Texas House reconvenes, ready to pass GOP-drawn map
The Texas house is starting up for legislative business again. The Republican majority is poised to pass the new congressional map that would give the GOP five more house seats in 2026.
Right now, state representative Gina Hinojosa, a Democrat, is making a parliamentary inquiry with the Republican house speaker Dustin Burrows – asking why the lower chamber is not leading the special session with legislation focused on relief for victims of the devastating July floods in Texas.
Key events
Outside the chamber, there is a small protest happening in the Texas capitol rotunda, according to a video posted by Alejandra Serrano, a reporter at the Texas Tribune. Demonstrators are holding up banners which read “put Texans first” and “end gerrymandering, save democracy”.
Happening now: Protest in the Texas Capitol rotunda. Their chants can be heard — albeit faintly — inside the House, where reps are scheduled to vote on proposed congressional redistricting. #txlege pic.twitter.com/Hl3f6bvzWh
— Alejandro Serrano (@serrano_alej) August 20, 2025
Dharna Noor
Environmental and health advocates are dressing down Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials this week over a proposed repeal of a landmark scientific finding.
Late last month, EPA announced their intention to roll back the 16-year-old “endangerment finding” — which forms the legal basis of virtually all US climate regulations — along with a greenhouse gas rule for auto vehicles.
At the agency’s virtual public hearings on the proposals this week hundreds of advocates are critiquing the plan.
“EPA is not providing enough time or space for people and communities to adequately respond to these two proposals,” Mariela Ruacho, a manager at the American Lung Association, testified on Wednesday. “These are drastic departures from the norm, and should truly be in two separate hearings versus rolling back multiple policies at once.”
Jaime Butler, communications associate at Young Evangelicals for Climate Action, said she believes there is a “moral and biblical mandate to defend all human life from harmful climate warming pollution from power plants, vehicles and other sources.”
Earlier this month, she noted, she saw historic floods overwhelm her hometown of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. “We cannot afford to be making decisions that would continue to increase the frequency and intensity of flooding or other extreme weather events like this,” she said.
EPA livestreamed hearings for the proposals began on Tuesday this week, and will continue through Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Officials will also accept written comments on the plans through 22 September.
The Department of Energy is also taking comment through 2 September on a report it produced in defense of the endangerment finding rollback, which seeks to undermine the scientific consensus on the climate crisis.
Texas House reconvenes, ready to pass GOP-drawn map
The Texas house is starting up for legislative business again. The Republican majority is poised to pass the new congressional map that would give the GOP five more house seats in 2026.
Right now, state representative Gina Hinojosa, a Democrat, is making a parliamentary inquiry with the Republican house speaker Dustin Burrows – asking why the lower chamber is not leading the special session with legislation focused on relief for victims of the devastating July floods in Texas.
Texas Democrat will force vote to release Epstein files ahead of GOP congressional map taking effect
Today, as the Texas house is set to advance a GOP-drawn congressional map, the minority leader Gene Wu is set to introduce an amendment that would require the release of the Epstein files before the map goes into effect. In an attempt to force Republicans’ hand Wu said the vote “forces Republicans to choose between their loyalty to Trump and their obligation to expose sexual predators.”
He added:
We all know Trump is desperately afraid of what’s in those documents, and now we’ll see if Texas Republicans are willing to demand transparency or if they’ll continue the coverup.”
The legislature is set to reconvene at around 11am ET, and we’ll bring you the latest as it happens.
Trump administration says 66 arrests made on Tuesday
Attorney general Pam Bondi said that federal law enforcement made 66 arrests on Tuesday 19 August. Bondi added that agents seized eight illegal firearms.
Military vehicle crashes into car in DC – report
We’re getting more information about a military vehicle that has crashed into a car in the Capitol Hill area of DC.
The city’s local CBS station first reported on the incident, and cited confirmation from the DC fire and emergency services. On social media, the department said that one person was extricated and transported with “minor injuries”. A Reddit user posted a video of the collision’s aftermath – showing a Humvee-style vehicle and a shattered silver SUV.
The DC fire department hasn’t responded yet to the Guardian’s request for comment and further details on the crash.
This comes as six Republican-led states have all pledged to send at least 1,200 National Guard troops to DC, to assist the president’s crackdown on “bloodshed, bedlam, and squalor” in the nation’s capital, despite a falling crime rate.
Katie Thornton
In Sand Point, Alaska, the radio dial is mostly empty. For a commercial broadcaster, running a station in this Aleutian Island fishing town of about 600 people just is not worth the cost of doing business.
But KSDP, the local public radio station for Sand Point, is a community anchor, bringing listeners music, emergency alerts, live color commentary of high school sports, state and local news. Without a newspaper specifically serving the town, the station is residents’ resource for all things local.
On 1 August, for example, KSDP hosted an interview with local fish biologist Matthew Keyes. Asking the questions was Austin Roof, general manager of the station. Over fuzzy microphones, the two volleyed stats back and forth about the escapement rates of “pinks” and “kings” (colloquialisms for two of the most fished species of salmon).
In just the past few summer months KSDP has brought listeners not only crucial information about local fisheries, but also delivered updates and orders to get to high ground in the wake of two tsunamis. All the while, legislators 4,000 miles away in Washington DC were solidifying a decision that will fundamentally alter the media available to millions of Americans, especially in rural areas: on 17 July, Congress voted to rescind all funding for public broadcasting.
Within hours of Roof’s fishery interview, the hammer dropped: the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), through which federal funding is disbursed to public radio and television stations, announced it will close down at the end of September.
“The rural communities are definitely gonna be hit the hardest,” Roof says. “How do you prepare for the end of the world? The loss of federal funding is truly that seismic for us.”
When it comes to California’s rapid plan to counteract Texas’s GOP-drawn map – Republican congressman Kevin Kiley has called on House speaker Mike Johnson to take up his bill to end mid-decade redistricting.
Kiley’s California seat would be vulnerable if new maps are passed in a special election in November.
“Mr. Speaker, these are nice words but we need action,” Kiley wrote on X. “You can stop Newsom’s Redistricting Sham and save our taxpayers $250 million by bringing my mid-decade redistricting bill to the Floor.”
But Kiley’s efforts are in vain, given that Texas’ push to redraw the state’s congressional map was at the behest of Donald Trump. The president has also set his sights on other red states – like Indiana, Ohio and Missouri – to pressure Republican leaders to drum up new maps that could retain a GOP House majority.
Kamala Harris said Texas state representative Nicole Collier, who has been protesting the latest surveillance protocols set by Texas Republicans, is among the “heroes of the moment”.
On Tuesday, the former vice president and Democratic presidential nominee called Collier as she camped out on the House floor and refused to be escorted home by a state trooper – one of the conditions set by the Texas GOP to ensure that Democratic lawmakers would return to the Capitol after their two-week quorum break.
“You know you are among those who history will reveal to have been heroes of this moment,” Harris said on the phone call.
Bondi says 550 arrested in DC since surge of federal law enforcement
Attorney general Pam Bondi has said that federal law enforcement has made 550 arrests since the surge in officers and agents in DC, which began almost two weeks ago. She added that “76 illegal firearms” have also been seized.
We’re waiting on the White House for the updated number of arrests made on Tuesday 19 August.
Also, when it comes to the day’s schedule, and things we’re watching. The Texas house vote on the GOP-drawn congressional map will take place today. The lower chamber will kick off the day’s legislative business at 10am CT/11am ET, so we’ll be watching closely.
The map, which saw Texas Democrats break quorum for two weeks, and has inspired a redistricting arms race across the country, is set to pass. It’ll then head to the state Senate.
The president’s schedule is pretty quiet today for official business, per the White House. The only listed event is a swearing in-ceremony for the US ambassador to the EU at 4pm ET. That’s closed press for now, but I’ll let you know if that changes throughout the day and the president opens it up.
Sam Levin
More than 2.8 million people now identify as transgender in the US, including an estimated 724,000 youth, according to a new data analysis that is the largest of its kind to date.
Researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Williams Institute used federal surveys and data from state health agencies to identify the size and demographics of the trans population in each state.
The analysis, shared with the Guardian and released on Wednesday, documented thousands of trans youth living in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The findings counter Donald Trump’s aggressive efforts to deny the existence of trans minors, as his administration removes references to trans people across federal agencies and widely erodes protections and programs for LGBTQ+ communities.
The report builds on federal data collection efforts that the White House is now eliminating. The authors warn their study could be the last comprehensive portrait of the nation’s trans population for a decade or more as trans people are erased from vital US surveys, including health reports and crime data analyses.
Lucy Campbell
Boston’s mayor Michelle Wu has hit back sharply at the Trump administration’s legal threats over sanctuary city immigration policies, declaring that “Boston will not back down”.
Wu told a news conference outside Boston’s city hall on Tuesday: “The US attorney general asked for a response by today, so here it is: stop attacking our cities to hide your administration’s failures. Unlike the Trump administration, Boston follows the law. And Boston will not back down from who we are and what we stand for.”
Last week, the US Department of Justice sent letters to 13 states, from California to Rhode Island, and 22 local governments, from Boston to Seattle, that it has deemed “sanctuary jurisdictions”, threatening their leaders with prosecution for allegedly “undermining” and “obstructing” federal immigration enforcement.
The letters warned that they could lose federal funds or face legal action if they do not assist with Donald Trump’s sweeping, aggressive and highly controversial immigration enforcement and mass deportation efforts.
Attorney general Pam Bondi has warned that she intends to prosecute political leaders who are not – in her view – sufficiently supportive of immigration enforcement.
Bondi’s letter asked recipients to provide a response by 19 August that “confirms your commitment with complying with federal law and identifies the immediate initiatives you are taking to eliminate laws, policies and practices that impede federal immigration enforcement”.
Uganda has not agreed with US to take illegal immigrants, foreign affairs official says
Uganda has not reached any agreement with the United States to take in illegal immigrants because it lacks necessary infrastructure to do so, a senior foreign affairs ministry official said on Wednesday.
“To the best of my knowledge we have not reached such an agreement. We do not have the facilities and infrastructure to accommodate such illegal immigrants in Uganda. So, we cannot take in such illegal immigrants,” Henry Okello Oryem, state minister for foreign affairs, told Reuters in a text message.
On Tuesday, CBS News, citing internal documents, reported that Washington had reached deportation deals with Honduras and Uganda as part of its effort to strike more agreements with countries that would accept migrants deported from the US who were not their citizens.
