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A bill requiring the release of government records on Jeffrey Epstein heads to Donald Trump for his signature on Wednesday, spurring a showdown over whether the US president will allow full disclosure — or return to trying to bury the case.Trump stunned Washington at the weekend, reversing his months-long opposition to the Epstein Files Transparency Act, ensuring that it sailed through Congress on Tuesday in a rare show of bipartisan unity.The spotlight now turns to the Republican president, a former close friend of the late sex offender. Only Trump can stand in the way of the release and he has pledged to sign the bill, despite featuring heavily in the case file.Insiders warn that even with the president’s signature, his administration could lean on redactions, procedural delays or lingering federal investigations to keep explosive details out of the public eye.”Once the president signs the bill, he must apply and execute it faithfully. There must be no funny business from Donald Trump,” top Democrat Chuck Schumer warned in a speech on the Senate floor.”He must not use the excuse of frivolous investigations to release some Epstein documents, while intentionally hiding others that deserve to be seen by the American public.”Epstein, a wealthy financier, moved in elite circles for years, cultivating close ties with business tycoons, politicians, academics and celebrities to whom he was accused of trafficking girls and young women for sex.Trump and his allies spent years pushing theories about powerful Democrats being protected over involvement with Epstein, framing the case as a potent symbol of how powerful men can hide behind lawyers, money and connections.But Trump himself was a longtime associate of Epstein, raising questions over what he knew about the notorious figure.Far beyond Trump’s conspiracy-minded voter base, the saga dented public trust in the US justice system and raised suspicion among voters who believe important pieces of the story were either hidden or ignored.Epstein’s 2019 arrest fueled a storm of outrage and pressure for a full accounting of his network, his finances and the people who helped him evade.Conspiracy theories about a cover-up only deepened after his death — ruled a suicide — in a New York jail soon after.- ‘Smoke screen’? -Passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act in Congress marked a moment of deep emotional resonance, with abuse survivors filling the House gallery as the vote was called, hugging and cheering when it passed.It was a sharp rebuke of Trump and his ally, House Speaker Mike Johnson, who had led efforts to prevent disclosure.Johnson said he would “cross that bridge” when asked if he’d push Trump to veto the bill.The president had warned House Republicans off the action but reversed course, fearing humiliation as he faced the largest rebellion of his presidency.Once signed, the Justice Department has a month to dump its unclassified files online — in a searchable trove of transcripts, flight logs and communications that could unearth unseen names and connections.The text makes only narrow exceptions for personal data and genuine legal and security concerns.But analysts question whether officials will comply, or argue that sensitive material cannot be released because related probes remain active — including a new investigation ordered by Trump last week into Epstein’s ties with Democrats.”(This) might be a big smoke screen, these investigations, to open a bunch of them as a last ditch effort to prevent the release of the Epstein files,” Thomas Massie, the Kentucky Republican who pushed the House vote, told ABC News. The Justice Department and FBI said in July they had uncovered no evidence in a review of the files that would support further action, and it was not clear if the new probe ordered by Trump on Friday would hamper disclosure.Attorney General Pam Bondi was pressed on the justification for further investigation and said there was “new information, additional information.””If there are any victims, we encourage all victims to come forward,” she told reporters. “And we will continue to provide maximum transparency under the law.”

US President Donald Trump vowed Wednesday to end Sudan’s grinding civil war at the request of Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, condemning “tremendous atrocities” in a conflict he has previously overlooked.Trump admitted that the devastating civil war between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) was “not on my charts” before de facto Saudi leader Mohammed bin Salman pushed him to get involved.But Trump said he would now work to “stabilize” the conflict with regional powers, notably including the United Arab Emirates, which denies accusations of backing the RSF with weapons and mercenaries.The United Nations has repeatedly called for greater global attention to the war, which has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced nearly 12 million since its outbreak in April 2023.”His majesty would like me to do something very powerful having to do with Sudan,” Trump said at a business forum with the Saudi royal a day after Prince Mohammed received a lavish reception at the White House.”It was not on my charts to be involved in, I thought it was just something that was crazy and out of control. But I just see how important that is to you, and to a lot of your friends in the room, Sudan. And we’re going to start working on Sudan.”Shortly afterward Trump, who had barely commented on the Sudan war in the nine months since he returned to office, was talking about the conflict again on social media.The 79-year-old Republican said he would use the “influence of the presidency to bring an immediate halt” to the war.”Tremendous atrocities are taking place in Sudan. It has become the most violent place on Earth and, likewise, the single biggest Humanitarian Crisis,” Trump said on his Truth Social network.- ‘Gone bad’ -Trump called Sudan a “Great Civilization and Culture, unfortunately gone bad” that could be fixed with the help of wealthy regional powers.”We will work with Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and other Middle Eastern partners to get these atrocities to end, while at the same time stabilizing Sudan,” he added.Saudi Arabia supports Sudan’s army-aligned government. The army accuses the United Arab Emirates of backing the RSF, which the UAE denies.The RSF recently seized the key city of Al-Fasher after a relentless siege, leading the UN Human Rights Council on Friday to order a probe of alleged atrocities. Despite the conflict being off Trump’s radar, Washington has stepped up efforts in recent months to finalize a truce between the warring parties.US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the UAE’s foreign minister on Friday to urge Abu Dhabi to back a Sudan ceasefire.And Trump’s own Africa envoy Massad Boulos on Saturday told AFP that the war in Sudan was the “world’s biggest humanitarian crisis.”Trump repeatedly claims to have solved eight conflicts since returning to office in January but has until now focused instead on the wars in Gaza and Ukraine in his pursuit of a Nobel Peace Prize.His promise to start working on the Sudan conflict reflects his close ties with the de facto Saudi leader, whom he hosted at the White House for a lavish visit on Tuesday.Their closeness was also underscored by his comments in the Oval Office on Tuesday, during which Trump defended the prince over the 2018 murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, saying the prince “knew nothing”.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva hit the corridors of COP30 in Belem on Wednesday, in a push to land a deal at the UN climate talks as nations remained divided over contentious issues.Lula flew into the Amazonian city to bring the weight of the presidency to the talks, in a rare late-stage visit by a head of state or government at the annual gathering.COP30 host Brazil released a draft pact on Tuesday and pushed negotiators to work through the night, hoping to get nations to agree on the most disputed points as soon as Wednesday — two days before the conference is scheduled to end.Lula, who has invested political capital into making what he dubbed the “COP of truth” a success, shuttled between rooms to meet with ministers of various negotiating groups.”His willingness to make time in his busy schedule to give new momentum to the COP is tremendously important,” EU climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra said in a statement after meeting with Lula.But as the day progressed, a deal had yet to materialize.The disagreements center on the impact of trade measures, language on transitioning away from fossil fuels, and demands for developed countries to provide more climate finance to poorer nations.French ecological transition minister Monique Barbut knocked back Brazilian hopes of securing a deal as soon as Wednesday.”No, there will not be a COP decision today. I don’t see how that could happen,” Barbut told AFP.”However, yes, there is a little bit of movement. But we are still far from the mark because for us, it must be a comprehensive package,” Barbut said after a coordination meeting with European colleagues.She added, however, that she was “more optimistic” than she was the day before.- No more money -The draft underscores the gulf between a broad coalition of more than 80 countries pushing for a “roadmap” on phasing out fossil fuels and an opposing bloc led by oil-producing countries.”Whether we’re going to call it the roadmap or we’re going to use a different wording, I think is secondary. But once again, we very much like the idea,” Hoekstra said at a news conference.Further complicating matters, there are visible cracks on the Brazilians’ front.The idea of a roadmap, pushed by Lula himself, was never taken up by the summit’s president — led by diplomats who are seen by observers as close to business circles, and under pressure from nations that do not want it brought up.Negotiators are also at loggerheads over pressure from the developing world for developed countries to provide more finance to help vulnerable nations adapt to climate change and deploy renewable energy.The COP29 summit in Baku last year concluded with developed nations agreeing to provide $300 billion a year in climate finance, a figure criticized by developing countries as woefully insufficient.The EU, where many countries are facing economic headwinds and soaring debt, has led opposition to demands for more money.”We’re not looking at any increases in adaptation finance,” Irish climate minister Darragh O’Brien said.The EU is also fighting any attempt to have language against its tax on imports of carbon-intensive goods such as steel, aluminum, cement and fertilizers.China has called for the removal of what it calls “trade barriers.””There should be at least a mention (of trade measures), because they become a disabler instead of an enabler. So, I think they will be mentioned in some way,” Mexican environment minister Alicia Barcena told AFP.A new text is expected to be published on Wednesday.COP30 is due to end on Friday, but climate summits regularly run into overtime.In a sign that Brazil wants to stay on schedule, delegates sleeping on two cruise ships serving as floating hotels have been told to vacate their cabins on Saturday morning.

Seven people linked to a Canadian former Olympic snowboarder turned alleged drug kingpin have been arrested in Canada, including his lawyer, officials said Wednesday.Ryan Wedding, 44, who is believed to be hiding out in Mexico, is wanted by the United States on drug and murder charges and is on the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted Fugitives” list.The State Department announced on Wednesday that it was increasing the reward for information leading to Wedding’s arrest to $15 million from $10 million.FBI Director Kash Patel described Wedding at a press conference in Washington as a “modern day iteration of Pablo Escobar,” the notorious Colombian drug lord who died in 1993.”(Wedding) is responsible for engineering a narco-trafficking and narco-terrorism program that we have not seen in a long time,” Patel said.US and Canadian officials said seven people connected to Wedding’s cocaine smuggling operation were arrested in Canada on Tuesday, including his lawyer, Deepak Paradkar, and the United States was seeking their extradition.Paradkar, 62, of Ontario, allegedly told Wedding that if he killed a witness in a pending criminal case against him the case would go away.”His lawyer told him, ‘If you kill this witness, the case would be dismissed,'” Assistant US Attorney Bill Essayli said.The witness was shot five times in the head and killed in January 2025 at a restaurant in Medellin, Colombia, Essayli said.Also arrested in Canada was Gursewak Singh Bal, 31, of Ontario, founder of a website known as “The Dirty News.”Bal was allegedly paid to post a photograph of the slain witness on the website “so that the victim could be located and killed,” the Justice Department said.Michael Duheme, commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, said the arrests were part of a coordinated law enforcement action dubbed “Operation Giant Slalom.”Wedding competed for Canada in snowboarding at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, finishing 24th in the parallel giant slalom.”Fugitive Ryan Wedding remains one of the top threats to Canadian public safety,” Duheme said.Wedding, whose aliases include “El Jefe,” “Giant” and “Public Enemy,” is accused of shipping hundreds of millions of dollars of cocaine from Colombia through Mexico to the United States and Canada.FBI agent Akil Davis said Wedding is being protected by the Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico and is “extremely dangerous.””He’s extremely violent and he’s extremely wealthy,” Davis said.In addition to the seven Canadians arrested on Tuesday, three other people linked to the January 2025 murder of the witness in Colombia were taken into custody, officials said.

US President Donald Trump fiercely defended Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Tuesday over the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, insisting the kingdom’s de facto ruler “knew nothing” about the murder as he wooed him at the White House.Trump sought to brush the gruesome murder of the Washington Post columnist under the red carpet, honoring the Saudi royal with a flypast and lavish dinner, and formally naming Riyadh as a major non-NATO ally.He raged at a journalist who asked the prince in the Oval Office about the case for embarrassing the Saudi royal on his first US trip since the murder, and called Khashoggi “extremely controversial.””A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about,” he said.”Whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen, but he (the prince) knew nothing about it. And we can leave it at that. You don’t have to embarrass our guest by asking a question like that.”The Saudi royal, who came bearing a pledge of a $1 trillion investment in the United States on his first US visit since the killing, said Khashoggi’s murder was “painful” and a “huge mistake.”Trump’s comments were at odds with a US intelligence assessment in 2021 that concluded Prince Mohammed had ordered the operation to kill Khashoggi, who was murdered and dismembered inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.Saudi officials blamed rogue agents.- ‘No justification’ -After the meeting, the journalist’s widow, Hanan Elatr Khashoggi, said in a post on X there was “no justification to murder my husband” and urged the Saudi prince to “meet me, apologize and compensate me.”The killing during Trump’s first term caused a diplomatic crisis, but the US president made it clear he now wanted to paper over it as he boosts his relationship with the Saudis.Trump called for US broadcaster ABC, whose journalist asked the question about Khashoggi’s murder, to have its license revoked in a furious diatribe against the “crappy” company.In a surprise move at the gala dinner in the evening, Trump said he was designating Saudi Arabia as one of just 20 major non-NATO allies around the world. “I’m just telling you now for the first time, because they wanted to keep a little secret for tonight,” he said.Soccer legend Cristiano Ronaldo, who plays in Saudi Arabia, was among the guests at the meal. So was billionaire Elon Musk, in a sign that the billionaire has mended ties with Trump after his tempestuous spell in the president’s administration.Earlier Trump, 79, pulled out all the stops to impress Prince Mohammed, 40, giving him a flyby featuring the coveted, US-made F-35 stealth fighters, and thundering cannon fire.The flattery continued inside the Oval Office, as Trump called the Saudi a “very good friend” and hailed him as being “incredible, in terms of human rights, and everything else.” The two countries later signed a host of deals, including a civil nuclear cooperation agreement that the White House said would last decades.Trump also approved a “major defense sale package” which includes “future deliveries” of F-35s. They also agreed to share AI technology “while protecting US technology from foreign influence.”- Business interests -Trump said he had also pushed Prince Mohammed to normalize relations with Israel through the Abraham Accords, as he seeks to turn the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza into a longer-lasting regional peace.The Saudi said he wanted to join the accords — Trump’s signature diplomatic achievement during his first term — but first needed a “clear path” to Palestinian statehood.Prince Mohammed has fostered close ties with Trump and his family over the years, including through investment pledges to the property billionaire-turned-US president.Trump denied any conflicts of interest, a day after a Saudi developer announced a new hotel partnership in the Maldives with the Trump Organization, which is run by his sons.”I have nothing to do with the family business. I have left,” Trump said.

A portrait by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt fetched $236.4 million in New York on Tuesday, becoming the second most expensive artwork ever sold at auction. Six bidders battled for 20 minutes over the “Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer,” which Klimt painted between 1914 and 1916. The piece depicts the daughter of Klimt’s main patron dressed in a white imperial Chinese dress, standing before a blue tapestry with Asian-inspired motifs. Sotheby’s, which managed the sale, did not disclose the identity of the buyer. The most expensive painting ever sold at auction remains the “Salvator Mundi,” attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, which was bought for $450 million in 2017. “Full-length society portraits of this impressive scale and from Klimt’s pinnacle period (1912-17) are exceptionally rare; the majority in major museum collections,” Sotheby’s said of Tuesday’s sale. “The painting offered this evening was one of only two such commissioned portraits remaining in private hands,” it added in a statement. Several other works from Klimt were auctioned at the same event, including “Flowering Meadow” for $86 million and “Forest Slope at Unterach am Attersee” for $68.3 million — both part of the collection of Estee Lauder cosmetics heir Leonard Lauder, who died earlier this year. In total, 24 lots from the Lauder collection generated $527.5 million.For Klimt, the past auction record for his work was held by “Lady with a Fan,” which sold for 85.3 million pounds ($108.8 million) in London in 2023. Another notable auction on Tuesday saw Italian provocateur Maurizio Cattelan’s solid gold toilet go for $12.1 million, and was sold to a famous American brand, according to Sotheby’s.An earlier version of the luxe latrine, titled “America,” was stolen in 2019 from a castle in England. Though it was never recovered — and likely was melted down for cash — three men were convicted in connection with the theft.On Thursday, a self-portrait by Frida Kahlo has a chance of setting a record for a female artist when it goes on sale, also at Sotheby’s in New York. Estimated at $40 to $60 million, the 1940 piece called “The Dream (The Bed)” shows the Mexican painter sleeping in a bed overshadowed by a large skeleton. The most expensive painting by a female artist sold to date is a 1932 work by American Georgia O’Keeffe, which fetched $44.4 million in 2014. The record for Frida Kahlo is another self-portrait from 1949, “Diego and I,” which sold for $34.4 million in New York. 

South Africa will host the G20 summit this weekend, aiming to secure commitments on debt relief for developing countries and to tackle global inequalities as the United States boycotts the event.US President Donald Trump, who has clashed with South Africa over its G20 agenda, is skipping the summit amid a wider US retreat from multilateralism that has rattled global order.President Cyril Ramaphosa told reporters ahead of the November 22-23 event that the US absence is “their loss”.The United States is the most powerful of the 19 countries in the G20, which represents 85 percent of global GDP and about two-thirds of the world’s population, and also includes the European Union and the African Union.The US boycott echoes Trump’s decision not to send an official delegation to the COP30 summit in Brazil.The Republican leader has also withdrawn from the Paris Agreement, an international treaty to limit global warming and has imposed unilateral tariffs on a host of trading partners.South Africa, in particular, has been slapped with a 30 percent tariff from the United States.Trump has also singled out the sub-Saharan nation over a number of issues since he returned to the White House in January, notably claiming falsely that white Afrikaners were being systematically “killed and slaughtered” in the country.- Debt, disaster financing -South Africa’s G20 theme of “Solidarity, Equality, Sustainability” focuses on supporting developing countries through debt relief and financing measures to cope with disasters caused by climate change.It was branded “anti-American” by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in February, when he skipped one of the first meetings of G20 ministers.South Africa says debt is a priority because repayments limit investments in essentials such as infrastructure, healthcare and education.Between 2021 and 2023, Africa spent $70 per capita on debt interest payments, more than on education or health which were at $63 and $44 per capita respectively, according to the United Nations.Ramaphosa will also push for the creation of an “International Inequalities Panel”, modelled after the IPCC for climate change, to tackle massive global inequality that is particularly stark than in South Africa.A report for the G20 from a team led by Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz labelled wealth inequality as a global crisis that threatens democracy and social cohesion, saying it should be confronted with the same urgency as the climate crisis.”If adopted, it would mark a significant win not just for Pretoria’s presidency, but for the millions across the Global South whose voices are often sidelined in elite economic forums,” said Tendai Mbanje, a researcher at the the University of Pretoria’s Centre for Human Rights.- Consensus? -It is unclear if South Africa’s G20 presidency will manage to secure a consensus and release a joint final declaration on the issues discussed.Delegates involved in preparatory work said Argentina’s representatives have been obstructive. President Javier Milei — a Trump ally — is also boycotting the event.In the absence of the United States, China’s representative Premier Li Qiang is expected to advocate for multilateralism.”Economic globalisation and multipolarity are irreversible,” Li said at a Asian regional summit in October.Russia will be represented by President Vladimir Putin’s economic advisor and deputy chief of staff, Maxim Oreshkin, in the notable absence of Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.The summit is set to begin the day after the scheduled conclusion of COP30 in Belem, Brazil, whose final negotiations could influence discussions in Johannesburg.It marks the end of a cycle of G20 presidencies by Global South countries, following Indonesia in 2022, India in 2023 and Brazil in 2024.The next to take the baton is the United States.Washington has already announced its intention to narrow the G20’s focus to issues of economic cooperation at the December 2026 meeting to be held at a Miami golf course owned by the Trump family.

Portuguese soccer superstar Cristiano Ronaldo and billionaire Elon Musk were among the guests at a lavish White House dinner hosted by US President Donald Trump for the visiting Saudi crown prince on Tuesday.Ronaldo plays for Saudi club Al Nassr, one of a number of aging players who have been attracted to the desert kingdom’s heavy spending on stars despite its rights record.The 40-year-old, whose contract with the Saudi club ends this summer, took his place near the head of Trump’s table a few seconds before the president and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman entered.”You know, my son is a big fan of Ronaldo,” Trump said in his pre-dinner speech, adding that his soccer-mad son Barron, 19, got to meet the legendary player. “I think he respects his father a little bit more now, just the fact that I introduced you.”Ronaldo was not the only soccer-related dinner guest, as FIFA chief Gianni Infantino made yet another appearance at the White House ahead of the 2026 World Cup, which the United States is co-hosting.Ronaldo says next year’s World Cup — for which Portugal booked their place on Sunday — will “definitely” be his last.Also at the black-tie dinner was Space X and Tesla tycoon Musk, in a sign that the rift between the president and the world’s richest man has healed after their fiery public divorce. South African-born Musk spent five months as head of the cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and accompanied Trump on a trip to Saudi Arabia in May. But the relationship collapsed in July after Musk criticized Trump’s so-called “big, beautiful” spending bill and then said that the president was in investigatory files relating to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.Trump responded by threatening Musk with deportation.Musk, wearing a tuxedo, was seen chatting to fellow guests at a candlelit table — although a different one from Trump’s.During the dinner Trump also praised the Saudi prince as a “man of leadership,” having earlier defended his royal visitor over the 2018 murder of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

It is one of the world’s most famous unsolved codes whose answer could sell for a fortune — but two US friends say they have already found the secret hidden by “Kryptos.”The S-shaped copper sculpture has baffled cryptography enthusiasts since its 1990 installation on the grounds of the CIA headquarters in Virginia, with three of its four messages deciphered so far.Yet K4, the final passage, has kept codebreakers scratching their heads. The sculptor Jim Sanborn, 80, has been so overwhelmed by guesses that he started charging $50 for each response.In August, Sanborn announced he would auction the 97-character solution to K4 as he no longer had the “physical, mental or financial resources” to maintain the code.In a sign of wide interest in Kryptos, which has inspired cultural figures including “The Da Vinci Code” author Dan Brown, the code’s solution is on course to fetch more than $240,000 in a sale due to end this Thursday. So when two friends announced in October they had uncovered the last message held by Kryptos (“hidden” in ancient Greek), it invoked fury and concern from the auction house and Sanborn.Jarett Kobek, a writer from Los Angeles, told AFP how the pair came across the code after he noticed a reference to Washington’s Smithsonian Institution, where Sanborn held his archives, in the auction catalog. He asked his friend Richard Byrne, who is based in the US capital, to take a look through the files.”I took images of all the coding stuff in the files,” said Richard Byrne, a journalist and playwright.A few hours later, Kobek called him and said “Hey, you might have found something interesting,” he recalled.Using Byrne’s photos and clues previously shared by Sanborn, Kobek unraveled the K4 message.- Legal threats -The two men decided to write to Sanborn to share their discovery — but instead of congratulations, they were met by alarm.Sanborn, the pair said, asked them to sign non-disclosure agreements in exchange for a share of the money raised in the auction.”The NDA is a total non-starter,” Kobek said. “You are running an auction where what you are selling is intellectual property exclusivity.””If I take money from that sale, I feel like this would almost certainly make me party to fraud.”They later went public with their discovery in a New York Times piece in October.Sanborn, explaining his communication with the men, wrote in a public letter: “I was trying to save K4 from disclosure by any means possible. I had succeeded for 35 years after all.”Kobek said the pair were keen to avoid disrupting the K4 auction. “The last thing anyone wants to do is take money from an 80-year-old artist,” he said.Even if they have no intention of revealing the code’s solution, the two men say the auction house has sent them cease-and-desist letters.Sanborn has acknowledged his error in archiving the crucial information — but he downplayed the discovery.He said the pair had “found and photographed five pieces of scrambled texts that I had accidentally placed in the archive boxes all those years ago.””The scrambled plain text was found, but without the coding method or the key. This is a very important distinction,” he separately told a news conference in November.And, he added, the discovery does not end the mystery of Kryptos.K5, with a “similar but not identical” coding system to K4, is also to be released after the current auction sale. 

A US district court, in a setback for President Donald Trump, struck down a congressional map on Tuesday redrawn by Republicans in Texas that was intended to give the party five more likely seats in the House of Representatives.The court ruled that the new map, which weakened five Democratic districts, could not be used in the 2026 midterm elections, where Republicans are seeking to safeguard their slim majority in the House.Democrats are eyeing a big win that would allow them to challenge the Republican president for the rest of his term.The court said the redrawn map, which was challenged by Black and Hispanic voters, amounted to illegal racial gerrymandering.In a split 2-1 decision, the court ordered Republican-ruled Texas to use a 2021 map for next year’s congressional midterm vote.The decision, which Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott said he would appeal to the conservative-majority Supreme Court, is the latest development in a congressional redistricting battle between Republicans and Democrats playing out nationwide.Democratic-ruled California, in response to the move in Texas, voted earlier this month to redraw its own congressional districts to favor Democrats, potentially gaining up to five more House seats.That move has been challenged in court by the Republican Party of California in a lawsuit that has received the backing of the Trump administration.Republicans in Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio have also moved to create more Republican-leaning congressional districts in their states.US electoral districts are traditionally drawn following the national census to reflect population numbers. The next census is not scheduled until 2030.But Republican-ruled Texas, under pressure from Trump, decided to redraw its congressional maps mid-decade to yield more Republican districts.Republicans currently hold a narrow five-seat majority in the House. They also have a majority in the Senate, preventing Democrats from mounting meaningful opposition to Trump.District Judge Jeffrey Brown, in the 160-page ruling striking down the Texas redistricting, said “the public perception of this case is that it’s about politics.””To be sure, politics played a role in drawing the 2025 Map,” Brown wrote. “But it was much more than just politics. Substantial evidence shows that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 Map.”Partisan gerrymandering is allowed in the United States but crafting congressional districts on the basis of race is considered unlawful.- ‘Brazen’ -Brown, a Trump appointee, was joined in the opinion by a district judge appointed by Democratic president Barack Obama. A judge appointed by Republican president Ronald Reagan dissented.Gene Wu, the leader of the Democratic minority in the Texas state House of Representatives, welcomed the court ruling.”A federal court just stopped one of the most brazen attempts to steal our democracy that Texas has ever seen,” Wu said in a statement.”Greg Abbott and his Republican cronies tried to silence Texans’ voices to placate Donald Trump, but now have delivered him absolutely nothing.”The Texas governor said the state would “swiftly” lodge an appeal with the Supreme Court.”The Legislature redrew our congressional maps to better reflect Texans’ conservative voting preferences –- and for no other reason,” Abbott said in a statement. “Any claim that these maps are discriminatory is absurd.”Attorney General Pam Bondi said the Trump administration expects Texas to triumph at the Supreme Court, where conservatives have a 6-3 majority.”We strongly disagree with today’s district court ruling on Texas’s redistricting map — Texas’s map was drawn the right way for the right reasons,” Bondi said on X.