Key Highlights
- The supreme court’s three liberal justices dissented.“The district court improperly inserted itself into an active primary campaign, causing much confusion and upsetting the delicate federal-state balance in elections,” the supreme court said in an order explaining its decision. The ruling comes amid a nationwide battle over the redrawing of electoral maps.
- Texas is a key piece in Trump’s effort to transform the US House map to secure Republicans’ fragile House majority for the second half of his presidential term.
- Democrats need to flip only a handful of congressional seats to win the House gavel, and the opposition party has historically gained ground during the midterm elections, particularly if the president’s approval ratings are low, as Trump’s are. US supreme court approves redrawn Texas congressional mapsThe lower district court had previously found that Texas had likely sorted voters based on their race – an unlawful practice called racial gerrymandering – when it adopted the new maps, and ordered the state to use the maps it had adopted after the 2020 census for next year’s election. In a sharply worded dissent, Justice Elena Kagan objected to the decision by the supreme court’s majority, arguing that it disrespected the work of the lower court, whose ruling actually was authored by a judge appointed by Trump. Read the full storyPentagon announces it has killed four people in another boat strikeThe Pentagon announced on Thursday that the US military’s southern command had conducted another deadly strike on a boat suspected of carrying illegal narcotics, killing four men in the eastern Pacific. The latest operation comes as the Pentagon and the White House have struggled to answer questions about the legality of the campaign to kill suspected drug smugglers with military strikes. Read the full storyTrump replaces architect overseeing $300m gilded ballroom projectAccording to the Washington Post, which first reported the news on Thursday and cited three people familiar with the matter, architect James McCrery II and his boutique firm had been leading the project for more than three months, up until late October. It is unclear whether McCrery chose to step aside voluntarily.
- However, one source noted that he and Trump parted on good terms. Read the full storyGrand jury declines to re-indict Letitia JamesA grand jury declined to indict Letitia James on Thursday, according to a source familiar with the decision, which came less than two weeks after a judge ruled a similar mortgage fraud case brought by federal prosecutors against the New York attorney general was unlawful. Read the full storyArrest made in attempted pipe bombing in lead-up to Capitol riotUS authorities have made an arrest in connection with pipe bombs that were planted outside the headquarters of both the Democratic and Republican parties in Washington DC on the eve of 6 January 2021, according to reports on Thursday morning. Read the full storyAppeals court allows Trump’s national guard deployment in DC to continueIn a written order,.
