A Virginia judge has invalidated a redistricting plan aimed at giving Democrats more seats, in a decision that will be appealed.
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| “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” |
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Good morning! It’s Thursday. Here are today’s top stories: |
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A day after Virginians voted to redraw Congressional maps to favor Democrats, a state judge nullified the results. The judge ruled that the referendum, which bypassed a bipartisan redistricting commission, was unconstitutional. Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones vowed an immediate appeal.
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Secretary of the Navy John Phelan is leaving the administration, the Pentagon said, without providing a reason for the departure. Under Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao will serve as acting secretary.
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Who actually benefits from government subsidies for health care? Nearly all U.S. health care is government-subsidized through direct payments, assistance with premium payments, tax deductions, or tax exemptions. Our senior reporter, Lawrence Wilson, explains how taxpayers cover the cost of health care and breaks down who benefits from it.
- ▶️ Exclusive interview with Fidel Castro’s daughter, Alina Fernández. Fernández watched Cuba spiral into communism and suffering under her father’s tyrannical rule. After fleeing to Miami more than three decades ago, she’s been an outspoken critic of the regime.
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🍵 Health: Generosity Isn’t About Kindness—It’s About Attention. The trait appears to be a skill that the brain can strengthen, not just a fixed characteristic.
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A voter at a polling site during the redistricting referendum in Alexandria, Va., on April 21, 2026. (Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times) |
A Virginia judge ruled on April 22 that the state’s redistricting referendum approved by voters a day earlier was invalid, nullifying the election results. Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones said he would immediately file an appeal. “Virginia voters have spoken, and an activist judge should not have veto power over the People’s vote,” Jones said in an X post. Tazewell Circuit Court Judge Jack Hurley entered an injunction blocking certification of the election. Former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli said the legal fight was just beginning after language used in the ballot question raised a lot of interest among the opposition.
The question voters faced was the following: “Should the Constitution of Virginia be amended to allow the General Assembly to temporarily adopt new congressional districts to restore fairness in the upcoming elections, while ensuring Virginia’s standard redistricting process resumes for all future redistricting after the 2030 census?” Cuccinelli expects the case to move quickly through the appeals process. “The ‘yes’ folks probably are going to look back at Tuesday and think that was the easy part because they have so badly violated several constitutional provisions,” Cuccinelli told “The Scott Jennings Show.” The referendum faces three legal challenges in addition to the one decided on April 22.
Three of the lawsuits challenge the referendum on procedural grounds, arguing that Democratic Party lawmakers didn’t follow the law regarding timing requirements and legislative steps when passing the measure to place it on the ballot. The fourth argument is about how the electoral districts were drawn and challenges the maps on contiguity requirements. Tens of millions of dollars were spent to pass the redistricting referendum as Democrats across the nation continue their quest to redraw congressional seats in favor of taking back the U.S. House.
Voters approved the new map by a thin margin—51.5 percent to 48.5 percent—making Virginia the latest state to gerrymander its congressional seats in favor of Democrats. The map is intended to give the Democratic Party 10 out of the 11 congressional seats in the state, a drastic shift from the current map, in which Republicans hold five districts. (More)
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Iranian forces fired on three ships in the Strait of Hormuz. It seized two of them and escorted the vessels to Iranian shores, marking the first time Iran has seized ships since the start of the war. The White House said the seizures were not a violation of the ceasefire.
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An Iranian regime spokesman said that the regime still has not decided on whether it would enter talks with the United States. This came hours after Trump extended the ceasefire indefinitely pending a “unified proposal” from Iran.
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Trump said the Iranian regime agreed to no longer execute eight Iranian women. The Iranian judiciary disputed that any of them were on the verge of execution.
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Trump has raised new concerns about Beijing’s possible role in supporting Tehran, pointing to a recently intercepted vessel he described as maybe carrying a “gift from China.”
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- Trump is dissatisfied with the Mexican government’s response to the deaths of two CIA agents in Mexico, the White House said. The comments came as Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said that no U.S. officials may operate in the country without the government’s approval.
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Trump criticized recent Supreme Court decisions and accused some of the justices he nominated of misrepresenting themselves during the confirmation process.
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The president’s recent executive order fast-tracks the review of psychedelic drugs, including ibogaine, for mental health treatments. Here’s more on what the order did and how it’s been received.
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Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told senators that glyphosate, a key ingredient in herbicides like Roundup, causes cancer and that human consumption of the chemical should be minimized.
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- The Department of Justice said it has settled a lawsuit filed by former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page over alleged surveillance abuses.
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Seven U.S. Marines who manned a checkpoint in the face of an impending suicide bombing during the 2021 civilian evacuation from Afghanistan have had their valor awards upgraded.
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A Chinese college student has been arrested after federal authorities discovered that he had illegally photographed U.S. military planes near Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska.
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A federal appeals court permanently blocked California from enforcing a new law requiring federal immigration officers to display ID when on duty in the state, ruling that it was unconstitutional.
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The Southern Poverty Law Center faces federal fraud charges over an alleged scheme to defraud donors to fund informants in extremist groups. Here’s what prosecutors allege in the 11-count indictment.
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CORRECTION: In the April 18 “Morning Brief,” we incorrectly stated the location of the Army’s Infantry Week. It was held in Fort Benning, Georgia. The Epoch Times regrets the error. |
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Defending Education has identified 1,216 school districts nationwide with transgender policies affecting over 12 MILLION students.
The policies allow school staff to keep a student’s transgender status hidden from parents.
We are polling Epoch Times readers.
OFFICIAL POLL: Should local schools be allowed to enforce transgender bathroom policies that violate Title IX?
Vote Now >>
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Defendants on video links as they attend the trial of 486 alleged members of the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) gang, accused of more than 47,000 crimes committed between 2012 and 2022, at the Judicial Center Against Organized Crime in Soyapango, El Salvador, on April 21, 2026. (Jose Cabezas/Reuters) |
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A mass trial of 486 alleged members of El Salvador’s most notorious gang, the Mara Salvatrucha or MS-13, is underway in the Salvadoran capital, San Salvador. It’s the biggest trial since Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele enacted emergency powers to take on the country’s organized crime groups.
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Anyone born in 2009 or later will not be able to legally buy cigarettes in the UK after lawmakers approved new legislation on smoking. The effect is that people born on or after Jan. 1, 2009, face a lifetime ban.
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Trump said that the United States was considering a currency swap with the United Arab Emirates to help the Gulf state financially.
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Chinese state-run media outlets have recently pushed dramatic spy-catching stories into the public spotlight, including repeatedly amplifying a single, loosely detailed case across multiple platforms. Critics say the report bears signs of fabrication.
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- It’s Time for Spring Cleaning—by Jeffrey A. Tucker (Read)
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The Final Battle for Your Mind—by Casey Fleming (Read)
- Why We Were Never Meant to Do This Alone—by Mollie Engelhart (Read)
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Anthropic’s Most Dangerous Achievement—by Mike Fredenburg (Read)
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A duck and her ducklings stroll through a fountain in Rome on April 22, 2026. (Tiziana Fabi/AFP via Getty Images) |
📸 Day in Photos: Teotihuacan Reopens, Illegal Sand Quarries, and Youth Detention Center (Look)
🤝 Relationships: Why Being Ghosted Hurts More Than Rejection and Is Harder to Move on From (Read)
💸 Money: Take the 52-Week Money Challenge and Save (Read)
🎵 Music: Mozart’s Piano Trio (Divertimento) In B Flat (Listen)
📚(Sponsored) Defending Education has identified 1,216 school districts nationwide with transgender policies affecting over 12 MILLION students. POLL: Should local schools be allowed to enforce transgender bathroom policies that violate Title IX? Vote Now >> |
The American premiere of Mahler's "Symphony No. 8" with the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski, 1916. |
Gustav Mahler’s life swung between opposites: composer and conductor, Jew and Catholic, nature-lover and urbanite. One dichotomy characterized his entire composing career: symphony and song.
Song came first. Born to a large, lower-class family in Bohemia (now the Czech Republic) on July 7, 1860, Mahler wasn’t the child prodigy typical of classical music mythology. Neither a virtuoso pianist nor a composing wunderkind, Mahler tried his composing hand at age 16 with a rather perfunctory Piano Quartet that’s rarely played today. Chamber music wasn’t his strength.
He then switched emphasis to vocal music with “Das Klagende Lied” (“Song of Lamentation”) for vocal soloists, choir, and two orchestras—one onstage and one off, written between 1878 and 1880. The work presages his mammoth symphonies of later years. Then came a raft of lieder, or art songs: three lieder in 1880, a collection of five songs called “Lieder und Gesänge, Vol. I," written 1880 to 1883, and four “Songs of a Wayfarer,” 1884–1885. All of this was, in a way, a prelude to what was coming.
Sometime in late 1887, Mahler embarked on composing his Symphony No. 1. Its instrumentation was like no other symphonic works of the time. The typical Beethoven-era orchestration consisted of woodwinds in pairs, four horns, two or three trumpets, sometimes trombones, two or three timpani played by one person, and maybe a pair of cymbals.
Contrast this with Mahler’s orchestra: four flutes, oboes, and clarinets, with numerous doublings; three bassoons, the third doubling contrabassoon; seven horns; five trumpets; four trombones; one tuba; six timpani played by two different timpanists; bass drum, cymbals, triangle; and tam-tam; harp; and the usual bowed strings—first and second violins, violas, cellos, and double basses. (More)
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Thanks for reading 🙏 Have a wonderful day! |
—Ivan Pentchoukov, Madalina Hubert, and Kenzi Li. |
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