The Daily Brief - Apr. 22, 2026
The latest on the US-Iran peace talks, the vote for a new congressional map in Virginia, and more
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Iran Seizes Non-US Ships
Iran seized two cargo ships — neither of them from the US — in the Strait of Hormuz today and fired on a third just hours after President Trump extended the US-Iran ceasefire indefinitely. A UK maritime monitoring center said gunfire caused “heavy damage” to one vessel, and the third ship is now stranded off Iran’s coast. Crew on one ship were reported safe; the status of the others is unknown at this time.
About a fifth of the world’s oil passes through the strait. Iran has largely kept it closed since the war began, allowing ships through only after collecting tolls of up to $2 million. It was briefly reopened last week after a ceasefire with Israel and Lebanon, but it was then shut again after the US began a blockade of all of Iran’s ports.
Trump said he was extending the ceasefire to give Iran time to submit a proposal to end the war. A second round of peace talks was supposed to begin in Pakistan this week with Vice President JD Vance representing the US, but was postponed after Iranian negotiators pulled out. The two sides remain far apart on Iran’s nuclear program, reopening the strait, and the lifting of sanctions.
In Lebanon, Israeli strikes have continued despite a separate ceasefire between the two countries, with three people killed in two strikes in the south on Wednesday.
Virginia Voters Approve Mid-Decade Redistricting, but Judge Blocks It
Virginia voters gave Democrats the green light yesterday to redraw the state’s Congressional map for the 2026 midterms — but a state judge blocked the results from being certified hours later, calling the referendum unconstitutional.
Over 51% voted yes on an amendment to the state constitution, which temporarily strips map-drawing power from the bipartisan commission that voters installed in 2020. Authority to redraw the maps will revert to the commission after the 2030 census.
Right now Virginia’s delegation is 6-5 Democrats. The new map would potentially push the ratio 10-1 in favor of Democrats.
The judge who blocked certification had already ruled twice to stop the referendum from going forward — and the Virginia Supreme Court overruled him both times. Attorney General Jay Jones has said the state will appeal again.
Virginia is the latest front in a national redistricting fight that started last July, when Trump asked Texas Republicans to redraw their map to favor the GOP. Six states have since changed theirs.
Georgia Democrat Scott Dies
Rep. David Scott, a Georgia Democrat who represented the Atlanta-area 13th District for more than two decades, died today at 80. He was planning to seek a 13th term.
Scott was the first Black lawmaker to chair the House Agriculture Committee, a job he held from 2021 to 2023. He was first elected to the House in 2002, after nearly 30 years in Georgia’s state legislature. In recent years his health had visibly declined, and Democrats replaced him as the committee’s top Democrat in 2024.
His Congressional seat is safely Democratic and is expected to stay that way. Under Georgia law, the governor has 10 days to call a special election.
With Scott’s death, the House now stands at 217 Republicans, 212 Democrats and one independent, with five vacancies.
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Supreme Court Hears Green Card Case
The Supreme Court heard arguments today in a case that will decide how much evidence immigration officers need before stripping a returning green card holder of their legal status at the airport.
The case is about Muk Choi Lau, a lawful permanent resident of the US, who traveled through a New York airport in 2012 while facing criminal charges for trademark counterfeiting. Officers at the airport saw the pending charges, treated him as if he were arriving for the first time, and placed him on “parole” — an immigration status that only grants temporary permission to be in the US.
When Lau was convicted a year later on the counterfeiting charges, the government then moved to deport him, but a federal appeals court stopped it. The court said that to strip him of his green card protections at the airport, officers needed actual proof he had committed a crime, not just charges that hadn’t yet been proven.
The Trump administration wants the Supreme Court to reverse the lower court ruling. The administration’s lawyer argued that parole is just “hitting a pause button” on a green card holder’s status, and that all an officer needs is “satisfaction” that something might disqualify the person. The court’s liberal justices pressed the government on whether the power to strip green card holders of their status could be abused. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson asked whether a future anti-immigrant administration could use it to block large numbers of green card holders from coming back into the country. Justice Samuel Alito pushed back, asking if the court really had to accept Jackson’s “conspiracy theory” to decide the case.
An estimated 12.8 million lawful permanent residents could be affected if the Trump administration wins. A ruling is expected by July.
Appeals Court Clears Ten Commandments Law
Texas can require public schools to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom, a federal appeals court ruled yesterday. In a 9-8 decision, the court said that doing so doesn’t violate the First Amendment’s ban on the government establishing an official religion.
Texas passed the law last year. Fifteen multifaith families sued, arguing the government can’t require every classroom to display a religious text. They pointed to a 1980 Supreme Court ruling that struck down a nearly identical Kentucky law, but Texas argued the commandments are part of America’s historical and legal heritage, and that a poster doesn’t force anyone to believe anything.
The 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals majority accepted Texas’s argument. It said the 1980 ruling relied on an old legal test the Supreme Court has since abandoned, and that under the current interpretation of the First Amendment, a classroom poster doesn’t cross the constitutional line.
The dissent, written by Judge Irma Ramirez, argued that only the Supreme Court can overrule its own past decisions, and that Stone still stands. The American Civil Liberties Union, which represents the multifaith families in the case, said they will ask the Supreme Court to take the case.
DOJ Indicts SPLC Over Informant Program
The Justice Department yesterday indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) on federal fraud charges, alleging the civil rights group secretly paid more than $3 million between 2014 and 2023 to informants inside the Ku Klux Klan and other extremist groups and misled donors about how their money was used.
Founded in Montgomery, Alabama in 1971, the SPLC tracks hate groups, turns over evidence of crimes to law enforcement, and files lawsuits about their activity. For decades, it also paid confidential sources inside Klan chapters, neo-Nazi groups and militias which the SPLC says it passed along to the FBI and local police. SPLC has not disputed making the payments and said the program has been disbanded. Interim CEO Bryan Fair said the program “saved lives.”
The Justice Department says donors were told their money would dismantle hate groups, and instead it was funneled, through bank accounts opened in fake names, to the leaders of those groups. SPLC calls the charges false and says it will fight them.
The FBI cut ties with SPLC last October, calling it a “partisan smear machine.” The FBI’s specific complaint was about SPLC’s “hate map,” a list of organizations it labels as extremist — which has grown in recent years to include conservative groups like Turning Point USA, Moms for Liberty and the Family Research Council. The ACLU called yesterday’s indictment “McCarthy-era” weaponization of the Justice Department.
Mace Moves to Expel Fellow Republican Cory Mills
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) filed a resolution earlier this week to expel fellow Republican Cory Mills from the House. The House Ethics Committee has been investigating Mills since August 2024 over allegations of sexual misconduct, domestic violence, violating campaign finance laws, and profiting from federal contracts while in office.
A Florida judge issued a restraining order against him last October after his ex-girlfriend said he threatened and harassed her. Mills denies everything and has not been charged with a crime. He says he’s not resigning from Congress.
“Any Member who votes to keep him here is voting to protect a woman beater and a fraud,” Mace said. Expelling a House member requires a two-thirds vote — a very high bar.
Mace herself is under an Ethics Committee investigation over allegedly overbilling Congress for Washington housing costs; she has denied wrongdoing. Mills is reportedly drafting his own expulsion resolution against her.
UK Passes Generational Smoking Ban
The United Kingdom just passed a law that will permanently ban anyone born on or after January 1, 2009 from ever buying cigarettes — even after they turn 18. The minimum purchase age will rise by a year every year, so the ban expands as that generation ages.
The Tobacco and Vapes Bill now goes to King Charles III for his signature, the final step that turns a parliamentary bill into law.
The new rule takes effect Jan. 1, 2027 across the United Kingdom.
The law also restricts vaping in response to a sharp rise in youth using e-cigarettes and vape pens.
About 5.3 million adults in the UK — more than one in ten — were smokers in 2024. Smoking causes roughly 64,000 deaths and 400,000 hospital admissions in Britain each year. The government called it “a historic moment for the nation’s health.” Critics say it undermines the freedom of choice.
Arguing “a poster doesn’t force anyone to believe anything.”
Got it. So “Everyone is Welcome Here” posters should be just fine in Idaho right?