Justices Seemed Open to Further Limiting the Voting Rights Act

The Supreme Court appeared poised today to weaken a key provision of a landmark civil rights law by limiting the ability of lawmakers to use race as a factor in drawing voting maps.

At the heart of the case is a debate over whether Louisiana violated the Constitution when it adopted a new electoral map in 2024, creating the state’s second majority-Black district. The plaintiffs challenged Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which allowed race to be used as a factor in creating electoral maps in an attempt to undo generations of efforts to suppress the power of Black voters.

During today’s oral argument, several of the court’s conservative justices appeared focused on whether there should be a time limit to using race as a factor in creating electoral maps. The court may rule that the Voting Rights Act, in seeking to protect minority voters, violates the 14th Amendment, which forbids the government to make distinctions based on race.

If the justices determine that lawmakers cannot consider race when drawing districts, the consequences could be sweeping. Republican state legislatures could use the ruling to eliminate around a dozen Democratic-held House districts across the South, according to a Times analysis, enough to make Republicans favored to win the chamber even if they lost the popular vote by a wide margin.

It is not clear, however, how fast any redistricting could happen. The court typically issues major rulings by late June or early July, so a decision would land just before the 2026 midterms.

The U.S. authorized covert C.I.A. action in Venezuela

The Trump administration has stepped up its campaign against Venezuela’s authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro, by secretly authorizing the C.I.A. to conduct covert action in the country, including lethal operations.

The development comes as the U.S. military is planning its own possible escalation, drawing up options for Trump to consider, including strikes inside Venezuela. The president told reporters this afternoon that he is now “certainly looking at" striking Venezuelan land “because we’ve got the sea very well under control.”

A judge temporarily blocked shutdown layoffs

A federal judge, Susan Illston, temporarily blocked the Trump administration from conducting mass federal layoffs during the government shutdown, siding with unions that have argued that the roughly 4,000 planned firings were illegal.

The early evidence, Illston said, suggested that the White House had “taken advantage of the lapse in government spending and government functioning to assume that all bets are off, that the laws don’t apply to them anymore and they can impose the structures that they like.”

After the truce, Hamas is cracking down in Gaza

Days after Israel agreed to a cease-fire in Gaza and pulled back some of its troops, Hamas appears to be trying to assert that it is still the dominant force in the territory. Video from Monday showed Hamas fighters executing eight Palestinian rivals on a crowded street in Gaza City.

In total, at least 10 members of Hamas and at least 20 members of rival Palestinian groups have been killed in fighting over the last two days.

In related news, Hamas said it has returned all of the hostage remains it can recover. With over a dozen bodies unaccounted for, the fragile truce with Israel could be at risk.

Julia Roberts’s ambiguous new film

Luca Guadagnino’s new movie, “After the Hunt,” stars Julia Roberts as a Yale philosophy professor whose tight-knit circle of confidants unravels after her protégée accuses her colleague of sexual assault.

Malala is ready to reintroduce herself

When she was 15 years old, Malala Yousafzai was shot by the Taliban for saying that young women should have the right to an education. After she woke from an ensuing coma, she embraced the role of fearless activist.

Now, with the release of her second memoir, Yousafzai is hoping to move beyond that period of her life. On today’s episode of the “Modern Love” podcast, she spoke about her search for a normal college experience, her unexpected path to marriage and what it means to continue her activism while living a full life.

An iconic American skate park was rebuilt in Sweden

During the 1990s, Philadelphia’s Love Park was paradise, featured so often in magazines and VHS tapes that it earned a mystique now unimaginable for any skate spot. But in 2016, the plaza was demolished and redesigned.

Now the park has been rebuilt in — of all places — Malmo, Sweden. So my colleague Willy Staley, who grew up watching Love Park footage, flew across the Atlantic to test out the reconstruction. The part that delighted him most was the ground: “It was loud, responsive, almost springy — alive in a way the ground rarely feels.”

Have a spectacular evening.

Thanks for reading. I’ll be back tomorrow. — Matthew

Philip Pacheco was our photo editor.

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