Attention to the Unseen

Ian Millhiser writes: In a decision that could potentially reshape the 2026 midterm elections and cement the Democratic Party’s future control of the US House, a federal court just struck down the gerrymandered Texas maps that President Donald Trump pressured that state to enact. If the decision holds, it could cost Republicans as many as five House seats. And that’s not all. The most remarkable thing about the three-judge panel’s decision in League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) v….

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NPR reports: At a Justice Department conference in February, then-acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove told the department’s top drug prosecutors that the Trump administration wasn’t interested in interdicting suspected drug vessels at sea anymore. Instead, he said, the U.S. should “just sink the boats,” according to three people present for the speech. At the time of Bove’s comments, President Trump had only been back in office for a month. The White House had made clear that combatting drug cartels…

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The New York Times reports: President Trump’s second term has brought a period of turmoil and controversy unlike any in the history of the Justice Department. Trump and his appointees have blasted through the walls designed to protect the nation’s most powerful law enforcement agency from political influence; they have directed the course of criminal investigations, openly flouted ethics rules and caused a breakdown of institutional culture. To date, more than 200 career attorneys have been fired, and thousands more…

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The New York Times reports: The Department of Homeland Security has diverted thousands of federal agents from their normal duties to focus on arresting undocumented immigrants, undermining a wide range of law enforcement operations in response to mounting pressure from President Trump, a New York Times investigation has found. Homeland security agents investigating sexual crimes against children, for instance, have been redeployed to the immigrant crackdown for weeks at a time, hampering their pursuit of child predators. A national security…

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The Daily Beast reports: Emeritus Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz entered the latest public spat around the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and his friendship with President Donald Trump by arguing that Epstein wasn’t all that bad. Speaking with Chris Cuomo on NewsNation on Friday, Dershowitz thought it prudent to clarify the nature of Epstein’s crimes. “The predecessor on your show described Epstein as a convicted pedophile,” Dershowitz complained to Cuomo. “[Epstein] pleaded guilty to one count of having sex…

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Chicago Tribune reports: When a masked man grabbed Ernesto Diaz’s left shoulder and slammed him against a vehicle, he thought he was being robbed. Diaz, 23, had been walking down Archer Avenue on the Southwest Side in late September, heading toward the CTA Orange Line for a trip downtown. Earbuds in, he was listening to music and said he barely registered the vehicle that pulled up near him. That was until he felt the pain in his shoulder. Diaz felt…

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CNN analysis: Mere hours after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot a suspect last month – wounding a member of the arrest team in the process – the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles effectively exonerated the agent who opened fire. “PSA: A vehicle is a deadly weapon,” First Assistant US Attorney Bill Essayli wrote in a social media post. “Using it against law enforcement justifies their use of deadly force in self-defense.” Essayli alleged the man who was…

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Miami Herald reports: Donald Trump is mentioned in Jeffrey Epstein’s emails over 1,000 times — the most cited person in the tranche released this week by the House Oversight Committee. Despite all the questions the emails have raised about his relationship with Epstein, Trump on Friday continued to fan the flames of the scandal. On his social media platform “Truth Social,” Trump directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate some of the influential figures named in the emails. “I will…

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