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Texas Home reconvenes, able to move GOP-drawn map
The Texas home is beginning up for legislative enterprise once more. The Republican majority is poised to move the brand new congressional map that may give the GOP 5 extra home seats in 2026.
Proper now, state consultant Gina Hinojosa, a Democrat, is making a parliamentary inquiry with the Republican home speaker Dustin Burrows – asking why the decrease chamber just isn’t main the particular session with laws targeted on aid for victims of the devastating July floods in Texas.
Key occasions
In different information throughout Texas, a federal decide has blocked a state regulation that requires all public elementary and secondary colleges to show the Ten Commandments in each classroom.
District court docket decide Fred Biery mentioned that the regulation violated the primary modification protections which separate church and state.
“Public colleges will not be Sunday colleges,” mentioned Heather L. Weaver, senior counsel for the ACLU’s Program on Freedom of Faith and Perception. “At the moment’s choice ensures that our purchasers’ colleges will stay areas the place all college students, no matter their religion, really feel welcomed and might be taught with out worrying that they don’t stay as much as the state’s most popular spiritual beliefs.”
In June, a bunch of fogeys sued the Texas Training Company and sure faculty districts, saying the Texas regulation compelled spiritual mandates on public colleges.
We’re getting a bit extra from Union Station in DC. JD Vance, protection secretary Pete Hegseth, and White Home deputy chief of employees Stephen Miller are at present assembly with nationwide guardsmen and ladies on the station.
The vice chairman instructed the press pool that he would converse to them afterwards.
The White Home press pool says that vice chairman JD Vance is now at Washington DC’s Union Station. We’ll convey you any traces as they arrive via.
Callum Jones
Donald Trump has referred to as on a Federal Reserve governor to instantly resign, renewing his extraordinary assault on the central financial institution’s independence as officers mull subsequent steps on rates of interest.
An in depth Trump ally accused Lisa Prepare dinner, an appointee of Joe Biden, of “doubtlessly committing mortgage fraud” and urged the US Division of Justice to analyze. The claims haven’t been confirmed.
The US president has repeatedly damaged with precedent in latest months to demand the Fed lower charges and urge its chair, Jerome Powell, to stop after disregarding such calls.
On Wednesday, Trump leaped on the allegations about Prepare dinner. The governor “should resign, now!!!” he wrote on Reality Social, his social media platform.
Prepare dinner and the Fed didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Prepare dinner, whose present time period on the Fed’s board extends till 2038, beforehand served on the council of financial advisers beneath Barack Obama. When she took workplace in Might 2022, she turned the primary Black girl to sit down on the central financial institution’s board.
Exterior the home chamber, there’s a small protest taking place within the Texas capitol rotunda, based on a video posted by Alejandro Serrano, a reporter on the Texas Tribune. Demonstrators are holding up banners which learn “put Texans first” and “finish gerrymandering, save democracy”.
Occurring now: Protest within the Texas Capitol rotunda. Their chants will be heard — albeit faintly — contained in the Home, the place reps are scheduled to vote on proposed congressional redistricting. #txlege pic.twitter.com/Hl3f6bvzWh
— Alejandro Serrano (@serrano_alej) August 20, 2025
Dharna Noor
Environmental and well being advocates are dressing down Environmental Safety Company (EPA) officers this week over a proposed repeal of a landmark scientific discovering.
Late final month, the EPA introduced their intention to roll again the 16-year-old “endangerment discovering” – which kinds the authorized foundation of nearly all US local weather laws – together with a greenhouse gasoline rule for auto autos.
On the company’s digital public hearings on the proposals this week tons of of advocates are critiquing the plan.
“EPA just isn’t offering sufficient time or house for individuals and communities to adequately reply to those two proposals,” Mariela Ruacho, a supervisor on the American Lung Affiliation, testified on Wednesday. “These are drastic departures from the norm, and may really be in two separate hearings versus rolling again a number of insurance policies directly.”
Jaime Butler, communications affiliate at Younger Evangelicals for Local weather Motion, mentioned she believes there’s a “ethical and biblical mandate to defend all human life from dangerous local weather warming air pollution from energy vegetation, autos and different sources.”
Earlier this month, she famous, she noticed historic floods overwhelm her hometown of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. “We can not afford to be making selections that may proceed to extend the frequency and depth of flooding or different excessive climate occasions like this,” she mentioned.
EPA livestreamed hearings for the proposals started on Tuesday this week, and can proceed via Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Officers will even settle for written feedback on the plans via 22 September.
The Division of Vitality can also be taking remark via 2 September on a report it produced in protection of the endangerment discovering rollback, which seeks to undermine the scientific consensus on the local weather disaster.
Texas Home reconvenes, able to move GOP-drawn map
The Texas home is beginning up for legislative enterprise once more. The Republican majority is poised to move the brand new congressional map that may give the GOP 5 extra home seats in 2026.
Proper now, state consultant Gina Hinojosa, a Democrat, is making a parliamentary inquiry with the Republican home speaker Dustin Burrows – asking why the decrease chamber just isn’t main the particular session with laws targeted on aid for victims of the devastating July floods in Texas.
Texas Democrat will power vote to launch Epstein recordsdata forward of GOP congressional map taking impact
At the moment, because the Texas home is ready to advance a GOP-drawn congressional map, the minority chief Gene Wu is ready to introduce an modification that may require the discharge of the Epstein recordsdata earlier than the map goes into impact. In an try and power Republicans’ hand Wu mentioned the vote “forces Republicans to decide on between their loyalty to Trump and their obligation to reveal sexual predators.”
He added:
Everyone knows Trump is desperately afraid of what’s in these paperwork, and now we’ll see if Texas Republicans are keen to demand transparency or in the event that they’ll proceed the coverup.”
The legislature is ready to reconvene at round 11am ET, and we’ll convey you the most recent because it occurs.
Trump administration says 66 arrests made on Tuesday
Legal professional normal Pam Bondi mentioned that federal regulation enforcement made 66 arrests on Tuesday 19 August. Bondi added that brokers seized eight unlawful firearms.
Army car crashes into automobile in DC – report
We’re getting extra details about a army car that has crashed right into a automobile within the Capitol Hill space of DC.
The town’s native CBS station first reported on the incident, and cited affirmation from the DC fireplace and emergency companies. On social media, the division mentioned that one particular person was extricated and transported with “minor accidents”. A Reddit consumer posted a video of the collision’s aftermath – displaying a Humvee-style car and a shattered silver SUV.
The DC fireplace division hasn’t responded but to the Guardian’s request for remark and additional particulars on the crash.
This comes as six Republican-led states have all pledged to ship at the very least 1,200 Nationwide Guard troops to DC, to help the president’s crackdown on “bloodshed, bedlam, and squalor” within the nation’s capital, regardless of a falling crime charge.
Katie Thornton
In Sand Level, Alaska, the radio dial is usually empty. For a business broadcaster, operating a station on this Aleutian Island fishing city of about 600 individuals simply just isn’t value the price of doing enterprise.
However KSDP, the native public radio station for Sand Level, is a group anchor, bringing listeners music, emergency alerts, stay coloration commentary of highschool sports activities, state and native information. With out a newspaper particularly serving the city, the station is residents’ useful resource for all issues native.
On 1 August, for instance, KSDP hosted an interview with native fish biologist Matthew Keyes. Asking the questions was Austin Roof, normal supervisor of the station. Over fuzzy microphones, the 2 volleyed stats forwards and backwards in regards to the escapement charges of “pinks” and “kings” (colloquialisms for 2 of essentially the most fished species of salmon).
In simply the previous few summer season months KSDP has introduced listeners not solely essential details about native fisheries, however additionally delivered updates and orders to get to excessive floor within the wake of two tsunamis. All of the whereas, legislators 4,000 miles away in Washington DC have been solidifying a call that may essentially alter the media out there to hundreds of thousands of People, particularly in rural areas: on 17 July, Congress voted to rescind all funding for public broadcasting.
Inside hours of Roof’s fishery interview, the hammer dropped: the Company for Public Broadcasting (CPB), via which federal funding is disbursed to public radio and tv stations, introduced it’ll shut down on the finish of September.
“The agricultural communities are positively gonna be hit the toughest,” Roof says. “How do you put together for the tip of the world? The lack of federal funding is actually that seismic for us.”
In the case of California’s speedy plan to counteract Texas’s GOP-drawn map – Republican congressman Kevin Kiley has referred to as on Home speaker Mike Johnson to take up his invoice to finish mid-decade redistricting.
Kiley’s California seat can be susceptible if new maps are handed in a particular election in November.
“Mr. Speaker, these are good phrases however we want motion,” Kiley wrote on X. “You possibly can cease Newsom’s Redistricting Sham and save our taxpayers $250 million by bringing my mid-decade redistricting invoice to the Ground.”
However Kiley’s efforts are in useless, provided that Texas’ push to redraw the state’s congressional map was on the behest of Donald Trump. The president has additionally set his sights on different purple states – like Indiana, Ohio and Missouri – to strain Republican leaders to drum up new maps that might retain a GOP Home majority.
Kamala Harris mentioned Texas state consultant Nicole Collier, who has been protesting the most recent surveillance protocols set by Texas Republicans, is among the many “heroes of the second”.
On Tuesday, the previous vice chairman and Democratic presidential nominee referred to as Collier as she camped out on the Home flooring and refused to be escorted dwelling by a state trooper – one of many situations set by the Texas GOP to make sure that Democratic lawmakers would return to the Capitol after their two-week quorum break.
“You understand you’re amongst those that historical past will disclose to have been heroes of this second,” Harris mentioned on the cellphone name.
Bondi says 550 arrested in DC since surge of federal regulation enforcement
Legal professional normal Pam Bondi has mentioned that federal regulation enforcement has made 550 arrests for the reason that surge in officers and brokers in DC, which started nearly two weeks in the past. She added that “76 unlawful firearms” have additionally been seized.
We’re ready on the White Home for the up to date variety of arrests made on Tuesday 19 August.
Additionally, with regards to the day’s schedule, and issues we’re watching. The Texas home vote on the GOP-drawn congressional map will happen at the moment. The decrease chamber will kick off the day’s legislative enterprise at 10am CT/11am ET, so we’ll be watching carefully.
The map, which noticed Texas Democrats break quorum for 2 weeks, and has impressed a redistricting arms race throughout the nation, is ready to move. It’ll then head to the state Senate.
The president’s schedule is fairly quiet at the moment for official enterprise, per the White Home. The one listed occasion is a swearing in-ceremony for the US ambassador to the EU at 4pm ET. That’s closed press for now, however I’ll let you already know if that modifications all through the day and the president opens it up.

Sam Levin
Greater than 2.8 million individuals now determine as transgender within the US, together with an estimated 724,000 youth, based on a brand new knowledge evaluation that’s the largest of its form to this point.
Researchers from the College of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Williams Institute used federal surveys and knowledge from state well being companies to determine the scale and demographics of the trans inhabitants in every state.
The evaluation, shared with the Guardian and launched on Wednesday, documented hundreds of trans youth dwelling in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The findings counter Donald Trump’s aggressive efforts to disclaim the existence of trans minors, as his administration removes references to trans individuals throughout federal companies and broadly erodes protections and packages for LGBTQ+ communities.
The report builds on federal knowledge assortment efforts that the White Home is now eliminating. The authors warn their examine may very well be the final complete portrait of the nation’s trans inhabitants for a decade or extra as trans persons are erased from very important US surveys, together with well being experiences and crime knowledge analyses.
Lucy Campbell
Boston’s mayor Michelle Wu has hit again sharply on the Trump administration’s authorized threats over sanctuary metropolis immigration insurance policies, declaring that “Boston is not going to again down”.
Wu instructed a information convention exterior Boston’s metropolis corridor on Tuesday: “The US legal professional normal requested for a response by at the moment, so right here it’s: cease attacking our cities to cover your administration’s failures. Not like the Trump administration, Boston follows the regulation. And Boston is not going to again down from who we’re and what we stand for.”
Final week, the US Division of Justice despatched letters to 13 states, from California to Rhode Island, and 22 native governments, from Boston to Seattle, that it has deemed “sanctuary jurisdictions”, threatening their leaders with prosecution for allegedly “undermining” and “obstructing” federal immigration enforcement.
The letters warned that they might lose federal funds or face authorized motion if they don’t help with Donald Trump’s sweeping, aggressive and extremely controversial immigration enforcement and mass deportation efforts.
Legal professional normal Pam Bondi has warned that she intends to prosecute political leaders who will not be – in her view – sufficiently supportive of immigration enforcement.
Bondi’s letter requested recipients to offer a response by 19 August that “confirms your dedication with complying with federal regulation and identifies the instant initiatives you take to eradicate legal guidelines, insurance policies and practices that impede federal immigration enforcement”.
Uganda has not agreed with US to take unlawful immigrants, overseas affairs official says
Uganda has not reached any settlement with the US to soak up unlawful immigrants as a result of it lacks obligatory infrastructure to take action, a senior overseas affairs ministry official mentioned on Wednesday.
“To one of the best of my data we have now not reached such an settlement. We don’t have the amenities and infrastructure to accommodate such unlawful immigrants in Uganda. So, we can not absorb such unlawful immigrants,” Henry Okello Oryem, state minister for overseas affairs, instructed Reuters in a textual content message.
On Tuesday, CBS Information, citing inside paperwork, reported that Washington had reached deportation offers with Honduras and Uganda as a part of its effort to strike extra agreements with international locations that may settle for migrants deported from the US who weren’t their residents.