Today is
Thursday June 04, 2026
BATON ROUGE, La. (WVLA) – Ten people were injured in a shooting at the Mall of Louisiana on Thursday afternoon, police have confirmed.
The Baton Rouge Police Department said two groups of people had gotten into an argument in the mall’s food court at around 1:25 p.m., around the time the shooting unfolded.
Authorities say there is no known threat to the public at this time, but the incident does not appear to be a random act of violence. Authorities also indicated that the perpetrators had not been apprehended.
Baton Rouge Mayor-President Sid Edwards joined law enforcement at the scene, saying, “To the thugs who did this, we are going to catch you.”
Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry had earlier released a statement on the incident, saying he had been made aware of an “active shooter scene” at the Baton Rouge shopping complex.
“I am aware of the active shooter scene at the Mall of Louisiana. I am in coordination with law enforcement and we will update as we know more. Please avoid the area. Sharon and I are praying for those affected and are grateful for a quick response by our law enforcement officials.”
Mall spokesperson Lindsay Kahn also confirmed a shooting at the shopping complex but referred other questions to police.
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill further advised the public to avoid the area.
“Multiple law enforcement agencies are responding – please avoid the area. More details will be available soon.”
BALDWIN COUNTY, Ala. (WKRG) — After nearly 30 years, human remains found in Alabama have been identified as those of James Carol Jackson, a man from Groveton, Texas, whose death has been ruled a homicide.
The Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office in Alabama said Jackson was identified using forensic genealogy in April 2026. The Trinity County Sheriff’s Office in Texas confirmed that Jackson was from Groveton.
Officials said in January 1994, a person was walking in the wooded area off of State Highway 225 when they spotted skeletal remains. Found with those remains were a trucker hat, a western shirt, an inhaler, a digital watch, prescription glasses, a mechanical pencil and pen set, as well as a torch tip.
Officials believe the homicide happened in 1988 or 1989, after he arrived in the area around 1987, when he was 50 years old.
Jackson drove a 1978 to 1981 Chevrolet Camaro that the sheriff’s office has not been able to locate.
He was a welder, and in 1987, he told his family he was going to Alabama for work.
At the time, I-65 was being expanded, and officials believe he may have come to the area to help work on the project.
Officials also said he stopped communicating with his family about 12 months after leaving Texas.
It is believed that he may have been living off Highway 225 and may have frequented the Tensaw Lodge.
Family described him as a non-violent, easy-going guy.
Anyone who may have any information on the case can submit a tip through the sheriff’s office website or through Crimestoppers.
AUSTIN (AP) – Three congressional candidates are accused of betting on the outcome of their own elections on the prediction market Kalshi, which said Wednesday that it fined and suspended the three men from their platform for five years.
It is the latest high-profile case of alleged insider trading on prediction markets including Kalshi and Polymarket, which have brought bipartisan scrutiny from Congress and calls for stricter regulations of the websites where people can put money on just about anything.
Kalshi’s disciplinary documents named Mark Moran, who is running as an independent in Virginia’s U.S. Senate race; Ezekiel Enriquez, who ran in a Texas Republican primary for a U.S. House seat; and Matt Klein, a Democratic state senator running for a U.S. House seat in Minnesota.
Klein and Enriquez both placed bets less than $100 related to their “own candidacy,” Kalshi said. Moran said on social media that he “traded $100 on myself.”
Moran refused to reach an agreement with Kalshi and was fined the most at more than $6,200, while Klein and Enriquez did reach agreements and face penalties of over $530 and $780, respectively, the company said. All were suspended from Kalshi for five years. The agreements are with the company, and not with a government oversight or law enforcement agency.
Far from denying the allegations, Moran took to social media on Wednesday to say that he placed the bets because he wanted to draw attention to the issue.
“We live in a Country destroyed by vice, which Kalshi directly contribute to,” Moran wrote on X, saying the goal of the trade was to “highlight how this company is destroying young men.”
Klein also confirmed Kalshi’s findings in a post on social media on Wednesday. The $50 wager he placed in October was the first time he had used a predictions market, he said in a statement on X, and he was “curious about how it worked.”
“This was a mistake and I apologize,” he wrote, saying that the experience made it clear that the markets need more regulation.
Enriquez, known as Zeke, lost his House race in the beginning of March with less than two percent of the vote. Contact information for Enriquez was not immediately found to request comment.
HOUSTON (AP) — A Houston city ordinance that limited police officers’ cooperation with federal immigration agents was amended on Wednesday after Texas’ governor threatened to take away millions of dollars in public safety grants.
Houston, as well as Austin and Dallas — three of the state’s biggest cities and Democratic strongholds — are being confronted by GOP Gov. Greg Abbott with threats of losing public safety dollars over policies that dictate how law enforcement interacts with federal immigration authorities. The three cities are being threatened with the loss of about $200 million in public safety funding, including tens of millions expected to cover security at World Cup matches this summer in Dallas and Houston.
Two weeks ago, Houston City Council passed the ordinance, which eliminated a requirement that Houston police officers wait 30 minutes for agents with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to pick up someone with a nonjudicial administrative warrant. If ICE agents didn’t show up in time, police officers took a detained person’s information and then released them.
But Abbott warned city officials that the new ordinance and its limitation on cooperating with ICE agents violated the terms of $110 million in state grants Houston had received for police and security during the World Cup games the city is hosting in June.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton had also filed a lawsuit against Mayor John Whitmire and members of the city council over the ordinance, accusing them of violating a 2017 state law that prevents cities from adopting policies that limit the enforcement of immigration laws and which also banned “sanctuary city” policies in the state. There is no strict definition for sanctuary policies or sanctuary cities, but the terms generally describe limited cooperation with ICE.
After more than two hours of discussion during its weekly meeting, Houston City Council voted 13-4 to make changes to the ordinance. Whitmire said he had consulted with Abbott’s office about making changes that would prevent Houston from losing its funding.
The amended ordinance deletes language that highlighted that administrative warrants — versus warrants signed by a judge — that ICE agents use to take individuals into custody are not enough for officers to arrest or detain an individual.
“We have no alternative for Houston to survive, prepare for (the World Cup), patrol these neighborhoods,” Whitmire said. “We’ve got to have today the restoration of the $114 million.”
Andrew Mahaleris, a spokesperson for Abbott, said the governor expects any policy Houston police adopt has to comply with the city’s certification that it will fully cooperate with the Department of Homeland Security.
“This vote is a step in the right direction after Houston leaders put public safety at risk with reckless policies that undermined law enforcement,” Mahaleris said in a statement.
Council member Abbie Kamin, one of three members who had pushed for the ordinance, voted against amending it, saying that doing so was giving in to bullying tactics from state leaders.
“If we rollover now to a bully, what will he come for next?” Kamin said.
Council members Edward Pollard and Alejandra Salinas, who also pushed for the ordinance, said they remained hopeful the changes approved Wednesday would not violate individuals’ constitutional rights and wouldn’t result in people being held on nonjudicial warrants.
Nikki Luellen, an advocate for criminal justice reform for the ACLU of Texas, called the amended ordinance “a greenlight for deeper collaboration between ICE and the Houston Police Department.”
Martha Castex-Tatum was one of several council members who had supported the ordinance but voted in favor of amending it in order to protect the city’s finances.
“For some people, this may feel like surrender. It’s not. It’s real stewardship,” Castex-Tatum said.
Dallas officials have said they are committed to ensuring public safety and would respond to Abbott’s threat by Thursday.
Austin Mayor Kirk Watson, a moderate Democrat, said the local policy complies with state law. He said Abbott’s threat to cut nearly $3 million in Austin would cut trauma aid for police officers and sexual assault victims.
“We don’t have the time and will not play into this political theater,” said Watson.
Austin officials have since indicated they could try to negotiate with Abbott.
The debate in Houston and other Texas cities comes amid the federal government’s aggressive enforcement of immigration laws. Whitmire and other local leaders in many of Texas’ left-leaning urban areas have tried to not get the federal government’s attention amid the aggressive immigration crackdown by President Donald Trump’s administration.
WASHINGTON (AP) — More than 17 million people along the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf coasts are at the highest risk of being affected by flooding, with New York and New Orleans standing out, according to one of the most comprehensive studies ever of flood risk.
Researchers at the University of Alabama used 16 different factors including the geographic hazards, the population and infrastructure exposed and the vulnerability of people living there. They then brought in past damages from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s database and applied three different artificial intelligence tools to figure out flood risks from Texas to Maine, calculating that 17.5 million people were at “very high” risk and an additional 17 million were at “high” risk, the next level.
The authors looked at all sizes of flooding and examined separately what FEMA considers the most extreme, which are the top 1% of events. The study found 4.3 million people along the coasts to be at the highest level of risk of extreme flooding, but 20.5 million to be at high risk, the second highest level.
They found a lot of vulnerability, highlighting eight different cities from Houston, which flooded in 2017’s Hurricane Harvey, to New York, which was inundated in 2012’s Superstorm Sandy.
Wednesday’s study in the journal Science Advances found that New York City has 4.75 million people at the two highest risk levels for all flooding, with more than 200,000 buildings likely to be damaged.
And while the number of people at risk in New Orleans is far lower, about 380,000, it involves 99% of the city’s population. That doesn’t mean 99% of the people will be affected in the next hurricane or nontropical flood, but that they might be depending on the storm’s individual path and rain pattern, said study co-author Wanyun Shao, a climate scientist at the University of Alabama.
“Just look at the magnitude,” Shao said. “Those numbers are shocking, are alarming.”
The elderly and poor are most at risk
“When the next big storm hits New York City, when the next Hurricane Katrina -like hurricane makes landfall in New Orleans, people will get hurt, especially those socially vulnerable populations,” Shao said referring to the poor, the elderly, children and the uneducated.
Shao and outside experts said the numbers stunned them even though they were familiar with the worsening effects of climate change.
“New York is known to be susceptible to floods and it has the largest population. But the fact that New York has nearly an order of magnitude more flood-exposed population than any other city is surprising,” said Alex de Sherbinin, a geographer who directs Columbia University’s Center for Integrated Earth System Information. He wasn’t part of the study.
Flood problems are becoming more frequent in New York and New Orleans because of human-caused climate change, the study said.
Other cities are also threatened
Jacksonville has 679,000 people at high or very high risk of flooding, while Houston is just behind at just under 600,000. Other cities highlighted include Miami, Norfolk, Virginia, Charleston, South Carolina, Mobile, Alabama.
Shao and outside experts said what separates her study from others is the sheer comprehensiveness of all the factors it considers, including sinking land and pavement that doesn’t allow water to seep into the ground, as well as incorporating human social vulnerability such as poverty and age.
“This could be applied to other places in the world, such as Manila,” said University of Virginia engineering professor Venkataraman Lakshmi, who heads the hydrology section of the American Geophysical Union, referring to the capital of the Philippines. He wasn’t part of the study, but said the flooding problems it highlights will get more frequent and intense due to human-caused climate change.
Columbia University’s Marco Tedesco, who wasn’t part of the study, said “it reinforces the crucial concept that future flood disasters are not just about water—they are about where people live, how cities are built, and who is least protected.”
Actions can lessen the risk
De Sherbinin said, “the analysis of the flood risk factors is important for local planners, emergency managers, and even highway crews and utility providers. We all know that low lying areas are more flood prone, but the data they have assembled provide more insights into flood risk, particularly for flash floods.”
Study lead author Hemal Dey, a geospatial scientist, said he hopes local officials look at not just building more dams and levees, but more natural infrastructure such as wetlands, grasslands, rain gardens and estuaries.
“The research is solid confirmation of what emergency managers have been saying for years. Realtors will hate it,’’ said Craig Fugate, a former FEMA director who wasn’t part of the study. “The harder question is what we’re actually going to do about it.”
TEXARKANA, Texas (KETK) — Following a drunken physical argument with her boyfriend, a Texarkana woman was arrested for driving while intoxicated and endangering her 3-month-old baby in a crash on Sunday morning.
According to the Texarkana Police Department, officers received a disturbance call at 3:30 a.m. from a man reporting that he and his 33-year-old girlfriend, Cheyenne Foster, had gotten into a physical argument after a night of “heavy drinking.”
By the time officers arrived at the home on Breckenridge Street, Foster had already left the house with their 3-month-old child and was reportedly heading toward a relative’s home in Ashdown. The police department immediately began looking for Foster, as her level of intoxication was concerning for her and the child’s safety.
The police department said Foster eventually answered her phone and told officers that she had been involved in a crash with the child in the car but refused to provide a location out of fear of being arrested.
Officers were able to locate her via phone ping after more than an hour of searching, which led them to Hush Puppy Road just south of the Red River.
The vehicle was found in a ditch, with Foster passed out in the driver’s seat and the child lying in the front passenger seat.
“The child was not in a baby carrier,” the police department said. “At the time, the temperature was about 48 degrees, the windows were down, and the baby was wearing only a diaper.”
Foster was not reported to have sustained any injuries. Still, following a check with EMS, the child was transported to a hospital by ambulance for a minor chest injury that is believed to have occurred during the crash.
Foster was arrested for driving while intoxicated with a minor passenger and child endangerment, with the additional charge of assault family violence of bodily injury, which was related to the initial incident at her home. She was booked into the Bi-State Jail with a $180,000 bond and was released on Monday.
“Please never drive impaired – and certainly not with your kids in the vehicle,” the police department said.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Wednesday cleared the way for a veteran wounded by a suicide bomb in Afghanistan to sue the government contractor for whom the attacker was working when he built the explosive.
The court ruled 6-3 in favor of former Army Spc. Winston Hencely, who was wounded when he stopped a man on his way to detonate an explosive vest at a Veterans Day weekend 5K race at Bagram Airfield in 2016.
Ahmad Nayeb instead blew himself up when he was confronted, killing five people and wounding more than a dozen, according to court documents.
The projectiles fractured Hencely’s skull and tore through his brain, leaving him without the full use of much of the left side of his body. He also has abnormal brainwaves, seizures and traumatic brain injury, his lawyers wrote.
Hencely acted to sue the company, Fluor Corporation, under state law after an Army investigation faulted the company’s failure to supervise Nayeb, an Afghan employee who built the vest on the job site inside the base, court documents say.
The Irving, Texas-based engineering construction company argued that it could not be sued because it was working during wartime for the government, which is generally immune to lawsuits.
The high court disagreed. The majority said companies are protected when they are fulfilling government contracts, but that Fluor allegedly failed to carry out its duties in supervising Nayeb.
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the opinion, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Justices Samuel Alito, John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh dissented. Alito wrote that Hencely’s lawsuit may intrude on the government’s wartime powers and decisions, including a policy requiring contractors to maximize employment of Afghans.
EL PASO (AP) — The wife of a U.S. Army sergeant was being held Tuesday at an immigration detention facility in El Paso, Texas, amid signs that the Trump administration is dialing back leniency toward immigrant family members of military personnel and veterans.
Jose Serrano, an active duty soldier who served three tours in Afghanistan, said immigration agents arrested his wife April 14 as they attended an appointment with immigration services to take steps toward her permanent residency.
“A person opened the door, escorted us through the hallway, and at the end of the hallway, my wife got arrested,” Serrano said. “Arrested without any order, any warrant … They took away my wife. They don’t tell me anything.”
Since then, El Salvador native Deisy Rivera Ortega has challenged her detention in U.S. District Court and requested an order to block her deportation to Mexico — where she does not have ties and visits by active duty U.S. troops are restricted.
Attorney Matthew James Kozik said Rivera Ortega held a valid work permit and was previously granted a withholding of removal to El Salvador.
The Department of Homeland Security said in an email that Rivera Ortega entered the U.S. illegally in 2016 and that a judge issued a final order of removal in December 2019.
“Work authorization does not confer any legal status to be in the country. Rivera-Ortega remains in ICE custody pending removal,” the agency said. The agency did not address whether Rivera Ortega might be deported to Mexico.
Rivera Ortega was being held at El Paso Service Processing Center, where Serrano says he was able to visit Sunday and talk to his wife through a plastic pane.
She applied for consideration with her husband under the “parole in place” policy that previously provided a possibly expedited pathway to permanent residency for spouses of service members.
But last April, DHS eliminated a 2022 policy that considered military service of an immediate family member to be a “significant mitigating factor” in deciding whether or not to pursue immigration enforcement. The administration’s new policy states that “military service alone does not exempt aliens from the consequences of violating U.S. immigration laws.”
Virginia voters approved a mid-decade redistricting plan Tuesday that could boost Democrats’ chances of winning four additional U.S. House seats in November’s midterm elections that will decide control of the closely divided Congress.
The constitutional amendment narrowly backed by voters bypasses a bipartisan redistricting commission to allow the use of new districts drawn by Virginia’s Democratic-led General Assembly. But the public vote may not be the final word. The state Supreme Court is considering whether the plan is illegal in a case that could make the referendum results meaningless.
The Virginia redistricting referendum marked a setback for President Donald Trump, who kicked off a national redistricting battle last year by urging Republican officials in Texas to redraw districts. The goal was to help Republicans win more seats in the November elections and hold on to a narrow House majority in the face of political headwinds that typically favor the party out of power during midterm elections.
But the Virginia redistricting referendum could help nullify Republican gains elsewhere.
“Virginia just changed the trajectory of the 2026 midterms,” Democratic state House Speaker Don Scott said in a celebratory statement. “At a moment when Trump and his allies are trying to lock in power before voters have a say, Virginians stepped up and leveled the playing field for the entire country.”
Virginia vote is part of a national redistricting battle
The redistricting in Texas led to a burst of redistricting nationwide. So far, Republicans believe they can win up to nine more House seats in newly redrawn districts in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio. Democrats think they can win up to five more seats in California, where voters approved a similar mid-decade redistricting effort last November, and one more seat under new court-imposed districts in Utah.
Democrats hope to offset the rest of that gap in Virginia, where they decisively flipped 13 seats in the state House and won back the governor’s office last year.
Tuesday’s narrow victory for Democrats contrasted with last fall’s vote in California, where a Democratic redistricting plan passed by a nearly 29-point margin.
“As we saw in California, when voters have a say, they are rejecting Republicans’ attempt to rig the system,” said U.S. Rep. Suzan DelBene, of Washington state, who is chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Republicans pledged to continue the battle over Virginia’s new map in court.
“Serious legal questions remain about both the wording of this referendum and the process used to put it before voters,” Virginia House Republican Minority Leader Terry Kilgore said. “Those questions have not been resolved, and they now move where they belong: to the courts.”
U.S. Rep. Richard Hudson, of North Carolina, who is chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said the “close margin reinforces that Virginia is a purple state that shouldn’t be represented by a severe partisan gerrymander.”
The back-and-forth redistricting battle also could continue in Florida, where the Republican-led Legislature is to convene April 28 for a special session that could result in more favorable congressional districts for Republicans.
Voters focus on fairness, with different perspectives
The campaign over Virginia’s redistricting referendum focused heavily on fairness.
Republicans argued that it was unfair to gerrymander Virginia’s districts to Democrats’ advantage. But Democrats argued that they were creating a fairer election landscape nationally by counteracting Republican gerrymandering elsewhere.
Matt Wallace, of Alexandria, said he voted for the Democratic redistricting amendment “to help balance the scales a bit until things get back to normal.”
But Ruth Ann McCartney, who voted in the town of South Hill just a few miles north of the North Carolina border, said she cast her ballot against the amendment.
“I look at it more as we don’t have the population as northern Virginia,” she said. “And as a rural area, we just need to be heard.”
A lobster-like district could aid Democratic efforts
In Virginia, Democrats currently hold six of the 11 U.S. House seats under districts that were imposed by the state Supreme Court in 2021 after a bipartisan commission failed to agree on a map based on the latest census data.
The new plan could help Democrats win as many as 10 seats. Five seats are anchored in the Democratic stronghold of northern Virginia, including one stretching out like a lobster to consume Republican-leaning rural areas. Revisions to four other districts across Richmond, southern Virginia and Hampton Roads dilute the voting power of conservative blocs in those areas. And a reshaped district in parts of western Virginia lumps together three Democratic-leaning college towns to offset other Republican voters.
Democrats portrayed the Virginia redistricting as a response to Trump. Ads for the “yes to redistricting” campaign featuring former President Barack Obama flooded the airwaves.
But opponents of the redistricting also distributed campaign materials citing statements from Obama and Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger, who had both criticized gerrymandering in the past.
Virginia court weighs whether lawmakers acted illegally
Congressional redistricting typically is done once a decade after each census.
In 2020, Virginia voters approved a constitutional amendment meant to diminish political gamesmanship by shifting redistricting responsibilities away from the legislature.
But lawmakers endorsed a new constitutional amendment allowing mid-decade redistricting last fall, then passed it again in January as part of a two-step process that requires an intervening election in order for an amendment to be placed on the ballot. The measure allows lawmakers to redistrict until returning the task to a bipartisan commission after the 2030 census.
In February, they passed a new U.S. House map to take effect pending the outcome of the redistricting referendum.
Republicans have filed multiple legal challenges against the redistricting effort.
A Tazewell County judge ruled that the redistricting push was illegal for several reasons. Circuit Court Judge Jack Hurley Jr. said lawmakers failed to follow their own rules for adding the redistricting amendment to a special session. He ruled that their initial vote failed to occur before the public began casting ballots in last year’s general election and thus didn’t count toward the two-step process. And he ruled that the state failed to publish the amendment three months before that election, as required by law.
If the state Supreme Court agrees with the lower court, the referendum results could be rendered moot.
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Associated Press writers Allen G. Breed in South Hill, Virginia, Gary Fields in Alexandria, Virginia, and Lisa Mascaro in Washington contributed to this report.
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.
DALLAS (AP) — Texas can require the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public school classrooms, a U.S. appeals court ruled Tuesday in a victory for conservatives who have long sought to incorporate more religion into schools.
The ruling sets up a potential clash at the U.S. Supreme Court over the issue in the future. Arkansas and Louisiana have passed similar laws, which have also been challenged in courts.
And Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed a similar law earlier this moth.
The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals said in the decision that Texas’ law did not violate the First Amendment, which protects religious freedom and prevents the government from establishing a religion.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, called the ruling “a major victory for Texas and our moral values.”
“The Ten Commandments have had a profound impact on our nation, and it’s important that students learn from them every single day,” Paxton said.
Andrew Mahaleris, spokesperson for Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, said the mandate from the state was a “commonsense law, consistent with our history and tradition.”
Organizations representing the families who challenged the law, including the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement that they were “extremely disappointed” by the decision.
“The court’s ruling goes against fundamental First Amendment principles and binding U.S. Supreme Court authority,” the statement said. “The First Amendment safeguards the separation of church and state, and the freedom of families to choose how, when and if to provide their children with religious instruction. This decision tramples those rights.”
The ruling reverses a district court’s judgment that had blocked school districts from displaying the commandments.
The decision says the law “does not tell churches or synagogues or mosques what to believe or how to worship or whom to employ as priests, rabbis, or imams.”
“No child is made to recite the Commandments, believe them, or affirm their divine origin,” the ruling goes on to say.
Texas’ law took effect on Sept. 1, marking the largest attempt in the nation to hang the Ten Commandments in public schools. About two dozen school districts had been barred from posting them after federal judges issued injunctions in lawsuits against the law. But the commandments went up in many classrooms across the state as the school year started.
Tuesday’s ruling comes after the appeals court heard arguments in January in the Texas case and a similar case in Louisiana. In February the appeals court lifted a block that had been placed on Louisiana’s law requiring the display of the Ten Commandments in classrooms.
In a post on social media after the ruling in the Texas case, Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said in a post on social media: “Our law clearly was always constitutional, and I am grateful that the Fifth Circuit has now definitively agreed with us.”
Arkansas has also enacted a similar law requiring the posting of the commandments, which a federal judge last month blocked in a lawsuit there.
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Associated Press writer Audrey McAvoy contributed to this report from Honolulu, Hawaii.
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.”