Lower chamber passed vote following two-week delay after Democratic lawmakers walked out in attempt to stop plan to define five new Republican-friendly districts
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. My name is Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you all the latest news lines over the next few hours.
We start with news that the Texas legislature’s lower chamber passed a contentious new electoral map on Wednesday that aims to help Donald Trump’s Republican party retain its razor-thin US House majority in the 2026 midterm elections, AFP reported.
END MAIL-IN VOTING, AND GO TO PAPER BALLOTS. 100 additional seats will go to Republicans!!!”
The vice-president, JD Vance, the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, and the White House deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, staged a photo op with National Guard troops at Union Station in the nation’s capital. They were roundly booed and jeered on their way in and out of the station.
A federal judge denied the justice department’s bid to unseal records from the grand jury that indicted Jeffrey Epstein in 2019. US district judge Richard Berman said the small number of documents seen by the court pale in comparison with the 100,000 records the government already has on Epstein and that disclosing them could harm victims.
Lisa Cook, the Federal Reserve governor Trump has called on to immediately resign over an accusation that she falsely declared a property she obtained a mortgage on was her primary residence, responded on Wednesday that she has “no intention of being bullied to step down”.
Trump has bought at least $100m of bonds since he returned to office in January, according to a CNBC analysis of new filings from the president with the US Office of Government Ethics.
A young American citizen who was violently arrested by federal immigration officers in Los Angeles county in June, after he objected to the arrest of an older man in a Walmart parking lot, was charged with conspiracy to impede a federal officer.
