Democrats Set to Pick Up House Seat With New Maps in Red State

Utah, which has four seats in the House of Representatives, all held by Republicans, may soon add a Democratic congressional seat thanks to court-ordered redistricting.

A three-judge federal panel on Monday refused to block a new congressional map for the state that puts the mostly Democratic Salt Lake County, the home of state capital Salt Lake City, into one district, paving the way for the map to take effect in time for the 2026 midterms. It’s likely that Democrats would pick up the new seat.

The ruling comes after years of gerrymandering battles in Utah, and disrupts President Trump’s calls for Republican-led states to redistrict ahead of 2026. Utah Republicans’ proposed map would have ensured, as in previous elections, that the state’s entire congressional delegation would have remained Republican. In November, however, it was struck down by a state court, with Utah District Court Judge Dianna Gibson ruling that Republicans had divided Salt Lake County into four districts to help themselves.

Now, Democrats have a good chance to win a congressional seat in Utah thanks to a 2018 ballot initiative that created an independent redistricting commission and enshrined anti-gerrymandering legislation. Utah’s Republicans have undermined that initiative ever since, and their latest attempt prompted a lawsuit from activists including the League of Women Voters of Utah and Mormon Women for Ethical Government.

Technically, Republicans can still appeal Monday’s decision, but the state’s Republican Lieutenant Governor Deidre Henderson, who is in charge of the state’s elections, previously said that the final 2026 congressional map had to be ready by Monday.

Trump won’t be happy with the news, considering his efforts to avert a Democratic landslide in November. He pushed for Indiana to redraw new congressional maps eliminating the state’s two Democratic seats last year, only to have that effort rejected by the state’s Republicans. What else is Trump going to try in order to rig the midterms in his favor?

Nobody in Washington can seem to make head or tail of Donald Trump’s latest attempt to win over Greenland.

The president announced on Saturday that the White House would be sending a “great hospital boat” to Greenland, though exactly who would be responsible for the project—and why Greenland, which has nationalized health care, would need it—was not clear.

“Working with the fantastic Governor of Louisiana, Jeff Landry, we are going to send a great hospital boat to Greenland to take care of the many people who are sick, and not being taken care of there,” Trump posted to Truth Social.

“It’s on the way!!!” he added.

In the days since, not one agency or office potentially responsible for the unnecessary humanitarian aid has recognized that the boat is a real thing that’s actually happening.

In a chain reaction of dodged ownership akin to hot potato, the Pentagon referred questions to the Department of Defense’s Northern Command, which redirected questions to the Navy, which in turn sent questions to the White House, CNN reported Monday. The White House has so far failed to share details.

Nonetheless, Landry, who has served as special envoy to Greenland since December, responded to the president on social media that he was “proud” to be working with the White House on “this important issue!” In a separate post on Sunday, Landry advertised that “once we get everything in place, we would love to welcome all those interested in helping!”

Greenland has expressed zero interest in Washington’s unsolicited aid package. The island currently has six hospitals that serve its 56,000 residents. Remote parts of the Danish-controlled territory have struggled with accessing specialized medical equipment—though that would hardly be addressed by a centralized boat at the coast.

Furthermore, the issue was tackled earlier this month, when the island’s capital city, Nuuk, settled on a new arrangement with Copenhagen that would allow Greenlanders to access specialized health care in Denmark.

“That will be ‘no thanks’ from us,” Jens-Frederik Nielsen, the Greenlandic prime minister, wrote on his Facebook page on Sunday. “President Trump’s idea to send an American hospital ship here to Greenland has been duly noted. But we have a public health system where care is free for citizens.”

Denmark’s political leadership felt similarly. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen snarked that she was “happy to live in a country where there is free and equal access to health for all. Where it’s not insurances and wealth that determine whether you get proper treatment.”

Trump’s offer appears to be just another component to his relentless quest to annex the mineral-rich territory. Trump has claimed that America “needs” Greenland “for defense.” But what exactly the White House stands to gain from controlling Greenland isn’t clear, especially in light of the fact that myriad existing treaties already give the U.S. unfettered access to Greenland as a military base.

CBS contributor Peter Attia, who was handpicked by Bari Weiss to join the network, is now resigning after his close friendship with predator financier Jeffrey Epstein was made clearer in recent Justice Department files.

Attia, a celebrity health and wellness influencer, expressed regret for being found out as a close friend of Epstein’s.

“I apologize and regret putting myself in a position where emails, some of them embarrassing, tasteless, and indefensible, are now public, and that is on me,” Attia said, according to The Hollywood Reporter, which first reported the news. “I accept that reality and the humiliation that comes with it.”

Attia shared hundreds of messages with Epstein throughout the 2010s—well after the financier pleaded guilty to procuring a child for prostitution—according to files made public by the Justice Department late last month. A simple search for Attia’s name in the Epstein files trove returns 1,838 results. Some of the messages are superficially benign, relating to health guidance, while others hint at a darker truth.

In a June 2015 email headed “fresh shipment,” Attia wrote to Epstein: “You [know] the biggest problem with becoming friends with you? The life you lead is so outrageous, and yet I can’t tell a soul …” The email included an image that was redacted by the DOJ.

In another crass exchange with the convicted sex offender, Attia cracked about the various health benefits of giving oral sex to women.

In 2016 Attia wrote, “Pussy is, indeed, low carb,” to Epstein. “Still awaiting results on gluten content, though.” In another message from that year, he even told Epstein’s assistant that he went into “JE withdrawal” when he didn’t see him. And a year later, Attia chose to spend time with the convicted sex trafficker instead of visiting his infant son, who had been hospitalized after entering cardiac arrest.

Attia joins an all-too-short list of Americans who have actually faced some kind of consequences for their proximity to and chumminess with an absolutely depraved individual. Former Obama White House attorney Kathy Ruemmler; Hyatt Hotels chairman Thomas Pritzker; Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison chairman Brad Karp; and New York School of Visual Arts department chair David A. Ross each resigned from their posts after the extents of their relationships with Epstein were revealed. Others—like Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Dr. Oz—remain unscathed.

The European Parliament is pausing the ratification of a trade agreement with the U.S. over Donald Trump’s tariff temper tantrum.

The legislative body’s international trade committee was supposed to vote Tuesday on a trade deal capping tariffs on imports from the EU at 15 percent, but after the Supreme Court’s ruling Friday that Trump’s tariffs are illegal, the fuming president responded by threatening a global tariff of the same rate.

Trump’s global tariff uses a different authority from those the court struck down, meaning that it’s an import duty that stacks upon existing tariffs. In effect, European companies will now be paying higher tariffs than they would under the negotiated deal.

A “whole range of products … are now much higher than the 15 percent in the old agreement,” said Bernd Lange, a German member of the European Parliament, who chairs the committee.

As a result, the committee on Monday held an emergency meeting in Brussels and decided to hold off on its vote for now.

“This is so uncertain,” Lange said. “It’s unclear if there will be additional measures.”

This is the second time the European Parliament has suspended ratifying the trade deal. Last month, the legislative body froze the deal after Trump threatened eight European countries with additional tariffs if they didn’t acquiesce to a U.S. takeover of Greenland.

EU officials, such as Maroš Šefčovič, the trade commissioner, want to keep the 15 percent tariff deal they negotiated, even though it’s unpopular in Europe because it requires the EU to drop most of its own tariffs. But Trump’s anger over the Supreme Court means that he is going to try different methods to use tariffs punitively to get his way over other countries.

“Any Country that wants to ‘play games’ with the ridiculous supreme court decision, especially those that have ‘Ripped Off’ the U.S.A. for years, and even decades, will be met with a much higher Tariff, and worse, than that which they just recently agreed to. BUYER BEWARE!!! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP,” the president wrote on Truth Social Monday morning. That’s not going to be reassuring to America’s international partners, even those who want to make a deal in good faith.

The U.S. women’s hockey team has declined an invitation to Donald Trump’s State of the Union address after the president was caught on video whining about having to invite them in the first place.

A spokesperson for the U.S. women’s hockey team—which earned a Gold Medal Thursday during overtime at the Winter Olympics finals in Milan—said that the players were unable to attend “due to the timing and previously scheduled academic and professional commitments.”

“We are sincerely grateful for the invitation extended to our gold medal–winning U.S. Women’s Hockey Team and deeply appreciate the recognition of their extraordinary achievement,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “They were honored to be included and are grateful for the acknowledgment.”

In a video of Trump’s phone call to the men’s team in the afterglow of their own victory Sunday, the president could be heard warning the players that he would be forced to extend an invitation to the women’s team to Tuesday’s State of the Union.

“I must tell you, we’re gonna have to bring the women’s team, you do know that,” Trump said as the entire men’s team laughed with the president. “I do believe I probably would be impeached.”