Top Items:
David A. Lieb / Associated Press:
Virginia Supreme Court strikes down Democrats' redistricting plan, dimming party's midterm hopes — The Virginia Supreme Court on Friday struck down a voter-approved Democratic congressional redistricting plan, delivering another major setback to the party in a nationwide battle against Republicans …
Discussion:
The Hill, Axios, The Message Box, Washington Examiner, NPR, Democracy Docket, Washington Post, New York Post, NOTUS, Newsweek, The Daily Caller, NewsMax.com, Bloomberg, The Daily Signal, NBC News, The Daily Wire, The Independent, Pluribus News, UPI, Washington Times, MS NOW, New York Sun, HotAir, Semafor, Al Jazeera, WJBK-TV, Townhall, Raw Story, IJR, Adam Kinzinger, Cardinal News, WVEC, LifeNews.com, MeidasTouch, BizPac Review, American Greatness, American Thinker, Ace of Spades HQ and The Virginian-Pilot
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New York Times:
In Huge Blow to Democrats, Virginia Court Strikes Down House Map — The decision is a major victory for Republicans, wiping away a measure approved by voters to allow Democrats to gain as many as four House seats in the midterms. — Virginia's top court on Friday struck down a congressional map drawn …
Discussion:
Fox News, Wall Street Journal, Washington Examiner, oag.state.va.us, NextDraft, The Dispatch, The Washington Free Beacon, The Federalist, twitchy.com, Deseret News, Breitbart, The Guardian, No More Mister Nice Blog, The Independent, The Intercept, Newsweek, The Daily Wire, Erick Erickson's Show Notes, Election Law Blog and The Hill
Tim Balk / New York Times:
4 Takeaways From the Virginia Supreme Court Gerrymandering Decision — The ruling was a major lift to the G.O.P. efforts to build a structural advantage through redistricting. — The Virginia Supreme Court on Friday struck down a voter-approved measure allowing Democratic state lawmakers …
Andrew Solender / Axios:
House Dems despondent over “sickening” Virginia decision — House Democrats fell into a state of anguish on Friday after the Virginia Supreme Court struck down a congressional map that would have netted them as many as four seats in the 2026 midterm elections.
Discussion:
HotAir, CBS News, Townhall, The Daily Caller, DCCC, The Daily Wire, DNYUZ, twitchy.com, NewsMax.com, Raw Story, Washington Examiner, CNBC and Political Wire
Ian Millhiser / Vox:
The glaring error in the Virginia Supreme Court's gerrymandering decision — By a 4-3 vote, the Virginia Supreme Court just struck down that state's recently enacted congressional maps, which were intended to give Democrats four additional seats in the state's congressional election after the upcoming midterms.
Khaya Himmelman / Talking Points Memo:
Virginia State Supreme Court Strikes Down Dem Redistricting Proposal — In a major loss for Democrats on Friday, the Virginia state Supreme Court rejected, in a 4-3 decision, the state's recently approved redistricting proposal, which could have given Democrats four additional congressional seats …
Discussion:
ABC News, CNN, Washington Examiner, RedState, The Hill, Mediaite and Congressman Hakeem Jeffries
Associated Press:
Alabama lawmakers pass plan for new US House primary if courts allow different districts
Discussion:
Washington Examiner, NBC News, Democracy Docket, Fox News, Human Events, Los Angeles Times, KEYT-TV, Associated Press, ABC News, Mediaite and Newsbusters
Louise Radnofsky / Wall Street Journal:
Virginia Supreme Court Deals Blow to Democrats' Midterm Hopes
Virginia Supreme Court Deals Blow to Democrats' Midterm Hopes
Discussion:
Bloomberg and The Daily Caller
Kellen Browning / New York Times:
California Republican Incumbents Race to the Right as Redistricting Forces Standoff
California Republican Incumbents Race to the Right as Redistricting Forces Standoff
Discussion:
NBC News
New York Times:
ABC Accuses Government of Violating First Amendment — The network's argument, made to the F.C.C., is the most aggressive posture taken yet by a television network toward the Trump administration. — ABC has accused the Federal Communications Commission of violating its free speech rights …
Discussion:
Politico, CNN, Bloomberg, Washington Examiner, The Hill, New York Magazine, Los Angeles Times, Forbes, NewsMax.com, The Guardian, The Verge, GV Wire, New Republic, CBS News, Deadline, The Wrap, Variety, Raw Story, The Hollywood Reporter, Mediaite and Information Technology …, more at Mediagazer »
G. Elliott Morris / Strength In Numbers:
The simple statistical error Republican Supreme Court justices used to gut the VRA — The Court says vote dilution can be proven only after “controlling” racial polarization for partisan polarization. This is a nonsensical and impossible test … The six Republican-appointed justices …
Discussion:
The Downballot
Helene Cooper / New York Times:
Pentagon Releases Files on U.F.O.s — The initial files are murky images that show what could be anything. The government said more would be released on a rolling basis. — The Pentagon released what it called “new, never-before-seen” files on U.F.O.s on Friday, hailing the step …
Discussion:
New York Post, NBC News, CBS News, The Atlantic, ABC News, TechCrunch, Al Jazeera, Los Angeles Times, Scientific American, KTLA, Axios, Deseret News and Forbes
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Samuel Chamberlain / New York Post:
Pentagon releases dozens of UFO files offering transparency on ‘alien and extraterrestrial life’
Discussion:
Fox News, CBS News, NPR, Wired, KTLA, DNYUZ, Task & Purpose, Modern Diplomacy, The Hollywood Reporter, UPI, Stars & Stripes, Raw Story, The War Zone, UNILAD, Malone News, The Daily Wire, Bloomberg, Ars Technica, The Daily Caller, The Wrap, TMZ.com, The Independent, BizPac Review and Althouse
The Guardian:
Supreme court's Voting Rights Act ruling cited misleading data from DoJ — Exclusive: Data in justice department filing quoted by Samuel Alito in his opinion relied on questionable methodology, a Guardian analysis has found — The claims Samuel Alito, a supreme court justice …
Discussion:
New Republic, Daily Kos, Raw Story, The Daily Caller, Wonkette, Talking Points Memo and New York Times
Jonathan Lemire / The Atlantic:
Trump Is ‘Bored’ With the War He Started — He wants out, but Iran could likely keep going for months. — President trump really, really wants the war with Iran to end. He has declared victory many times, including about three weeks ago, when Iran briefly reopened the Strait of Hormuz.
Discussion:
Commentary Magazine, Asia Times, DNYUZ and CNN
Julia Angwin / New York Times:
Mark Zuckerberg Is Running Meta Into the Ground — There is a moment when internet companies get the stink of death on them. For AOL, it was 2003, when it became clear that its users were abandoning its clunky dial-up internet service for far-faster broadband.
Liz Essley Whyte / Wall Street Journal:
Trump Planning to Fire FDA Commissioner Marty Makary — The doctor, a MAHA advocate, has had a tumultuous tenure that has included clashes over vaping, abortion and vaccine policy.
Discussion:
MedPage Today, NewsMax.com, STAT, Raw Story, Mediaite and New Republic
Catherine Bouris / The Daily Beast:
MAGA Rep Accused of Brutally Beating GOP Senator's Daughter — FAMILY TRAUMA — Rep. Max Miller was elected in 2022 and previously served in the Trump administration. — A MAGA congressman has been accused of years of physical abuse against his ex-wife, the daughter of a prominent Republican senator.
Discussion:
Charleston Daily Mail, BizPac Review, New York Post, New Republic and Raw Story
Thomas Frank / Politico:
Trump gets his chance to upend FEMA … That would help the agency meet one of Trump's biggest complaints about FEMA — that it's too slow to deliver money. The report says payments to states would occur within 30 days of a flood, storm, wildfire or other disaster.
Discussion:
RedState, Washington Post, New York Times, NewsMax.com, UPI, Federal News Network, NOTUS, GovExec.com, The Independent, CBS News, MPR News, Washington Times, New York Sun, Associated Press and The Hill
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Oren Cass / New York Times:
Is Trump About to Invite In the Biggest Predator in the World? — “If you look at my old speeches when I was young, very handsome,” President Trump said while announcing his “Liberation Day” tariffs last year, “I'd be on a television show. I'd be talking about how we were being ripped off.”
Discussion:
Raw Story and The Wire China
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The Economist:
Secret document reveals Russia's plans to aid Iran — Unjammable drones would be used against American forces, according to proposals seen by The Economist — There are many reasons why America's war on Iran has been failing. One of them is the effectiveness of Iranian drones.
Discussion:
NewsMax.com, GV Wire, Washington Examiner and News Talk 105.9
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Joshua Yaffa / New Yorker:
For Putin, Problems (and Paranoia) Keep Mounting
For Putin, Problems (and Paranoia) Keep Mounting
Discussion:
Asia Times, HuffPost and NewsMax.com
Sophie Austin / Associated Press:
California to provide free diapers to newborns at more than 60 hospitals — California families welcoming newborns will soon receive hundreds of free diapers before leaving the hospital under a first-in-the-nation program announced Friday by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
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Emily Peck / Axios:
Ted Cruz: Trump accounts are personal Social Security accounts — At a conference earlier this week, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said that the new Trump accounts, the “401(k)s for babies” that launched this year, could be a way to push forward the Social Security privatization effort that failed during the Bush administration.
Reuters:
Exclusive: Kennedy's health officials explored US ban of some widely used antidepressants, sources say — U.S. health department officials last week explored whether they could ban certain drugs in a widely prescribed class of antidepressants as Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. prepared …
Discussion:
NewsMax.com, New York Post and NPR
Lisa Needham / Public Notice:
Stephen Miller's closed system of white supremacy — PN is supported by paid subscribers. Become one ⬇️ — 🔁 Subscribe to PN 🔁 — Working in the Trump administration these days is no doubt a dream come true for Stephen Miller.
Julia Ingram / CBS News:
Thousands of asylum-seekers abandon their cases as ICE seeks to deport them to nations they aren't from — Add CBS News on Google — Willian Yacelga Benalcazar's asylum case followed what had become a similar pattern in immigration courts across the country: After telling a judge …
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Hannah Knowles / Washington Post:
Anti-woke Vivek Ramaswamy confronts racism in his run for Ohio governor — Vivek Ramaswamy built a political brand casting racism as an obsession of Democrats. As a Republican running for Ohio governor, he's facing racism on the right. — Summary — CINCINNATI — Vivek Ramaswamy …
Discussion:
NewsMax.com
Associated Press:
Trump says Russia and Ukraine have agreed to his request for a 3-day ceasefire and a prisoner swap — President Donald Trump says the leaders of Russia and Ukraine have agreed to his request for a three-day ceasefire and an exchange of prisoners. Trump said Friday that such a halt …
Josh Christenson / New York Post:
Minnesota GOP state lawmaker pushes House Oversight panel to subpoena Rep. Ilhan Omar — A Minnesota state lawmaker is asking a powerful House committee to subpoena US Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) for refusing to cooperate with an investigation into her possible ties to Somali fraudsters …
Discussion:
KSTP-TV, Washington Times, American Thinker and twitchy.com
Gillian Tett / Financial Times:
Humans still matter more than AI in finance — Recruiting digital natives with critical thinking skills is going to be crucial — A few months ago a New York financier told me he had just experienced a “first”: his 2025 summer interns “were the first true AI natives I have seen”.
New York Times:
The No-Bid Contract That Is Turning Washington's Reflecting Pool Blue … For a century, the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has captured Washington's history, a vast mirror for moments great and small. — Then, this spring, President Trump said he decided to paint it blue …
Discussion:
Associated Press and The Independent
Julie Bosman / New York Times:
Democratic Gubernatorial Candidate Rob Sand Is Worrying Iowa Republicans … At a recent stop at a brewery in Des Moines, Rob Sand, a Democrat running for governor, didn't hold back about what the matter with Iowa is. — The state has among the worst economies of all 50 states in the country, he said.
Discussion:
Raw Story and Radio Iowa
