotto Texas drawing held on April 20 was purchased at 7-Eleven Convenience Store, located at 3700 Interstate Highway 30, in Mesquite. The winning Quick Pick ticket matched all six of the numbers drawn (21-28-33-34-43-44). The cash value option was selected at the time of purchase and the claimant will receive an estimated $22.5 million before taxes. The prize has not yet been claimed. The winner has 180 days from the draw date to claim the prize. The retailer that sold the jackpot-winning ticket may be eligible for a $25,000 bonus under the Texas Lottery’s Retailer Bonus Program.

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NACOGDOCHES (AP) — An explosion at a Texas natural gas or oil well site set off a large fire that was seen for miles and led to some evacuations, but caused no injuries, authorities said Tuesday.

The Nacogdoches County Sheriff’s Office received numerous calls late Monday of a loud explosion in Etoile in eastern Texas, a small, rural community about 140 miles (225 kilometers) northeast of Houston.

The sheriff’s office said the explosion happened at an oil well site. The city of Nacogdoches, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) away, described it as a natural gas well, based on information it received from the Texas Department of Public Safety, city spokesperson Kevin Meyer said Tuesday.

Several residents evacuated as a precaution and others were asked to shelter in place.

The fire was still burning early Tuesday, but it was not spreading and was being monitored, Meyer said.

“There is currently no danger to local residents from the fire, and air quality in the area is being monitored as well,” Meyer said in a news release.

A well control emergency response company was working to suppress the fire, Meyer said.

Drilling company H&P said the cause of the well blowout is not yet known.

“At this time there is no indication of an immediate broader risk, and monitoring is ongoing,” spokesperson Stephanie Higgins said in a statement.

She said the company is cooperating with investigators.

NEW YORK (AP) — Billionaires Michael and Susan Dell are fueling the University of Texas at Austin’s medical research ambitions with a $750 million gift that promises to improve patient care through artificial intelligence and increase health care options for the booming state capital.

The UT Dell Medical Center, announced Tuesday, is projected to open in 2030 as the crown jewel of a new 300-plus-acre advanced research campus. The university expects to break ground this fall on what school leaders are calling the country’s first “AI-native” hospital.

The donation makes the couple the first University of Texas donors to give more than $1 billion, according to system officials, building on two decades of support for computer science education, the medical school and scholarships for students with the most significant financial need.

For Michael Dell, the founder and CEO of Dell Technologies whose net worth is estimated by Forbes at about $170 billion, the next step was to further expand his and his wife’s investments in Central Texas. The computer magnate founded the company in 1984 as a UT-Austin pre-med student selling customized supercomputers from his freshman dorm room. Health infrastructure needs became clear, he said, as the area’s population about doubled in size.

“I was born in Texas. My wife was born in Texas. This is our home,” Dell told the Associated Press, adding that “building a stronger health system here, more innovation and helping to support the growth and stability of the region” is important.

The donation is among the largest ever in higher education philanthropy, following recent contributions such as Phil Knight’s $2 billion pledge to Oregon Health & Science University’s cancer center and Michael Bloomberg’s $1.8 billion gift to cover Johns Hopkins University medical students’ tuition.
A ‘rare’ opportunity to integrate technology into a new medical center

From monitoring vital signs to triggering step-by-step care plans, AI is making inroads into health care at hundreds of hospitals.

With the launch of UT Dell Medical Center, however, Dr. Claudia Lucchinetti sees a rare opportunity: instead of retroactively applying new technologies to old hospital infrastructure, she said they can integrate them from the start. They will also collaborate with the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston to offer top specialists for those with complex conditions.

Lucchinetti, the dean of Dell Medical School and senior vice president for medical affairs, said their model will use technology to support the patient-doctor relationship and make care “feel simpler and more human.” “Ambient” AI will make the hospital itself an “intelligent member of the care team,” she said, taking notes so that clinicians can treat patients more directly. She touted AI’s ability to identify biometric patterns and early signs of cancer before they’re obvious to the naked eye.

The goal, she said, is to move from a reactive and fragmented health system to one that is predictive and more seamless.

“We have the technology, the science and the understanding to do better. And what we’ve been missing is the ability to design a system around those capabilities from the start,” she said. “That’s the opportunity that Susan and Michael Dell have catalyzed.”

The gift will also support undergraduate scholarships, student housing and UT’s Texas Advanced Computing Center, where officials are building the nation’s largest academic supercomputer with Dell’s AI infrastructure.

In a convocation address two years ago, Michael Dell encouraged medical school graduates to ensure AI models understand human ethics and make health care more equitable. He believes the technology will augment caregiving, create more precise treatments, accelerate scientific discoveries and apply those findings to real-world practices sooner.

“We have to figure out how to do this in a way that is responsible, reflects our values and beliefs, and ultimately enables humans to reach their full potential,” he told AP. “That’s what we’re all working on.”
Landscape for higher education giving

The major contribution comes at a time when private support for higher education is falling to a dwindling pool of supporters.

Colleges raised a record $78 billion last year, according to the 2025 Voluntary Support of Education, but nearly 90% of that money came from just 2% of donors.

Rutgers University Associate Dean for Research Marybeth Gasman said she’s excited to see such strong support for a public institution at a time when public funding is declining amid politicized attacks on higher education. She hopes the megagift inspires other donations, as she said decades-long patterns suggest that more giving occurs after high-profile individual contributions.

“Higher education, quite frankly, could really use it right now,” she said.

UT-Austin officials are certainly hoping so. The Dells’ gift kicks off a broader 10-year campaign to raise $10 billion for the university.

The donation comes on the heels of the Dells’ $6.25 billion pledge to provide an incentive to claim new investment accounts under President Donald Trump’s tax law for 25 million American children ages 10 and under. The “Trump Accounts” give $1,000 to every newborn, so long as their parents open one, and invests those funds in the stock market. The couple believes it is the largest single private commitment made to U.S. children.

Michael Dell said even a small sum makes a child more likely to enter college — “perhaps at the University of Texas or some other great school” — and eventually start a family or business. He welcomed the creativity he’s seeing from other “Trump Accounts” funders. He’s seen cities offer additional investments for community service and good grades. He noted that hedge fund managers Brad Gerstner and Ray Dalio have seeded accounts in Indiana and Connecticut, respectively.

“I think you’ll see many more gifts at the local community level and some other big ones at the national level,” he said.

But he dismissed the suggestion that, between the “Trump Accounts” and this University of Texas gift, there’s been a shift in his and his wife’s philanthropy toward more selective, bigger bets.

“Certainly, we’ve been very blessed and we have a lot of resources,” he said. “So, we’re looking for things that have significant impact.”

AUSTIN (THE TEXAS TRIBUNE) – Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit Monday against ActBlue, a political donations platform that is primarily used by Democratic candidates.

The state court lawsuit is the latest in a string of investigations and legal actions Paxton and Congress have undertaken against the platform over the last few years. Paxton is asking a Tarrant County judge to stop the company from accepting donations via gift cards and prepaid debit cards, and fine them $10,000 per violation of the Deceptive Trade Practices Act.

Paxton claims that ActBlue allows improper donations from people outside the United States and those who have already hit the mandated donor limits. He opened an investigation into ActBlue in December 2023, and the next year, sent a letter to the Federal Elections Commission, claiming he had uncovered evidence that “bad actors can illegally interfere in American elections by disguising political donations.”

De’Andra Roberts-LaBoo, a spokesperson for ActBlue, said the company has done more than any other platform to prevent improper donations.

“If [Paxton] and his Republican allies actually cared about donor fraud, they would work to strengthen security standards across the board, including within their own operations, rather than targeting ActBlue,” she said.

Background: ActBlue is the main platform used by Democratic candidates and causes. Since its founding, more than 28 million people have donated through ActBlue, which processed $1.78 billion last year alone.

The group began facing pressure from Republican members of Congress in 2023, which Paxton followed by opening an investigation into Texas-based donations. In August 2024, Paxton claimed victory, saying ActBlue had agreed to start requiring CVV codes on credit card donations.

In April 2025, Trump ordered the Justice Department to investigate ActBlue, heightening fears among Democrats about the political targeting of the infrastructure that allows them to fundraise. Paxton also involved ActBlue in his investigation of Texas Democratic House members who left the state in the summer 2025 to protest mid-decade redistricting.

The compounding investigations have led to internal turmoil at ActBlue, The New York Times reported. Earlier this month, the newspaper reported that ActBlue lawyers raised concerns that the company’s systems were not as robust as top executives had told congressional Republicans that they were.

What Paxton is saying: Citing that recent reporting, Paxton filed his lawsuit Monday, saying that ActBlue “lied to Congress and to the American people.”

“It has blatantly ignored state law that prohibits deceptive practices, and it must pay for its illegal conduct,” Paxton said. “Fair elections are the foundation of our democracy, and I will work to ensure no illegal campaign donation flies under the radar.”

SHREVEPORT (AP) – Two headline-grabbing, deadly domestic violence cases, one in Louisiana and the other in Virginia targeting Black mothers, have sparked a national conversation about domestic violence prevention resources and mental health care available to Black communities.

Many advocates in the aftermath of the deadly shootings have said the tragedies pointedly highlight troubling underlying trends where Black women are more likely to experience domestic violence — and they see the killings as an opportunity to confront how disparities in access to care and resources make some women and children more vulnerable to violence in the home.

On Sunday morning, a man police identified as Shamar Elkins fatally shot seven of his children and another child in Shreveport, Louisiana. A relative has said Elkins was in the midst of separating from his wife who was wounded.

And last Thursday, police found the bodies of former Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax and his estranged wife, Dr. Cerina Fairfax, in their suburban Washington, D.C., home. Justin Fairfax shot his estranged wife and then himself, and their two children in the home at the time were unhurt, police said. Like Elkins, Fairfax was in the process of separating from his wife and had faced a judge’s upcoming deadline to move from the house.

While it’s not clear what prompted the Shreveport killings or the apparent murder-suicide in Annandale, Virginia, experts say that the harrowing details of the killings echo familiar patterns that play out in homes across the country — and underscore the need for solutions that address the root causes of the disparate violence.

A ‘silent epidemic’

Sunday wasn’t the first time that Elkins’ family had suffered from gender-based gun violence: Shaneiqua Elkins and the other woman who was shot, Keosha Pugh, were sisters, and lost their mother to gun violence when they were under age 10, according to their uncle Lionel Pugh.

“It’s sad. It just breaks you down,” Pugh said.

Shreveport Councilman Grayson Boucher said at a news conference Monday that the Louisiana killings were emblematic of “a true epidemic of domestic violence” across the small southern city of roughly 180,000 people.

Those trends go well beyond Shreveport as experts have pointed out how both race and gender make Black women in particular more vulnerable to domestic violence.

More than four in 10 Black women experience physical violence from an intimate partner during their lifetimes — a much higher rate than women who are white, Hispanic, Asian or Pacific Islander — according to a 2014 study by the Centers for Disease Control.

Paméla Tate is the executive director of Black Women Revolt, which runs programs to prevent abuse and offers survivors’ resources. She said a logical skepticism about police and government child services agencies based on a history of institutionalized racism makes Black women reluctant to seek help — and especially vulnerable to domestic violence.

Additionally, Black women are two times more likely to be murdered by men than their white counterparts, according to a 2025 study published by the Violence Policy Center, based on federal government data from 2023. Those men are more often than not familiar to their victims, according to the study, which found that more than nine in 10 Black female victims knew their killers, with the majority of those killings being carried out with guns.

Ultimately, Tate said, “domestic violence doesn’t see color,” and is primarily driven by the prevalent belief among men — across racial demographics — that women are subjects or property.

“Domestic violence is about exerting power over someone that you profess to love and controlling their behavior,” Tate said.

Lack of resources for Black men

There has been intense speculation about the role that mental health crises might have played in both shootings.

A relative of Elkins’ wife told The Associated Press that Elkins had voluntarily checked into a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in January for about a week and a half for mental health help.

In Virginia, Justin Fairfax was a rising star in the Democratic Party until two women accused him of sexual assault, casting doubt on his trustworthiness as a political leader. The former lieutenant governor’s “mental and emotional health” suffered before he killed his wife and himself, according to court documents, which say he drank heavily and withdrew from his family after the allegations were made public in 2019.

Adult and child psychiatrist Christine Crawford hasn’t examined the killings in Shreveport or Annandale, but said financial troubles, marital issues and problems at work — in addition to underlying mental health vulnerabilities — can lead someone to “crack.”

“It makes some think about the amount of pain, distress and hopelessness they found themselves in at that time,” said Crawford, who practices at the Webster Clinic in Boston and is interim chief medical officer at the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

She noted many Black people find themselves priced out of programs and care for mental health for such reasons as private care costs and a lack of insurance.

That level of desperation can make some people feel “completely out of options on how to deal with the pain he was in at that moment,” Crawford said. T

Some have said that there are social dimensions to these economic trends, too.

“Mental health disparities in the Black community is not accidental,” said University of Michigan Social Work Professor Daphne C. Watkins. “They are the predictable result of structural racism” in schools, employment and other aspects of society.

Watkins, founder of the YBMen Project which provides young Black men with a safe place to discuss their mental health, manhood and social support, said studies show that 10% of Black adults experience moderate to severe depression, while 18% experience anxiety disorders.

But Black men tend to forego mental health treatment due to cultural expectations, in addition to costs, said Watkins. Without an outlet, stressors from family, work and relationships can pile up.

“For a long time, in the Black community, we didn’t talk about anxiety. Now, you have to talk about it hand in hand along with depression.”

Mental health not an excuse, some say

Others have emphatically said that mental health is not an excuse for domestic violence.

“To say they’re mentally ill, that doesn’t cut it,” Tate said. “There are people who are depressed or people who have schizophrenia and don’t harm the their partners, much less kill them.”

Shaneiqua Elkins and Cerina Fairfax could have been struggling with mental health challenges too, Tate added, and they both “had the same access or ability to go and purchase a gun” but chose not to.

“The mental illness is not what we’re talking about here,” she said.

SHREVEPORT, La. (AP) — A stunned Louisiana city struggled to come to grips Monday with the massacre of eight children carried out by a father who was separating from his wife and used an assault-style weapon despite a 2019 felony firearms conviction.

The violence reverberated across Shreveport a day after the nation’s deadliest mass shooting in two years. Schools brought in counselors for the victims’ young classmates and community leaders called for a city-wide reckoning on stopping domestic violence.

“We cannot afford to wait until the next crisis,” said Caddo Parish Sheriff Henry Whitehorn. “We owe it to the eight children who were lost.”

The shooter, identified as Shamar Elkins, killed seven of his children and a nephew, police said. His wife and another woman were also shot and wounded.

Shooter ‘just snapped,’ brother-in-law says

Elkins had voluntarily checked into a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in January for just over a week for mental health treatment, said his brother-in-law, Troy Brown, who lived in the house with his wife, Keosha Pugh, and was at work during the attack. Elkins appeared “better when he came home,” he said.

Elkins’ wife was seeking a divorce, which was causing him stress, Brown said. But everything seemed calm in the house when Brown left for work Saturday night, with the children playing games or watching TV.

“All I know is he just snapped,” Brown told The Associated Press. “If I wouldn’t have been at work, he was going to kill everybody in the house and that includes me.”

Brown’s wife, who made a series of frantic calls for help when the shooting started, and their 12-year-old daughter escaped through the home’s roof, he said. His wife broke her pelvis after falling and has since had surgery, he said.

“She said she was running for her life,” said Lionel Pugh, an uncle of the two women shot. “The only ones he didn’t kill was the ones who got away.”

Elkins died after fleeing and a police pursuit. It was not clear whether he was killed by officers who fired or from a self-inflicted gunshot, Shreveport Police Chief Wayne Smith said.

Officials said the children who died — three boys and five girls — ranged in age from 3 to 11 years old.

Brown said his 10-year-old son, who loved to go outside and run around and play with friends, was killed.

“I’m never going to get to throw the football with him again,” he said “I’m never going to get to hear him say, ‘Dad, can I get this bag of chips?’”

Elkins and his wife, identified by family members as Shaneiqua Elkins, were separating and had been due in court Monday, said Crystal Brown, a cousin of a woman shot in the attack. She said the couple had been arguing about the separation before the shooting.

Family members described Shaneiqua Elkins as a doting mother, who celebrated her children’s success in school.

“She raised those kids right,” Pugh said. “They were the center of her universe.”

Gunman had no recent arrests for domestic violence, police say

While the shooter did not appear to have a long criminal history, court records showed Elkins was placed on probation in 2019 after pleading guilty to illegal use of weapons. In that case, Elkins fired five rounds at a vehicle and told police that someone inside it had pulled a gun on him, according to a police report.

Based on Louisiana law, a person convicted of certain violent felonies — including illegal use of weapons — are banned from having a gun for at least 10 years after completing their sentence and probation.

Authorities said Monday that how and when Elkins got the gun is being investigated.

Louisiana, a reliably red state, has expanded access to guns in recent years. For years, Democrats in Louisiana have proposed bills to tighten gun control — or at least put “red flag” measures in place. But Republicans have routinely blocked such legislation.

Investigators were not aware of other domestic violence issues involving Elkins, said police spokesperson Chris Bordelon.

Elkins had served in the Louisiana National Guard from 2013 to 2020, said guard spokesperson Lt. Col. Noel Collins. Elkins held the rank of private and had no deployments, Collins said.

The violence started before sunrise Sunday

Authorities said the shooting erupted before dawn at two homes.

Elkins shot a woman in a neighborhood south of downtown, and opened fire a few blocks away at the home where the children were targeted, police said.

One of the victims, 5-year-old Braylon Snow, was getting ready for preschool graduation next month, said Laurance Guidry, president and CEO of Caddo Community Action Agency, which runs the Head Start program where Braylon was a student.

“They have the cap and gowns just like you would have when you were graduating from high school,” Guidry said.

Gov. Jeff Landry said during a news conference Monday that he thought he had seen evil up close after a truck attack last year on Bourbon Street left 14 dead. “But the tragedy that unfolded this weekend seems to have eclipsed that,” he said.

Landry announced that the foundation created by the state’s first lady will pay the children’s funeral expenses.

A relative says they were a joyful family

Francine Monro Brown, a cousin of Shaneiqua Elkins, said she would often see the children playing in the yard on Sunday mornings when she drove past the house on her way to church.

“Happy children, joyful children. Shaneiqua is a great mother, She provided a great home for the kids,” Brown said as she stood near a growing memorial of stuffed teddy bears, flowers and pink and blue balloons.

Betty Pugh, another cousin of Shaneiqua Elkins, said she was always with her children. “That was the way we were taught: to love our kids, to take care of our kids. And that’s what she did,” Pugh said.

The mayor of Shreveport, a city of about 180,000 residents in northwestern Louisiana, called it one of the city’s worst days.

The shooting was the deadliest in the U.S. since January 2024, when eight people were killed in a Chicago suburb, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University.

WASHINGTON (AP) – Oil prices slipped and shares were mostly higher Tuesday in Europe and Asia as U.S.-Iran talks aimed at ending the war remained in doubt.

The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil dipped 0.7% to $94.81. U.S. benchmark crude oil lost 0.9% to $86.63 per barrel.

The war has disrupted transport of oil through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway that usually is fully open to international shipping, pushing oil prices sharply higher.

U.S. President Donald Trump has demanded that vessels again be allowed to transit the strait unimpeded, imposing a blockade on Iranian ports. He has said Vice President JD Vance will visit Pakistan’s capital Islamabad for talks with Iran. But after the U.S. Navy’s seizure of an Iranian-flagged cargo ship, the Iranian side has made no commitment to more negotiations.

In early European trading, Germany’s DAX rose 0.6% to 24,558.9 and the CAC 40 in Paris was little changed, at 8,333.05. Britain’s FTSE 100 edged 0.1% higher, to 10,620.92.

The futures for the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average were up just over 0.1%.

In Asian share trading, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 climbed 0.9% to 59,349.17 on strong gains for tech-related companies like Tokyo Electron, which rose 3.5%. Tech and energy giant SoftBank Group Corp. gained 8.5%, part of the latest wave of gains pinned on expectations of windfalls from artificial intelligence.

South Korea’s Kospi jumped 2.7% to 6,388.47, and Taiwan’s Taiex advanced 1.8%.

The Hang Seng in Hong Kong gained 0.5% to 26,481.48 and the Shanghai Composite index added 0.1% to 4,085.08.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 declined less than 0.1% to 8,949.40.

Oil prices had climbed Monday following the latest rise of tensions between the United States and Iran, but the moves were more modest than they were earlier in the war. U.S. stocks, meanwhile, gave back a bit of their record-breaking rally.

On Monday, the S&P 500 slipped 0.2% from its all-time high and the Dow industrials edged less than 0.1% lower. The Nasdaq composite fell 0.3%.

Worries over disruptions of supplies of oil from the Persian Gulf if Iran continues to block tankers from exiting the Strait of Hormuz are clouding investor sentiment.

The next big deadline is looming on Tuesday night at 8 p.m. Eastern time, which is early Wednesday Tehran time, when a ceasefire agreement between the United States and Iran is scheduled to expire.

“The current dynamic is one of a precarious balance of truce,” Mizuho Bank said in a commentary, so “as the ceasefire draws to its 2-week deadline, the all-consuming question is whether both sides can seize on the talks to land on a US-Iran deal that ends the war.”

For now, oil prices remain well below the $119 per barrel level for Brent crude when fears were at their highest. And the S&P 500 is still above where it was before the war.

Several of the biggest U.S. banks said last week that they see the U.S. economy remaining resilient, particularly because of solid spending by U.S. consumers.

U.S. companies have been reporting big profits for the first three months of 2026, helping to support the market. Nearly nine out of 10 companies that have already reported earnings for January-March posted bigger profits than analysts had expected, according to FactSet.

If the rest of the companies in the S&P 500 match analysts’ expectations, overall earnings per share for companies in the index will end up 13% higher than a year earlier, it estimates.

Other companies scheduled to report their results this week include UnitedHealth Group on Tuesday, Tesla on Wednesday and Procter & Gamble on Friday.

In other dealings early Tuesday, the U.S. dollar rose to 159.21 Japanese yen from 158.82 yen. The euro slipped to $1.1767 from $1.1789.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Human Rights Campaign, one of the nation’s largest LGBTQ+ advocacy organizations, is vaulting into the midterms with a $15 million investment targeting Republicans in battleground districts after a series of setbacks in recent years.

“I think that this is the election that’s going to be the sea change, not only for getting to a pro-equality majority but for changing the momentum on this fight for equality,” said Kelley Robinson, the organization’s president, in an interview with The Associated Press. “This movement is ready for its next wind, its second wind.”

Besides eight congressional districts that could help determine control of the U.S. House, the Human Rights Campaign is also supporting Democratic candidates for the U.S. Senate in Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Ohio and Texas. The money will be spent on advertising, events and canvassers.

The LGBTQ+ movement has been reckoning with a wave of defeats on the campaign trail and in the courtroom that have left Democrats struggling to regain their footing.

President Donald Trump’s Republican administration has rolled back protections for transgender people, such as banning them from serving in the military and cutting off gender-affirming care for children. The U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority has upheld Republican states’ restrictions while striking down bans on “conversion therapy” practices in Democratic states.

“I believe that our movement made ourselves believe that we were closer to equality than we actually are,” Robinson said. “The last few years, we’ve been doing an incredible amount of listening, of learning, also of repositioning this work.”

After the 2024 presidential election, Democrats were divided over the role that LGBTQ+ rights played in their party’s losses. The Trump campaign ran a series of advertisements mocking Vice President Kamala Harris for supporting medical gender transitions for incarcerated people and highlighting the issue of transgender people playing on women’s sports teams.

“Kamala Harris is for they/them,” said a voice-over in one national ad. “President Trump is for you.”

Robinson argued that the ad was effective because of an implicit economic message, not for its critiques of the policy toward transgender people. But conservative activists and some moderate Democrats have argued such stances are too unpopular with swing voters.

“There’s a real disconnect between most voters and the party elite,” said Leor Sapir, a fellow with the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank.

He added, “If I’m a Democrat consultant, my advice would be: Do everything in your power to keep this issue off the public agenda.”

Robinson said her organization has been soul-searching on how to best craft winning messages on LGBTQ+ rights.

“Our job is to move away from the fireballs that our opposition wants to talk about and instead find a way to get back to the things that are impacting folks every day,” she said.

In January, the Human Rights Campaign published a guide to blunting conservative attacks on LGBTQ+ issues, citing the successful campaigns of Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear.

Although the guide encourages candidates to “lead with your values” and “address concerns directly,” it also encourages them to “go big” and quickly pivot to issues like cost-of-living concerns.

“I think the number one way to shut out a voter is to try to make them believe that their fears are not real. So what we coach candidates on doing is listening,” Robinson said. “For folks who have questions about the issues, that’s OK. We’re in a moment where the stakes in front of us are too high to look away.”

HOUSTON (AP) – Environmental groups sued the Trump administration on Monday over its approval last month of oil company BP’s ultra deep-water drilling project in the Gulf of Mexico.

The groups sued on the 16th anniversary of the nation’s worst offshore oil spill 50 miles off the Louisiana coast, when BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig sent 134 million gallons (500 million liters) of crude oil spewing into the ocean, killing 11 people and causing billions of dollars in damage to wildlife and miles of coastline.

The administration approved BP’s $5 billion Kaskida project in March, the company’s first new oil field developed in the Gulf since 2010. BP said it could have capacity of 80,000 barrels of crude oil per day.

Groups Healthy Gulf, Habitat Recovery Project, Center for Biological Diversity and others requested a review of the project approval in its Monday filing against the U.S. Interior Department, Secretary Doug Burgum, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and director Matthew Giacona.

The groups say information required for the approval is missing and does not demonstrate that BP has the qualifications to conduct safe drilling that deep. They also say that Kaskida endangers Gulf residents’ health, harms ecosystems and impacts fishing and tourism industries.

“The Trump administration has teed up the entire Gulf region for a Deepwater Horizon sequel” by approving the project, said Brettny Hardy, senior attorney at Earthjustice, which is representing the plaintiffs.

Several lawmakers last year attempted to call on the administration to reject the project’s approval.

Interior spokesperson Charlotte Taylor told The Associated Press that the department does not comment on ongoing litigation. But: “America sets the global standard for energy production. We do it cleaner, safer, and more reliably than anywhere in the world.”

Taylor added the Kaskida project “represents a major step forward, unlocking more than 275 million barrels of previously unrecoverable oil in the Gulf of America. This development will drive job creation, strengthen U.S. national security, and help cut energy costs for American families.”

Increased fossil fuel production has been a priority for President Donald Trump in his second term, and the administration has proposed a number of pro-oil and gas rollbacks of regulations viewed as unfriendly to the industry as part of an “American energy dominance” agenda.

The Gulf of Mexico, which accounts for almost 15% of crude pumped annually in the U.S. and produces about 2 million barrels of oil a day, in particular has been of high importance to Trump.

The administration announced earlier this month it was combining the current Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, under the new Marine Minerals Administration to expedite permitting for offshore oil and gas drilling. The two agencies were separated in the aftermath of the 2010 oil spill.

The administration last month also exempted drilling in the Gulf from the Endangered Species Act — law that makes it illegal to harm or kill species on a protected list — on the basis of national security.

These changes have been made amid soaring energy prices and global oil shocks brought on by the U.S.-Iran war.

BP America spokesperson Paul Takahashi told The Associated Press that Deepwater Horizon forever changed the company.

He added BP believes the lawsuit is unfounded and “is fully confident in our Kaskida development plan and our ability to deliver this offshore project safely, responsibly and in compliance with U.S. regulations and industry standards.”

Just last month, a massive oil spill in the Gulf spread more than 373 miles (600 kilometers) and into seven nature reserves, contaminating at least six species and sending 800 tons of hydrocarbon-laden waste into the ocean.

Many of Trump’s moves have reversed efforts by former Democratic President Joe Biden to ban new offshore oil and gas drilling in most U.S. coastal waters.