District

The neighborhood that makes America’s clothes has been buffeted by ICE raids and post-Covid problems – but leaders say hope is on the horizonDowntown Los Angeles’s fashion district, the largest apparel manufacturing hub in the United States, is a neighborhood in freefall. While 83% of clothing cut and sewn in the United States is made here, the district has suffered in recent years as visitation and sales have plummeted.“I went from making $2,000 a day to making now $500, sometimes $700,” said Fernando Carmona, who owns the women’s dress store AP Design by Rocca. He added that rent for his store is $8,250 a month. Continue reading...

The GOP-friendly map approved by state lawmakers now goes to Republican governor who is expected to sign itSign up for the Breaking News US newsletter emailLouisiana Republicans approved a new congressional map on Friday which would eliminate a majority-Black congressional district that was at the center of a landmark supreme court ruling gutting section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.The new map reconfigures the state’s sixth congressional district, now represented by Cleo Fields, a Black Democrat. Lawmakers drew the district in 2024 after a court found the map lawmakers enacted after the 2020 census diluted the influence of Black voters and violated section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The new map will probably give Republicans control of five of Louisiana’s six congressional seats (the previous map had a 4-2 Republican-Democrat split). The bill now goes to Louisiana’s Republican governor, Jeff Landry, who is expected to sign it. Continue reading...

Bid to remake maps before midterms and reduce Democratic voters in Jim Clyburn’s district fails in state senateRepublican lawmakers in South Carolina have defied Donald Trump and rejected a breakneck bid to redraw the state’s congressional districts ahead of November’s US midterm elections.In a 26-18 vote, state senators rejected mid-decade redistricting in a special session of the legislature, ending hope in Washington to split up congressman Jim Clyburn’s district and add to the list of gerrymandered gains for Republicans. Continue reading...

GOP to target seat held by Jim Clyburn, the only Democrat among the state’s seven representatives in the HouseSign up for the Breaking News US emailHello and welcome to the US politics live blog.An effort to reshape South Carolina’s congressional districts will get its first full airing Monday in the state House.I live in three districts. I’ll decide which one to run in.A US Senate official on Saturday removed security funding that could be used for Donald Trump’s planned $400m White House ballroom from a massive spending package, Democratic lawmakers said, imperilling Republican efforts to devote taxpayer money to the contentious project.The Republican senator Bill Cassidy lost his primary on Saturday, as voters in Louisiana opted instead to advance two challengers to a runoff election after an extraordinary intervention by Trump to oust the incumbent.With two days to go before the next big test of Trump’s iron grip over his party, the president went head-to-head on Sunday with his nemesis, Thomas Massie the Kentucky congressman who is in a fight for his political life in Tuesday’s Republican primary.Workers renovating one of Washington DC’s most historically symbolic sites in a project ordered by Trump may be risking their safety as they race to finish on time for the US’s 250th anniversary celebrations, a union monitoring the site has warned.The FBI director, Kash Patel, is facing new scrutiny following reports that he participated in a snorkelling excursion around the USS Arizona during a trip to Hawaii last summer. Continue reading...

With third-highest number of books banned, state removes renowned work about slave trade from library shelvesA Tennessee school district has banned Roots, the author Alex Haley’s groundbreaking novel and one of the most renowned and influential works about the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade.Knox county schools (KCS) took that step under a state law that has disappeared hundreds of titles from school libraries and alarmed advocates of free expression. Continue reading...

New map reshapes representative Steve Cohen’s majority-Black Memphis district and gives Republicans an advantageDemocratic representative Steve Cohen of Tennessee on Friday announced that he is ending his bid for re-election, his career upended by the redistricting battles that are sweeping the country after last month’s supreme court decision.Republicans in Tennessee this month enacted a new US House map that carves up Cohen’s majority-Black district, reshaping it to the GOP’s advantage as part of Donald Trump’s strategy to hold on to a slim majority in the November midterm elections. Continue reading...

If state’s house passes bill, redrawn map could could give state Republicans a 5-1 congressional majoritySign up for the Breaking News US newsletter emailOn Thursday, the Louisiana state senate voted 27-10 to pass a new congressional map that would eliminate one of the state’s two majority-Black House districts. The resulting map could give Louisiana Republicans a 5-1 congressional majority.The supreme court’s recent decision in Louisiana v Callais, a case that centered on the state’s congressional maps, severely weakened the Voting Rights Act (VRA). The fallout from the decision was swift, with several other southern states calling special sessions to pass redistricting maps that would limit Black voting power. Continue reading...