The court’s conservative majority said they had upheld the landmark law, as liberal justices accused them of gutting it. In striking down a Louisiana voting map as a racial gerrymander, the court opened the door for other states to redraw their maps.
The Florida House of Representatives on Wednesday.Credit…Mike Stewart/Associated Press
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The Florida House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to approve an aggressive new map that would redraw the state’s congressional districts and could give Republicans up to four new seats.
The vote came about an hour after the Supreme Court issued a decision limiting a key provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act; the case was the main justification that Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, used to redraw Florida’s map.
Martin Luther King III assailed the ruling as weakening “the crown jewel of the civil rights movement,” a reference to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In a statement with his wife, Arndrea Waters King, he said the ruling went beyond a legal setback and was “a moral indictment that reflects a continued retreat from the promise of equal justice.”
“While future courts may address this ruling, the damage is immediate,” the Kings said, “and this moment demands that we choose whether to accept the erosion of our democracy or stand together to defend it.”
Voters casting ballots in Miami in 2024. Gov. Ron DeSantis has pushed a new map that would give Republicans more House seats. Credit…Scott McIntyre for The New York Times
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Perhaps nowhere in the country was the timing of the Supreme Court decision more dramatic than in Florida, where just as the ruling was announced, state lawmakers were debating an aggressive new congressional map that could give Republicans up to four additional seats.
In the State House, Democrats called for a two-hour break to digest the decision. Republicans disagreed and raced to pass the map. In the State Senate, the Republican Senate president briefly paused the proceedings to give lawmakers a little time to read the court decision.
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A series of rulings by the justices has weakened the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Credit…Eric Lee for The New York Times
Everyone completely panics when the heavy storms hit. They run for soft shelter and pray for the easy days to quickly return. But building a truly strong mindset means you do not just survive the brutal chaos; you must find actual joy in it. You have to learn how to actively dance through those dark […]
Hmmmm … Fusion reactors produce Helium, which is a useful byproduct.
Click the link below the picture
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On Tuesday, a fusion energy start-up announced that it has applied to join a U.S. power grid—a first that could one day see households and businesses powered by nuclear fusion.
Commonwealth Fusion Systems is looking to join a power grid that is operated by PJM Interconnection and provides 182,000 megawatts of power to more than 67 million people living in 13 states and Washington, D.C. But technical hurdles to bringing fusion online remain—one major obstacle is actually producing a stable fusion reaction that generates more energy than it consumes.
The application process requires a potential energy provider to provide extensive technical information to the grid operator, including descriptions of the planned fuel type. In Commonwealth’s case, the company is developing a tokamak reactor design that uses high-powered lasers and powerful magnetic fields to combine two isotopes of hydrogen—deuterium and tritium—in a process that mimics the nuclear reactions in the sun. The promise of the device is that a fusion reaction could feasibly generate limitless clean energy. That energy, in the form of heat, is used to boil water into steam, which then pushes a turbine to produce electricity.
Much of that process remains theoretical, however, because physicists have yet to prove that fusion can work as a large-scale power source. Recent results from Germany’s Wendelstein 7-X demonstrated it could contain superheated plasma for 43 seconds. And its rival, the Joint European Torus, was apparently able to accomplish that feat for a full minute before its reactor was retired in 2023. While such capabilities are impressive, there is still a long way to go before a fusion device could be connected to a grid. Commonwealth plans to open its first power plant, called ARC (for “affordable, robust, compact”), in Virginia in the early 2030s. And the company aims to demonstrate an initial model, called SPARC (for “smallest possible ARC”), in 2027.
Commonwealth has demonstrated some success: The company’s toroidal field magnet technology was validated by the Department of Energy in September 2025. The superconducting magnets generate the magnetic field that is used to contain the high-temperature plasma generated by a fusion reaction. But Commonwealth has yet to test the full system.
Commonwealth co-founder and CEO Bob Mumgaard said in a statement that the company is committed “to delivering the benefits of fusion, and enabling a future with abundant, secure energy, [which] means that we’re not just proving fusion physics works—we’re showing exactly how fusion power plant watts get from our machine to the customer, working with the grid and a utility.”
“By becoming the first fusion energy developer to enter a major grid operator’s interconnection queue, we’re demonstrating that when you’re serious about building a power plant in the early 2030s, you act now,” he said. “This is execution.”
Commonwealth’s application will likely take years to be approved; the company will navigate a complex process that will include several impact studies and other analyses, as well as reviews of the its capabilities, readiness, safety controls, and other compliance.
PJM Interconnection did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Breastplates have dotted the battlefield since the 1300s, but it took until 1969 for them to appear on the runway. Yves Saint Laurent—who took inspiration from fine arts throughout his 40-year career—tapped sculptor Claude Lalanne to combine sculpture and fashion. In his fall 1969 couture collection, two models walked down the runway, moulds of their bodies worn on their dresses.
From then on, designers have offered their own renderings of the breastplate: armor-esque replicas, chiselled abs and perky breasts, and smooth, hard bodices among them.
Greta Lee in Issey Miyake at 2026 SFFILM Festival Opening Night. Miikka Skaffari/Getty Images
Zendaya in Tom Ford at the 2020 Critics Choice Awards. Photo: Getty Images
Rihanna performing in Loewe at the 2023 Super Bowl Half-Time Show. Kevin Mazur/Getty Images
In the decades after Saint Laurent, the breastplate has remained ever-popular: Thierry Mugler, a notable fan of the look, sent Jerry Hall down his 1980 runway in a moulded corset with a flowing skirt; in 2022, Jonathan Anderson offered multiple interpretations, from muscleman abs to gold-plated organic sculptures at Loewe. But there was perhaps no bigger enthusiast than Alexander McQueen, who worked a wide variety of breastplates into his many collections across Givenchy and his namesake brand.
Although breastplates aren’t de rigueuer in street style, fashion-forward celebrities are also on board. Zendaya arrived at the 2020 Critics Choice Awards in a magenta Tom Ford body cast, while Rihanna hit the Super Bowl stage in another Loewe by Jonathan Anderson molded creation. And just this past weekend, Greta Lee attended the opening night of the 2026 SFFILM Festival in a glossy mahogany Issey Miyake. They’ve also retained their popularity on the runway, from longtime proponents like Miyake to newer talents like Grace Ling.
This year, the 2026 Met Gala, “Costume Art,” places fashion on the same lofty pedestal as fine art media. The breastplate, with its history as a hybrid of fashion and sculpture, serves as a reminder that the two are more connected than we often think. Below, revisit some of the breastplates that have walked the runways, from 1969 through 2026.
King Charles III on Tuesday delivered an optimistic assessment of American-British relations at what is arguably their lowest point in decades, telling a joint meeting of Congress that the two countries had always found a way to come together.
“The very principle on which your Congress was founded — no taxation without representation — was at once a fundamental disagreement between us, and at the same time a shared democratic value which you inherited from us,” the king said. “Ours is a partnership born out of dispute.”
True to form, King Charles has devoted a large chunk of his speech to environmentalism and “the natural wonders” of the United States. He spoke about what Teddy Roosevelt called “the glorious heritage of this land’s extraordinary natural splendor, of which so much of its prosperity has always depended.” This has been his life’s great passion.
Jamieson Greer, the U.S. trade representative, sits unmoved, looking toward the dais, as the king mentions trade relations between the U.S. and Britain.
“We celebrate the $430 billion in annual trade that continues to grow; the $1.7 trillion in mutual investment that fuels that innovation; and the millions of jobs on both sides of the Atlantic supported across both economies,” King Charles says, adding that “these are strong foundations on which to continue to build.”
King Charles notes that Britain and the U.S. have supported each other in “two world wars, the Cold War, Afghanistan, and moments that have defined our shared security.” He then says, “that same unyielding resolve is needed for the defense of Ukraine.” His comments are notable given it comes as Trump has insulted the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, questioning his leadership and lack of support for the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran.The subtext of this part of the king’s speech: Climate change is real, and NATO matters.
The king says that the same unified support for the United States in the aftermath of Sept. 11 attacks “is needed for the defense of Ukraine and her most courageous people — in order to secure a truly just and lasting peace.”
Many of the themes the king has mentioned — the foundations of democracy, the assurances of checks and balances, and how thoughtful debate strengthens the legislative process — land at a time when this Congress has ceded much of its authority to President Trump.
Lawmakers have spent much of this session battling through gridlock and dysfunction to get anything passed. Even today, it is unclear if a host of large legislative priorities around national security, agriculture, and food assistance, will be able to pass before critical deadlines.
Trump doesn’t give men a bad name, he gives the whole of mankind a bad name for not removing him and his brigade of idiotic, fascistic, genociding supporting Zionist cuckolds with him.
On the morning of April 14, 2026, at Cotswold Airport in southwest England, a test pilot rose straight into the air. He was testing the VX4—an electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, or air taxi—built by the British firm Vertical Aerospace. During the test, the VX4’s eight propellers lifted it like a drone. Then the four front propellers tilted forward, and the aircraft accelerated, no longer hanging on its rotors like a helicopter but cruising on its wings like a small airplane. Moments later, it reversed the sequence: the propellers tilted back up, and the aircraft decelerated, returned to a hover, and landed vertically on the same pad it had left.
In completing this test, Vertical—founded in 2016 and based in Bristol—accomplished one of the hardest feats in eVTOL development: its prototype changed from flying like a helicopter to flying like an airplane, then back again. But a prototype is allowed to fly because a regulator has agreed it is safe enough to test. A certified commercial aircraft, meanwhile, has to be safe enough for strangers to buckle their children into it.
Vertical is among the first Western developers to demonstrate piloted transition, but the April flight also matters because of the regulatory context. Other developers have flown to prove the technology works; Vertical is trying to build a case for certification. “The significance of this flight is that it has been achieved in a way that is aligned with the certification pathway from the outset,” says David King, Vertical’s chief engineer. In other words, Vertical is getting closer to the actual business of running an air taxi company.
King’s journey to eVTOLs began with his work at Boeing in 1989, on a military aircraft called the V-22 Osprey. The Osprey was the first production tiltrotor—an aircraft with propellers that can swivel on their mounts, pointing up for vertical takeoff and tilting forward for horizontal flight. For most of the next three decades, at Bell and then at Italian aerospace firm Leonardo, King worked on civil tiltrotors, the passenger-carrying cousins of the Osprey.
King decided to join Vertical in 2023 because the VX4 is essentially a tiltrotor with electric motors. “The beauty of the tiltrotor is it takes you less than a minute from the time you apply power to cruising on a wing,” he says. “The basic magic of being able to transition from thrustborne to wingborne is proven.” What remains is to tune the system to carry different loads in varied weather and on different routes.
Daniel Pleffken, an assistant professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida, who specializes in aircraft certification, is more measured about what the flight proves. “A successful flight shows that something can work,” he says. “Certification requires proving that it works safely, consistently, and under all expected conditions.” The aircraft still must accumulate evidence from failure tests, repeat flights, and design reviews before regulators will let it carry passengers.
Vertical’s situation is unusual. Since 2023, the U.K. Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has overseen every test flight of the VX4. Most eVTOL companies fly their prototypes under research flight licenses, but the data they produce don’t count toward certification. Vertical flies under an arrangement that has been accumulating evidence toward certification for three years. “We are demonstrating to the regulator that we have the engineering capability, design assurance processes and internal governance required for full type certification,” King says.
The other two Western developers that have flown piloted transitions, California-based Joby Aviation and Vermont-based BETA Technologies, have done so under the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) experimental permit system. Chinese developers have moved faster—EHang received the world’s first eVTOL type certificate from Chinese regulators in 2023—but under a regulatory framework that Western airlines and aviation authorities don’t treat as equivalent. An experimental permit lets you fly, but does not build the same certification file. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), whose eVTOL rules the CAA has adopted, built a single new rule book. The FAA, by contrast, is certifying eVTOLs by stitching together rules written for small airplanes and helicopters. The European framework “is generally clearer because it was designed specifically for this class of aircraft,” Pleffken says.
But clarity, Pleffken stresses, isn’t the same as leniency. “The FAA, CAA, and EASA are using different regulatory architectures, but the underlying safety intent is not necessarily lower in one system than in another,” he says. The European system is cleaner to navigate because its rule book was written for eVTOLs from the start—but that makes it a clearer test to study for, not an easier one to pass. Vertical’s test flight counts, in other words, because the company has been studying for the right test, with the proctor in the room, for three years.
Even certification would not solve the whole problem. An air taxi is just one piece of a transportation infrastructure that barely exists yet. “The main constraint is increasingly the operational ecosystem, not just the aircraft,” Pleffken says. “Vertiports, charging infrastructure, airspace integration, pilot training, maintenance, and operational procedures all need to mature together. If one element lags, the entire system lags.” Vertiports are purpose-built takeoff and landing pads with chargers and air-traffic coordination—essentially, tiny airports scaled for aircraft the size of a large SUV. Few have been built. The air-traffic rules for how dozens of these aircraft will share low-altitude urban airspace with helicopters, drones, and one another are still being written.
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Vertical Aerospace’s VX4 electric aircraft flies during a piloted transition test flight on April 14, 2026. Vertical Aerospace
The California teacher and engineer accused of opening fire outside the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner believed it was his duty to target Trump administration officials, according to a note he sent family members about 10 minutes before the Saturday attack.
Cole Tomas Allen, 31, who lives in the Los Angeles suburb of Torrance, is the armed suspect federal authorities subdued near the packed ballroom at the Washington Hilton, where President Donald Trump and other White House officials gathered with journalists, a federal official familiar with the case told NBC News.
Allen was armed with a shotgun, handgun, and knives when he rushed a security checkpoint and ran toward the ballroom where the black-tie dinner was being held, authorities said. He exchanged gunfire with law enforcement and was tackled to the ground.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said on “Meet the Press” on Sunday that authorities believe “the suspect traveled by train from Los Angeles to Chicago, and then Chicago to Washington, D.C., where he checked into the hotel where the correspondents’ dinner was at in the last day or two.”
The suspect’s writings
Just moments before the attack, Allen sent family members a note apologizing to his parents, colleagues, students, bystanders, and others for what he was about to do, according to a transcript of some of Allen’s writings provided to NBC News by a senior administration official.
“I don’t expect forgiveness,” Allen wrote. “Again, my sincere apologies.”
In the note, Allen criticized Trump without mentioning him by name. He wrote about lax security at the hotel, saying he had expected more.
He also described his “expected rules of engagement,” writing: “Administration officials (not including Mr. Patel): they are targets, prioritized from highest-ranking to lowest.” He appeared to be referring to FBI Director Kash Patel.
Later, he added: “I experience rage thinking about everything this administration has done.”
The senior administration official said that Allen’s brother contacted the New London Police Department in Connecticut when he received the note.
The department confirmed being contacted at around 10:49 p.m. Saturday, just over two hours after the shooting, “by an individual who expressed concern about the incident that occurred at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner earlier in the evening.” Police contacted federal law enforcement, and the caller was interviewed by authorities.
Allen’s sister told the Secret Service and Montgomery County Police after the shooting that her brother had a tendency to make radical statements, and he had referred to a plan to do “something” to fix the issues with today’s world, the senior administration official said.
A Bluesky account believed to belong to Allen and verified by NBC News included recent posts or reposts that were critical of Trump and his administration’s policies, as well as of the U.S. war with Iran and Russia’s war with Ukraine.
Described as a ‘borderline genius.’
The suspect, who was not shot but was taken to a local hospital, is expected to be charged in federal court on Monday. In a press briefing shortly after the attack, Trump called the suspected shooter a “whack job” and a “lone wolf.”
Public records and interviews show that Allen was a trained engineer who once interned for NASA, and participated in the Nerf club and Christian fellowship at his prestigious California university, before more recently developing video games and working as a part-time teacher.
Allen attended Pacific Lutheran High School in Gardena, California, where he was known for his inquisitiveness and intellect, a former volleyball teammate told NBC News. While he had not seen Allen recently, he remembered Allen as a “borderline genius” and “super stable.”
“Other people study hard,” said the ex-teammate, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear it could affect his career. “He didn’t have to study. It would just come to him. He was really, really smart.”
Film and Writing Festival for Comedy. Showcasing best of comedy short films at the FEEDBACK Film Festival. Plus, showcasing best of comedy novels, short stories, poems, screenplays (TV, short, feature) at the festival performed by professional actors.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
King Charles
James' World 2 