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Republican-run states across the South are rushing to redraw their congressional districts and blunt the voting power of their Black residents after the Supreme Court’s ruling gutting the Voting Rights Act Wednesday in Louisiana v. Callais. The court voted 6–3 to throw out Louisiana’s congressional map and get rid of its only Democratic (and majority-Black) district. One day after the ruling, the state’s Republican governor, Jeff Landry, announced in a joint statement with Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill that the May 16 primary elections would be suspended to get a newly redrawn map in place.“The State is currently enjoined from carrying out congressional elections under the current map,” Landry and Murrill said in their statement. “We are working together with the Legislature and the Secretary of State’s office to develop a path forward.”Meanwhile, hours after the court decision, Florida passed a new congressional map redrawn by Republican Governor Ron DeSantis in the hopes of giving Republicans four more seats in Congress.Mississippi Republican Governor Tate Reeves announced Wednesday that he would call the state legislature for a special session on congressional redistricting, which had been paused in anticipation of the court’s ruling. He celebrated the decision in a post on X, taking a shot at reproductive rights at the same time.“First Dobbs. Now Callais,” Reeves posted. “Just Mississippi and Louisiana down here saving our country!”Alabama’s Republican attorney general, Steve Marshall, said after the ruling that his state “will act as quickly as possible to apply this ruling to Alabama’s redistricting efforts,” taking aim at Alabama’s two Democratic (and majority-Black) districts.Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, who is running for governor, posted a proposed congressional map of the state on X, colored entirely red and eliminating the state’s lone Democratic and majority-Black district.“I urge our state legislature to reconvene to redistrict another Republican seat in Memphis,” Blackburn posted. “It’s essential to cement @realDonaldTrump’s agenda and the Golden Age of America.”In South Carolina, Republican legislators are openly discussing the possibility of redrawing their districts, welcoming the court’s decision.“I was happy to see it. Uh, you know, I, I have, um, I’ve long advocated that we need to treat people equally, not based on the color of their skin, melanin content, anything like that, and, and people don’t vote based on their skin color, so that’s. That’s been my position,” Republican state Representative Jordan Pace, who had previously submitted a redrawn map of the state’s 6th congressional district in anticipation of the Supreme Court ruling, told local TV station WLTX.Hastily redrawn congressional maps will certainly face legal challenges, but the Supreme Court has now set a new precedent by striking down the 60-year-old Voting Rights Act. With the midterm elections just over six months away, courts will also be reluctant to rule on election law. If any of these new maps are in place by November, Donald Trump and the GOP may not lose the House of Representatives.This story has been updated.

President Donald Trump’s outrageous claim that former FBI Director James Comey tried to put a mob-style hit out on him with a photograph of seashells is already falling apart. Trump has claimed that “86” is a “mob term” for ordering a hit on someone, meaning that when Comey posted a picture of seashells arranged on the beach in North Carolina to read, “86 47,” he was calling to “86,” or kill, the forty-seventh president.Speaking on CNN’s The Source Wednesday, Elie Honig, a former federal prosecutor, challenged Trump’s claim, arguing that mobsters just don’t talk like that. “There was a point in my life where I spent the better part of my waking hours either talking face-to-face with real-world mobsters, or listening to them talk to each other over wiretaps, body wires, or bugs,” Honig said. “I dealt with all five families: Gambino, Genovese, Bonanno, Lucchese, and Colombo. I dealt with bosses, underbosses, consigliere, capos, soldiers, associates, all the way down the line.”“Never, ever. Not once did I hear any real-world gangster use the term ‘86’ to refer to a murder or anything, and God knows these guys had colorful lingo, but never that phrase,” Honig said. “I don’t know where the president’s getting this from. He said from some movie. They don’t use that term in The Godfather, The Sopranos, or Goodfellas. Maybe some old-timey movie, but that’s not reality.”Honig also pointed out that when CNN’s Kaitlan Collins had pressed Trump earlier Wednesday on whether he really felt his life was in danger, the president had replied: “Probably, I don’t know.”“Right there, that’s an acquittal,” Honig said. “Because prosecutors have to believe beyond a reasonable doubt that the victim believed that his life was in jeopardy.”The brief indictment against Comey, listing charges that include making a threat against the president and transmitting it in interstate commerce, does not include this mobster argument. Rather, it claims that “86” was a symbol that a “reasonable recipient who is familiar with the circumstances would interpret as a serious expression of an intent to do harm to President Trump.” But clearly there is nothing reasonable about Trump’s Mafia fiction—least of all any actual danger.

“What if changing the world looked more like care than like war,” asks writer Rebecca Solnit.

Maine Governor Janet Mills withdrew her campaign to represent the state in the U.S. Senate on Thursday.Mills was the establishment Democratic favorite to replace Senator Susan Collins, a Republican who has held the seat since 1997. But she severely lagged in the polls behind progressive candidate Graham Platner.In a statement released Thursday, Mills explained that her exit from the race boiled down to basic resources, specifying that she lacked the campaign funds to continue campaigning.“While I have the drive and passion, commitment and experience, and above all else—the fight—to continue on, I very simply do not have the one thing that political campaigns unfortunately require today: the financial resources,” Mills said. “That is why today I have made the incredibly difficult decision to suspend my campaign for the United States Senate.”Mills’s late entrance into the race last year hampered her fundraising abilities, and raised questions about her hunger to represent Maine in Washington. Within the first three months of 2026, Mills had raised just $2.7 million, a paltry sum for an establishment favorite expected to have the party’s wealth behind her. Mills’s fundraising efforts were eclipsed by Platner’s campaign, which raised $4.6 million in the same period.Her withdrawal is a stunning loss for the national Democratic Party, not only as a sign of her waning popularity within the state, but also for the waning popularity of the national establishment that endorsed her. For nearly two decades, New York Senator Chuck Schumer has selected the party’s Senate candidates with little opposition. That is no longer the case. Schumer’s political apparatus also faces contention in the midwest, where his preferred Senate candidates are facing tough primary competition in Iowa, Michigan, and Minnesota.The race to contest Maine’s Senate seat has also sparked a debate on age, challenging ideas about which generation of candidates should be representing the breadth of America. Platner, a Marine and Army veteran-turned-oyster farmer, is 41 years old. Mills, who has represented the Pine Tree State since the 1980s, is 78.This story has been updated.

Three women sat for an exam administered by Israel’s Rabbinate, the latest sign of growing recognition for women’s religious leadership within Orthodox Judaism.