Newsom says California hopes to redraw maps in response to Texas plan | First Thing

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California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, has said lawmakers will proceed with a redistricting plan to counter the Republican-led map drawing effort in Texas aimed at securing a House majority after the midterm elections.

The Democrat plan, known as the election rigging response act, would “neuter and neutralize” Republican efforts to gain up to five more seats in Texas. It would do so by superseding California’s independent redistricting commission and drawing new congressional lines.

As Newsom spoke at the Japanese American National Museum’s National Center for the Preservation of Democracy, federal border patrol agents, armed and masked, raided the area.

• Will Newsom go ahead if Texas stands down? No. The California plan will only take place if Texas, or another Republican-led state, redraws its map in favor of the GOP.

Experts condemn NIH director’s defense of cut to vaccine research

Jay Bhattacharya, the director of the National Institutes of Health, at his confirmation hearing in March. Photograph: Ben Curtis/AP

Experts have criticized the director of the National Institutes of Health’s reasoning for cutting funding for research into mRNA vaccines.

Jay Bhattacharya said the funding to develop these vaccines was being rescinded because they had failed to “earn public trust”, but critics said he and other top health officials in the Trump administration had been at the forefront of spreading doubts about public health institutions and life-saving medicines.

Bhattacharya’s comments about public trust appeared in an op-ed in the Washington Post in which he defended the decision by the anti-vaccine health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, to cut $500m in funding for mRNA vaccine research. Kennedy said he was doing so after having “reviewed the science”, but experts have said the evidence Kennedy reviewed did not support halting the research.

• What else do experts say about Bhattacharya’s “public trust” claims? That the issue is not whether the vaccines have public trust, but whether they are safe and effective, which they “clearly” are and this must be communicated.

Man fleeing Ice raid outside LA Home Depot hit and killed on freeway

A Home Depot in the Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles, the site of an earlier raid. Photograph: Google Maps

A man was struck by a vehicle and killed as he tried to get away from immigration agents who were raiding a Home Depot in Los Angeles county on Thursday, authorities have said.

While details remain scarce, officials in Monrovia confirmed city police officers had seen agents shortly before 10am at the store, which allows day laborers to wait outside for work opportunities. Soon after, Monrovia emergency services responded to reports of a pedestrian struck on the 210 freeway.

The state assembly member John Harabedian, who represents the area, said 10 people were detained during Thursday’s operation. “One individual, fearing for their safety, fled and was tragically struck by a vehicle,” he said.

• Who was the man? He has not been identified. He was transported to a local hospital, where he died from his injuries.

In other news …

Donald Trump speaks with the then secretary general of Nato, Jens Stoltenberg, as they attend a 2019 Nato summit in England. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

• Donald Trump phoned Norway’s finance minister unexpectedly last month to ask about a nomination for the Nobel peace prize, according to reports in Norwegian media.

• Israel appears ready to give formal planning approval to an illegal West Bank settlement project of more than 3,400 new homes, in a move that critics warn will split the occupied territory in two.

• Donald Trump has said he believes Vladimir Putin is ready to make a deal on the Ukraine war as the two leaders prepare for their meeting in Alaska on Friday.

• Bolivia looks likely to lurch rightwards in its upcoming presidential election on Sunday, as the leftist party of former president Evo Morales faces political exile.

Stat of the day: Hundreds of incarcerated women in California filed sexual abuse complaints between 2013 and 2024

Gregory Rodriguez was found to have targeted incarcerated women for nearly a decade before he retired in 2022. Photograph: Courtesy of Madera county district attorney’s office

Despite female inmates in California filing hundreds of complaints of sexual abuse by staff between 2013 and 2024, just four officers were fired for sexual misconduct during that period. The data suggests this is a structural problem in US prisons.

Don’t miss this: ‘I tried to be nice. Sometimes, I would explode’ – John Fogerty on Creedence, contracts and control

John Fogerty of Creedence Clearwater Revival. Photograph: David McLister

John Fogerty wrote some of the most iconic songs of the 1960s with Creedence Clearwater Revival. But when his relationship with his brother Tom fell apart, and the band split in 1972, things began to go downhill for him. A period followed in which he suffered from “an inability to write any new songs, an allergic reaction to his old ones (he would turn off the radio if they came on), a refusal to play live in any meaningful sense, periods of heavy drinking, reckless behaviour, disturbed sleep”. Here, he tells the Guardian about how he came out the other side.

Climate check: Plastic pollution talks fail

Plastic waste in Panama City. Photograph: Carlos Lemos/EPA

Negotiators in Geneva have rejected the draft treaties for an agreement to end the plastics pollution crisis. The main sticking point has been whether the treaty should impose plastic production limits or focus instead on waste management, recycling and reuse, with oil- and gas-producing countries and the plastics industry opposing production limits. Countries in the latter camp include Saudi Arabia, Russia and Iran, reportedly with the support of the US.

Last Thing: ‘I rent out my mohawk as a billboard’

Bob Bagnall, AKA Mohawk Bob, at home in Denver, Colorado. Photograph: Matt Nager/The Guardian

Bob Bagnall pays the bills in an unusual way. You could say he’s in advertising, with his hair acting as the billboard. Bagnall, AKA Mohawk Bob, first tried out the style when his kids’ school had a “Crazy Hair Day” for the dads, but it soon became a permanent look. Then the interest from businesses started rolling into his inbox, so much so that he was able to quit his job at the grocery store. “I still have a solid hairline for a 58-year-old … Perhaps one day it’ll all fall out and I’ll have to start faking it, but until then, I don’t think my mohawk’s ever coming off.” You could say it’s hair to stay.

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