The California legislature on Thursday approved a redrawn congressional redistricting map that could cut five Republican-held US House seats. The move comes after Texas approved its own new redistricting efforts that would give Republicans an upper hand in the 2026 midterm elections. President Donald Trump urged Texas to redraw its state congressional maps in the [...]
Citing violations of federal environmental law, a federal judge on Thursday issued a preliminary injunction blocking further expansion of Alligator Alcatraz, a controversial immigration detention facility in Florida’s Big Cypress National Preserve. US District Judge Kathleen Williams ruled that state and federal defendants failed to conduct required environmental assessments before constructing the camp within the [...]
Manhattan District Attorney (DA) Alvin Bragg on Thursday announced a series of conspiracy and bribery charges against Ingrid Lewis-Martin, the former chief advisor to New York City Mayor Eric Adams. The charges allege systematic corruption spanning a period of nearly three years. Four separate indictments charge Lewis-Martin with conspiracy in the fourth degree and bribery [...]
A divided New York state appeals court on Thursday unanimously struck down a nearly half-billion-dollar financial penalty against US President Donald Trump as unconstitutionally excessive, while issuing a fractured ruling on the underlying fraud allegations that produced no clear majority. The five-justice panel of the Appellate Division’s First Judicial Department vacated the entire $464.6 million [...]
Amnesty International on Thursday condemned US authorities’ usage of Palantir and Babel Street Artificial Intelligence-powered surveillance tools to monitor immigrants and conduct indiscriminate targeting of non-citizens at pro-Palestinian protests occurring throughout the country. Upon reviewing documentation acquired from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) public records and previously disclosed procurement and privacy assessment documents, Amnesty [...]
US immigration officers must now weigh applicants’ support for “anti-American ideologies and activities” when deciding whether to grant certain immigration benefits, under new policy guidance released Tuesday by US Citizenship and Immigration Services. The updated policy, effective immediately, instructs officers to assign “overwhelmingly negative” weight to cases where applicants have “endorsed, promoted, supported, or otherwise [...]
Nebraska Governor Jim Pillen on Tuesday announced the opening of a new immigration detention center in the southwest corner of the state. National Guard Major General Craig Strong called the move a step in supporting “the president’s initiatives for homeland security.” The present McCook Work Camp will be transformed from a minimum-security facility, and its [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on Monday blocked a lower court’s decision to uphold a ban on drag shows at West Texas A&M University. The appeals court stated that the plaintiffs had shown sufficient evidence that there would be harm to their First Amendment rights as a result of the ban, [...]
US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard announced Monday on X (formerly Twitter) that the UK has agreed to drop its mandate that Apple provide a “back door” to access encrypted data from American users. The controversial Technical Capability Notice (TCN) was issued to Apple in January under Section 253 of the UK’s 2016 Investigatory [...]
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced on Monday that his office has launched an investigation into Meta Platforms Inc. and Character.AI, probing whether their AI-chatbot services have misled children into believing they were receiving legitimate mental health support. The charge has raised concerns under Texas consumer protection laws over false therapeutic representations, privacy, and data [...]
