Black voters in south motivated to turn out by Republican push to redraw maps after supreme court ruling

A new analysis of Black voters in the south indicates that Republican attempts to dilute their political power is driving them to the polls in larger numbers and shifting their counties further left.

After the supreme court effectively gutted section 2 of the Voting Rights Act protections in late April, Republican legislatures across the south rapidly pushed to disenfranchise Black voters by redrawing congressional maps. Louisiana, Florida, Tennessee and Alabama all immediately worked to pass new maps, while the Mississippi governor has said that he wants legislators to redraw maps before the upcoming midterm elections.

The analysis by VoteHub, a data-focused election organization, indicates that the efforts have only motivated Black voters in the 78 Black belt counties it tracked. All but one shifted left in partisan turnout compared with 2024. Further, majority-Black counties that voted after Louisiana v Callais, the landmark supreme court decision that triggered the Republican-led redistricting efforts, had a surge in voter participation.

Exclusive: ministers and police chiefs examining how cases involving US military personnel on UK soil are handled after Guardian revelations

The UK government and police chiefs are reviewing the process through which US military personnel accused of committing serious crimes on UK soil are avoiding the British justice system.

The effort, involving multiple government departments, is examining why UK police forces, which have primary responsibility for investigating such cases, have been ceding jurisdiction to US military investigators.

Such decisions pave the way for alleged perpetrators to be tried in a US military court martial process, an alternative justice system in which victims are often not given the same protections as they would get in a British court.

Last Wednesday, Lux Claridge planned to speak out against a proposed 1,000 acre data center in their town of Emporia, Kansas. They left in handcuffs after a city commissioner ordered them arrested for clapping.

The Trump administration is ending a key health insurance subsidy program that aimed to keep premiums for seniors' prescription drug plans in check, claiming that it benefits corporate insurance companies, according to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz.

Medicare Part D -- the government health insurance program's prescription drug benefit -- is used by tens of millions of older or disabled beneficiaries.

The program's subsidies are set to expire at the end of the year, the administration announced Tuesday.

That move will likely result in higher prescription costs and increase premiums for about half of recipients, according to an administration official.

A blood supply shortage in the US has reached a "crisis" level, according to the American Red Cross, which says it is the second time in its 150-year history that levels have been this low.

Factors including wildfires and extreme heat have combined to create the current situation, Dr Courtney Lawrence, who works with the American Red Cross, told the BBC.

Supply levels dropped by a quarter just last month. The crisis has struck during summer, when the amount of blood needed by hospitals typically increases.

That is because of an increased number of car accidents and more people spending time outdoors, resulting in more injuries that require blood transfusions, Lawrence said.

Oil prices got back to jumping on Wednesday, while sinking technology stocks dragged Wall Street lower amid uncertainty about what the Federal Reserve will do to get high inflation under control.

The S&P 500 fell 1.5% after swinging sharply between gains and losses in the last hour of trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1,153 points, or 2.2%, and the Nasdaq composite slumped 1.7% to fall 9.8% below its record set last month.

The action was more decisive in the oil market, where the price of Brent crude leaped 7.3% to settle at $88.09 per barrel after fighting resumed in the war with Iran and raised worries about the global flow of oil.

First-in-nation law sets up test on states’ power to regulate use of AI as it tries to outlaw fake nude images of real people

Elon Musk’s company xAI has sued Minnesota over the state’s first-in-the-nation law banning “nudification” technology on websites and apps, potentially providing a test for how far states can go in constitutionally regulating the use of artificial intelligence.

Musk’s company sued on Monday in federal court, days before the law is set to take effect on Saturday and make Minnesota the first state to try to outlaw the increasingly proliferating technology that lets people use AI to create fake nude images of real people. The law was signed in May.

Rates remain unchanged for fifth time since December as tenuous Iran peace deal pushes energy prices up again

The US Federal Reserve held interest rates steady on Wednesday in a divided vote, indicating growing pressure on the central bank to address heightened inflation.

The Fed’s federal open market committee voted 9-3 to maintain rates, with three dissenting members indicating a preference to raise the rate by a quarter-percentage point. It was the first time in a decade that three board members shared dissent over a policy decision.

Cooler inflation data published earlier this month may have eased expectations for an imminent rate hike, but Kevin Warsh, the new Fed chair, said in a news conference that the committee was less interested in “any one piece of data” and was more focused on overall trends. The tenuous peace deal between the US and Iran has also sent energy prices creeping up again.

Donald Trump on Tuesday urged the Supreme Court to once again step into his messy legal brawl with magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll, appealing an $83.3 million jury verdict for defamation on the grounds that, as president, he is immune from the litigation.

The appeal, which has not yet been docketed at the high court, relies heavily on the court’s 2024 decision granting the president wide immunity for actions taken in office.

A federal appellate panel on Tuesday refused to block Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to restrict mail voting, a day after the administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on the proposal in a separate case.

The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld a May ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Carl J. Nichols that said an injunction against the order was premature. Nichols ruled that the Democrats and voting rights groups who challenged the order couldn’t seek the injunction until the Trump administration issued formal regulations governing it. The administration started releasing those directives days later.

The circuit court panel, with two judges appointed by former Democratic President Barack Obama and one by Trump, found that was proper and there were no noted dissents. But the unsigned decision noted that if the administration truly tried to force such changes in the few months remaining before November’s midterm election, it may well get halted by courts.

Granted, it is a few dozen bungled policies ago, but remember when we were blowing up fishing boats in the Caribbean as part of the administration’s Operation Dude Bro antidrug strategy? Well, the results are in, and they are sadly predictable. From The Washington Post:

In a recent assessment reviewed by The Washington Post, DEA analysts found the strikes had failed to affect the supply or price of cocaine in the United States and had led traffickers to diversify beyond go-fast boats and to avoid international waters, opting instead for larger boats and hemming close to coastlines, where U.S. forces are less likely to open fire. In a closed-door briefing last month, Pentagon officials told lawmakers the strikes in international waters off South and Central America had not reduced its purity.

Saudi Arabia has spent five months trying not to get dragged into a regional conflict, keeping open channels of communication with Tehran even as Iranian drones targeted its oil industry.

Now it appears hemmed in, facing enemies in three directions: Iran as well as its proxies in Iraq and Yemen.

In the last week, the kingdom has faced missile attacks from the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen, drone attacks from pro-Iranian militias in Iraq and renewed threats from Tehran.