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A major Texas teachers’ union filed a federal lawsuit against the state on Tuesday challenging what it describes as unconstitutional investigations into hundreds of educators who posted comments on social media following the September killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

The Texas American Federation of Teachers, which represents approximately 66,000 public school employees, is asking a federal court to block the Texas Education Agency and its commissioner, Mike Morath, from continuing investigations that the union argues violate teachers’ free speech protections.

The legal challenge centers on a 6 September letter Morath sent to school superintendents across Texas, instructing them to report educators who made what he termed “reprehensible and inappropriate” remarks about Kirk, who was shot and killed on 10 September while speaking at Utah Valley University. The union argues this directive has triggered a sweeping crackdown on constitutionally protected speech.

“Public school teachers and other employees do not surrender their first amendment rights simply by virtue of their employment,” the lawsuit reads.

The lawsuit describes cases of four teachers who faced discipline ranging from termination to formal investigations after making personal social media posts criticizing Kirk’s rightwing positions on issues including race and immigration. According to the complaint, educators were punished despite posting from personal accounts, outside work hours, and without causing any disruption to school operations.

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“Public school teachers and other employees do not surrender their first amendment rights simply by virtue of their employment,” the lawsuit reads.

The lawsuit describes cases of four teachers who faced discipline ranging from termination to formal investigations after making personal social media posts criticizing Kirk’s rightwing positions on issues including race and immigration. According to the complaint, educators were punished despite posting from personal accounts, outside work hours, and without causing any disruption to school operations.

Congressional Republicans were largely silent on the fifth anniversary of the January 6 insurrection on Tuesday, even as Democrats sought to use the occasion to condemn Donald Trump and a small group of protesters convened on the grounds of the US Capitol in solidarity with those who carried out the attack.

Democrats, who are in the minority in Congress after fruitlessly hoping that the well-documented violence would cause voters to reject Trump for good, seized on the anniversary to decry the president as a threat to democracy, and accuse Republicans of acting as his accomplices.

“Instead of holding those responsible for the attack accountable, Donald Trump and far-right extremists in Congress have repeatedly attempted to rewrite history and whitewash the horrific events of January 6. We will not let that happen,” the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, said at an unofficial hearing his party convened to examine the effects of the attack.

The anniversary was the first since Trump returned to office nearly a year ago and immediately pardoned almost everyone convicted or charged over the violence, the crowning achievement of a campaign that Republicans began almost immediately in the attack’s aftermath to blunt public outrage.

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Former Del. Mike Jones (left) and Charlie Schmidt won special elections Tuesday, with Jones capturing the Richmond-area Senate District 17 seat vacated by Lt. Gov. Ghazala Hashmi and Schmidt succeeding Jones in House District 77.

Former Richmond Del. Mike Jones is headed back to the General Assembly — this time as a state senator — after winning Tuesday’s special election in Virginia Senate District 15, a Democratic-leaning seat vacated late last year by Ghazala Hashmi.

By 8 p.m., Jones had defeated Republican John Thomas by a margin of 67.8-32% out of 15,409 votes cast, according to unofficial election results, securing a seat that stretches across much of Richmond and parts of Chesterfield County.

The win caps a fast-moving political reshuffle sparked by November’s statewide elections and ensures Democrats retain control of the district as lawmakers prepare to convene for the 2026 General Assembly session next week.

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The deposed Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro pleaded not guilty to drugs, weapons and narco-terrorism charges on Monday, two days after his capture by US special forces in an operation ordered by Donald Trump that sent shockwaves around the world.

The brevity and formality of the arraignment hearing in federal court in Manhattan – barely 30 minutes during which Maduro was asked to confirm his name and that he understood the four charges against him – belied the far-reaching consequences of the US action.

As Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores addressed the court in lower Manhattan, the UN security council held an emergency meeting just a few miles to the north, where a dozen countries condemned the US “crime of aggression” and secretary general António Guterres suggested the operation constituted a breach of international law.

Maduro, 63, insisted to federal judge Alvin Hellerstein that he was “still president of my country”, had been illegally “captured” at his Caracas home, and was “a prisoner of war”.

“I am innocent. I am not guilty. I am a decent man,” Maduro said in Spanish during repeated attempts to speak over the judge.

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White House adviser Stephen Miller refused to rule out the possibility of the United States taking Greenland by force from Denmark when pressed by CNN's Jake Tapper on Monday.

Tapper pointed out that on Saturday, Miller's wife, former White House deputy press secretary Katie Miller, posted an image of Greenland overlaid with the American flag, writing "SOON" in her post on X. He then asked Miller at least three times if U.S. military action in the territory was off the table, and Miller repeatedly avoided answering.

"What do you mean, military action against Greenland? Greenland has a population of 30,000 people, Jake. The real question is, by what right does Denmark assert control over Greenland?" Miller asked.

Trump, Miller said, has "been clear for months now that the United States should be the country that has Greenland as part of our overall security apparatus.

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The Trump administration on Monday said it had slashed billions in social services funds to a handful of blue states as part of its escalating response to new and unproven fraud allegations in Minnesota.

The Department of Health and Human Services will freeze $10 billion worth of federal grants to California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, and New York, an HHS official told HuffPost, confirming news first reported by The New York Post.

It’s not clear whether the freeze was inspired by specific fraud allegations or solely for political reasons. Officials did not immediately provide a public explanation.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) dropped his bid for a third term on Monday over the fraud allegations, saying, essentially, that he couldn’t campaign, fight actual fraud, and fight fraudulent accusations all at the same time.

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