By John Fritze, CNN

(CNN) — The Supreme Court cleared the way Monday for Louisiana to redraw a hotly contested congressional map that the court ruled days earlier was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, a highly technical decision that sparked a bitter back-and-forth between three conservatives and a member of the court’s liberal wing.

The brief order dealt with a question about when the Supreme Court’s blockbuster decision that gutted the Voting Rights Act took effect in Louisiana. The state is quickly gearing up to redraw its maps ahead of this year’s midterm elections and suspended its US House primaries following the high court’s ruling Wednesday.

More notable than the decision itself, which was widely expected, was the tension it exposed in brief writings by Justice Samuel Alito, a conservative, and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, a liberal.

Writing in dissent, Jackson said the post-decision “developments have a strong political undercurrent.” And she suggested that the court should have stayed on the sidelines “to avoid the appearance of partiality.”

Alito snapped back at Jackson’s dissent, describing her points as “trivial at best” and “baseless and insulting.”

“The dissent goes on to claim that our decision represents an unprincipled use of power,” Alito wrote in a brief concurrence joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch. “That is a ground­less and utterly irresponsible charge.”

In a flurry of briefing following last week’s decision, the state and two groups of voters who challenged various iterations of the map squared off over how quickly that decision would be finalized and sent back to a lower court. That normally unnoticed process usually takes about a month to give the losing side time to seek a rehearing — an avenue that is technically available but fruitless in virtually all cases.

Hours after a 6-3 majority struck down Louisiana’s map, a group of White voters who initially challenged it filed an emergency appeal asking the court to speed up that process to give the state as much time as needed to redraw. A group of Black voters who defended the map opposed that proposal on Thursday, urging the court instead to hold off on finalizing its decision until the general election in November — a long-shot request.

In the middle of that back-and-forth, Louisiana itself filed a brief asserting that it did not matter how the Supreme Court handled the technical question of its “judgment” because state lawmakers were prepared to plow ahead with redrawing its districts. That new map, whenever it is finished, will almost certainly mean the state will have one less Black and Democratic member of Congress than it does currently.

The court’s opinion on Wednesday was clear, but it was silent about the next steps Louisiana should take as it stared down a May 16 primary election. Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican, announced last week that the state was suspending the primary for House races so that it has time to redraw its maps.

The question of whether the Supreme Court had finalized its decision last week has also come up in separate litigation over Landry’s effort to push back election dates for House seats this year.

A lower federal court had found the state’s map unconstitutional in 2024. In May of that ye

VANDENBERG SPACE FORCE BASE, Calif. (KEYT) – A Falcon 9 launch of Starlink satellites destined for low-Earth orbit is scheduled from Space Launch Complex 4 East Tuesday evening.

The designated launch window is between 7 p.m. and 11 p.m. Pacific Time.

A live webcast of the launch will begin about five minutes before liftoff. You can tune in to watch here or on SpaceX's X/Twitter account.

Following first-stage separation, the Falcon 9 assigned to this mission will return to Earth to land on the Of Course I Still Love You drone ship awaiting in the Pacific Ocean.

A depiction of that launch sequence is shown in the image below.

There is the potential for one or more sonic booms associated with the launch to be heard across the local region, but how far the sound travels will depend on weather and other conditions at the time.

This will be the 24th flight for the booster assigned to this mission which previously launched the following missions:  Crew-7, CRS-29, PACE, Transporter-10, EarthCARE, NROL-186, Transporter-13, TRACERS, NROL-48, COSMO-SkyMed Second Generation FM3, and 13 prior Starlink launches.

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By Zoe Sottile, CNN

(CNN) — In the Trump administration’s latest move to limit trans rights, the Department of Education has launched a Title IX investigation into Smith College, an all-women’s college in western Massachusetts, for admitting trans women.

Like most other women’s colleges in the US, Smith, a small liberal arts college, admits trans women. The 155-year-old school says it “is a women’s college and considers for admission any applicants who self-identify as women; cis, trans, and nonbinary women are eligible to apply to Smith.”

In a Monday statement, the Department of Education said it was investigating Smith for “admitting biological men and granting them access to women-only spaces, including dormitories, bathrooms, locker rooms, and athletic teams.”

The term “biological men,” though often used by opponents of trans rights to describe trans women, is not commonly used by trans people.

Smith College told CNN it “is fully committed to its institutional values, including compliance with civil rights laws” and “does not comment on pending government investigations.”

The Education Department says it’s investigating whether the college’s policy violates Title IX, a landmark federal civil rights law that bans sex-based discrimination in any school or other education program that receives federal funding.

“Title IX contains a single-sex exception that allows colleges to enroll all-male or all-female student bodies—but the exception applies on the basis of biological sex difference, not subjective gender identity,” reads the statement. “An all-girls college that enrolls male students professing a female identity would cease to qualify as single sex under Title IX.”

Shannon Minter, an attorney with the National Center for LGBTQ Rights, called the investigation an “ominous” example of government overreach into private institutions.

“If they (women’s colleges) have chosen – as many of them have – to admit transgender students, that’s something they should be able to do freely without being worried about persecution by the federal government,” he said.

“This administration seems hellbent on eliminating any inclusion of transgender people anywhere in our society,” he added.

President Donald Trump has taken sweeping measures to limit trans people’s rights and to deny trans identity exists in the first place. New policies under his second term include banning trans people from the military, suing states for allowing trans athletes to play on high school sports teams, restricting trans and nonbinary children’s access to gender-affirming care, and a Day 1 executive order that redefined gender as “sex” and said that humans are either male or female, determined by biology at conception.

Trans people make up a tiny fragment of the country’s population. Just 1% of the United States population ages 13 and older identify as trans, according to the Williams Institute, a public policy research

SANTA BARBARA COUNTY, Calif. (KEYT) – An adult woman was hit and killed Sunday evening while walking along State Route 166/West Main Street between Santa Maria and Guadalupe and investigators are turning to the public for help locating her killer.

The identity of the woman is pending notification of her next of kin, but the California Highway Patrol shared Monday that she is not a permanent resident.

On May 3, around 8 p.m., a woman was walking along the westbound shoulder of West Main Street between Guadalupe and Santa Maria when she was hit by an unknown vehicle stated a press release from the California Highway Patrol-Santa Maria Area (CHP).

The woman sustained fatal injures as a result of the collision and the driver of the involved vehicle fled the scene before the arrival of first responders noted the CHP.

Investigators are now turning to the public for help in their investigation.

Anyone with more information, dashcam footage, or surveillance video before or after the fatal collision Sunday evening is asked to contact the CHP's Santa Maria office at 805-608-6310.

"Our thoughts are with the victim's family during this incredibly difficult time. We urge all drivers to take
responsibility and remain on scene after a crash," said CHP-Santa Maria Commander Joseph Rodriguez.

The post Investigators ask public for help after woman is hit and killed walking on West Main Street Sunday appeared first on News Channel 3-12.

SANTA BARBARA COUNTY, Calif. (KEYT) – An adult woman was hit and killed Sunday evening while walking along State Route 166/West Main Street between Santa Maria and Guadalupe and investigators are turning to the public for help locating her killer.

The identity of the woman is pending notification of her next of kin, but the California Highway Patrol shared Monday that she is not a permanent resident of the area.

On May 3, around 8 p.m., a woman was walking along the westbound shoulder of West Main Street between Guadalupe and Santa Maria when she was hit by an unknown vehicle stated a press release from the California Highway Patrol-Santa Maria Area (CHP).

The woman sustained fatal injures as a result of the collision and the driver of the involved vehicle fled the scene before the arrival of first responders noted the CHP.

Investigators are now turning to the public for help in their investigation.

Anyone with more information, dashcam footage, or surveillance video before or after the fatal collision Sunday evening is asked to contact the CHP's Santa Maria office at 805-608-6310.

"Our thoughts are with the victim's family during this incredibly difficult time. We urge all drivers to take
responsibility and remain on scene after a crash," said CHP-Santa Maria Commander Joseph Rodriguez.

The post Investigators ask public for help after woman is hit and killed walking on West Main Street Sunday appeared first on News Channel 3-12.