The first domino in a growing national redistricting battle is likely to fall Wednesday as the Republican-controlled Texas legislature is expected to pass a new congressional map creating five new winnable seats for the GOP.

The vote follows prodding by President Donald Trump, eager to stave off a midterm defeat that would deprive his party of control of the House of Representatives, and weeks of delays after dozens of Texas Democratic state lawmakers fled the state in protest. Some Democrats returned Monday, only to be assigned round-the-clock police escorts to ensure their attendance at Wednesday’s session. Those who refused to be monitored were confined to the House floor, where they protested on a livestream Tuesday night.

Furious national Democrats have vowed payback for the Texas map, with California’s legislature poised to approve new maps adding more Democratic-friendly seats later this week. The map would still need to be approved by that state’s voters in November.

Normally, states redraw maps once a decade with new census figures. But Trump is lobbying other conservative-controlled states like Indiana and Missouri to also try to squeeze new GOP-friendly seats out of their maps as his party prepares for a difficult midterm election next year.

In Texas, Democrats spent the day before the vote continuing to draw attention to the extraordinary lengths the Republicans who run the legislature were going to ensure it takes place. Democratic state Rep. Nicole Collier started it when she refused to sign what Democrats called the “permission slip” needed to leave the House chamber, a half-page form allowing Department of Public Safety troopers to follow them. She spent Monday night and Tuesday on the House floor, where she set up a livestream while her Democratic colleagues outside had plainclothes officers following them to their offices and homes.

Dallas-area Rep. Linda Garcia said she drove three hours home from Austin with an officer following her. When she went grocery shopping, he went down every aisle with her, pretending to shop, she said. As she spoke to The Associated Press by phone, two unmarked cars with officers inside were parked outside her home.

“It’s a weird feeling,” she said. “The only way to explain the entire process is: It’s like I’m in a movie.”

The trooper assignments, ordered by Republican House Speaker Dustin Burrows, was another escalation of a redistricting battle that has widened across the country. Trump is pushing GOP state officials to tilt the map for the 2026 midterms more in his favor to preserve the GOP’s slim House majority, and Democrats nationally have rallied around efforts to retaliate.

House Minority Leader Gene Wu, from Houston, and state Rep. Vince Perez, of El Paso, stayed overnight with Collier, who represents a minority-majority district in Fort Worth.

On Tuesday, more Democrats returned to the Capitol to tear up the slips they had signed and stay on the House floor, which has a lounge and restrooms for members.

Dallas-area Rep. Cassandra Garcia Hernandez called their protest a “slumber party for democracy,” and she said Democrats were holding strategy sessions on the floor.

“We are not criminals,” Houston Rep. Penny Morales Shaw said.

Collier said having officers shadow her was an attack on her dignity and an attempt to control her movements.

Burrows brushed off Collier’s protest, saying he was focused on important issues, such as providing property tax relief and responding to last month’s deadly floods. His statement Tuesday morning did not mention redistricting, and his office did not immediately respond to other Democrats joining Collier.

“Rep. Collier’s choice to stay and not sign the permission slip is well within her rights under the House Rules,” Burrows said.

Under those rules, until Wednesday’s scheduled vote, the chamber’s doors are locked, and no member can leave “without the written permission of the speaker.”

To do business Wednesday, 100 of 150 House members must be present. The GOP plan is designed to send five additional Republicans from Texas to the U.S. House. Texas Democrats returned to Austin after Democrats in California launched an effort to redraw their state’s districts to take five seats from Republicans.

Democrats also said they were returning because they expect to challenge the new maps in court.

An executive order signed by President Donald Trump late Thursday aims to give political appointees power over the billions of dollars in grants awarded by federal agencies. Scientists say it threatens to undermine the process that has helped make the U.S. the world leader in research and development.

The order requires all federal agencies, including FEMA, the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, to appoint officials responsible for reviewing federal funding opportunities and grants, so that they “are consistent with agency priorities and the national interest.”

It also requires agencies to make it so that current and future federal grants can be terminated at any time — including during the grant period itself.

Agencies cannot announce new funding opportunities until the new protocols are in place, according to the order. The Trump administration said these changes are part of an effort to “strengthen oversight” and “streamline agency grantmaking.” Scientists say the order will cripple America’s scientific engine by placing control over federal research funds in the hands of people who are influenced by politics and lack relevant expertise.

“This is taking political control of a once politically neutral mechanism for funding science in the U.S.,” said Joseph Bak-Coleman, a scientist studying group decision-making at the University of Washington.

The changes will delay grant review and approval, slowing “progress for cures and treatments that patients and families across the country urgently need,” said the Association of American Medical Colleges in a statement.

The administration has already terminated thousands of research grants at agencies like the NSF and NIH, including on topics like transgender health, vaccine hesitancy, misinformation and diversity, equity and inclusion.

The order could affect emergency relief grants doled out by FEMA, public safety initiatives funded by the Department of Justice and public health efforts supported by the Centers for Disease Control. Experts say the order is likely to be challenged in court.

A federal judge on Thursday ordered a temporary halt to construction at an immigration detention center — built in the middle of the Florida Everglades and dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” — as attorneys argue whether it violates environmental laws.

The facility can continue to operate and hold detainees for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but workers will be barred from adding any new filling, paving or infrastructure for the next 14 days. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams issued the ruling during a hearing and said she will issue a written order later Thursday.

Environmental groups and the Miccosukee Tribe have asked Williams to issue a preliminary injunction to halt operations and further construction. The suit claims the project threatens environmentally sensitive wetlands that are home to protected plants and animals and would reverse billions of dollars’ worth of environmental restoration.

Plaintiffs presented witnesses Wednesday and Thursday in support of the injunction, while attorneys for the state and federal government were scheduled to present next week.

Following Thursday’s testimony, Paul Schwiep, an attorney for the environmental groups, asked Williams to issue a temporary restraining order that would at least prevent any new construction at the site while the preliminary injunction was argued.

Williams asked Florida attorney Jesse Panuccio if the state would agree to halt construction so that she wouldn’t need to issue the restraining order. She pointed out that anything built at the site would likely remain there permanently, regardless of how the case was ultimately decided.

Panuccio said he couldn’t guarantee that the state would stop all work.

This sparked an hour-long hearing about the temporary restraining order, which will be in place for the next two weeks while the still ongoing preliminary injunction hearing continues.

The crux of the plaintiffs’ argument is that the detention facility violates the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires federal agencies to assess the environmental effects of major construction projects.

Panuccio said during the hearing that although the detention center would be holding federal detainees, the construction and operation of the facility is entirely under the state of Florida, meaning the NEPA review wouldn’t apply.

Schwiep said the purpose of the facility is for immigration enforcement, which is exclusively a federal function. He said the facility wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for the federal government’s desire for a facility to hold detainees.

Williams said Thursday that the detention facility was at a minimum a joint partnership between the state and federal government.

The lawsuit in Miami against federal and state authorities is one of two legal challenges to the South Florida detention center which was built more than a month ago by the state of Florida on an isolated airstrip owned by Miami-Dade County.

A second lawsuit brought by civil rights groups says detainees’ constitutional rights are being violated since they are barred from meeting lawyers, are being held without any charges, and a federal immigration court has canceled bond hearings. A hearing in that case is scheduled for Aug. 18.

Under the 55-year-old federal environmental law, federal agencies should have examined how the detention center’s construction would impact the environment, identified ways to minimize the impact and followed other procedural rules such as allowing public comment, according to the environmental groups and the tribe.

It makes no difference that the detention center holding hundreds of detainees was built by the state of Florida since federal agencies have authority over immigration, the suit said.

Attorneys for federal and state agencies last week asked Williams to dismiss or transfer the injunction request, saying the lawsuit was filed in the wrong jurisdiction. Even though the property is owned by Miami-Dade County, Florida’s southern district is the wrong venue for the lawsuit since the detention center is located in neighboring Collier County, which is in the state’s middle district, they said.

Williams had yet to rule on that argument.

The lawsuits were being heard as Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis ′ administration apparently was preparing to build a second immigration detention center at a Florida National Guard training center in north Florida. At least one contract has been awarded for what’s labeled in state records as the “North Detention Facility.”

Women who say they were abused by Jeffrey Epstein are feeling skeptical and anxious about the Justice Department’s handling of records related to the convicted sex offender, with some backing more public disclosures as an overdue measure of transparency, and others expressing concerns about their privacy and the Trump administration’s motivations.

In letters addressed to federal judges in New York this week, several victims or their attorneys said they would support the public release of grand jury testimony that led to criminal indictments against Epstein and his former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell — if the government agreed to allow them to review the material and redact sensitive information.

The Justice Department has asked the court to take the rare step of unsealing transcripts of that secret testimony, in part to placate people who believe that the government has hidden some things it knows about Epstein’s wrongdoing.

Other victims, meanwhile, accused President Donald Trump of sidelining victims as he seeks to shift the focus from Epstein, who killed himself in 2019 while awaiting trial on charges that he habitually sexually abused underage girls. Some expressed concern that the administration — in its eagerness to make the scandal go away — might give Maxwell clemency, immunity from future prosecution or better living conditions in prison as part of a deal to get her to testify before Congress.

“I am not some pawn in your political warfare,” one alleged victim wrote in a letter submitted to the court by her lawyer this week. “What you have done and continue to do is eating at me day after day as you help to perpetuate this story indefinitely.”

Added another victim, in a letter submitted anonymously on Wednesday: “This is all very exhausting.”

Maxwell was convicted in 2021 of helping Epstein sexually abuse underage girls and is serving a 20-year prison sentence. A top Justice Department official, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, interviewed Maxwell for nine hours late last month, saying he wanted to hear anything she had to say about misdeeds committed by Epstein or others. After that interview, Maxwell was moved from a federal prison in Florida to a low-security prison camp in Texas.

Alicia Arden, who said Epstein sexually assaulted her in the late 1990s, held a news conference on Wednesday in Los Angeles. She said she would support the release of additional material related to the case, including a transcript of Maxwell’s interview with Blanche.

But she also expressed outrage at the possibility that Maxwell could receive clemency or other special treatment through the process, adding that the Justice Department’s approach had been “very upsetting” so far.

The Trump administration has faced weeks of furor from some segments of the president’s political base, which have demanded public disclosure of files related to Epstein. Epstein has long been the subject of conspiracy theories because of his friendships with the rich and powerful, including Trump himself, Britain’s Prince Andrew and former President Bill Clinton.

Last month, the Justice Department announced it would not release additional files related to the Epstein sex trafficking investigation.

Prosecutors later asked to unseal the grand jury transcripts, though they’ve told the court they contain little information that hasn’t already been made public. Two judges who will decide whether to release the transcripts then asked victims to share their views on the matter.

In a letter submitted to the court Tuesday, attorneys Brad Edwards and Paul Cassell, who represent numerous Epstein victims, wrote: “For survivors who bravely testified, the perception that Ms. Maxwell is being legitimized in public discourse has already resulted in re-traumatization.”

An attorney for Maxwell, David Oscar Markus, said this week that she opposed the release of the grand jury transcripts.

“Jeffrey Epstein is dead. Ghislaine Maxwell is not,” he wrote. “Whatever interest the public may have in Epstein, that interest cannot justify a broad intrusion into grand jury secrecy in a case where the defendant is alive, her legal options are viable, and her due process rights remain.”

The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment on the victims’ statements.

A House subcommittee on Wednesday voted to subpoena the Department of Justice for files in the sex trafficking investigation into Jeffrey Epstein after Democrats successfully goaded GOP lawmakers to defy President Donald Trump and Republican leadership to support the action.

The vote showed the intensifying push for disclosures in the Epstein investigation even as House Speaker Mike Johnson — caught between demands from Trump and clamoring from his own members for the House to act — was sending lawmakers home a day early for its August recess. The House Committee on Oversight also issued a subpoena Wednesday for Ghislaine Maxwell, a convicted sex offender and girlfriend of the late Epstein, to testify before committee officials in August.

Meanwhile, Democrats on a subcommittee of the powerful House Oversight Committee made a motion for the subpoena Wednesday afternoon. Three Republicans on the panel voted with Democrats for the subpoena, sending it through on an 8-2 vote tally.

The Republican subcommittee chairman, Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana, said that work was beginning to draft the subpoena but did not give a timeline for when it would be issued.

“I’ve never handled a subpoena like this. This is some fascinating stuff,” said Higgins, who voted against the motion.

Democrats cheered the action as proof that their push for disclosures in the Epstein investigation was growing stronger. The committee agreed to redact information on victims, yet Democrats successfully blocked a push by Republicans to only subpoena information that was deemed to be “credible” — language that Trump has also used when discussing what he would support releasing.

“Democrats are focused on transparency and are pushing back against the corruption against Donald Trump. What is Donald Trump hiding that he won’t release the Epstein files?” said Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the oversight committee.

House Republicans were grasping late Thursday to formulate a response to the Trump administration’s handling of records in the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking case, ultimately putting forward a resolution that carries no legal weight but nodded to the growing demand for greater transparency.

The House resolution, which could potentially be voted on next week, will do practically nothing to force the Justice Department to release more records in the case. Still, it showed how backlash from the Republican base is putting pressure on the Trump administration and roiling GOP lawmakers.

The House was held up for hours Thursday from final consideration of President Donald Trump’s request for about $9 billion in government funding cuts because GOP leaders were trying to respond to demands from their own ranks that they weigh in on the Epstein files. In the late evening they settled on the resolution as an attempt to simultaneously placate calls from the far-right for greater transparency and satisfy Trump, who has called the issue a “hoax” that his supporters should forget about.

Yet the House resolution was the latest demonstration of how practically no one is moving on from Attorney General Pam Bondi’s promises to publicly release documents related to Epstein. Since he was found dead in his New York jail cell in August 2019 following his arrest on sex trafficking charges, the well-connected financier has loomed large among conservatives and conspiracy theorists who have now lashed out at Trump and Bondi for declining to release more files in the case.

“The House Republicans are for transparency, and they’re looking for a way to say that they agree with the White House. We agree with the president. Everything he said about that, all the credible evidence should come out,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said Thursday afternoon.

Democrats vehemently decried the resolution’s lack of force. They have advanced their own legislation, with support from nine Republicans, that would require the Justice Department to release more information on the case.

Rep. Jim McGovern, who led the Democrats’ debate against the Republican resolution Thursday night, called it a “glorified press release” and “a fig leaf so they can move on from this issue.”

Under pressure from his own GOP members, Johnson had to demonstrate action on the Epstein files or risk having Republicans support the Democratic measures that would force the release of nearly all documents.

“The American people simply need to know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said at a news conference. “Democrats didn’t put this into the public domain. The conspiracy theory provocateur-in-chief Donald Trump is the one, along with his extreme MAGA Republican associates, who put this whole thing into the public domain for years. And now they are reaping what they have sown.”

Still, Democrats, who hold minorities in both chambers, have relished the opportunity to make Republicans repeatedly block their attempts to force the Justice Department to release the documents.

Trump in recent years has suggested he would release more information about the investigation into Epstein, especially amid speculation over a supposed list of Epstein’s clients.

In February, the Justice Department released some government documents regarding the case, but there were no new revelations. After a months-long review of additional evidence, the department earlier this month released a video meant to prove that Epstein killed himself, but said no other files related to the case would be made public.

A White House spokeswoman said Thursday that Trump would not recommend a special counsel in the case. But later Thursday, the president said he had asked Bondi to seek the release of testimony from grand jury proceedings in the case.