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Jeremy Allen White Having A Shamelessly Good Time With My Kids!!! Published May 3, 2026 5:30 PM PDT Jeremy Allen White fans will soon see him flying high in the "Star Wars" universe ... but
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Rick Fox is offering an apology ... to absolutely nobody! The former basketball star -- who is running for political office down in The Bahamas -- spoke at a political rally on Sunday ... and,
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Play video content It's a family date day for Kylie Jenner and Timothée Chalamet -- the couple was seen arriving hand in hand for a Broadway performance of "The Fear of 13" on Sunday along with Kris
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Play video content Bianca Censori covered up for a day at the spa ... masking her face with a shirt -- while basically letting her boobs hang out! Check out the clip -- Kanye West's
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Brandon Sheets, the son of the late "Storage Wars" star Darrell Sheets, has broken his silence on the sudden death of his father. Brandon wrote about his heartache in an emotional Instagram post alongside several
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A child looks on next to her mother holding a placard, during a march by a South African anti-xenophobia group following a recent campaign by another group which called on the government to prioritise jobs
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The number of competitive US House of Representatives districts in this fall’s midterm elections was already near historic lows before the US Supreme Court’s decision on Wednesday opened the door to even more aggressive efforts to draw district lines for political gain. The court’s ruling, which arrived amid what was already an unprecedented national fight over congressional redistricting, may usher in a new era of nakedly partisan gerrymandering that results in still fewer competitive elections, leaving voters with less power than ever. The lack of competitive races means that control of the US House of Representatives will likely be determined in November’s midterm election by fewer than 10% of Americans, with the winners in the vast majority of districts all but assured before a single ballot is cast, a Reuters analysis found. Only 32 of the House’s 435 seats are currently considered competitive, according to the analysis. Those districts were rated either toss-ups or leaning toward Democrats or Republicans by three leading independent forecasters: Cook Political Report, the University of Virginia’s Crystal Ball, and Inside Elections. Most other districts are simply out of play. Cook, for instance, rates 375 seats, more than 85% of the House, as either “Solid Republican” or “Solid Democrat”, which means its analysts do not expect them to be seriously contested. Another 28 races are “likely” Republican or Democratic, according to Cook, meaning they are not competitive at present but might become so under new conditions. This year boasts the fewest competitive House races at this stage of the election cycle since at least 2008, according to an archive of prior Cook ratings. Democrats need to gain just three seats to win a House majority, giving them the power to block President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda and initiate investigations into his administration. The shrinking House battlefield is the result of several factors, including increased political polarisation. However, the weaponisation of congressional redistricting, or gerrymandering – which has gone into overdrive since last year, when Trump began pushing Republicans to draw new maps – is a critical element that is only going to accelerate after the Supreme Court’s ruling, according to experts. “We are now in a cycle of gerrymandering wars,” said Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School who maintains the website All About Redistricting. “What used to be a cold war has gotten very hot.” The court hollowed out a provision of the federal Voting Rights Act that had blocked state legislatures from dismantling districts with mostly racial minority voters. Political observers expect Republican-led states to target a dozen or more Democratic-held majority-Black and majority-Latino seats that previously enjoyed stauncher protections. “I think it gets worse before it gets better,” Levitt said. “And I think there’s plenty of room for it to get worse.” The lack of competitive districts can have consequences for Congress, said Matthew Klein, a House analyst with Cook. If House candidates only need to appeal to their base voters to win elections, rather than moderates or members of the opposing party, they are more likely to move toward the extremes instead of the political middle. “If you look at Congress and how it acted 20 years ago, 30 years ago, even farther back, you see a Congress that is both less acrimonious and also more productive,” he said. “There used to be bills that passed with huge majorities on major issues. We just don’t really see that anymore.” Gerrymandering has long been a feature of American democracy, but the practice has been supercharged in recent years as guardrails, both legal and institutional, have been torn down. In 2019, the Supreme Court found that while partisan gerrymandering may be undemocratic, federal courts had no role in regulating it. Last year, Trump successfully pressured Texas Republicans to rip up their map and draw a new one targeting five Democratic incumbents, triggering a nationwide arms race that spread to nearly a dozen other states. That move eviscerated what had been a traditional norm limiting most redistricting to the start of each decade, after the US Census population count is completed. The Supreme Court’s ruling on Wednesday, meanwhile, has given even more leeway to lawmakers to draw districts for their party’s benefit. And all of those developments have come against a backdrop of technological advances, with mapmakers able to identify Democratic and Republican voters down to the census block. “If there are no guardrails, there are no guardrails,” Levitt said. “I think the constraint is now realpolitik and imagination, not, ‘We just don’t do that.’” Gerrymandering is not the only culprit to blame for the lack of competitive districts. Voters have become more geographically sorted, as rural areas have trended conservative while suburban regions moved left. And just as House members have become more polarised, so too have voters. Split-ticket voting, in which voters choose a candidate of one party for a higher office and another for a lower office, was once fairly common, but no longer. In 2000, there were 86 House members elected whose districts voted for the opposing party’s presidential candidate, according to research by Kyle Kondik, the managing editor of Crystal Ball. In 2024, that number was down to 16.
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European officials have been working on ways to convince Donald Trump to keep the United States in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) despite severe tensions over the Iran war. However, his abrupt move to cut US forces in Germany is the latest sign that such efforts have their limits and are far from certain to succeed. The substance of the decision announced last week to remove 5,000 troops from Germany did not come as a surprise to Nato officials. European leaders have agreed with the US president that Europeans will take over more responsibility for their own security from US forces. Dropping a plan to deploy long-range US Tomahawk missiles to Germany was more concerning for Berlin. However, even that was not a huge shock, as that deal was made by Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, and US Tomahawk stocks have been depleted by the US-Israeli war against Iran. More alarming for European governments was how the move was made – with little prior notification or consultation and with US officials linking it to Trump’s displeasure at German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s criticism of US conduct of the Iran war. “What is worrying is not the figure of 5,000 troops, but the political signal from Washington that longstanding, absolutely reliable partnerships no longer seem to count for anything and appear to be subject to arbitrary decisions,” said Siemtje Moeller, a senior lawmaker from Germany’s Social Democrats, who are part of Merz’s governing coalition. The move followed accusations by Trump that US alllies have not been doing enough to support the US in the Iran war and suggestions by him that this meant Washington no longer needs to honour the alliance’s Article 5 mutual defence clause. Trump also pushed the alliance to the brink by threatening to take Greenland from Denmark, a fellow Nato member. Nato Secretary-General Mark Rutte helped to defuse that crisis but the underlying dispute has not been resolved. European diplomats say they fear Trump may make further moves that could test the alliance before a summit of its 32 national leaders in Ankara in July, especially if the Iran war is not over by then and he is still venting anger at allies. “The longer game for Nato and European allies is getting through Ankara,” said a European diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity. “We need to do things with the Americans if we can, and without them if we must.” Defence experts say Europeans have little choice but to try to keep the US on board, given their heavy reliance on the United States to deter any possible attack by Russia. As part of their efforts to convince Trump of the value of European allies, officials have said many European countries are honouring agreements to allow US forces to use bases on their soil and fly in their airspace during the Iran campaign – even if they are not keen to advertise the fact, given Trump and the war are deeply unpopular in much of Europe. European officials are also working to make a broader case to Trump, other US officials, lawmakers and Republican-friendly think tanks that it is in their interests to stick with Nato. While there is broad support for these efforts across the alliance, the crisis has also exposed stark differences among European Nato leaders over how to respond to the war on Iran. Leaders of Western European countries such as Spain, France and Germany have voiced blunt criticism, reflecting domestic public opinion but risking Trump’s ire. Rutte, by contrast, has made clear he sees anti-war rhetoric as unhelpful. Some eastern European countries, fearing any weakening of Nato will embolden Russia, have taken a similar view, diplomats say. Rutte has also said that several countries were “pre-positioning essential logistical and other support” such as minehunters and minesweepers near the Gulf to be ready for a possible Strait of Hormuz mission after the war ends. The Netherlands, Belgium and Germany have said they are sending ships that could be part of such a mission. France, which is leading planning of a potential mission with Britain, also has ships in the Middle East that could take part. “European leaders have gotten the message, they’ve heard the message from the US loud and clear,” Rutte told reporters at a summit of European leaders in Armenia.
