By MEG KINNARD and JOEY CAPPELLETTI, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is eyeing redistricting efforts beyond Texas to help Republicans hold the U.S. House in 2026 — and Democrats are preparing to escalate in response, with one senator vowing to go “nuclear” if needed.

What’s shaping up to be a multi-state redistricting battle could mark the opening round for House control ahead of next year’s midterms, when Democrats see retaking the House as the party’s best chance to break Republicans’ hold on Congress and President Donald Trump is determined to keep the GOP’s majority. Democrats, under pressure from their base to match GOP tactics, have grown more forceful in their messaging and are taking concrete steps to push back, even as the party enters at a disadvantage.

“If they’re going to go nuclear, then so am I,” said Sen. Elissa Slotkin. “They’re forcing us into this position because they’re trying to pick their voters.”

At Trump’s urging, Texas Republicans are looking to redraw congressional maps to favor GOP candidates during a 30-day special legislative session that started this week. Trump has said he wants to carve out five new winnable GOP seats.

But Trump officials are now going beyond just Texas, looking to redraw lines in other states such as Missouri, according to a person familiar with conversations but unauthorized to speak publicly about them.

Democrats have fewer options. More of the states the party controls do not allow elected partisans to draw maps, instead entrusting groups such as independent commissions to draw fair lines.

Still, party leaders are exploring their legal options and shifting their posture. A party long known for believing it’s on the moral high ground is signaling it’s ready to fight dirty.

“We can’t fight with one hand behind our backs,” Rep. Pete Aguilar, chair of the House Democratic Caucus, told reporters Tuesday.

Texas state Rep. Jolanda “Jo” Jones looks through U.S. Congressional District maps during a redistricting hearing at the Texas Capitol, Thursday, July 24, 2025, in Austin, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Democrats explore their own redistricting map plans

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries may have fewer options to match Republicans, but it hasn’t stopped him from exploring them.

Earlier this month, Jeffries’ team spoke with New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office about redistricting after the news in Texas, according to a person familiar with the conversations. Drawing new congressional lines now could run afoul of the state constitution and undoubtedly draw legal challenges — but it doesn’t appear to be off the table.

“What I’m going to say is, all is fair in love and war,” Hochul said Thursday, adding that she’s “going to see what our options are.”

“If there’s other states that are violating the rules that are going to try and give themselves an advantage, all I’ll say is I’m going to look at it closely with Hakeem Jeffries.”

Jeffries and his advisers have also examined legal strategies in other states with Democratic trifectas, including California, where he recently met with the state’s congressional delegation.

“Two can play this game,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a potential Democratic contender for president in 2028, said on social media in response to Trump’s redistricting push.

An independent commission handles redistricting in his state. Newsom has floated the notion of California’s Democratic-controlled legislature doing a mid-decade redistricting, arguing it wouldn’t be expressly forbidden by the 2008 ballot initiative that created the commission. He’s also mentioned the possibility of squeezing in a special election to repeal the popular commission system before the 2026 elections get underway, either of which would be a long shot.

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Democrats see redistricting fight as an avenue to pushback

Beyond the behind-the-scenes maneuvering, Democrats see the redistricting fight as an opportunity to meet the moment politically — delivering the kind of aggressive pushback their voters have demanded.

Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego, in a series of social media posts, pushed Democrats to fight back, saying the party should “gerrymander to help Democrats” and arguing they should dilute heavily Democratic districts to secure more seats “everywhere.”

“It’s time for Democrats to understand the existential threat. Republicans aren’t playing around and they will do this as long as it takes to keep power,” he warned.

Gallego later told the Associated Press it’s simply about ensuring “that we’re also fighting back.”

That sentiment has gained traction beyond Congress. Former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke said Sunday on CNN that Democrats need to be “to be absolutely ruthless about getting back in power.”

Next month, former President Barack Obama is heading to Martha’s Vineyard for a fundraiser benefitting the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, a group that has filed and supported litigation in several states over GOP-drawn districts. Eric Holder, Obama’s former attorney general who chairs the outfit, is expected to attend, along with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, according to a copy of the invitation first reported by Politico.

The group has been critical of Texas’ efforts, in a release earlier this week accusing Texas Republicans of “following Donald Trump’s orders to try to cheat their way to a House majority because they are terrified of facing voters after taking health care away from millions of Americans and giving a massive tax cut to the wealthy.”

Redrawing maps could be risky for GOP

Redrawing of congressional maps holds risks. During the 2010s, Texas’ GOP-controlled Legislature redrew the congressional map to bolster the party’s majority. But the advantage proved short-lived: in 2018, a backlash to Trump’s presidency helped Democrats flip two seats that Republicans had assumed were safely red.

“There had to be folks that drew these lines and everything that had a very strong opinion of exactly where they ought to be,” said West Virginia Sen. Jim Justice, a Republican. “Now just to say, ‘Okay, we’re going to redraw this, we’re going to redraw that. And by god, if you’re going to redraw, we’re going to redraw.’ I don’t like that.”

Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley said Thursday that he has not yet spoken to any Republicans in his state about redistricting but that it’s up to the Missouri legislature and governor to make the call.

“I’d love to have more Republicans,” Hawley said.

Anthony Izaguirre in Albany, N.Y., contributed to this report.

Kinnard reported from Chapin, S.C., and can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP

NEW YORK (AP) — The Trump administration on Thursday sued New York City over its “sanctuary city” policies, arguing they are obstructing the government from enforcing immigration law and contributed to the recent shooting of an off-duty U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer.

The federal lawsuit is the latest in a series of suits brought by the Justice Department targeting state or city policies seen as interfering with immigration enforcement.

“New York City has released thousands of criminals on the streets to commit violent crimes against law-abiding citizens due to sanctuary city policies,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a news release. “If New York City won’t stand up for the safety of its citizens, we will.”

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The lawsuit — which also names Mayor Eric Adams, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch and numerous other city officials and departments — targets policies that include barring city law enforcement from honoring civil immigration detainers by holding people in custody past their release date.

Kayla Mamelak Altus, a spokesperson for Adams, said the mayor “supports the essence” of the city’s policies but has urged the City Council “to reexamine them to ensure we can effectively work with the federal government to make our city safer” when it comes to dealing with “violent criminals.” She added: “So far, the Council has refused.”

A representative for the City Council did not immediately return a request for comment.

The suit comes after Trump officials on Monday blamed the city’s sanctuary policies for the shooting of a Customs and Border Protection officer in a Manhattan park over the weekend. The officer was off duty and not in uniform at the time.

Authorities have said the two men apprehended in connection with Saturday’s robbery-gone-wrong have been arrested a number of times since they entered the country illegally from the Dominican Republic in recent years. One of the men had been released following a 2024 arrest despite an active detainer, according to the lawsuit.

Police say the 42-year-old officer had been sitting with a woman in a park beneath the George Washington Bridge when two men approached on a moped. The officer, who has not been named, drew his service weapon and exchanged gunfire with one of the men. The officer was shot in the face and arm while the suspect was hit in the groin and leg.

By LINDSAY WHITEHURST, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to allow it to cut hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of research funding in its push to roll back federal diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

The Justice Department argued a federal judge in Massachusetts was wrong to block the National Institutes of Health from making $783 million worth of cuts to align with President Donald Trump’s priorities.

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U.S. District Judge William Young found that the abrupt cancellations ignored long-held government rules and standards.

Young, an appointee of Republican President Ronald Reagan, also said the cuts amounted to “racial discrimination and discrimination against America’s LGBTQ community.”

The ruling came in lawsuits filed by 16 attorneys general, public-health advocacy groups and some affected scientists. His decision addressed only a fraction of the hundreds of NIH research projects that have been cut.

The Trump administration’s appeal also takes aim at nearly two dozen cases over funding.

Solicitor General D. John Sauer pointed to a 5-4 decision on the Supreme Court’s emergency docket from April that allowed cuts to teacher training programs to go forward. That decisions shows that district judges shouldn’t be hearing those cases at all, but rather sending them to federal claims court, he argued.

By ALEXA ST. JOHN, Associated Press

President Donald Trump’s plan to boost artificial intelligence and build data centers across the U.S. could speed up a building boom that was already expected to strain the nation’s ability to power it.

The White House released the “AI Action Plan” Wednesday, vowing to expedite permitting for construction of energy-intensive data centers as it looks to make the country a leader in a business that tech companies and others are pouring billions of dollars into.

The plan says to combat “radical climate dogma,” a number of restrictions — including clean air and water laws — could be lifted, aligning with Trump’s “American energy dominance” agenda and his efforts to undercut clean energy.

Here’s what you need to know.

What AI means for the environment

Massive amounts of electricity are needed to support the complex servers, equipment and more for AI. Electricity demand from data centers worldwide is set to more than double by 2030, to slightly more than the entire electricity consumption of Japan today, the International Energy Agency said earlier this year.

In many cases, that electricity may come from burning coal or natural gas. These fossil fuels emit planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, including carbon dioxide and methane. This in turn is tied to extreme weather events that are becoming more severe, frequent and costly.

The data centers used to fuel AI also need a tremendous amount of water to keep cool. That means they can strain water sources in areas that may have little to spare.

What Big Tech is saying and doing about finding all that power

Typically, tech giants, up-and-comers and other developers try to keep an existing power plant online to meet demand, experts say, and most existing power plants in the U.S. are still producing electricity using fossil fuels — most often natural gas.

In certain areas of the U.S., a combination of renewables and energy storage in the form of batteries are coming online.

But tapping into nuclear power is especially of interest as a way to reduce data center-induced emissions while still meeting demand and staying competitive.

Amazon said last month it would spend $20 billion on data center sites in Pennsylvania, including one alongside a nuclear power plant. The investment allows Amazon to plug right into the plant, a scrutinized but faster approach for the company’s development timeline.

Meta recently signed a deal to secure nuclear power to meet its computing needs. Microsoft plans to buy energy from the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, and Google previously signed a contract to purchase it from multiple small modular reactors in the works.

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What’s at stake in the kind of energy that powers data centers

Data centers are often built where electricity is cheapest, and often, that’s not from renewables. And sometimes data centers are cited as a reason to extend the lives of traditional, fossil-fuel-burning power plants.

But just this week, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres called on the world’s largest tech players to fuel their data center needs entirely with renewables by 2030. It’s necessary to use fewer fossil fuels, he said.

Experts say it’s possible for developers, investors and the tech industry to decarbonize.

However, though industry can do a lot with clean energy, the emerging demands are so big that it can’t be clean energy alone, said University of Pennsylvania engineering professor Benjamin Lee.

More generative AI, ChatGPT and massive data centers means “relying on wind and solar alone with batteries becomes really, really expensive,” Lee added, hence the attention on natural gas, but also nuclear.

What does AI growth mean for my electricity bills?

Regardless of what powers AI, the simple law of supply and demand makes it all but certain that costs for consumers will rise.

New data center projects might require both new energy generation and existing generation. Developers might also invest in batteries or other infrastructure like transmission lines.

All of this costs money, and it needs to be paid for from somewhere.

“In a lot of places in the U.S., they are seeing that rates are going up because utilities are making these moves to try to plan,” said Amanda Smith, a senior scientist at research organization Project Drawdown.

“They’re planning transmission infrastructure, new power plants for the growth and the load that’s projected, which is what we want them to do,” she added. “But we as ratepayers will wind up seeing rates go up to cover that.”

Alexa St. John is an Associated Press climate reporter. Follow her on X: @alexa_stjohn. Reach her at ast.john@ap.org.

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.