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      Newsom says California will push to redraw maps in riposte to Texas plan

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      Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, said on Thursday state Democratic lawmakers would move forward with a redistricting plan to counter the Republican-led map-drawing effort in Texas aimed at securing a House majority after the midterm elections.As he spoke at the Japanese American National museum’s National Center for the Preservation of Democracy – a venue deliberately chosen for its symbolism – federal agents, armed and masked, fanned out across the complex, led by Gregory Bovino, head of the border patrol’s El Centro sector. Local news footage showed a man being led away in handcuffs.Newsom, joined by congressional Democrats and legislative leaders, unveiled a plan, known as the election rigging response act, that would override California’s independent redistricting commission and draw new congressional lines – a direct counter to a Texas effort, sought by Donald Trump, to push through mid-cycle maps that could hand Republicans five extra US House seats. The governor vowed the move would “neuter and neutralize” Texas’s proposal.“Today is liberation day in the state of California,” Newsom declared at a rally in Los Angeles, in which he formally called for a 4 November special election to approve a new congressional map. “We can’t stand back and watch this democracy disappear district by district all across the country.”After the rally, Newsom called the presence of border patrol agents “sick and pathetic” and accused Trump of ordering the operation to intimidate Democrats. “Wake up, America,” Newsom warned. “You will not have a country if he rigs this election.”Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass, a Democrat who was not attending the event, arrived on the scene to condemn the raid. In remarks to reporters, she argued that it was not “a coincidence” the raid took place steps from where Newsom was speaking.. “The White House just sent federal agents to try to intimidate elected officials at a press conference,” she said in a social media post. “The problem for them is Los Angeles doesn’t get scared and Los Angeles doesn’t back down. We never have and we never will”.”The Department of Homeland Security said Bass “must be misinformed”.“Our law enforcement operations are about enforcing the law – not about Gavin Newsom. CBP patrols all areas of Los Angeles every day with over 40 teams on the ground to make LA safe,” Tricia McLaughlin, DHS assistant secretary, said in a post on social media.The California map would only take effect if Texas – or any other Republican-led state – advanced a a partisan redistricting plan. Newsom said he preferred all states adopt independent commission, as California does, and had previously said in a letter to Trump that he would “happily” stand down if Texas abandoned its effort.Earlier on Thursday, a group of Texas Democrats, who had blocked a vote on the measure by fleeing the state, said they were prepared to end their two-week walkout when California releases its redrawn map proposal. Their return to the state legislature would allow Republicans to plow ahead. Accepting that reality, Newsom said California – with a population larger than the 21 smallest states combined – would not “unilaterally disarm”.“It’s not complicated,” he said. “We’re doing this in reaction to a president of the United States that called a sitting governor of the state of Texas and said, ‘Find me five seats.’”View image in fullscreenIn a recent interview, Trump claimed that Republicans were “entitled to five more seats” in Texas because he won the state overwhelmingly in the 2024 presidential election.The new map, Newsom said, would remain in place through the 2030 elections, after which mapmaking power would return to the independent redistricting commission, approved by voters more than a decade ago. The Democratic-led state legislature will introduce legislation on Monday, he added, expressing confidence the initiative would pass and ultimately prevail at the ballot box in November.California has 52 House seats – 43 held by Democrats – and several of the nation’s most competitive races, including a handful that helped Republicans claim the majority in 2024.How California voters will respond is uncertain: polls have found deep support for the state’s independent redistricting commission, suggesting Democrats will have to work quickly over the next three months to persuade voters to support their plan.Sara Sadhwani, a Democrat who served on California’s 2020 independent redistricting commission, said she wanted partisan gerrymandering banned nationwide. But in Los Angeles on Thursday, Sadhwani stood side by side with Newsom, lawmakers, labor leaders and advocates in support of tearing up the maps she helped draw. “Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures,” she said.Common Cause, a good government group that has long opposed partisan map-making, said in a statement this week that it would “not pre-emptively” oppose the effort by California to redraw its maps in response to partisan redistricting in Texas.“A blanket condemnation at this moment would be sitting on the sidelines in the face of authoritarianism,” the group stated.Eric Holder, a former attorney general and chair of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, said on Thursday that he backed “responsible and responsive” countermeasures to Trump’s “extreme and unjustified mid-decade gerrymanders in Texas and beyond”.“Our democracy is under attack,” he said. “We have no choice but to defend it.”Republicans have denounced the California proposal: “Gavin Newsom’s latest stunt has nothing to do with Californians and everything to do with consolidating radical Democrat power,” Christian Martinez, the National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson, said in a statement, accusing the governor of trampling the will of California voters to serve a “pathetic 2028 presidential pipe dream”.At the rally in Los Angeles, there was little sympathy for the nearly half-dozen California Republicans who could be out of job if the redistricting plan succeeds. Speaking before the governor, Jodi Hicks, the president and chief executive of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, had a message for the nine Republicans who backed legislation rolling back reproductive rights: “You take away our freedoms, we’ll take away your seats.”Texas’s pursuit of new maps has kicked off a redistricting “arms race” that has spread to state legislatures across the country. Leaders in Florida and Missouri – and in blue state like New York and Illinois – are weighing similar moves. “Other blue states need to stand up,” Newsom said.The campaign, with a freshly launched website, will be enormously costly and is expected to draw national attention and donors eager for a high-stakes, off-year political brawl. Former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican who championed independent redistricting, has already voiced opposition. Newsom said he had spoken to Schwarzenegger and shared his disdain for gerrymandering, but argued that this was about preserving American democracy.“It’s not good enough to just hold hands, have a candlelight vigil and talk about the way the world should be,” Newsom said. “We have got to recognize the cards that have been dealt. And we have got to meet fire with fire.” More

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      Texas Democrats say they are prepared to return to state after two-week absence

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      Texas Democrats said on Thursday they are prepared to return to the state under certain conditions, ending a nearly two-week-long effort to block Republicans from passing a new congressional map that would add five GOP seats.The lawmakers said they would return as long as the legislature ends its first special session on Friday, which Republicans have said they plan to do. Texas’s governor, Greg Abbott, has said he will immediately call another special session.The Democrats also said they would return once California introduces a new congressional map that would add five Democratic seats, offsetting the gains in Texas. California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, is expected to announce what he has teased as a “major” redistricting announcement on Thursday.Gene Wu, chair of the Texas house Democratic caucus, said in a statement that he and his colleagues “successfully mobilized the nation against Trump’s assault on minority voting rights”.“Facing threats of arrest, lawfare, financial penalties, harassment and bomb threats, we have stood firm in our fight against a proposed Jim Crow congressional district map,” he said. “Now, as Democrats across the nation join our fight to cause these maps to fail their political purpose, we’re prepared to bring this battle back to Texas under the right conditions and to take this fight to the courts.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe lawmakers said in a statement that returning to Texas would allow them to build a strong public and legislative record that could be used in legal challenges against the map. More

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      Newsom says California will draw new electoral maps after Trump ‘missed’ deadline

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      California governor Gavin Newsom says the state will draw new electoral maps after Donald Trump “missed” a deadline on Tuesday night in an ongoing redistricting battle between Democratic and Republican states.“DONALD ‘TACO’ TRUMP, AS MANY CALL HIM, ‘MISSED’ THE DEADLINE!!!”, Newsom’s office wrote on social media. “CALIFORNIA WILL NOW DRAW NEW, MORE ‘BEAUTIFUL MAPS,’ THEY WILL BE HISTORIC AS THEY WILL END THE TRUMP PRESIDENCY (DEMS TAKE BACK THE HOUSE!)”.“BIG PRESS CONFERENCE THIS WEEK WITH POWERFUL DEMS AND GAVIN NEWSOM — YOUR FAVORITE GOVERNOR — THAT WILL BE DEVASTATING FOR ‘MAGA.’ THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER! — GN,” reads the post.The post follows a series of snarky, all-caps tweets meant to mimic Trump’s social media writing style.Newsom was mocking Trump’s moniker, “Taco”, short for “Trump always chickens out”, prompted by his flip-flopping deadlines.Several states have waded into the redistricting wars, where Newsom and other Democratic state leaders had threatened to draw retaliatory maps if Texas were to move ahead with its redistricting scheme.Texas Democrats had left the state to stop Republicans from passing a new congressional map. The Texas senate passed the new congressional map on Tuesday, but it will not earn full approval from the legislature because of the quorum-break. Lawmakers are set to adjourn on Friday and Texas’s governor, Greg Abbott, has said he will immediately convene a new special session.In a letter sent to Trump on Monday, Newsom said he would prefer to leave the matter of congressional map-making to independent commissions, not partisan legislative bodies and emphasized that he would “happily” stand down if other states abandoned their redistricting effort. But, Newsom said: “California cannot stand idly by as this power grab unfolds.”Newsom’s office summarized the letter Monday in a mocking social media post to Trump: “DONALD TRUMP, IF YOU DO NOT STAND DOWN, WE WILL BE FORCED TO LEAD AN EFFORT TO REDRAW THE MAPS IN CA TO OFFSET THE RIGGING OF MAPS IN RED STATES. BUT IF THE OTHER STATES CALL OFF THEIR REDISTRICTING EFFORTS, WE WILL DO THE SAME. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!”At a press conference with several quorum-breaking Texas lawmakers, as well as California’s legislative leaders, Newsom outlined his plan to ask voters to override the existing congressional maps drawn by an independent commission and accept a new proposal to create five more Democratic-leaning seats. The governor expressed confidence that voters would approve the plan and said the state legislature would act in time to get the measure on the ballot this November.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump has defended the Texas plan, arguing that he is “entitled to five more seats” because he won the state’s popular vote in the 2024 presidential election. The argument, however, is flawed – a popular vote win does not necessarily mean a president’s party is awarded more congressional seats.Despite Newsom’s appeal, the White House is seeking to enlist other red states in the redistricting clash. Last week, vice-president JD Vance traveled to Indiana, where he met with state Republican leaders to lobby them on the effort. Republicans have also targeted Ohio and Missouri.Lauren Gambino contributed reporting More

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      Some Democrats want to use gerrymandering. That’s a bad idea | Carlo Invernizzi-Accetti

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      When Texas Republicans unveiled yet another contorted congressional map last week – one that would all but erase Austin’s Latino-led seat and increase the Republican party’s federal House tally by up to five seats in total – the outcry from Democrats was immediate and justified. But beyond the Democratic state legislators’ brave effort to stymie the proposal by boycotting the vote, a different refrain has also been heard by leading Democrats in other states: if they do it, why can’t we?Governor Gavin Newsom of California has vowed to “fight fire with fire”, advancing a proposal that would redraw California’s own congressional map to offset Republican gains in Texas. New York’s Kathy Hochul has also embraced the prospect of aggressive gerrymandering in Democratic-controlled states, sidestepping the independent commissions that Democrats themselves had once championed and successfully implemented in both California and New York.It is an understandable impulse, but it is the wrong one – for both strategic and principled reasons. To begin with, Democrats are destined to lose a gerrymandering arms race. They control fewer state legislatures and the very nature of electoral map engineering currently favors Republican power-grabbing, since most Democratic voters live in densely populated urban areas, which makes it easier to concentrate them in fewer electoral districts.A simulation conducted through 538’s Atlas of Redistricting in which every state is aggressively gerrymandered to maximize the House seats of the party in power at the state level results in a notional House of 262 Republicans and 173 Democrats: a 30-plus seat jump for the Republican party compared with a non-partisan map that maximizes for district compactness. Nor is this a far-fetched scenario. Rather than forcing the other side to back down, retaliation appears more likely to lead to further escalation, in this as in other domains of all-out binary conflict.When running for governor of Illinois in 2018, JB Pritzker had initially pledged to back an independent districting commission but subsequently signed one of the most brutal Democratic gerrymandering plans in the country, which has yielded just three Republican districts out of 17 in a state where Donald Trump won 43% of the votes in 2024. That precedent is now being pointed to by Texas Republicans to justify their own gerrymandering plan.But there is also a deeper reason why “fighting fire with fire” is a bad idea when the goal is to protect democracy from purported challenges to it: the “fire” in question amounts to a violation of one of democracy’s core values – ultimately, the principle of voting equality – and would therefore end up doing the work of democracy’s enemies for them.The metaphor of “fighting fire with fire” can in fact be traced back to the thought of the German émigré scholar to the United States, Karl Loewenstein, who in the 1930s recommended the use of self-consciously “anti-democratic means” – such as party bans and restrictions of voting rights – to fight fascism, in the name of what he called “militant democracy”.Far from achieving their intended goal, such measures were instrumental in the consolidation of the Nazi regime in Germany, given that Adolf Hitler was first nominated chancellor through an emergency presidential decree intended to forestall the prospect of a socialist takeover (construed as a greater threat for German democracy than nazism itself), and that the ban on other political parties Hitler quickly imposed was justified on the grounds that it was necessary to protect the German constitutional order in the aftermath of the Reichstag fire of 1934.Similarly perverse uses of the logic of “militant democracy” have since become a standard component of the authoritarian playbook – from Augusto Pinochet’s 1973 coup in Chile to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s 2016 counter-coup in Turkey, both of which undid democracy in their countries under the guise of protecting it against purported enemies.A fully gerrymandered congressional map in the United States would thus not just be bad for Democrats. It would also be terrible for American democracy since it would effectively disenfranchise local minorities across the country, yielding an overall competition between two mirroring forms of authoritarianism: Democratic or Republican one-party rule at the local level.If Democrats want to continue to portray themselves as the party of democracy against the Trump administration’s thinly veiled authoritarian ambitions, they should begin by practicing on own their turf the same principles of democratic civility and self-restraint they accuse their opponents of violating.Crucially, this doesn’t mean “doing nothing” in the face of Republican gerrymandering. The point is rather that (big and small “D”) Democrats should use democratic rather than authoritarian means to protect democracy against its enemies – which is to say, win elections by advancing more attractive policy platforms and mobilizing voters more effectively in support of them, rather than by changing the rules to their own benefit.That the Trump administration’s substantive policy decisions – from its inflationary trade wars to the fiscally regressive One Big Beautiful Bill Act – seem destined to do most harm its own electoral constituencies offers plenty of opportunity for fair-and-square political comeback. Ultimately, however, the Democrats’ chances of success in upcoming electoral cycles will depend on their capacity to present a more attractive political alternative to the current Republican party’s brand of populist authoritarianism.Instead of mirroring their opponents, Democrats should therefore seek to differentiate themselves from them, which at present can only mean: strict adherence to democratic norms and forthright advocacy of a more progressive policy platform. When a house is on fire, more fire won’t help. What is needed is water – which is to say, something different, that is at the same time an antidote against fire’s damaging effects.

      Carlo Invernizzi-Accetti is an associate professor of political science at the City University of New York, City College More

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      Texas redistricting fight with Democrats ‘could last years’, threatens Greg Abbott

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      Texas governor, Greg Abbott, has stepped up his war of words with Democratic lawmakers who have left the state to foil an aggressive redistricting plan aimed at giving his Republican party five additional seats in Congress, saying on Sunday that the fight “could literally last years”.Abbott issued his new threat on Fox News Sunday, saying that he would use his powers to call a special session of the Texas legislature to extend the battle indefinitely. The special session lasts 30 days, he said, “and as soon as this one is over, I’m going to call another one, then another one, then another one, then another one”.Whenever the absent Democrats return to Texas, Abbott said, they would be arrested for violating their oath of office. “If they want to evade that arrest, they’re going to stay outside Texas for literally years,” he remarked. “And they might as well start voting in California or Illinois, or wherever they may be.”Sunday’s TV political talk shows were dominated by the increasingly acrimonious dispute over Texas’s audacious gerrymandering plans which were instigated at the direct behest of Donald Trump.The move to flip five US House seats to the Republicans is being made as polls indicate that the US president’s party will struggle to hang on to its razor-slim majority in the chamber in next year’s midterm elections. The Republicans currently hold a margin of just three seats.The stakes could not be higher: were Trump able to hang onto his narrow control of Congress, he could cement the attacks on democratic and constitutional norms that he has begun in the first six months of his second presidency.As the crisis reaches a crunch, more than 50 Texas Democrats have left the state, heading to Democratically-controlled states, including Illinois and New York. The relocation is designed to deprive Republicans of a quorum needed to pass the new gerrymandered maps in the Texas legislature in Austin.Democratic governors went on the political shows on Sunday to launch their own barrage of words threatening counter-action. The strong language deployed was the latest indication that the leadership of the Democratic party, which has floundered in the face of Trump’s radical authoritarian-leaning tactics, is determined at this point to take a stand.New York’s Democratic governor Kathy Hochul accused Abbott on Fox News Sunday of being a “lap dog” for Trump. “Knock it off,” she told her counterpart in Texas. “Let’s get back to governing.”She added that if Texas continued with what she called “these games”, “we’re not going to sit on the sidelines – we’re New Yorkers. We fight back.”New York’s room for maneuver, however, is more limited than that of Texas. The state has an independent redistricting commission that oversees the drawing of its electoral maps which has been the subject in recent years of much court action.Hochul said that the restrictions would not hold New York back. “We amend constitutions – we did it a few years ago,” she said. “We can put it to the people. I’m not going to let our democracy be eroded away because there’s a blatant power grab in our nation’s capital.”JB Pritzker, the Democratic governor of Illinois where many of the Texas Democrats are holed up in an undisclosed hotel outside Chicago, unleashed his own verbal volley on NBC’s Meet the Press. He accused Trump of being a cheater, saying: “He cheats on his wives. He cheats at golf. And now he’s trying to cheat the American people out of their votes.”Pritzker was dismissive of claims by Texas US senator John Cornyn that the FBI had been brought in to help find the missing Democrats. “Texas law does not apply in the state of Illinois, and there’s no federal law that would allow the FBI to arrest anybody that’s here visiting our state,” Pritzker said. “So, it’s a lot of grandstanding.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAs the governors were thrashing it out in the TV studios, lawsuits continued to fly around Texas’s courts as both sides seek to gain the upper hand legally. Texas attorney general Ken Paxton is suing a sample group of 13 of the Democratic lawmakers claiming that the “runaways” have officially vacated their offices.Paxton is now asking the state’s supreme court to remove the 13 from their seats.Beto O’Rourke, the former Democratic presidential candidate from El Paso, Texas, has also waded into the fray. On Friday, a state court in Fort Worth blocked his political action committee, Powered By People, from using its funds to support the fleeing lawmakers.O’Rourke has counter-sued, arguing that Paxton was trying to “intimidate” a potential rival in next year’s US senate race. Speaking at an event in New Orleans on Friday, he accused the Republicans of being “would-be fascists” and warned that if they got away with their plan to maintain power in Congress in 2026 “the consolidation of authoritarian control in the hands of Donald Trump will be nearly unstoppable”.Trump’s ruse to create more winnable congressional seats is being taken so seriously in Democratic circles that it has gelled even die-hard opponents of party political gerrymandering to come out in favor of counter measures. Bernie Sanders, the independent US senator from Vermont, is a fierce critic of the redrawing of electoral maps for partisan benefit.Yet he told CNN’s State of the Union that the Democratic party had no option but to fight fire with fire, saying: “Democrats have got to fight back. I think it’s pathetic, but I think that’s what they’ve got to do.”Asked whether that his position was defensible, given his years of opposing gerrymandering, Sanders said: “What we have now is terrible, and Republicans are making it worse. Well, what do you do if Republicans are doing it? You have to respond. It’s pathetic, but I think you have to respond.” More

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      Texas house again fails to meet quorum as governor threatens to add more Republican seats to gerrymandered map – live

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      The Texas legislature failed to meet quorum for a third time today, after only 95 of the 100 representatives needed were present. Dozens of Democratic lawmakers defied Governor Greg Abbott’s demands to return, and remain out of state in protest over a new GOP-drawn congressional map.Speaker Dustin Burrows attempted to reconvene the house today and meet quorum after it failed earlier this week.The Texas Democratic party chairman has responded to the lawsuit filed by Ken Paxton, the state’s Republican attorney general, seeking to remove 13 Democratic lawmakers from office, saying in a statement:
      Texas Democrats are exercising a long-standing, constitutionally protected right of the minority party to block extreme agendas – in this case, gerrymandering to keep Trump in power. These lawmakers have taken significant risks and sacrifices to stop Trump’s agenda, and despite all the threats they face, they remain undeterred, just like the rest of us. If Ken Paxton wants a fight, we will give him one.”
      Paxton has sought to enforce arrest warrants against the Democratic lawmakers who left Texas to stop Republicans from gerrymandering the congressional map in a manner that would add five more GOP seats.Some more background on what happened at the Texas house today:Billy Long, who is stepping down as the Internal Revenue Service commissioner only two months after he was appointed, has said he will be serving as ambassador to Iceland.The New York Times reported earlier today that Trump had Long removed, and that Long had clashed with Scott Bessent, treasury secretary, who will now serve as acting commissioner.Long is a former congressman from Missouri and close ally to the president who previously pushed false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.The IRS has been run by six different people this year so far.Vladimir Putin has presented the Trump administration with a proposal for a ceasefire in Ukraine if Kyiv makes major territorial concessions, according to a new Wall Street Journal report that cites European and Ukrainian officials.The proposal would require Ukraine that hand over the Donbas in the east of the country, which has led European officials to express serious reservations, the Journal reported.“European and Ukrainian officials, who were briefed by President Trump and Witkoff in a series of calls this week, said they worry Putin is simply using the offer as a ploy to avoid punishing new US sanctions and tariffs while continuing the war,” the Journal reported.The report was published as Trump, in a briefing with the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan, suggested there would “be some swapping of territories” to end the Ukraine invasion. The president spent a significant portion of the event discussing Russia, suggesting he would have more to announce soon and that he and Putin would be meeting “very shortly”.Trump has said he will soon have an update on Russia and would be meeting with Putin “very shortly”. Today was the original deadline he had set to end the Ukraine invasion or bring new sanctions. At the event with the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan, the president made vague remarks about next steps, saying:
      President Putin I believe wants to see peace, and Zelenskyy wants to see peace. Now, President Zelenskyy has to get … everything he needs, because he’s going to have to get ready to sign something, and I think he is working hard to get that done.
      Asked if Zelenskyy would have to give up territory, the president responded: “You’re looking at territory that’s been fought over for three and a half years. A lot of Russians have died. A lot of Ukrainians have died. So we’re looking at that, but we’re actually looking to get some back and some swapping. It’s complicated.”Trump has said he would also soon announce details on the location of a meeting.The US president and the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan have officially signed the peace agreement, establishing a so-called “Trump route for international peace and prosperity”.The corridor for transit and trade will connect mainland Azerbaijan with the autonomous Nakhchivan region, and the AP reported that the Trump administration said it was the Armenians who suggested naming it after the US president.Both leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan heaped praise on Trump and suggested he should receive a Nobel peace prize, which Trump has expressed interest in winning.In the state dining room, Donald Trump is flanked by the president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, to his right, and the Armenian prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, on his left.Trump says that both nations agree to “stop all fighting forever”. But a key part of the agreement is that it establishes what will be now known as “the Trump route for international peace and prosperity”. This is a key transit corridor that will have US development rights.Trump adds that he thinks Aliyev and Pashinyan are “going to have a great relationship”.

      The Texas House failed to meet quorum for a third time today, after only 95 of the 100 representatives needed were present. Dozens of Democratic lawmakers continue to defy Governor Greg Abbott’s demands to return, and remain out of state in protest over a new GOP-drawn congressional map. The Democrats’ next stop on their tour to deny quorum is California. They’ll hold a press conference at 5pm ET today with Governor Gavin Newsom in Sacramento.

      Abbott has spent the last 24 hours ratcheting up and repeating threats against the absent Democrats. He vowed to “call special session, after special session, after special session with the same agenda items on there”, in an interview with NBC News.

      Meanwhile, the Trump administration wasted no time today. A few standout items are below.

      First, the DoJ has issued two grand jury subpoenas to the New York attorney general, Letitia James, also a longtime Trump adversary, according to various reports. One of the subpoenas is tied to a civil fraud case her office brought against Trump, and the other is reportedly tied to the attorney general’s investigation into NRA.

      The Trump administration is also demanding that UCLA pay the federal government $1bn over multiple instalments to settle claims of antisemitism. That’s according to a report from CNN. If the proposal is agreed to, it would mark the biggest settlement the government has received from a higher education institution.

      And then, according to new reporting by the New York Times, the president has secretly signed a directive to the Pentagon to begin using military force against certain Latin American drug cartels that the Trump administration considers terrorist organizations. In response Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, said her government had been informed of a coming order but that it had nothing to do with the US military operating on Mexican soil.

      Finally, for now at least, the Trump administration was handed a win when it comes to its ongoing showdown with the judiciary over the president’s immigration agenda. A federal appeals court overturned Judge James Boasberg’s ruling that found probable cause to hold Trump administration officials in contempt of court over their handling of the deportations of hundreds of Venezuelan migrants under the centuries-old Alien Enemies Act.
      The New York Times is reporting that Donald Trump is replacing the IRS commissioner, Billy Long, only two months after her was confirmed.Long is a former congressman from Missouri and a notable Trump ally – who pushed false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. According to the Times, Long is being primed for an ambassador nomination. It is unclear who lead the agency next, according to the Times.Long is the sixth person to run the IRS this year alone, there have been four acting commissioners since Danny Werfel’s resignation in January, following Trump’s inauguration.A senior administration official tells the Times that treasury secretary Scott Bessent will be named acting commissioner.We’ll be bringing you the latest as Donald Trump prepares to welcome the Armenian prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, followed by the president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev. They’re expected to sign a peace deal, which would be a landmark development in decades of tension and fighting. Pashinyan is due to arrive soon.The meeting will be certainly be an opportunity for the president to highlight his “peacemaker-in-chief” bona fides, but peace is more elusive in one of the hallmark international conflicts of Trump’s second term.Today is Trump’s original deadline for Russia to end its invasion of Ukraine, or face fresh sanctions. So far there’s been no update, but Trump has said he is ready to meet with Vladimir Putin despite the Russian leader’s refusal to sit-down with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The exact time and location remain undefined, but the UAE has been floated, given Putin’s refusal to talk in Kyiv.The Trump administration is demanding that the University of California, Los Angeles, pay the federal government $1bn over multiple installments to settle claims of antisemitism, according to a report from CNN.The settlement would also require UCLA to pay $172m to a fund for Jewish students and other individuals affected by alleged violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, per CNN. Title VII prohibits employment discrimination on the basis race, color, religion, sex and national origin.CNN notes that if the proposal is agreed to, it would mark the biggest settlement the government has received from a higher education institution. CNN has not yet received comment from the University of California system.According to CNN’s reporting, “the proposed agreement prohibits overnight demonstrations and calls on the school to revise its policies and procedures on protests. It also requires UCLA to discontinue race and ethnicity-based scholarships and provide the resolution monitor with admissions data.”Burrows is now speaking and says that he and attorney general Ken Paxton have tried to make the civil arrest warrants they have filed against Democratic lawmakers “enforceable beyond state lines”.Also, notably, Burrows is enacting a new policy that states that any member breaking quorum will no longer have their paycheck or per diem deposited electronically. While the Capitol is not withholding pay – as that violates the state’s constitution – they are now stipulating that their paychecks must now be picked up in person.Burrows said the statehouse will withhold a percentage of absent Democrats’ monthly expenses, and any administrative work that requires the House’s approval will need to be done in person.The Texas legislature failed to meet quorum for a third time today, after only 95 of the 100 representatives needed were present. Dozens of Democratic lawmakers defied Governor Greg Abbott’s demands to return, and remain out of state in protest over a new GOP-drawn congressional map.Speaker Dustin Burrows attempted to reconvene the house today and meet quorum after it failed earlier this week.In an interview with Ruthless Podcast, Texas’s governor, Greg Abbott, threatened to add “six, or seven or eight” new seats to the GOP-drawn congressional map that Democrats are already protesting by breaking quorum.The current proposal is a gerrymandered map that could secure Republicans five seats in Texas ahead of the 2026 midterms.When asked about how he sees this redistricting battle ending, Abbott was resolute: “One way or the other, they [Democrats] are coming back, and it’s going to end with these maps being passed.” More

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      Texas attorney general seeks to remove 13 absent Democrats from office

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      The Republican attorney general of Texas on Friday asked the state supreme court to vacate the seats of 13 Democratic legislators who have left for blue states, hours after their absence once again delayed a vote on a redrawn congressional map sought by Donald Trump.Republican leaders in Texas had set a Friday deadline for Democrats to return to the state capitol in Austin or face punishment, including arrest and possible removal from office. Dozens of Democrats left the state over the weekend to prevent a Republican redistricting effort, requested by the president, to redraw the Texas maps mid-cycle to secure a Republican House majority in the 2026 midterms.“These cowards deliberately sabotaged the constitutional process and violated the oath they swore to uphold,” the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, a far-right ally of the president, said in a statement that hinted he could target more lawmakers in future litigation. Paxton’s lawsuit is the latest escalation in a fast-evolving standoff between blue and red state leaders.It comes after the Texas house speaker, Dustin Burrows, moved to enforce arrest warrants in other states and as Greg Abbott, the Texas governor, warned in an interview with NBC News that he was prepared to “arrest Democrats who may be in Texas, may be elsewhere”.During the short house session on Friday, Burrows said state authorities were working to make civil arrest warrants against the Democrats enforceable outside Texas. He also announced that the legislature was withholding the Democrats’ direct deposit payments, requiring absent members to pick them up in person at the capitol in Austin.“Each one of you knows that eventually you will come back,” Burrows said, addressing the absent Democrats from the chamber floor. “But with each passing day, the political cost of your absence is rising, and it will be paid in full.”Also on Friday, Paxton announced that he was suing the Texas Democrat Beto O’Rourke for “unlawful fundraising activity” on behalf of the quorum-breaking state lawmakers. On X, O’Rourke said that his political group, Powered by People, had responded by suing Paxton in state court.Democrats have remained defiant, saying they would remain out of state for “as long as it takes” to stop Trump’s redistricting effort. But Abbott has said that they would have to stay away for years to be successful. The current special legislative session, called by the Texas governor, lasts until 19 August, but Abbott has vowed to call “special session after special session after special session”.“But I’ll tell you this also, Democrats act like they’re not going to come back as long as this is an issue,” Abbott said in the NBC News interview. “That means they’re not going to come back until like 2027 or 2028, because I’m going to call special session after special session after special session with the same agenda items on there.”In a separate interview, he said he might push for more than five seats.“What I’m thinking now is that if they don’t start showing up, I may start expanding,” he said. “We may make it six or seven or eight new seats we’re going to be adding on the Republican side.”Tensions have escalated dramatically since the Democrats left Texas and sought refuge in Democratic states. The Republican-led state house has approved civil arrest warrants for the absent lawmakers, and Abbott took the extraordinary step of filing a lawsuit with the state supreme court that seeks to remove Gene Wu, the house Democratic leader, from office.The court has asked Wu to respond by Friday to Abbott’s emergency petition to remove him from his Houston-area seat.On Thursday John Cornyn, the Texas senator, said the FBI had agreed to assist in locating the Democrats, but the FBI declined to comment and it is unclear what authority federal law enforcement would have, as they are not charged with federal crimes.“For those who have fled to Illinois or California, be reminded that the FBI’s assistance has reportedly been enlisted and their powers are not confined to a single state’s boundaries,” Burrows said on Friday.One Democratic member of the Texas state house, Claudia Ordaz, said in a statement that state troopers had showed up at a relative’s home looking for her, even though she had stated publicly that she was dealing with a “personal health matter”. In the statement Ordaz said she was sharing from a hospital waiting room, the lawmaker denounced the officers’ visit as an “deliberate abuse of power and an intimidation tactic” while also criticizing those she said had “falsely accused” her of being present in the chamber to help Republicans make a quorum.Earlier on Friday, the St Charles police department confirmed that the Illinois hotel where some of the quorum-breaking Democrats are believed to be staying had experienced a second bomb threat. It comes days after an initial bomb threat at the Q Center Hotel, in suburban Chicago.Several Texas Democrats were in Sacramento on Friday to meet with the California governor, Gavin Newsom, who has threatened to respond in kind with a new congressional map that would offset the seats Republicans stand to gain in Texas if the president’s push is successful. More

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      Democrats respond to FBI agreement to locate Texas lawmakers: ‘We will not be intimidated’ – live updates

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      Democrats have responded to the news earlier that the FBI has agreed to assist local law enforcement to track down Democratic lawmakers who left the state to break quorum in protest of the state’s GOP-drawn congressional map.It comes after Republican Senator John Cornyn’s statement earlier, praising FBI director Kash Patel for his support.Hakeem Jeffries lambasted the move in a post on X.“The Trump administration continues to weaponize law enforcement to target political adversaries,” the House minority leader wrote. “We will not be intimidated.”Meanwhile, Illinois governor JB Pritzker underscored on a podcast on Wednesday that Texas lawmakers hadn’t broken any laws. He also said that any arrests by FBI agents would be “unwelcome” in his state.“They’re grandstanding, there’s literally no federal law applicable to this situation,” he added.The US Air Force said it would deny all transgender service members who have served between 15 and 18 years the option to retire early and would instead separate them without retirement benefits, the AP reports.One Air Force sergeant said he was “betrayed and devastated” by the move.The move means that transgender service members will now be faced with the choice of either taking a lump-sum separation payment offered to junior troops or be removed from the service.An Air Force spokesperson told the AP that “although service members with 15 to 18 years of honorable service were permitted to apply for an exception to policy, none of the exceptions to policy were approved.”About a dozen service members had been “prematurely notified” that they would be able to retire before that decision was reversed, according to the spokesperson who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal Air Force policy.A memo issued Monday announcing the new policy said that the choice to deny retirement benefits was made “after careful consideration of the individual applications.”Earlier, we reported that two senior FBI officials involved in a number of FBI investigations related to the president were fired. Now, senior politics reporter Chris Stein brings us more details:The Trump administration is forcing out a senior FBI official who resisted demands made earlier this year for the names of agents who investigated the January 6 insurrection, two people familiar with the matter said on Thursday.Brian Driscoll briefly served as acting FBI director in the first weeks of Donald Trump’s new term, and his final day at the bureau is Friday, the people told the Associated Press on condition of anonymity, as they were not authorized to discuss the move. Further ousters were possible.The FBI declined to comment to the Guardian.The New York Times further reported that the FBI was forcing out Walter Giardina, a special agent who worked on cases involving Trump as well as Peter Navarro, a top trade adviser to the president who was convicted of contempt of Congress.The ousters were the latest under the FBI director, Kash Patel, and his deputy, Dan Bongino, who had repeatedly alleged that the bureau had become politicized under Joe Biden. Numerous senior officials, including top agents in charge of big-city field offices, have been pushed out of their jobs, and some agents have been subjected to polygraph exams, moves that former officials say have roiled the workforce and contributed to angst.Here’s the full story:Donald Trump’s administration turned to the US supreme court in an effort to defend its aggressive immigration raids after a federal judge in Los Angeles blocked agents from profiling individuals based on race or language in pursuit of deportation targets.The justice department asked the supreme court in an emergency filing to lift the judge’s order temporarily barring agents from stopping or detaining people without “reasonable suspicion” that they are in the country illegally, by relying solely on their race or ethnicity, or if they speak Spanish or English with an accent.The move comes after a federal judge last month ordered the Trump administration to halt indiscriminate immigration stops and arrests in seven California counties, including Los Angeles.Donald Trump said Thursday that he would meet with Vladimir Putin even if the Russian president won’t meet with Volodymyr Zelenskyy.Trump, when asked by a reporter whether Putin would need to meet with the Ukrainian president to secure a meeting with the US, said: “No, he doesn’t. No.”His comments followed Putin’s remarks earlier in the day that he hoped to meet with Trump next week, possibly in the United Arab Emirates. But the White House was still working through the details of any potential meetings, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.Donald Trump announced he will nominate the Council of Economic Advisers chair Stephen Miran to serve as a Federal Reserve governor.Miran would fill the position opened by Fed governor Adriana Kugler’s surprise resignation last week, as she returns to her tenured professorship at Georgetown University.The term expires on 31 January 2026 and is subject to approval by the Senate.Trump said the White House continues to search for someone to serve in the 14-year Fed Board seat that opens 1 February.Miran has advocated for a far-reaching overhaul of Fed governance that would include shortening board member terms, putting them under the clear control of the president and ending the “revolving door” between the executive branch and the Fed.Trump has unsuccessfully pushed the Fed to cut rates. Miran, if confirmed by the Senate, would have one of 12 votes on monetary policy at the Fed, which voted 9-2 last month to keep rates steady.Donald Trump and Stephen Moore, a fellow at the rightwing thinktank the Heritage Foundation, held an event at the White House on Thursday to show reporters “new numbers” that allege the Bureau of Labor Statistics overstated job creation during the first two years of the Biden administration.“I don’t think it’s an error,” Trump said during today’s event. “I think they did it purposely.”Moore said the data comes from “unpublished Census Bureau data”, and will supposedly be released sometime in the next six months.Moore is Trump’s former economic advisor and co-wrote the book Trumponomics: Inside the America First Plan to Revive Our Economy”, which praised the president’s economic plans. In 2019, Trump nominated Moore for a seat on the Federal Reserve board, but he withdrew amid scrutiny for his history of sexist comments and other scandals.Colleges and universities will be forced to disclose more student admissions data to prove that they are not implementing affirmative action policies, according to a directive sent by the White House on Thursday.The move comes as the Trump administration seeks to crack down on the use of race in the higher education application process. Ivy League universities, like Brown University, have reached settlements that require them to release information about applicants’ race.Colleges have been barred from considering race in admissions since 2023, when the supreme court overturned decades of precedent that allowed limited use of race as a factor. Trump’s directive would increase oversight of schools’ admissions processes.“Although the Supreme Court of the United States has definitively held that consideration of race in higher education admissions violates students’ civil rights,” the directive reads, “the persistent lack of available data – paired with the rampant use of ‘diversity statements’ and other overt and hidden racial proxies – continues to raise concerns about whether race is actually used in practice.”The directive was confirmed earlier today by White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.

      The president’s higher tariffs hit major US trading partners today. Trump and members of his cabinet declared it an economic victory, with commerce secretary Howard Lutnick estimating that the tariffs will lead to “$50bn a month” in revenue for the USand treasury secretary Scott Bessent saying a “manufacturing renaissance” was on the horizon in an interview with MSNBC. Countries feeling the hit, however, are now scrambling to respond.

      Republican senator John Cornyn of Texas said today that the FBI had approved his request for the agency to help locate and arrest Democratic state lawmakers, who left the state last week to break quorum in protest over a GOP-drawn congressional map. “We cannot allow these rogue legislators to avoid their constitutional responsibilities,” Cornyn said in a statement.

      In response, undeterred Democrats have fired back. “The Trump administration continues to weaponize law enforcement to target political adversaries,” House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries wrote on X. “We will not be intimidated.”

      Meanwhile, on Truth Social, Donald Trump announced today that he’s ordered the commerce department to conduct a new census that would exclude undocumented immigrants from the official count. “People who are in our country illegally will not be counted,” the president said. It’s important to note that the US census has historically counted all residents regardless of citizenship or immigration status, as required by the 14th amendment’s “whole number of persons” provision.

      And in Florida, the administration’s immigration agenda hit a snag as a federal judge in Miami ordered a temporary halt to the construction of the detention centre being built in the Everglades, known as “Alligator Alcatraz”. While the injunction says the facility can continue to operate and hold detainees, any further construction must stop while environmental threats to the wetlands are assessed.
      More than 60 countries around the world are scrambling to respond to the latest wave of US tariffs announced by Donald Trump, which came into force on Thursday.The Brazilian government said it was planning a state aid plan for companies affected. The president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, said the duties were “unacceptable blackmail”.Switzerland said it was seeking new talks with the US after a last-gasp mission to Washington by its president, Karin Keller-Sutter, failed to stop a 39% tariff blow that industry group Swissmem described as a “horror scenario”.In a statement after an emergency meeting with Keller-Sutter, the Swiss cabinet said the tariffs would “place a substantial strain on Switzerland’s export-oriented economy”.“For the affected sectors, companies and their employees, this is an extraordinarily difficult situation,” Keller-Sutter told reporters.Despite a last-minute reprieve from Trump for Lesotho with tariffs dropping from 50% to 15%, the impoverished African nation said it was already hurting.Textile industry players in the country – which produces jeans and other garments for US companies including Levi and Walmart – said the uncertainty around tariffs over the past few months had already devastated the sector, with orders cancelled and jobs cut.Read more here:A federal judge in Miami has ordered a temporary halt to the construction of the detention centre being built in the Florida everglades known as ‘Alligator Alcatraz’.The temporary injunction, which lasts for 14 days, states that the facility can continue to operate and hold detainees, but any further construction must stop while any environmental threats to the wetlands are assessed.The plaintiffs – which comprise environmental groups and Florida’s Miccosukee Tribe – argue that the detention center’s construction ultimately violates the National Environmental Policy Act.The federal judiciary said on Thursday that it would be taking “additional steps” to strengthen protections for sensitive case documents after “recent escalated cyber-attacks” on its case management system.Politico first reported the news of a hack that hit the federal courts’ filing system.“Enhancing the security of its systems is a top priority for the Judiciary,” the Federal Courts system wrote in a statement. They didn’t offer any immediate information about who was behind the cyber-attacks.My colleagues are reporting on the latest developments following Benjamin Netanyahu’s remarks that he intends to take military control of all of Gaza, before eventually handing it over to Arab forces that will govern it properly.The Israeli prime minister’s statement comes after special envoy Steve Witkoff visited the region last week to assess the ongoing humanitarian crisis, increase the flow of US aid to Gaza.You can follow along here:Democrats have responded to the news earlier that the FBI has agreed to assist local law enforcement to track down Democratic lawmakers who left the state to break quorum in protest of the state’s GOP-drawn congressional map.It comes after Republican Senator John Cornyn’s statement earlier, praising FBI director Kash Patel for his support.Hakeem Jeffries lambasted the move in a post on X.“The Trump administration continues to weaponize law enforcement to target political adversaries,” the House minority leader wrote. “We will not be intimidated.”Meanwhile, Illinois governor JB Pritzker underscored on a podcast on Wednesday that Texas lawmakers hadn’t broken any laws. He also said that any arrests by FBI agents would be “unwelcome” in his state.“They’re grandstanding, there’s literally no federal law applicable to this situation,” he added. More