Supreme Court strikes down Texas redistricting lawsuit, upholds new maps

(The Center Square) – Virginia Supreme Court justices zeroed in Monday on one question: Did lawmakers follow the rules when they put a redistricting amendment on the ballot?

The case is not about how people voted. Rather, according to justices, it is about whether the process used to get the amendment there met the requirements in Virginia’s constitution.

That process is laid out in Article XII. Lawmakers must pass an amendment, wait for an election, pass it again, and then send it to voters.

Justices spent much of the hearing asking whether that sequence happened the way the constitution requires.

One issue is what counts as the required “intervening election.” Attorneys disagreed on whether that means Election Day itself or the broader voting period.

Another issue is the special session lawmakers used. Republican challengers say that session was called for budget work, not redistricting.

They told the court there is no clear example of lawmakers using a special session that way.

Justices pushed on that point, asking whether the Legislature can expand the scope of a session once it starts.

A justice pressed attorneys on whether lawmakers followed the rules for expanding the special session, at one point asking whether it was “irrelevant” if those requirements were not followed.

Attorneys for the commonwealth said the process was valid and warned against overturning a vote after it already happened.

Virginia Solicitor General Tillman J. Breckenridge told the court it would be “patently unfair” to throw out the result based on process questions after voters had already weighed in.

Justices also examined the purpose behind those rules, including giving voters time to understand proposals and allowing accountability between legislative approvals.

They questioned whether technical issues, like timing or publication rules, should outweigh the outcome of a statewide vote.

Some justices raised concerns about setting a precedent where procedural missteps could undo election results.

Others questioned whether courts should step in at all when it comes to the Legislature’s internal rules.

The case is one of several legal fights tied to the new maps.

Breckenridge told the court there are at least two other separate lawsuits still moving. One focuses on whether the districts meet constitutional compactness standards.

A Circuit Court ruled Sunday against a Republican effort to block the maps on those grounds, though that decision is expected to be appealed.

The state is also trying to move parts of the case faster through the courts.

The court had not issued a ruling as of publication. Candidate filing for Virginia’s August congressional primaries closes in late May, creating urgency for campaigns and election officials who need to know which district lines will apply.

Throughout the hearing, justices did not signal how they will rule, but their questions stayed focused on whether lawmakers followed the constitution step by step.

The outcome will determine whether the amendment stands or whether the process has to start over.

Tourist trips to Cuba almost halved since the beginning of the year, Havana's statistics office said Monday, as a US fuel blockade pummels the island and international flights remain suspended.

Cuba has weathered severe economic difficulties since the imposition of a US trade embargo in 1962, but President Donald Trump's fuel blockade of the island nation since January marks a new economic low, with regular blackouts now part of daily life.

The harsh measures have not spared Cuba's tourism sector, usually its second-biggest source of foreign currency and an employer of over 300,000 people.

Between January and March, the island received 298,057 foreign visitors -- 48 percent fewer than the same period in 2025, figures published by the national statistics office ONEI showed.

March saw a record-breaking drop, when just 35,561 foreign tourists visited Cuba.

The decline affected markets across the board, with 54.2 percent fewer visits from Canada and 37.5 percent fewer Russian tourists.

Tourists from the Cuban community living abroad, mostly based in the United States, meanwhile fell by 42.8 percent.

Tourism in Cuba previously flourished somewhat thanks to a diplomatic rapprochement between Havana's communist government and former US president Barack Obama.

But the Covid-19 pandemic hampered growth, with Cuba's tourism revenues declining by 70 percent between 2019 and 2025. 

Tougher US sanctions under Trump followed, and even before the ongoing fuel blockade was imposed, tourism had fallen by 17.8 percent.

Fuel shortages have pushed several international airlines to temporarily halt flights to the island.

The island's medical services, nickel and tobacco exports have also suffered severely under the US fuel blockade.

Havana has been bracing for a possible attack following repeated warnings from Trump that Cuba is "next" on his list after the ouster of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and US-Israeli attacks on Iran.

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Taylor Swift has filed applications with the US intellectual property office to trademark her voice, a move similar to one made by actor Matthew McConaughey, as AI-generated content surges.

The singer submitted two sound recordings to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Each begins with "Hey, it's Taylor" and announces the release of her latest album, "The Life of a Showgirl," which was released in early October.

Another document submitted to the USPTO on Friday was a photo of the artist on stage. The submissions were first spotted by intellectual property attorney Josh Gerben.

The filings give no further details about the submission.

Contacted by AFP, Taylor Swift's publicist did not immediately respond.

McConaughey has in recent years pursued an application with the USPTO, framed as protection against the unauthorized use of his voice by AI models.

They include audio of him saying "Alright, alright, alright!" -- his memorable line from the 1993 film "Dazed and Confused" -- along with audio of him saying "Just keep livin', right?" followed by additional short phrases.

Advances in AI models now make it possible to synthesize a voice in seconds from a short clip, whereas just a few years ago the process required lengthy recordings and several days.

Many artists are increasingly concerned about the unchecked use of their image and voice by AI platforms.

Several US states have passed laws prohibiting such use, though many apply primarily to malicious or commercial exploitation.

Only a few -- notably the ELVIS Act passed by Tennessee's state legislature in 2024 -- offer broader protections.

Few performers have turned to the courts to assert their rights. 

The most notable example is Scarlett Johansson, who sued the app Lisa AI in 2023 for creating, without her consent, an AI avatar in her likeness for use in an advertisement.

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Two trains collided outside the Indonesian capital Jakarta late Monday, killing at least four people, injuring dozens, and prompting a mass evacuation effort, officials said.

There were chaotic scenes at the Bekasi Timur station some 25 kilometres (15 miles) from Jakarta, with rescue workers shouting for oxygen tanks as ambulances stood by in a snaking queue, lights flashing.

An AFP reporter at the scene witnessed people being carried out of the wreckage on gurneys and loaded into waiting ambulances as hundreds of bystanders looked on, some seemingly in shock.

Spokeswoman Anne Purba of the state-owned KAI rail company told reporters at least four people had died and more than 30 were hospitalised.

And deputy house speaker Sufmi Dasco Ahmad said the toll could rise.

"Judging from the evacuation process that is still under way, it is possible that the number of victims may continue to rise," he told reporters.

Another KAI spokesman Franoto Wibowo told Kompas TV victims were being evacuated from the wreckage with assistance from the military, fire brigade, the national search and rescue agency and the Red Cross.

- Passengers trapped -

Jakarta police chief Asep Edi Suheri said a long-distance train had crashed into the last, women-only, carriage of a commuter train.

All victims were in the commuter train, and rescuers were  working to free people still trapped inside.

The crash caused "significant damage to several train carriages", the Jakarta search and rescue agency said in a statement.

"The incident caused a number of passengers to suffer injuries, and several victims were reported to be trapped inside the carriages due to the force of the impact," it added.

The agency said rescuers were "carrying out the evacuation process for the trapped victims using extrication equipment to free them from the wrecked train structures".

According to Franoto, a taxi had apparently clipped the commuter train on a level crossing, causing it to come to a standstill on the tracks, where it was hit.

"We are still in the process of collecting data and evidence... The detailed chronology of the cause will be delivered later by the authorised authorities," he added.

All 240 people on board the long-distance train had been evacuated safely, according to Purba.

The last major train crash in the Southeast Asian country killed four crew members and injured about two dozen people elsewhere in West Java province in January 2024.

Transport accidents are not uncommon in Indonesia, a vast archipelago nation where buses, trains and even planes are often old and poorly maintained.

Sixteen people were killed when a commuter train crashed into a minibus on a level crossing in Jakarta in 2015.

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The EU on Monday laid out measures it wants Google to take to open up its operating system to rival AI services, in a move slammed by the US tech giant.

"The proposed measures aim to ensure that competing AI services can effectively interact with applications on users' Android devices and execute tasks accordingly, such as sending an email using the user's preferred email app, ordering food or sharing a photo with friends," the European Commission said. 

Under the EU's flagship Digital Markets Act (DMA), the world's biggest tech companies must open up to competition to give consumers more options and limit abuses linked to market dominance. 

US President Donald Trump's government has railed against the law and its sister content moderation law the Digital Services Act, accusing Brussels of unfairly targeting US firms.

Brussels said that the proposals for Google "will provide Android users across the EU with a wider choice of AI services."

But Google hit back, saying that the "unwarranted intervention" risks "unnecessarily driving up costs while undermining critical privacy and security protections for European users."

The latest step by the EU represents part of its preliminary conclusions from a process launched in January. 

The procedure involving Google is not a formal investigation that could lead to fines.

But if Brussels is not satisfied with Google's efforts, it can later conclude the company is not complying.

And any DMA violations can lead to fines of up to 10 percent of a company's total global turnover. 

Google is already the subject of several formal DMA probes, and was hit with a massive 2.95 billion euro fine in September 2025 in an EU competition case predating the digital law.

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(The Center Square) - The White House on Monday called on Congress to fund the U.S. Department of Homeland Security after shots were fired at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner Saturday with President Donald Trump just one room away. 

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called the shutdown at DHS "shameful" and said the Secret Service has been affected by the lack of congressional appropriations. 

"The Secret Service is a vital component of DHS," Leavitt said. "It has been directly impacted by this political gamesmanship."

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has gone without congressional funding since Feb. 14. DHS spends $1.6 billion on payroll every two weeks. 

Officials in the Transportation Security Administration have recieved otherwise appropriated funds laid out by Trump to get paid. However, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin warned that leftover funds are set to run out in May. 

"There is no more emergency fund," Mullin said. "The president can't do another executive order for us to use money because there's no more money there."

Leavitt also slammed Democrat members of Congress and state leaders, including Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker. 

"Those who constantly falsely label and slander the president as a fascist, as a threat to democracy, and compare him to Hitler to score political points are fueling this kind of violence," Leavitt said. 

Leavitt compared the rhetoric from leaders to language in the manifesto from accused shooter Cole Allen. Allen said he planned to target top Trump administration officials in the attack. 

"I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes," Cole wrote in a manifesto to family members before the incident.

Leavitt slammed public figures and elected officials for their rhetoric regarding the president.

"Much of the manifesto of the would-be assassin is indistinguishable from the words that we hear daily from so many," Leavitt said. 

Leavitt expressed support and praise for the security measures at the correspondents dinner.

"The president was satisfied with the response and he's very grateful to the men and women who provided the response for him and his wife and members of his team," Leavitt said. 

White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles plans to meet with top leadership at the Department of Homeland Security to discuss security procedures for upcoming events this week, Leavitt said. 

"We're always monitoring operations and procedures, always asking the tough questions to ensure the president is safe and the American people should be assured there's no higher priority for the president and his staff than the president's safety," Leavitt added. 

Elon Musk's courtroom showdown with Sam Altman got underway here Monday with the start of jury selection in a trial over the billionaire's accusation that his OpenAI co-founders betrayed a non-profit mission to build artificial intelligence for the good of humanity and not for the money.

The legal clash in a courtroom across the bay from San Francisco pits the world's richest person against a startup Musk once backed and now competes with in the booming AI sector.

OpenAI's ChatGPT is a formidable rival to the chatbot Grok, made by Musk's xAI lab.

"This is a tech soap opera that all investors will be watching," Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said in a note to investors.

"There will be a lot of dirt and slings thrown around in court between Musk and Altman and that is not a good thing for anyone involved...but Musk has made this personal."

While Musk's lawsuit is part of a feud between him and OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman, it spotlights a debate as to whether AI should ultimately serve to benefit a privileged few or society as a whole.

Court filings lay out how Altman convinced Musk to back OpenAI in 2015, acting as a co-founder for a non-profit lab whose technology "would belong to the world."

Musk pumped millions of dollars into the lab, which he subsequently left.

However, OpenAI established a commercial subsidiary, as it needed hundreds of billions of dollars for data centers to power its technology.

Microsoft has poured billions of dollars into OpenAI and its CEO Satya Nadella is among those slated to testify at the trial.

- Benevolence or power? -

Musk argues in his lawsuit that he was deceived about OpenAI's mission being altruistic.

San Francisco-based OpenAI has countered in court filings that its break-up with Musk was due to his quest for absolute control rather than its nonprofit status.

"This case has always been about Elon generating more power and more money for what he wants," OpenAI said in a recent X post. "His lawsuit remains nothing more than a harassment campaign that's driven by ego, jealousy and a desire to slow down a competitor."

The startup noted that days after Musk entered the AI race in 2023 he called for a six-month moratorium on development of advanced AI.

The judge presiding over the trial will decide by mid-May -- guided by an advisory jury's findings -- whether OpenAI broke a promise to Musk in a drive to lead in AI, or just smartly rode the technology to glory.

Along with calling for OpenAI to be forced to revert to a pure nonprofit, Musk's suit urges the ouster of Altman and co-founder Greg Brockman, who is the startup's president.

Musk, who had sought as much as $134 billion in damages, has since renounced any personal benefit, pledging to redirect any award to the OpenAI nonprofit. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers has reserved the right to determine any remedies herself, without the jury's input.

OpenAI now has a hybrid governance structure giving its nonprofit foundation control over a for-profit arm.

Musk, who gutted the trust and safety team at Twitter after buying the social media platform that he renamed X, faces the challenge of convincing a jury and a judge that the company behind ChatGPT was built on a lie.

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*The Center Square) – The federal government has moved to partially block an Illinois law banning electronic processing fees on the tax and tip portions of credit and debit card transactions, but President Donald Trump or federal courts could overrule the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

The OCC ruled on Friday that national banks and savings associations are not required to comply with the Illinois Interchange Fee Prohibition Act, which is scheduled to take effect July 1. The rule does not apply to community banks, state-chartered banks or credit unions.

The OCC issued a second rule to block similar prohibitions under consideration in other states.

Doug Kantor, general counsel for the National Association of Convenience Stores, said the OCC has a long history of contradicting presidential administrations in favor of big Wall Street banks.

Kantor said Trump recently called for reforms and referred to the “swipe fee ripoff.”

“And with good reason, because billions and billions of dollars get taken out of people's pockets every year through a system that is a walking, talking cartel in the way that it's set up,” Kantor told The Center Square.

Kantor said it is not clear if a federal appeals court would consider Friday’s ruling to block the Illinois law, or if there could be separate litigation.

The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has oral arguments scheduled on May 13 to consider an appeal by banking and credit union groups after U.S. District Court Judge Virginia Kendall upheld the Illinois law in February.

At a news conference in Springfield earlier this month, Illinois Bankers Association Executive Vice President Ben Jackson said the law was a last-minute addition to the state budget package two years ago.

“We believe if this had gone through the regular vetting process that the legislature typically undertakes that it would not have passed at all,” Jackson said.

Peoria restaurant owner Tremaine Branch joined Jackson and other banking and credit union advocates for a recent news conference.

Branch said the law would add new costs for small businesses.

“I would need to update my payment systems, retrain my staff and change how I handle transactions. Those changes take time and money,” Branch said.

Kantor disagreed and said the Interchange Fee Prohibition Act would save Illinois businesses and consumers billions of dollars.

"When these fees get taken out of tax and tip portions of transactions, the money adds up fast,” Kantor said.

Kantor said the Trump administration could take action to change what the OCC is doing, or the courts could overrule the OCC.

“And that would not be the first time the OCC has lost on trying to read bank preemption far too broadly before,” Kantor said.

Kantor said the OCC ruling handed down on Friday was just a step in the process.

The death toll in a Colombian highway bombing blamed on cocaine-trafficking rebels has risen to 21, the government said Monday, in the country's worst attack on civilians in decades and just ahead of elections.

Saturday's bombing in the southwestern Cauca department -- which the government blamed on guerrillas opposed to a decade-old peace process -- comes one month before Colombia holds presidential elections on May 31.

At least 31 guerrilla attacks were recorded in the southwest over the weekend, a military spokesman told AFP, marking a major uptick in violence ahead of the vote.

Defense Minister Pedro Sanchez told Caracol Radio that 21 people were killed and 56 injured in Saturday's blast on a major highway.

Insecurity is a major theme in the race to pick a successor to Colombia's first left-wing president, Gustavo Petro.

Right-wing candidates are vowing to crack down hard on the drug-smuggling guerrillas with whom Petro launched failed peace talks.

Under pressure from the United States, Petro has stepped up military action against the guerrillas in recent months.

He blamed Saturday's bombing on Ivan Mordisco, the South American country's most-wanted criminal, whom the president has compared to late cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar.

Mordisco heads a breakaway faction of the the defunct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebel army, which agreed to lay down arms in 2016.

The attack on Saturday was the deadliest against civilians since 2003, when FARC blew up a Bogota nightclub, killing nearly 40 people.

At least 15 women were among the victims of the Cauca blast, which left a massive crater on the road connecting the cities of Cali and Popayan.

- Destabilization strategy -

Military chief Hugo Lopez said the bomb exploded after assailants stopped traffic by blocking the road with a bus and another vehicle.

Several cars were flipped over by the force of the explosion.

Sanchez, the defense minister, told Blu Radio that the "terrorism wave" was a response to military operations against rebels in the area, whom he accused of "war crimes."

Laura Bonilla, deputy director of the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation, said the attacks were an attempt by Mordisco's group to gain leverage in negotiations with local communities.

Under that scenario, she said, the rebels would "reduce levels of violence in exchange for fewer police operations" and drug seizures.

Cauca is one of the main areas for the cultivation of coca, the key ingredient in cocaine, of which Colombia is the world's biggest producer.

Cocaine production and trafficking is the main income source of the country's armed groups.

Petro, who is barred by the constitution from seeking a second consecutive term, has labeled the rebels "terrorists" and ordered the security forces to intensify their offensive against them.

Right-wing candidate Paloma Valencia, a native of Cauca, accused the president of being responsible for the bloodshed.

"This government has allowed violence to grow," she accused.

Valencia and fellow right-winger Abelardo de la Espriella are trailing leftist senator Ivan Cepeda in opinion polls.

The campaign has seen a surge in political violence.

Last year, a young conservative candidate, Miguel Uribe Turbay, was shot in broad daylight while campaigning at a park in Bogota. 

He died two months later.

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The head of the UN's maritime agency said Monday there was "no legal basis" for imposing any fees for ships to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.

Shipping through the narrow strait has been strangled since the US and Israel attacked Iran in late February.

Iran has sealed off the passage, sharply cutting oil and gas flows and sending prices soaring, while the US has blockaded Iranian ports. Tehran has also said it wants to impose transit fees as part of any lasting peace deal.

"There's no legal basis for the introduction of any tax, any customs, or any fees for on straits for international navigation," IMO Secretary-General Arsenio Dominguez said at a press conference. 

Iran's armed forces would have authority over the key shipping lane under the country's proposed law for managing the waterway, a top official said Monday.

Ebrahim Azizi, head of the national security commission in Iran's parliament, told state TV the armed forces were already in control of the strait and were seeking to prohibit the passage of "hostile vessels".

The bill also provides that financial gains from the strait would be paid in Iran's rial currency. 

Speaking on the sidelines of an IMO maritime protection committee meeting, Dominguez said he was in contact with "all the countries of the region", including Iran. 

He firmly rejected the idea that reopening the waterway could involve payment of any fees. 

Dominguez also said a planned evacuation operation for around 20,000 seafarers currently stranded on vessels in the Gulf could only go ahead once the strait was fully secure. 

The shipping lane remains a key sticking point in negotiations between Washington and Tehran, even as a fragile April 8 ceasefire continues to hold. 

Meanwhile, talks among IMO members this week are focused on a different issue: efforts to revive negotiations on an ambitious plan to decarbonise the global shipping industry.

That measure was due to be adopted last October, but the United States -- backed by Saudi Arabia, Russia, and other oil-producing countries -- blocked the agreement, delaying it by a year. 

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