Today is
Wednesday June 03, 2026
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — You’re standing in the middle of an empty highway, staring off into the fading, golden light of Arizona’s high desert. The soundtrack playing in your mind? Depeche Mode.
Industrial-leaning synth-pop strains might seem incongruous with such a vista, but it was the alternative rock band’s homage to Route 66 that seduced David J. Schwartz. With camera in hand he has made 42 trips over two decades along the celebrated highway, qualifying himself for the job of creating postage stamps commemorating the Mother Road’s centennial.
The U.S. Postal Service on Tuesday is releasing eight stamps marking significant parts of the road in each of the states it traverses, passing by vintage diners, gas stations and motels — many since preserved or restored — along with breathtaking vistas and wide horizons of the open road.
Route 66 is paved with history, from its early days as an escape from the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression, through serving as a vital supply route during World War II, to its mid-century role as an antidote for wanderlust. A symbol of freedom and mobility, it has evolved into a time capsule of Americana, steeped in nostalgia and neon.
As teenagers in 1988, Schwartz and his best friend had planned a road trip after girlfriends introduced them to Depeche Mode, where they discovered a cover of Bobby Troup’s 1946 pop standard, “(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66.” Schwartz’s mother nixed his participation, delaying his first taste of the open road until 2004.
To Schwartz, the road — stretching 2,448 miles (3,940 kilometers) — represents a significant piece of a newly mobile 20th century America, from its debut in 1926 to its decommissioning in 1985: “Road trips, big cars, neon signs.” Though retired from the federal highway system, vast stretches of the route are still in use and a favorite of road warriors and tourists to this day.
“So much to explore. You start here in Illinois on 66 and you’re cruising through prairie land,” Schwartz said during a recent interview in Springfield. “By the time you get out west, you’re in the desert or you’re in mountains through hairpin turns. It’s just an incredible journey and you just get such a beautiful slice of America going through it.”
Tired of retail management, Schwartz went back to school to study photography and had the idea of Route 66 stamps as early as a decade ago. He was tapped for the project in 2023. He recalls thinking, “Here is my moment to bring Route 66 to the masses.”
Greg Breeding, a USPS art director for stamp design, was working on a graphic showing a map of the road when he discovered Schwartz’s photos. They were beautifully photographed, not commercial and slick.
“They’re as if you were there,” he said, “which makes them especially useful for stamps.”
The USPS plate contains 16 stamps, two of each one representing Route 66 host states. A ninth photo serves as selvage, or the image surrounding the block. It’s the scene of that empty Arizona highway, shot in 2023 near Seligman, Arizona, when Schwartz and his high school friend finally took that trip 35 years in the making.
But a road is a road, isn’t it? Why can’t a traveler get the same view standing on one of the interstate highways that ultimately bypassed Route 66?
“You’d probably get run over,” Schwartz said dryly.
“Interstates are designed to move traffic quickly. They cut through the sides of mountains, they do not follow the contour of the land …,” he added. “On Route 66, you’re actually part of the landscape as you move through it. You feel the land as you’re traveling.”
Breeding and Schwartz steered clear of the fabled highway’s most popular spots, not only because those are tougher to get permission to use, but also because they wanted to give people a “fresh look,” Breeding said. The stamps are devoid of people, he said, in part to create a sense of allure rather tourist trap vibes.
To that end, the blocks capture both the continuing commerce and the roadside relics that hint at their former vibrancy. Take for example the Conoco Tower Station and U-Drop Inn in Shamrock, Texas, a neon-adorned Art Deco beauty whose luminous lights come alive at dusk.
In Yucca, Arizona, Schwartz photographed the dilapidated “Motel” sign in the relentless noonday sun, revealing desert desolation but also “the enduring pulse of the open road.”
Among his favorites is the Illinois entry, a friend’s 1929 Model A Ford rumbling down the only remaining section of Route 66 composed of hand-laid brick in Auburn, just south of Springfield. The goal? Create an image that would make viewers feel as if they were there for the birth of Route 66.
“We wanted to show it to be colorful. We wanted to show the quirkiness. We wanted to show the age,” Breeding said. “It’s like a sort of show, the idea that Route 66 is a living history of the United States, from the past to the present.”
Schwartz said he’s amazed that the stamps boasting his work will “travel all over the United States and end up in people’s mailboxes.”
He added: “I hope they really inspire people to get out there and travel the road and support the Mom and Pop businesses and keep Route 66 alive for another 100 years.”
EL PASO (AP) – A group of civil rights organizations on Monday filed a new lawsuit seeking to stop parts of the law that would let Texas police arrest people suspected of illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.
The law can go into effect next week after a federal appeals court lifted a lower court ruling that had kept it paused for years.
Senate Bill 4, as the law is known, created a state-level crime for entering the country without authorization and created pathways for state authorities to remove such people from the country if convicted.
Courts have long held that immigration enforcement is the sole responsibility of the federal government, but with the state law, Texas Republicans sought to challenge that precedent.
The Texas Civil Rights Project, American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, and ACLU argue in Monday’s lawsuit the law is unconstitutional because immigration law is exclusively the federal government’s domain and should preempt the state law.
They are trying to stop four provisions of SB 4: the creation of a crime for re-entering the country without authorization, even if a person has since obtained legal status; granting state magistrates authority to order a person’s deportation; the creation of a crime for failing to comply with a magistrate’s order; and requiring that magistrates continue a prosecution even if a person has a pending immigration case such as an asylum claim.
“Our fight against SB 4 isn’t over until justice wins,” Kate Gibson Kumar, of the Texas Civil Rights Project, said in a statement. “SB 4 is not only unconstitutional, but a vile law that uses our Texas resources to harm communities across our state.”
Attorney General Ken Paxton ’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The lawsuit is the latest effort to stop the 2023 law, passed by the Legislature in response to record border crossings that GOP state leaders argued amounted to an invasion.
The Biden administration was among the plaintiffs to initially challenge the law in 2024, but the Trump administration last year terminated the Department of Justice’s participation in the lawsuit amid his immigration crackdown.
That lawsuit continued until two weeks ago, when a federal appeals court lifted an injunction that had stopped the law when it ruled that the plaintiffs did not have standing to sue.
The law can go into effect May 15 unless it’s halted by another court.
EAST TEXAS — Nearly one-third of students who applied for Texas’ new school choice program have been approved so far, according to updated data from the Texas Comptroller’s Office and our news partner KETK.
Of the 8,855 East Texas students who submitted applications, 2,744 have been accepted to receive a Texas Education Freedom Account (TEFA). The update comes after Acting Texas Comptroller Kelly Hancock announced Monday that more than 53,000 additional students statewide are expected to be awarded TEFA funding for the 2026–27 school year in Tier 2. Those awards follow the 42,600 students approved late last month in Tier 1.
“Texas families have waited a long time for school choice, and the response to TEFA shows just how much this opportunity means to parents across our state,” Hancock said. “This first year is groundbreaking for Texas. Read the rest of this entry »
TYLER — Hundreds of miles off the East Coast and unconnected from the internet, Tylerite Sorayda Rivera was enjoying what was supposed to be a relaxing cruise, but quickly became a search for a way back home after Spirit Airlines canceled her flight in its spontaneous shut down.
On Saturday, Spirit Airlines said that it has officially gone out of business after 34 years. According to our news partner KETK, Rivera, who had flown to Miami from the DFW Airport, found out this morning immediately after reaching cell service at the end of her cruise.
“As soon as we got to Florida this morning,” Rivera said, “I turned on my phone, got my airplane mode off and I went to my Spirit app. It turned out that Spirit canceled all their flights because they’re no longer in business.”
As she opened the Spirit Airlines app, she received a pop-up saying all flights were canceled, effective immediately. Read the rest of this entry »
ARLINGTON (AP) – Just months into the pandemic, Matthew Haines, like landlords across the country, learned he was barred from evicting tenants who didn’t pay their rent under a federal eviction moratorium that lasted almost a year — costing him and his investors over $1 million.
Now, the 57-year-old Texan is hoping to get some relief.
Haines is among more than 1,500 property owners who filed a federal lawsuit arguing the moratorium enacted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention violated the Fifth Amendment by unlawfully denying them compensation. Plaintiffs range from those who lost thousands of dollars to one who lost over $14.5 million.
After initially losing in the Court of Federal Claims in 2022, the plaintiffs won on appeal and are now in settlement discussions with the Justice Department. Landlords are hoping to recoup as much as $1.5 billion — a fraction of what the industry lost.
“It’s important for us to stand up when a group like the CDC unilaterally, functionally, decides that they have a right to oversee our business,” said Haines, who owns three rental communities with 240 units in Arlington and Irving, Texas.
“What I hope that we will accomplish and, to some extent, we already have, is vindication for ourselves,” he said. “But what’s more important to me is that hopefully my investors will recover some of that money that they should have had coming in over the last six years.”
The federal eviction moratorium lasted from September 2020 through July 2021, and was among the pandemic’s most divisive policies. It ended after the Supreme Court ruled the CDC lacked authority to impose the ban without congressional authorization.
The Justice Department, responding to Associated Press questions about the landlords’ case, said it does not comment on ongoing litigation.
Moratoriums were also imposed in 43 states and scores of cities, which lasted longer than the federal ban because states and cities have broader regulatory powers than federal agencies like the CDC.
Landlords say the bans devastated their businesses. Unable to collect rent, many were forced to take on debt, lay off staff, delay repairs and, in some cases, sell their property. They say the impact lingers, with longer delays for evictions, tighter screening for riskier tenants and growing numbers of owners getting out of the rental business altogether.
Tenant advocates counter that eviction bans were a lifesaver. They credit them with keeping millions of tenants housed during the pandemic and slowing the spread of the coronavirus. They also argue landlords were already paid — in the form of tens of billions of dollars in rental assistance.
From the moment the pandemic hit, Haines said he knew he was in trouble: Many tenants lost their jobs, so he didn’t require new leases and tried to be flexible with those who couldn’t pay.
But when the moratorium took hold, it was the biggest threat he’d faced in 30 years in real estate.
“It was terrifying,” Haines said. “We knew almost immediately that we were going to a massive deficit in cash flow that we probably weren’t going to be able to cover.”
A survey by the National Rental Home Council, a trade association, published weeks after the federal moratorium ended, found that half of small landlords had tenants who missed rent and a third sold or planned to sell properties. The moratorium and backlog of eviction cases cost owners $57 billion, according to the lawsuit, with more than 10 million delinquent renters in just the ban’s first four months.
“Public health measures like this, they may be well intentioned,” said Creighton Magid, a lawyer for the plaintiffs. “But when the government imposes this type of moratorium, the financial burden should be borne by the government, not individual property owners.”
Liz Leone, who has 52 apartments in Las Vegas and is part of the lawsuit, said the moratorium almost forced her out of business. She lost over $250,000, she said, and borrowed $60,000 from the federal Small Business Administration “just to keep my nose above water.” She’s still paying it off.
“I was definitely questioning whether I would survive,” said Leone, who’s been in the business for 35 years. “You delay all the expenses you can, but we still had to pay our property taxes. We still have to pay our utilities. … So that’s what you did: I borrowed.”
Housing advocates maintain the policy kept families housed, noting a significant spike in evictions after the moratorium ended.
Eviction bans “were a powerful intervention to keep people in their homes,” said Kathryn Leifheit, assistant professor at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health and lead author of a study published in April in the medical journal JAMA Network Open that found homelessness rose 11% in a typical state in 2022, and would have increased 20% without state eviction moratoriums.
That was the case for Dulcee Barnes. The 28-year-old and her two roommates lost their restaurant jobs in Miami during the pandemic. Two months behind on rent, they would have been evicted if not for the moratorium.
“It gave us breathing room. It took away the fear of having to possibly pack up within 24 hours and live in somebody’s car or couch surfing,” she said.
Eric Dunn, director of litigation at the National Housing Law Project, a tenants’ rights nonprofit, disputed that landlords suffered significant losses, saying they were able to collect rent and sell their properties during the moratorium.
They also benefited from $46.5 billion in federal emergency rental assistance, which the Eviction Lab at Princeton University found in April was largely targeted to areas where landlords filed the most evictions before the pandemic.
Landlords said rental assistance never fully compensated them for their losses, contending programs were often mired in red tape and poorly run. States were slow to spend the money, struggled to set up programs and, in the case of Arkansas and Nebraska, didn’t accept all federal funding.
Landlords also complained some tenants took advantage of the moratorium to live rent free. “They were doing things like buying cars,” Leone said. “They didn’t have to pay rent, and here I was driving a car that was 18 years old.”
Despite the moratorium ending five years ago, landlords say fallout from the policy remains. They are taking fewer risks and being more cautious about renting to tenants with checkered rental histories.
Rick Jones, vice chairman of Management Services Corporation, which owns 4,000 apartment units in Virginia and is party to the lawsuit, said that’s partly due to increasing fraud. Applicants fake employment records and payroll checks, he said, adding: “There are companies that just advertise really creating a whole new identity for you.”
“Most property owners and managers realize that it’s more important to keep that unit vacant than to put a bad resident in. That’s probably what the eviction moratorium reinforced,” said Jones, whose company lost more than $230,000 in unpaid rent during the pandemic.
“When you have somebody that’s bad and you can’t get them out, you’re helpless.”
Haines said he’s increased tenant screenings and turns away some low-income applicants he might have accepted before the pandemic. That’s partly because evicting a tenant takes months longer than before the pandemic, he said.
“It’s done more harm,” he said, to low-income people “that we might have considered leasing an apartment to that now we simply can’t take the risk.”
AMARILLO (AP) — Police are asking for the public’s help in identifying suspects in a shooting at a party in Amarillo, Texas, that killed two teenagers and wounded 10 other people.
City authorities say they are looking for two people who opened fire at an apartment complex at about 2 a.m. Saturday and are asking local residents to check their doorbell and surveillance cameras for any unusual activity around that time. Details on a motive were not released.
Surveillance video released by police shows two suspects opening fire at the outside of an apartment. Yelling and screaming follow, then more gunshots ring out.
“When I looked outside and came outside it was complete chaos,” neighbor Phillip Thrasher told KTVT-TV. “I mean there was kids running everywhere, just screaming and running. They didn’t even know where they were running to, you know. And then moms and dads showed up and came to their kids’ rescues. The ones that could, the ones that couldn’t were so upset. I mean there was nothing you could do.”
Amarillo police said two teens, ages 16 and 17, were killed and 10 others injured. The conditions of the wounded were not released.
“The investigation into this morning’s events have identified that the suspects have an affiliation with the targeted location and were known to one of the occupants at the party,” Police Chief Thomas Hover said in a statement on Saturday.
Police said the people involved had been at a party at a different location and were asked to leave, then went to the complex where the shooting occurred.
Phone messages were left Sunday for police officials and management of the apartment complex, located close to Interstate 40 about 6 miles (10 kilometers) west of downtown Amarillo.
Hover said police had increased patrol staffing after separate shootings killed six people in Amarillo on March 22.
UPSHUR COUNTY — The Upshur County Sheriff’s Office said that local residents have been scammed out of over $1 million dollars by fake Apple Pay representatives.
“Over the past several months, our county has experienced a significant increase in fraud cases. One scam in particular involves individuals posing as Apple Pay representatives, and it has already resulted in over ONE MILLION dollars stolen from victims in our county alone,” the sheriff’s office said on Sunday.
According to the sheriff’s office and our news partner KETK, the scammers contact the victims, claiming that a bank employee is stealing money from their accounts. They then insist that the victim should transfer their money into different accounts in order to help with the scammers fake non-existent investigation. Read the rest of this entry »
WASHINGTON (AP) — When Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin was questioned by senators during his confirmation hearing about his vision for implementing President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda, he said his goal was to keep his department off the front pages of the news.
To some degree, he has. Gone are the social media video clips of now-retired Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino clashing with protesters. Mullin’s predecessor, Kristi Noem, made her first trip as secretary to New York City to make arrests with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In contrast, Mullin went to North Carolina to review hurricane recovery efforts.
The Republican administration appears to be recalibrating its approach to a centerpiece policy that helped bring Trump back to the White House, moving in many ways away from aggressive, public-facing tactics toward a quieter approach to enforcement. Despite that shift, the administration insists it is not backing down from its lofty deportation goals.
“Clearly they’ve stepped back from the, for want of a better word, the Bovinoist tactics of before,” said Mark Krikorian, the president of the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for immigration restrictions. “But it’s not clear this means they’re actually stepping back from immigration.”
The Trump administration launched a series of immigration enforcement operations last year in mostly Democratic-led cities, which drove up arrests in large-scale sweeps. The crackdown sparked clashes between protesters and enforcement officers and led to the shooting deaths in Minneapolis of two U.S. citizens.
Since then, the president’s hard-line anti-immigration agenda has lost popularity with voters and there have been no new high-profile city-based operations launched, raising questions about the administration’s strategy.
“We’re still enforcing immigration laws. We’re still deporting illegals that shouldn’t be here. We’re still going after the worst of the worst — but we’re doing it in a more quiet way,” Mullin said in an interview April 16 with CNBC.
ICE arrests have fallen in recent months, and the number of people in immigration detention has dropped from a high of roughly 72,000 in January to 58,000 this week, according to data obtained by The Associated Press.
But in a sign of its continued determination, ICE in budget documents says it plans to remove 1 million people this fiscal year and the next compared with roughly 442,000 people last year. The agency also has plenty of money to carry out its mission, with Congress granting the Department of Homeland Security more than $170 billion for Trump’s immigration agenda last year.
The administration aims to have enough space to detain roughly 100,000 people this fiscal year, which would more than double the average daily number held in ICE detention last year. The administration has already expanded its detention capacity with the purchase of 11 warehouses across the country.
“They are working really on building a juggernaut of a system,” said Doris Meissner, who headed the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, a predecessor to ICE, during President Bill Clinton’s Democratic administration and is now a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute.
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said there had been no change to Trump’s strategy.
“President Trump’s highest priority has always been the deportation of illegal alien criminals who endanger American communities,” Jackson said.
ICE did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Advocates for immigrants are bracing for the Trump administration to turn its attention more intently to stripping away protections for migrants with temporary legal status to remain in the U.S. while their cases are being adjudicated.
In one example of this, the number of green cards approved by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services dropped by half over the course of a year under the Trump administration, according to an analysis by the Cato Institute, which supports immigration into the U.S. Humanitarian visas for refugees or people who qualified for asylum saw the biggest declines.
USCIS spokesman Zach Kahler said the drop was due to increased vetting of applicants by the administration.
The Trump administration has also pushed to strip Temporary Protected Status from hundreds of thousands of people, with a key case weighing whether it’s overstepped its power to do so being heard at the Supreme Court this week.
Advocates see it as a way to send a chilling message to immigrant communities and make more people vulnerable to deportation. It also enables the department to operate without the public spectacle of workplace raids or home arrests.
ICE has also focused over the past year on creating agreements with jurisdictions around the country that allow local and state law enforcement to carry out an expanding array of immigration enforcement tasks, ranging from checking the immigration status of people in their jails to incorporating immigration checks during routine traffic stops.
These agreements, known as 287g, have grown from 135 in 20 states before Trump took office to more than 1,400 in 41 states and territories now.
Some states, most noticeably Florida and Texas, have mandated various forms of cooperation between local law enforcement and ICE.
Meissner, from MPI, said Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, is likely to prioritize further discussions about how cities and states can cooperate with ICE.
“At the end of the day, some of this may very well succeed in increasing the numbers,” Meissner said.
Conservatives who want more deportations say the only way to truly crack down on illegal immigration is to make it so difficult for the migrants to work that they’ll leave on their own.
The Trump administration has already taken steps to make life harder for people in the country illegally including limiting who can live in public housing by immigration status, sharing Medicaid information with ICE and requiring people in the country illegally to register with the federal government.
Krikorian, of the Center for Immigration Studies, said the Social Security Administration could send out letters alerting employers when an employee’s name doesn’t match their Social Security number. Authorities could repeatedly and consistently carry out audits of I-9 forms, which companies are supposed to fill out and submit to the federal government showing that new hires are legally able to work. And they could require banks to collect citizenship information on customers.
Whatever the strategy going forward, the administration is facing heavy pressure not to back away from its goals.
“The numbers are too low,” said Mike Howell, part of the Mass Deportation Coalition, which launched a playbook for how the administration can actually get to a million deportations a year by using tactics such as worksite enforcement.
“The deportation numbers are just too low,” Howell said, “and they need to be much higher, and they can be much higher.”
HOUSTON (AP) – Profit for the two largest oil companies in the U.S. tumbled during the first quarter, a three-month period in which the price of crude and gasoline rocketed higher. It’s a setback on paper only, however, the result of financial hedges that backfired after the U.S. and Israel launched attacks on Iran in late February.
Exxon Mobil and Chevron reported quarterly results on Friday, with adjusted profits for both companies topping Wall Street expectations. The shares of both companies, up sharply this week, ticked higher before the opening bell.
With energy prices depressed at the start of the year, Exxon Mobil and Chevron had arranged hedges to offset volatility, a standard practice in the industry.
In the aftermath of an attack by the U.S. and Israel on Iran, however, the physical delivery of oil became impossible with the Strait of Hormuz essentially closed. Exxon and Chevron cannot book gains on those hedges until the crude is physically delivered.
The near closure of the Strait of Hormuz off the coast of Iran is a flashpoint in the war and the source of much of the economic pain being felt globally. About 20% of the world’s oil passes through the strait on a typical day, but the passage has been choked off since the war began in late February.
Exxon earned $4.18 billion, or $1 per share, for the period ended March 31. A year earlier it earned $7.7 billion, or $1.76 per share. The company lost almost $4 billion in the quarter on what it called “unfavorable estimated timing effects” of its hedges.
Removing such one-time impacts, Exxon earned $1.16 per share, easily topping the $1.07 per share analyst surveyed by Zacks Investment Research predicted. Exxon does not adjust its reported results based on one-time events such as asset sales.
Revenue totaled $85.14 billion, breezing past Wall Street’s expectation of $81.49 billion.
First-quarter net production was 4.6 million oil-equivalent barrels per day. That’s down from 5 million oil-equivalent barrels per day in the previous quarter.
Chevron reported a first-quarter profit of $2.21 billion, or $1.11 per share. It earned $3.5 billion, or $2 per share, a year earlier.
The company said that its quarter included a $360 million net loss related to a legal reserve and that foreign currency effects lowered earnings by $223 million.
Chevron’s adjusted profit was $1.41 per share, easily beating the 92 cents per share Wall Street was calling for. Like Exxon, Chevron does not adjust its reported results based on one-time events such as asset sales.
The company’s revenue totaled $48.61 billion, also better than expected.
Exxon and Chevron are among the big drillers reporting earnings this week. On Tuesday BP said that its first-quarter profit more than doubled.
The oil companies’ results come at a time when gasoline prices in the U.S. hit new multiyear highs, a point of increasing agitation for travelers, households and also businesses that are particularly sensitive to higher energy prices.
The average price of gasoline in the U.S. hit $4.39 on Friday, according to motor club AAA. up more than 8% this week.
Inflation in the U.S. rose sharply last month during largest monthly jump in gas prices in six decades, according to data from the U.S. Department of Labor. The surge in gas prices has squeezed the budgets of lower- and middle-income families, making it more difficult to pay for necessities.
But it’s disrupting businesses as well, particularly those sensitive to higher fuel costs. Airlines worldwide have begun canceling flights as the war in the Middle East strains jet fuel supplies and pushes up ticket prices.
WIMBERLEY (AP) — A small plane crashed in Texas, killing all five people aboard, a county official said Friday.
The crash happened Thursday night in Wimberley, a city about 40 miles southwest of Austin, Hays County Judge Ruben Becerra said in a Facebook post.
The Federal Aviation Administration said the Cessna 421C crashed around 11:25 p.m. with five people on board. It said the FAA and National Transportation Safety Board will investigate the crash.
Becerra said preliminary information indicates the plane was traveling at a high rate of speed when it crashed. He did not release the names of the victims, pending notification of family.
He said a second aircraft traveling in the area landed safely near San Antonio.
Wimberley, with a population of about 3,000, is a popular tourist and hiking destination in the Texas Hill Country next to the Blanco River.
Wimberley Mayor Jim Chiles told The Associated Press he did not have any information about the crash.
WASHINGTON (AP) – A back-and-forth volley of congressional redistricting in states has changed the electoral battlefield ahead of the November midterm elections, as Republicans and Democrats each seek an edge in their push for control of the closely divided U.S. House.
Florida’s Republican-led Legislature is latest to act, approving new House districts on Wednesday that could help the GOP win several additional seats in this year’s elections. That could offset Democratic gains in Virginia, where voters recently approved a new U.S. House map designed to flip several seats to Democrats.
Voting districts typically are redrawn once a decade, after each census. But President Donald Trump last year urged Texas Republicans to redraw House districts to give the GOP an edge in the midterms. California Democrats reciprocated, and redistricting efforts soon cascaded across states.
Republicans believe they could win up to 13 additional seats from new congressional districts in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio and Florida. Democrats, meanwhile, think they could gain up to 10 seats from new districts in California, Utah and Virginia. 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.
New U.S. House districts have passed in eight states since last summer. Six took up redistricting voluntarily, one was required to by its state constitution and another did so under court order.
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 has since overturned a lower-court ruling that blocked the new map because it was “racially gerrymandered.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Current map: six Democrats, five Republicans
New map: Voters in April 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 procedural requirements.
Current map: eight Democrats, 20 Republicans
New map: The Republican-led Legislature in April passed revised House districts that could improve the GOP’s chances of winning four additional seats.
Challenges: The state constitution says districts cannot be drawn with intent to favor or disfavor a political party or incumbent.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
MINERAL WELLS (AP) — Vicious winds burst through the front door of Christopher Hester’s duplex apartment, then started ripping the roof apart. Hester and his wife grabbed their dog and ducked into a hallway to the sound of breaking glass, furniture hitting the walls and a howl like a monstrous vacuum cleaner.
“It was kind of hard to see because of the debris,” Hester, 33, said Wednesday, standing amid the ruins of his home. “I was able to see the tornado. And all of my stuff go into the sky.”
Officials confirmed that a tornado on Tuesday tore through this small Texas city, sending five people to a hospital as it flattened buildings used for manufacturing and ravaged nearby homes. Police and firefighters said they feared the worst when they first saw the damage in Mineral Wells, home to about 15,000 people.
“We are most grateful for no loss of life in this event yesterday,” Mayor Regan Johnson told a news conference Wednesday. “When you see the destruction that’s here, you can tell that’s really amazing.”
Hester and his wife searched through overturned furniture and scattered debris Wednesday for their two missing cats and any belongings they could salvage. Their roof was gone and the windows were blown out, along with the apartment’s front and back walls.
“By the grace of God we are still standing here today,” Hester said.
Allison Prater, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Fort Worth, said the tornado touched down in Mineral Wells with winds of at least 120 mph (193 kph). The weather service sent a team Wednesday to survey the destruction 80 miles (130 kilometers) west of Dallas.
Violent weather has been plaguing parts of the South and Midwest. Two people died in North Texas last weekend as thunderstorms spawned destructive tornadoes, and a Michigan man was killed on Monday by a tree that toppled in a storm.
A hail storm damaged roofs, skylights and parked vehicles Tuesday at a zoo in Springfield, Missouri, and also killed one of its large birds. A female emu named Adam died from head trauma as hail fell at the Dickerson Park Zoo, spokesperson Joey Powell said Wednesday.
More severe storms were possible Wednesday across the South and parts of the Mid-Atlantic. The weather service said there was a slight chance of damaging winds and large hail across portions of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.
In Mineral Wells, local officials spoke with reporters Wednesday in a subdivision strewn with splintered lumber, fallen trees and other debris.
Fire Chief Ryan Dunn said five people injured in the storm went to a hospital for treatment. Others were treated for minor injuries by first responders.
“As we arrived on scene, we noticed there was a lot of debris, a lot of roofs off,” Dunn said. “And then we started seeing buildings collapse.”
Dunn said most of the area struck by the tornado is used for commercial and industrial purposes, though some homes were also damaged. At least two manufacturers suffered heavy damage.
One was Ventamatic, which makes large fans and other ventilation equipment in Mineral Wells. The company said on its website that employees evacuated ahead of the storm and none were injured. Operations were shut down Wednesday “due to severe damage and ongoing safety hazards,” the company said.
More than 9,000 homes and businesses were without electricity across Texas on Wednesday afternoon, according to the tracking site PowerOutage.us. About 230 of those outages were in the Mineral Wells area.
Mineral Wells officials declared a local state of disaster and imposed an overnight curfew that will remain in place Wednesday, Police Chief Tim Denison said.
HOUSTON (AP) — People who are wrongfully incarcerated then exonerated, sometimes after spending decades behind bars, face yet more challenges finding jobs and rebuilding their lives after their release. Advocates say exonerees lack work history, viable skills, training and references when seeking work. Advocates and exonerees say they also face bias and stigma, even though they have been found innocent. National nonprofits and local groups are working to provide employment opportunities and other assistance for exonerees. The National Registry of Exonerations reports that more than 3,800 people have been exonerated in the U.S. since 1989.
Richard Miles set out to find a job after his release from a Texas prison in 2009 with a collection of newspaper clippings about his wrongful murder conviction as his resume. No one would hire him, including warehouses and fast-food restaurants.
It was a period of painful rejection that is familiar to exonerees. Some see their own struggles reflected in Calvin Duncan, who won elected office in New Orleans after clearing his name but likely won’t serve. Louisiana lawmakers sent a bill to the governor’s desk Wednesday abolishing his job.
“We’re still kind of like looked at as an inmate that did a particular crime. It further deteriorates our ability to believe that the system can heal itself,” said Miles, who eventually found a job through a minister at his church. “When cases like in Louisiana occur, it just shows us that the system is not healing itself.”
The fight in Louisiana has touched a nerve among exonerees in the U.S. who see Duncan’s plight as reflective of the biases and stigmas they have to confront as they try to rebuild their lives.
Duncan served nearly 30 years in prison before his murder conviction was vacated in 2021 after evidence emerged that police officers had lied in court. He was elected to become the Orleans Parish clerk of criminal court in November, vowing to fix the system that failed him. He had been set to take office May 4.
Louisiana Republicans who want to dissolve the office say it isn’t about Duncan’s past but a necessary step toward government efficiency.
“Even if they are seen as somebody who is exonerated, there is still a stigma as somebody who has been in prison,” said Jon Eldan, the founder and executive director of After Innocence, a California-based nonprofit.
NEW YORK (AP) — The governor of Sinaloa and nine other current and former Mexican officials were charged with drug trafficking and weapons offenses in a U.S. indictment unsealed Wednesday in New York, accused of aiding in the massive importation of illicit narcotics into the United States.
Some officials were members of Mexico’s progressive ruling party, Morena, posing a political conundrum for Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum as she seeks to offset mounting pressures from the Trump administration. Some of those politicians called the indictment a political attack on their party.
U.S. federal officials announced the charges in a news release. None of the defendants were in custody, but Mexico’s government said shortly afterward that it had received multiple extradition requests from the U.S. without identifying those requested. It did not say how it would respond.
The 10 people charged in Manhattan federal court are current and former government or law enforcement officials in Sinaloa, including Rubén Rocha Moya, 76, who has been governor of Mexico’s Sinaloa state since November 2021.
Charges against Moya included narcotics importation conspiracy and possession of machine guns and destructive devices, along with another conspiracy count. If convicted, he could face life in prison or a mandatory minimum of 40 years behind bars.
Rocha was a staunch ally of Sheinbaum’s mentor, former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. The governor enthusiastically backed the ex-president’s “Hugs, Not Bullets” policy, which involved avoiding direct confrontation with powerful drug cartels. López Obrador built a political platform by railing against endemic corruption plaguing Mexican politics.
Rocha, the highest profile official charged, said he “categorically and completely rejects” the accusations as baseless and called them an “attack” on Mexico’s ruling party and its leaders.
“It is part of a perverse strategy to violate (Mexico’s) constitutional order, specifically on national sovereignty, ” he wrote in a post on X on Wednesday afternoon. “We will show them that this slander doesn’t have any sort of foundation.”
Later in the day, he told reporters that he planned to stay in Sinaloa and wasn’t worried.
Some of those named, according to the indictment, have themselves participated in the Sinaloa Cartel’s campaign of violence and retribution.
Those charged included a Mexican senator, a Sinaloa state deputy attorney general, a former Sinaloa secretary of public security, a former deputy director of the Sinaloa State Police and the mayor of Culiacan.
According to the indictment, the defendants shielded cartel leaders from investigation, arrest, and prosecution, fed the cartel with sensitive law enforcement and military information, directed members of state and local law enforcement agencies to protect drug loads and let the cartel commit brutal drug-related violence without consequence. In return, it said, the defendants received millions of dollars in drug money.
The indictment alleged that they were closely aligned with the Sinaloa Cartel faction known as “Los Chapitos,” which is run by the sons of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, the ex-cartel leader now serving a life sentence in a U.S. prison.
Authorities said the defendants played critical roles in helping the cartel ship fentanyl, heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine from Mexico into the U.S. The Sinaloa Cartel is among eight Latin American crime groups designated as terrorist organizations by the U.S. government.
“As the indictment lays bare, the Sinaloa Cartel, and other drug trafficking organizations like it, would not operate as freely or successfully without corrupt politicians and law enforcement officials on their payroll,” U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said in a release.
The indictment of Rocha, who was born in the same town as “El Chapo,” was particularly notable because the governor was embroiled in a scandal in 2024 involving the Sinaloa Cartel. His name was published in a letter written by a then-Sinaloa Cartel capo who was kidnapped by leaders of a rival faction of the cartel and handed off to law enforcement in the U.S. In the letter, the capo said that when he was kidnapped he believed he was on his way to meet with Rocha.
In the years since, the cartel’s two warring factions have ravaged the northern Mexican state in their struggle for territorial control.
Among those indicted, at least three officials — Rocha, the mayor of Sinaloa’s capital, and a senator — were affiliated with Sheinbaum’s party, Morena. A number of other officials held positions unaffiliated with Mexican parties.
It’s not the first time the U.S. has brought drug trafficking charges against ranking Mexican officials. Genaro García Luna — a former Mexican public security secretary under former President Felipe Calderón — was convicted by a U.S. court and sentenced to 38 years in prison after he was accused of taking bribes from the Sinaloa Cartel. He denied the allegations and is appealing his conviction.
The indictment unsealed Wednesday come after U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ron Johnson last week said that the U.S. administration would launch an anti-corruption campaign targeting Mexican officials he said were linked to organized crime.
“Corruption not only hinders progress, it distorts it. It increases costs, weakens competition, and erodes the trust upon which markets depend. It is not a problem without victims,” Johnson said.
Sheinbaum responded Monday by saying her government has not seen “any evidence” of the charges of corruption.
“Any investigation in the United States against any person in Mexico must have evidence reviewed by the (Mexican) Attorney General’s Office,” Sheinbaum said.
Sheinbaum’s government has already detained several local officials across Mexico in its ongoing crackdown against the cartels, fueled by pressure by the Trump administration.
The indictment has once again forced the Mexican leader to walk a political tightrope, said Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow in foreign policy at the Washington-based Brookings Institution who specializes in organized crime.
If Sheinbaum doesn’t go after Rocha, it will put strain on relations with the U.S. ahead of renegotiations of a free-trade agreement with the U.S. crucial to the Mexican economy, the analyst said. If she does arrest him, “it carries tremendous consequences for her politically” ahead of next year’s midterm elections in Mexico.
“Is she going to move to arrest Gov. Rocha and the other eight indicted politicians and attempt to extradite him to the United States? This is certainly what the United States wants,” Felbab-Brown said.
AUSTIN (AP)- The Texas Medical Board is proposing tighter regulations around ketamine, a popular fast-acting sedative used to treat mental illness, including more physician oversight during administration of the drug and banning in-home use of it.
The revised rules are expected to publish May 8, and the Texas Medical Board is scheduled to vote on the changes in June.
Supporters of ketamine regulations in Texas say the drug, which can cause comas and even death, has grown in popularity because it is easy to access. One of the most common ways people access ketamine is through telehealth prescriptions, which allows them to take it at home while a medical professional monitors them online.
Medical spas, which often do not have the stringent regulations of a medical clinic, also administer the highly addictive sedative, and night clubs promote it as a social drug instead of a potentially dangerous medication.
“People think ketamine is a wellness treatment when it’s not. Everyone wants a miracle cure. But the reality is this is a dangerous anesthetic,” said Rep. Tom Oliverson, R-Cypress, an anesthesiologist and a former medical board member who helped pass rules on administering sedatives for things like cosmetic surgery and dental work. “So then the question is, who should be allowed to administer those things so that it’s done safely?”
Ketamine’s role in the death of actor Matthew Perry has increased the drug’s visibility, including its dangers. The most recent medical report examining data from poison centers across the country found that ketamine poisonings are at their highest point in recent history, more than doubling since 2019 to 414 in 2023.
Data provided by the Texas Poison Center Network confirms a steady increase in ketamine-related calls beginning in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, from 15 to 40 calls in 2024.
Of the 167 cumulative ketamine-related calls to poison centers from 2020 to 2025, two resulted in death, and 75 reported moderate effects.
Although ketamine clinics in Texas usually have a physician on staff to respond to bad reactions to the treatment, a physician is rarely on site. Advanced-practice registered nurses and certified registered nurse anesthetists primarily administer and oversee several ketamine treatments at a time in clinics.
The proposed rules, first released in January, include a requirement that if a physician is not on site, medical staff can’t administer ketamine to more than two patients at a time. It also prohibits ketamine treatments outside of a registered clinic, including in-home use. The rules also require health providers to complete training on mental health treatment before being allowed to administer ketamine.
“Due to its potency, proper administration methods are essential. Ketamine, unlike opioids, cannot be counteracted by other medications like Narcan,” said Spencer Miller-Payne, spokesperson for TMB. “Therefore, it can be dangerous if a patient accidentally moves into moderate or deep sedation from ketamine.”
Miller-Payne said the board doesn’t want to reduce access to care, but it also recognizes that the environment in which these ketamine treatments are being offered plays an important role in ensuring patient safety.
Industry leaders criticized the proposal, saying that forcing them to choose between hiring an on-site physician or seeing fewer patients will severely limit the number of people they can serve and will raise the price of treatment by $300 to $500.
APRNs and other non-physician medical providers say requiring a physician to oversee them is confusing, unnecessary and insulting because they know the same life-saving measures that medical doctors do. They say the current proposal is a power grab by physicians under the guise of patient safety and will force clinics to shutter.
“It doesn’t make sense. Nurse practitioners are running the entire intensive care units with 25 patients who are very sick, and they are comfortable with them doing that, but they can’t be in a space with a very safe drug?” said Alli Waddell, CEO and co-founder of Illumma, an Austin ketamine clinic. “They keep telling us it’s about patient safety, and it’s not.”
When used in a clinical setting, ketamine is considered one of the safest drugs to use. In low doses, ketamine creates an altered state of consciousness and, paired with counseling, can lead to rapid relief of severe mental illness for a period of time.
Mental health providers say a lot of ketamine clients are low-income and highly suicidal and can’t afford the cost — financially or mentally — of these new rules.
The regulatory framework that Texas creates is likely to become the model for other states, ketamine industry leaders say.
“This is going to radiate throughout the entire nation, and there’s literally only a handful of people fighting for it,” said Will Ratliff, a nurse and paramedic, and the director of operations at Transcend Health Solutions, an Austin ketamine clinic. “Physicians are actively shutting down the practice of something that saves a lot of lives just because of ignorance.”
Five years ago, Bradley Armendariz was studying to become a licensed provider when he decided to take a break for the day and try ketamine while listening to some contemplation audio tapes. He said what happened next was life-changing. The ketamine enhanced the words from the audio tapes and guided Armendariz through his self-doubts. By the end, he said he felt invigorated and determined about his next steps.
“It changed not only how I experienced ketamine, but also how I thought to help my clients,” said Armendariz, a licensed professional counselor in Big Sandy in East Texas who now provides ketamine treatments.
Ketamine is a synthetic compound that helps repair brain connections often damaged by mental illness. Mental health providers use ketamine to guide clients through deep-seated trauma without damaging their mental state, which can happen with talk therapy. Low-dose ketamine intravenous infusions, nasal sprays and oral medications are often used for treatment-resistant mental illnesses, such as depression, PTSD and suicidal ideation.
“Ketamine has some chemical effects that allow the brain to be more malleable for change, like when we were young children and could learn a new language or new instrument, without feeling down,” Ratliff said.
Ketamine has a high potential for dependency, which can lead to clients requesting higher doses to achieve the desired effect. The psychoactive drug can cause cardiovascular strain, respiratory depression and organ damage from long-term use.
Mental health providers say ketamine must be paired with ongoing mental health work.
“You can’t just take ketamine and fix your life. You will feel temporarily good and then go back down,” Armendariz said. “It still requires work and action on the client’s and the mental health providers’ part, too.”
Waddell said many ketamine industry leaders are grateful to see the state propose tighter restrictions.
“The industry is not against regulation. It just wants mindful regulation so that we can maintain access for people who are really struggling and use this tool to save their life,” Waddell said. “But these regulations will completely gut the industry because it will get rid of the model that makes this treatment possible.”
The main concern for many ketamine clinics is that they won’t be able to afford to pay for a physician to be on-site. Most clients are in severe mental distress and are either jobless or low-income, so they can’t pay high prices for treatment. Also, insurance doesn’t cover ketamine therapy treatments. Ketamine clinics said to make the drug affordable, they already have to break even on their profits.
Allowing two patients to undergo treatment at a time also will hurt their revenue, so these new regulations will force many clinics to close, ketamine advocates say. If at-home use is banned, rural users will be affected the most because the statewide physician shortage is worse in rural communities and many patients rely on in-home use.
“We have a lot of our patients from Texas. Most of them choose at-home. Not because they are choosing between us and in-person, but because we are their only option within a span of two hours,” said Leonardo Vando, the medical director of Mindbloom, one of the country’s largest telehealth programs.
Flavored ketamine nasal sprays advertised at parties and ketamine administered during massage therapy have given the drug a bad reputation, proponents of regulations say.
“It needs to be legitimized for insurance to get on board, but we can’t do that when you have a lot of bad actors out there running around giving it a bad name,” said Mary Moore, owner and clinical director of Lake Austin Psychotherapy, which provides ketamine treatments.
Oliverson said that under the current system, too many underqualified medical providers can administer a dangerous anesthetic, such as ketamine. He said paramedics and emergency medical technicians masquerading as nurses are administering the treatment.
“A lot of time, there wasn’t even a physician involved except on paper,” he said. “We have physicians who are only there via call or Zoom? I think that is a total joke. There’s no meaningful supervision actually going on there, and if something goes wrong, you are calling 911 because they can’t respond in time.”
Moore said she wants to see the state’s medical board require an on-site physician for every ketamine treatment because that is the safest way to conduct treatment.
“Is that more expensive? Yes. Does that hit their profit model? Yes. And I think that is part of the pushback,” she said. “The psychotherapy portion is really getting ignored in a lot of these clinics. It’s a conveyor belt model.”
Truman Milling Jr., medical director of Lake Austin Psychotherapy, suggested that the state medical board focus on the skills of the person administering the treatment rather than on whether they are a medical doctor. He said, for example, an APRN with ICU experience can meet the requirements of a physician, but not all medical providers have the same skill set.
“I think the demand (for ketamine) will go down somewhat, but if it’s done more appropriately, I think that’s the price you have to pay,” Milling said.