US sub sinks Iranian ship by torpedo in Indian Ocean, 1st such attack since WWII

(TENNESSEE) — As protesters accused them of racial gerrymandering, Tennessee state lawmakers passed into law on Thursday a new congressional map that could allow Republicans to flip the state’s lone Democratic-held seat, notching the GOP another win in the mid-decade redistricting scramble.

Republican Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signed the bill into law Thursday afternoon.

The session was interrupted by chaotic scenes with lawmakers shouting over protesters’ voices and at one point forcing police clear the balcony above the House floor before it voted on the new map.

The new map breaks up the state’s current 9th Congressional District, which is primarily made up of Memphis, and the state’s only majority-Black district. The district is currently represented by Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen.

The legislature also passed bills on Thursday that will allow the state to legally redistrict outside of the normal once-a-decade cycle, as well as providing funding to help implement the new map in time for the 2026 elections.

Impact on the midterms and representation in Congress

With the map passed, it paves the way for President Donald Trump and Republicans to gain an additional House seat in the next Congress, increasing their chances of maintaining control of the House as they continue their redistricting battle across the country.

Tennessee Democrats will likely not have any representation in Congress next year if Republicans flip the seat and the map will dilute the Black vote by breaking up Memphis.

But legal challenges against the map are expected.

Cohen said Thursday he will file a lawsuit against the new map.

Cohen posted on X after the vote “[President Donald] Trump knows he HAS TO rig the game to keep his majority in November. And the TN GOP was willing to go along with it. It’s shameful. Next stop is the courts.”

Cohen had said earlier this week on CNN that the Republicans’ redistricting effort was a foregone conclusion, adding that he hopes the new congressional map can take effect in 2028 rather than 2026. 

The speed at which the process occurred was remarkable — it was only last week that the Supreme Court struck down Louisiana’s congressional map as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, dealing a blow to Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. 

And just one day after the Supreme Court’s ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, Trump posted on Truth Social that he spoke with Lee and that the governor said he would work to redraw the state’s congressional maps in order to net another GOP seat for Tennessee in the House. Lee called a special session the next day, April 30, to review the state’s congressional map.

Potential redistricting efforts are also currently underway in Louisiana, Alabama and South Carolina, although each state has different procedural or legal barriers to overcome.

With Tennessee’s new map, Republicans potentially could flip 14 Democratic-held seats in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio and Florida. Democrats could pick up 10 from new maps passed in California, Utah and Virginia.

Acrimonious debate and protests in the state capitol

The proposed congressional map underwent much acrimonious debate and protest inside the legislature on Thursday before it was passed.

On the House floor, Democratic representatives condemned the map, saying it would dilute the Black vote in the state. At one point, chants of “our house!” started in the House gallery.

As the vote came up for the new map on the House side, chaos erupted in the room. A trooper was asked to clear out the balcony above the House floor as people protested.

Earlier, Democratic State Rep. Justin Pearson, who is running for Congress in the 9th District that will be broken up on the new map, said that “what is happening here is immoral and wrong.”

“This is about attacking, targeting and cracking District 9 into pieces for more political and racial dominance and white supremacy in the state of Tennessee. And we need to realize that the Callais decision that you all are basing your decisions off of that gutted the Voting Rights Act, that that Voting Rights Act was paid in blood,” Pearson said.

Pearson later confronted law enforcement officers, ABC affiliate WKRN reported, as they worked on clearing the House gallery of protestors. Pearson later said his brother KeShaun Pearson was arrested.

After the House passed the bill and it was taken up in the Senate, Republican state Sen. John Stevens spoke in support of the new map over audible protests and yelling.

“Tennessee is a conservative state, and I submit its congressional delegation should reflect that. The proposed map ensures that,” Stevens said.

He later said, “This bill represents Tennessee’s attempt to maximize our partisan advantage and allow Tennesseans to support a national Congress to be a Republican majority.”

But Democratic state Sen. London Lamar, who is Black, slammed the new map during debate as an attack on Black voters and said it “diminishes Memphis.”

“This map does not reflect Memphis. It diminishes Memphis. It slices our city into pieces and stretches our communities hundreds of miles away to places of different needs, different economies, different histories and different lived realities,” she said. “You cannot take a majority-Black city, fracture its voting power and then tell us race has nothing to do with it. Racism does not become less racist because it’s called partisan.”

Later, chants of “Hands off Memphis!” rang out and another lawmaker soon unfurled a banner that read “NO JIM CROW 2.0 – STOP THE TN STEAL.”

The Senate passed the map soon after.

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(WASHINGTON) — FBI Director Kash Patel sparred with the Senate Appropriations Committee’s top Democrat over the director’s alleged questionable behavior when Patel appeared before the panel for a budget hearing on Tuesday.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, the ranking member of the committee, addressed reports of Patel’s alleged misuse of FBI resources and a story in The Atlantic that alleged he has had “bouts of excessive drinking” and job performance issues.

“What we are learning about what’s happening at the FBI is anything but normal,” Van Hollen said. “Director Patel, as you ask for more taxpayer resources, we cannot look away from the credible, extremely troubling reports about your misconduct at the FBI.”

Patel said last month that he’s “never been intoxicated on the job,” following the report. Patel sued The Atlantic over the article, demanding $250 million in damages.

Van Hollen later grilled Patel on the report asking Patel if, per The Atlantic report, he had “episodes of excessive drinking.”

Patel shot back, calling the report a “total farce.”

In a heated exchange, Patel then claimed without evidence that Van Hollen was “slinging margaritas” just over a year ago with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the migrant who the government said in court was erroneously deported to El Salvador.

The moment is a reference to when Van Hollen traveled to El Salvador to meet with Abrego Garcia, who had been deported against a judge’s orders to the notorious CECOT prison. At the time, the senator said at one point during the meeting monitored by the El Salvador government, El Salvador officials put glasses on the table where they were meeting that appeared to have liquid inside with salt or sugar rims on top.

Van Hollen insisted that neither he nor Abrego Garcia touched those glasses and said it was clear they didn’t based on photos of the meeting taken by El Salvadoran officials.

In his opening statement, Patel lauded the men and women of the FBI, listing off a litany of accomplishments including a quick response by FBI agents during a shooting at the White House Correspondents Association Dinner last month.

Patel is appearing alongside other Department of Justice agency heads regarding the agencies’ 2027 budget requests. Patel is joined by Drug Enforcement Administration Administrator Terry Cole, United States Marshals Service Director Glady Serralta and Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Director Robert Cekada.

When Patel last testified on Capitol Hill in September 2025, he faced questions from Democrats about the assassination of conservative activist and influencer Charlie Kirk and his handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files.

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(WASHINGTON) — Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry and Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill on Thursday said that the Supreme Court’s ruling on Wednesday against the state’s congressional map means that the planned May 16 congressional primaries won’t proceed as scheduled as lawmakers consider drawing a new map.

“The Supreme Court previously stayed an injunction against the State’s enforcement of the current Congressional map. By the Court’s order, however, that stay automatically terminated with yesterday’s decision. Accordingly, the State is currently enjoined from carrying out congressional elections under the current map. We are working together with the Legislature and the Secretary of State’s office to develop a path forward,” they wrote in the statement.

Landry told at least some Republican House candidates in Louisiana that he plans on Friday to suspend the state’s primaries, according to multiple Republican sources.

A Republican source told ABC News that the governor called one candidate on Wednesday and said he is making calls to all of the candidates that he plans on Friday to suspend the election using executive power. The Washington Post was first to report about the governor’s calls.

The source said it was unclear if this will apply to all of the planned primaries, which include a closely watched Senate primary, or just the primaries for the House that would be impacted by a new congressional map.

ABC News has reached out to Landry’s office and the office of the Louisiana secretary of state. 

The Supreme Court’s ruling on Wednesday reverses lower court decisions that said Louisiana’s map, drawn after the 2020 census, violated the Voting Rights Act because only one of six districts was majority Black. More than a third of the state’s voting age population is Black. 

Those courts had ordered Louisiana to add a second majority-Black district, a process which in turn explicitly relied on race. In his opinion, Justice Samuel Alito said that move infringed on the rights of white voters under the 14^th Amendment’s equal protection clause.

Absentee ballots in Louisiana have already been sent out, and votes have likely been cast, although early voting in person does not start until Saturday, May 2. Absentee voting is relatively limited in Louisiana and requires a valid excuse.

Democratic Rep. Troy Carter from Louisiana said on Wednesday at the Congressional Black Caucus press conference that elections are too close at this point for congressional maps to change. 

“We are in the 2026 election cycle now. The Supreme Court has set precedent just four years ago in a case in Louisiana, they ruled the district to be unconstitutional, said it’s too close to the election now, therefore we will do it in the next cycle,” Carter said, later adding that “if precedent matters, then clearly this is something that will have to be taken up in 2028 cycle, not the 2026.”

But the Louisiana’s existing map cannot be used, according to the Supreme Court’s ruling. Technically the state could revert back to its original 2022 map with one majority-Black district or redraw a new map entirely. Some legal experts have argued Louisiana could still keep its current map for the May primaries.

On Thursday, Murrill put in a filing with the Supreme Court saying, “Louisiana currently ‘is prohibited from using SB8’s map of congressional districts for any election’. The Governor and Attorney General are thus working with the Legislature– which is in session until June 1 — to immediately produce a constitutional map and electoral process for Louisiana.”

On Wednesday, Landry praised the ruling, but declined to say if it would have an impact on those primaries or not.

“Look, I think that anyone who jumps to conclusions right now — I think it’s going to take us at least 24 hours to really pore through the opinion to understand what exactly that opinion is telling us,” he told reporters. But he left the option open to a map redraw: “I mean, look, the Supreme Court picked an interesting time to be able to drop that on us… the court decides to give it to us on the eve of the election. What are they telling us? Are they telling us we have to draw? Telling us we don’t have to draw?”

ABC News’ Devin Dwyer and Hannah Demissie contributed to this report.

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