Black

WASHINGTON — The Congressional Black Caucus on Tuesday called on major corporations across the U.S., including those that previously expressed support for voting rights and racial justice, to oppose redistricting efforts by Republican-led states that seek to eliminate majority-Black U.S. House districts.

In a letter sent to more than 250 companies, members of the Black Caucus urge them to condemn the redistricting efforts, which the lawmakers describe as “coordinated efforts to silence Black voices at the ballot box.” Some of the companies had co-signed their own message to Congress five years ago urging lawmakers to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, a Democratic proposal to restore and update the Voting Rights Act.

That 2021 coalition, Business for Voting Rights, was backed by many of the country’s most valuable and influential companies, including Apple, Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Tesla, Salesforce, Target, PayPal, Intel and Starbucks.

Tuesday’s letter is the latest effort by the Congressional Black Caucus and its allies to gather support for preventing more Republican-led states from redrawing their legislative maps in ways that would dilute Black political representation. Several states have moved to eliminate congressional districts represented by Black Democratic lawmakers after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last month that severely weakened a key provision of the Voting Rights Act.

“Corporations that have profited from Black consumers, relied on Black workers, and amassed wealth in part from Black communities cannot look away while Black political power is dismantled in plain sight,” Rep. Yvette Clarke, chair of the Black Caucus, said in an interview.

Clarke described the letter as “putting corporate America on notice,” but she said the caucus was not seeking an adversarial relationship with corporations. Among those receiving Tuesday’s letter were companies based overseas that have a significant presence in the U.S.

The caucus last week called for Black athletes to boycott public universities in states that are gerrymandering their congressional maps to eliminate districts held by Black lawmakers. The 59-member Congressional Black Caucus consists entirely of Democrats, including more than a third from Southern states.

Some lawmakers have said mass protests and federal legislation might be necessary to undo the efforts underway in Republican-led states. Any new federal voting rights law would almost certainly require Democrats to secure majorities in both chambers of Congress and win the presidency.

It is unclear how companies will respond to the demands. The Associated Press was making efforts to contact them.

“Many companies that previously issued statements after the murder of George Floyd, pledged billions toward racial equity initiatives, and spoke forcefully in defense of democracy following January 6 now face a defining test of whether those commitments were rooted in principle or convenience,” the caucus’ letter states.

It also represents the latest instance of the caucus expressing frustrations with corporate America. A 2024 Black Caucus report noted that lawmakers were “troubled that some corporations that made pledges in 2020 have taken several steps in the opposite direction,” such as rolling back or failing to follow through on pledges to diversify their workforces.

“We understand who the occupant in the White House is and the reality of Republicans being in charge,” Democratic Rep. Steven Horsford of Nevada said of the caucus’ message. “But what corporate America also understands is that there will be a shift at some point.”

The letter calls on companies to publicly condemn the redistricting plans, meet with Black Caucus members to discuss corporate America’s role in protecting voting rights and disclose their political donations to Republican politicians in states that are redistricting their congressional maps.

President Trump last year kicked off the unusual mid-decade round of congressional redistricting when he pushed Texas lawmakers to redraw their maps in a way that would add Republican seats. Democratic-led California responded, but it has been mostly Republican states redrawing their lines since as the party tries to maintain its majority in the U.S. House during this year’s midterm elections.

The effort was supercharged by the Supreme Court decision, which allowed even more Republican states to redraw congressional maps that previously had protected minority communities.

Horsford, who chaired the Black Caucus during President Biden’s Democratic administration, said the caucus is demanding that companies “stand on the side of democracy, fairness and equal representation.”

“This is about power, who holds it and what it’s used for,” he said. “And when you’re diluting Black economic and political power, we need to know where these companies stand in this moment, and what side of history they’re on.”

Brown writes for the Associated Press.

CHRISTINE McGuinness looked stunning as she soaked up the Bank Holiday sun in a tiny black bikini.

The model, 38, had fun and cooled down in a paddling pool filled with plastic balls.

In a video posted to Instagram, the media personality took to the water in a skimpy black bikini with thong bottoms.

She grinned widely as her daughter jumped into the pool making a big splash.

The star wrote over the reel that she felt her problems were melting away as she spent time with her kids, with the clip first starting at “99 problems” and then ending with “0 problems” at the end of the clip.

Christine finished the look off with a pair of chunky sunglasses and kept her hair loosely falling down over her shoulders.

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Captioning the post, Christine wrote: “My mummy magic medicine, always. Life is just better with them.

“Wishing you all a Gawjus bank holiday, half term, heatwave!”

The star added in brackets: Stay hydrated and wear protection always!
sorry to be that mum!”

Fans of Christine thought she looked stunning and dropped compliments in the post’s comment’s section.

One user said: “Stunning as always Christine, hope you’re having a lovely bank holiday x”

A second shared: “Beautiful mummy.”

A third added: “If I had your body I would wear that to Tesco. Just saying.”

The sexy video comes just weeks after Christine was spotted locking lips with DJ Roxxxan in her Land Rover Defender.

They were first linked when we revealed they flew to Ibiza together in 2024.

The DJ — real name Roxanne Conway — is also a model and describes herself as “masculine”.

Christine was recently also linked to former boxing champ Nicola Adams, 43, after saying she would “love to have a wife one day”.

She added: “Not like a legalised marriage, but like a blessing, a celebration of love.”

Christine has also been growing close to Olympic boxer Nicola Adams, who has confessed that she’s “crazy” about the blonde bombshell.

While neither of the two women have directly addressed the speculation, Nicola took to social media to confess she’s head over heels right now. 

She shared a clip of herself dancing with her eyes closed with the caption: “Them – you’re not that crazy about that woman”

Nicola added: “Who me? [laughing emoji].”

Christine and Nicola attended The DIVA Awards 2026 recently, which is an event which celebrates the achievements of LGBTQIA women and non-binary people.

And an onlooker told the Daily Mail: “They were inseparable and looked like they were a couple.”

Christine and Take Me Out host Paddy McGuinness, 52, divorced in 2024 but still live together in Cheshire with their three children.

Plans for a new tranche of upgrades for U.S. Army special operations MH-60M Black Hawk helicopters are heavily tied to continued progress, or lack thereof, on an improved engine. Work on the Army’s Improved Turbine Engine Program (ITEP) is ongoing now, but there have also been threats to cancel it entirely in recent years, and its future remains murky.

Officials from U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) talked about the intersection of future plans for the MH-60M fleet and ITEP during a roundtable at the annual SOF Week conference yesterday. TWZ was in attendance, along with other outlets. The Army’s elite 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, also known as the Night Stalkers, operates the MH-60Ms.

The Army selected General Electric’s (GE) T901 as the winner of the ITEP competition in 2019. The engine remains in development, with flight testing involving a modified Black Hawk beginning in May 2025.

“We are following very closely what the Army is doing with ITEP. We are hoping that we will get it,” Lt. Col. Aron Hauquitz, head of the Technology Applications Program Office (TAPO), said at the roundtable yesterday. “We’ll be able to put it in our aircraft, and we’ll create the Block 2 variant of the MH-60M.”

In “FY30 [Fiscal Year 2030], we’re going to start either the Block 1.2 or the Block 2” upgrade program for the MH-60M fleet, Lt. Col. Cameron Keogh, the Program Manager for the MH-60 within SOCOM’s Program Executive Office for Rotary Wing (PEO-RW), also said at the roundtable. “It’s going to hinge on what’s going on with the Improved Turbine Engine, the T901 program that the Army’s running. We’re closely following that. If it continues to be successful, we will integrate that engine.”

To take a step back quickly, Night Stalker Black Hawks today already have an array of unique features compared to other H-60 variants in service elsewhere across the U.S. military and globally. This includes a terrain-following/terrain avoidance radar and other sensors, a variety of defensive systems, and an extensive communications suite, which you can read about in more detail here. A subset of the MH-60Ms are also configured as Direct Action Penetrators (DAP), which can be armed with a mix of guns, missiles, launched effects, and rockets to provide organic close air support during missions.

Cramming all of these capabilities on the MH-60Ms also requires significant changes to their core structure, and they are notably heavier than other typical H-60 variants. To account for this, the 160th’s Black Hawks already have YT706 turbine engines that are more powerful than the T701s found on standard Army models. GE makes both of these engines.

The YT706 has “higher fuel consumption, but it also has a higher output to help us keep that extra weight in the air,” Lt. Col. Keogh noted yesterday.

Integrating the T901 onto a typical Black Hawk will provide “50 percent more shaft‑power while delivering significantly higher fuel efficiency,” according to Lockheed Martin. Sikorsky, the prime contractor behind the H-60 family of helicopters, became a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin in 2015.

“The 50% power increase means a Black Hawk can transport additional fuel or payloads, such as launched effects, medical evacuation litters, forward area resupply loads or advanced sensor packages, without compromising aircraft performance,” Lockheed Martin highlighted in a press release earlier this month. “The engine’s performance at high altitude, high temperature conditions expands the Black Hawk’s envelope, giving commanders more options for insertion, extraction and reconnaissance missions in austere environments.”

Sikorsky Begins Black Hawk® Ground Runs with U.S. Army T901 Improved Turbine Engines

“Higher fuel efficiency and lower maintenance demands lessen the supply chain burden in contested environments, a core tenet of the Army’s continuous transformation strategy,” the press release noted. “Improved specific fuel consumption reduces the number of refuel stops, extending mission endurance and shrinking the fuel footprint in forward operating bases.”

The boost in capability that the T901 is set to bring is especially relevant for Night Stalker MH-60Ms, given their unique attributes and mission requirements. The maintenance and logistics benefits would also be particularly attractive for the 160th. The Regiment routinely flies extremely demanding missions, often conducted across long distances and under adverse conditions, and staged from far-flung locations with limited access to established support chains.

Plans otherwise for the Block 1.2/Block 2.0 MH-60M upgrades are still evolving.

Right now, the core “focus on that is payload restoration. We’re trying to take weight out of the airplane [sic], [and] we’re trying to move the CG, the center of gravity, forward,” Lt. Col. Keogh explained. “How we’re doing that without reducing capabilities is we’re just kind of moving the capabilities around.”

“Somebody asked me earlier if we’re going to take the anti-ice system off the airplane to lose some weight. We’re not. We need the anti-ice, especially up in Washington State,” he continued. “We’re taking some of our heavier boxes, a lot of our avionics, we’re putting them up forward into the crew department, we’re putting them behind the pilots. That’s going to shorten cable runs – copper weighs a lot, you’d be surprised – and then it also helped with our CG shift, as well.”

“That’ll give the operators more butts in seats as they head out to the objective, and also give the air crews better fuel flexibility for mission planning,” he added.

To go back to ITEP, the new engine has long been expected to offer a major leap in performance to regular Army Black Hawks, as well as the service’s AH-64 Apache attack helicopters. However, as noted, the program has faced major uncertainty in recent years. The effort has suffered significant delays tied to manufacturing and supply chain issues. The T901 was also a central component of the Army’s Future Attack Recon Aircraft (FARA) program, which the service axed in 2024.

Last year, there were indications the Army was moving to cancel ITEP, too, with the service requesting no additional funding for the program in its 2026 Fiscal Year budget proposal. Congress subsequently interceded, appropriating another $238 million for continued work on the engine in the current fiscal cycle.

In its 2027 Fiscal Year budget request, the Army is again not asking for any new money for ITEP, which has raised new questions about the program’s future.

T901 First Engine to Test Mission Accomplished

At the Army Aviation Association of America’s (AAAA) 2026 Warfighting Summit last month, Army Maj. Gen. Clair Gill said he was “very excited about where they’re going there” with ITEP and that the engine was “almost nearing completion of certification.” Gill is the service’s Program Acquisition Executive for Maneuver Air.

ITEP is “performing as intended,” and “the resourcing that Congress added in 2025 and the resourcing that Congress added in 2026 is being used to deliberately continue that testing,” Army Brig. Gen. David Phillips also told TWZ and other outlets at a roundtable at the AAAA conference, but did not elaborate on future plans for the engine. Phillips is the Deputy Portfolio Acquisition Executive for Maneuver Air.

“We will need a little bit more money to get through the EMD [engineering, manufacturing and development] program, but it’s certainly not anywhere close to the money that we’ve already received for the program,” Mike Sousa, GE’s Executive Program Manager for the T901, had also told members of the media ahead of the AAAA conference, according to Breaking Defense. “So there is a little bit of money that is still required.”

Another factor now in all of this for the Army, as well as the Night Stalkers, is the expected arrival of the new MV-75 Cheyenne II tiltrotor in the next few years. The MV-75 offers massive boosts in range and speed compared to any Black Hawk variant. At the same time, that is also expected to come at a cost. As it stands now, the MV-75 is not expected to replace all of the Army’s H-60s, which will continue to play important roles for years to come. SOCOM and the 160th have a similar vision when it comes to the fielding of a special operations-specific version of the MV-75 and the future of the MH-60M.

“There will not be a one-for-one swap for MH-60M and MV-75. Don’t ask me what that exact number will be,” Dr. Steven Smith, head of SOCOM’s PEO-RW, also said at the roundtable yesterday. “We’re still going to need analysis to determine what that will be, but it will not be a one-for-one swap. We recognize that the M-60s will be required for the crisis response mission.”

As an aside, the 160th’s MH-60Ms, including examples in the DAP configuration, were a key element of Operation Absolute Resolve to capture Nicolas Maduro, then Venezuela’s dictatorial president, in January. TWZ explored the contributions of the DAP helicopters in detail at the time.

Altogether, the MH-60M is still on track to be a central component of the Night Stalker’s fleets for years to come, whether the helicopters are re-engined in the end or not.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

The incident came last month when unarmed Rivet Joint plane was securing NATO’s eastern flank in international airspace, according to the British Defence Ministry.

Two Russian jets have “repeatedly and dangerously” intercepted a British Royal Air Force surveillance aircraft in April over the Black Sea, according to the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defence.

The ⁠⁠Rivet Joint aircraft was unarmed and carrying out routine surveillance in international airspace over the Black Sea, securing NATO’s eastern flank, the ministry said in a statement on Wednesday. There was no immediate reaction from Russia.

“This incident is another example of dangerous and unacceptable behaviour by Russian pilots, towards an unarmed aircraft operating in international airspace,” Defence Minister John Healey said in the statement. “These actions create a serious risk of accidents and potential escalation,” he added.

It was repeatedly intercepted ‌‌by a Russian Su-35 aircraft, which flew close enough to trigger emergency systems on the British plane, it said. A Russian Su-27 conducted six passes, flying six metres (less than 20 feet) from the Rivet Joint’s nose.

Defence and foreign ministry officials this week formally complained to the Russian embassy about the air incident, Wednesday’s statement added.

It said the incident was the most dangerous Russian action ⁠⁠against a UK surveillance plane since ⁠⁠2022, when a nearby Russian plane released a missile over the Black Sea, in what Moscow later called a technical malfunction.

The intercepts came days after Healey announced that the Royal Navy had tracked and “seen off” three Russian submarines on an alleged monthlong “covert operation” in Atlantic waters “north of the UK” near vital undersea cables and pipelines.

Healey made details of the monitoring operation public on April 9.

“Let me be very clear: This incident will not deter the UK’s commitment to defend NATO, our allies and our interests from Russian aggression,” he warned on Wednesday.

The UK monitoring mission involved about 500 personnel and saw UK aircraft fly more than 450 hours while a navy frigate covered several thousand nautical miles.

A defence review last year concluded that Russia poses an “immediate and pressing” threat to the nation.

ATLANTA — Same fight. New generation.

That’s the mantra of a multiracial group of civil rights leaders and activists organizing opposition to a mostly white conservative alliance dismantling the Voting Rights Act and political districts that allowed Black and other nonwhite voters to choose more of their elected leaders for the last half-century.

“We have to respond as quickly as possible,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson said in an interview. “The real question,” Johnson told the Associated Press, “is how do we as a country really address the effort to shrink us backwards into a 1950s reality?”

Johnson’s 117-year-old association, which was at the forefront of legal and legislative fights for Black political rights in the 20th century, is among scores of groups coming together Saturday in Alabama for a rally and tribute to the Civil Rights Movement that helped bring about the 1965 Voting Rights Act. They plan events in Selma, where voting rights advocates were attacked by white law enforcement officers on Bloody Sunday, and Montgomery, where a rescheduled march concluded two weeks later.

Unlike 61 years ago, the Alabama events are not the pinnacle of a protracted movement. Instead, civil rights activists hope they serve as a catalyst for a renewed crusade after the U.S. Supreme Court, two weeks ago, further weakened the VRA by no longer allowing race to be considered in how congressional and other districts are drawn.

They acknowledge difficulty in countering a white-dominated conservative network entrenched in the White House, Capitol Hill, federal courts and many state legislatures of the Old Confederacy, where a majority of Black Americans still live.

The VRA “was the foundational nucleus of the Civil Rights Movement,” said Jared Evans of the Louisiana-based Power Coalition for Equity and Justice. “They’ve taken that from us,” he said, with the recent Louisiana v. Callais decision on congressional districts and the earlier Shelby v. Holder decision in 2013 that rolled back federal oversight of election procedures in states and localities with a history of discrimination.

Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock, who is senior pastor of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. once preached, said from his pulpit that the result is “Jim Crow in new clothes.”

Warnock pointed to King and the last voting rights movement. “We need political power. We need economic power. We need personal power,” he said, assuring parishioners that “your adversaries know that your voice matters” because they’re “bending over backwards” to diminish it.

Evans reached further back into history to say what must happen next.

“Our response must be and will be a second Reconstruction period,” Evans said.

Some Democrats want an answer from Congress

The ultimate goal, organizers said, is to win more elections, sway policy fights and protect diverse political representation at all levels.

U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell, a Black lawmaker who represents Selma, Alabama, said an immediate priority is to “reform and reintroduce” Democrats’ flagship voting bill, the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act.

Sewell, whose seat ultimately could be threatened under redistricting, said Democrats want to “completely” eliminate partisan gerrymandering.

She also said the legislation would “bring back pre-clearance,” the requirement for certain federal approvals that the court struck down in Shelby.

“We need to come up with a modern-day formula for showing just how egregious the behavior of these state actors is,” Sewell said.

The Supreme Court ruled in Callais that states do not have to draw majority nonwhite districts under the Voting Rights Act and, in fact, should not consider race at all when drawing boundaries. By arguing that the law’s remedies to combat discrimination had themselves become racist, the decision allows states to redraw heavily Black districts that have historically elected Democrats while arguing that the designs are based on party interests, not race.

President Trump praised the decision as “a BIG WIN for Equal Protection under the Law, as it returns the Voting Rights Act to its Original Intent, which was to protect against intentional Racial Discrimination.”

Groups mobilized for redistricting sessions

Many of the same groups who’ll be in Alabama on Saturday have already gone to Southern statehouses, where white Republican lawmakers moved swiftly to redraw congressional districts after Callais.

Alabama and Louisiana lawmakers reverted to a single majority-Black district, each scrapping a second district that had been ordered by lower federal courts under now-reversed VRA interpretations. Tennessee lawmakers gutted a majority Black district by splitting greater Memphis into three different sprawling districts — itself an obvious racial gerrymander the court had previously forbidden, Evans said.

Anticipating the Callais outcome, Florida and Texas proceeded with redistricting before it came down. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a term-limited Republican, has called a June session to redraw congressional lines for the 2028 cycle. Mississippi and South Carolina have delayed the matter for now.

South Carolina state Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey was among the few white Republicans who pushed back against GOP redistricting plans. He said that not even pressure from Trump could sell him on disenfranchising Black South Carolinians instead of doing what’s best for his state.

Other white conservatives are still talking openly about ousting Reps. Jim Clyburn and Bennie Thompson, the only Black U.S. House members from South Carolina and Mississippi, respectively.

Evans, the Louisiana activist, predicted the fight ahead won’t just be about congressional representation.

“Look for them to go after state house and state senate seats — and then it will be the local level,” he said, adding that “it’s going to be an entire erasure of Black representation.”

The issue is more than a partisan Washington fight

Heavily minority districts drawn under the VRA before Callais nearly always elect Democrats. Black Americans have overwhelmingly aligned with the party since President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act, sparking a decades-long migration of most white Southern politicians to the Republicans. Latino and Hispanic voters still lean Democratic in most places as well.

The immediate fight shapes the midterm campaign scramble for control of the U.S. House during the final years of Trump’s presidency. Trump initially pushed Republican-run states to redistrict to protect the party’s fragile House majority.

But Johnson, the NAACP leader, said all voters should see more than partisan warfare or a regional battle over race.

Beyond party allegiance, Johnson argued, white conservatives want to curtail a range of rights “depending on how you pray, depending on who you love,” while also pushing economic policies that punish workers across racial and ethnic lines. From legislation to the confirmation of federal judges who decide constitutional questions, those policy outcomes start with election results.

“It’s not a Black problem,” Johnson said. “That’s an American problem.”

There is no singular movement or leader yet

Evans, Johnson and others acknowledged the complexity in harnessing disparate organizations and galvanizing voters on issues like redistricting and gerrymandering. But they insist the brazen nature of Republicans’ course has spurred engagement.

Johnson said he was on an organizing call in Mississippi this week that had 8,000 participants. Evans pointed to packed hallways in the state Capitols in Baton Rouge and Nashville, respectively.

The NAACP and allies have challenged new maps in multiple states, despite Callais. Many groups want to spur midterm turnout among Black voters, and others are disenchanted with white conservatives’ maneuvers in racially diverse places.

Johnson stressed the need for perseverance.

The 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision was seismic, with a unanimous court declaring segregated public schools unconstitutional and reversing 19th-century precedents denying Black Americans’ fundamental rights.

But it took 17 years — and many more court battles — for it to be implemented in most Southern school districts. Fights over mandated student busing continued beyond the South. It was a decade after Brown before Congress and Johnson enacted the movement’s seminal laws.

There’s no clear leader of a modern movement.

Johnson said it’s worth remembering that even with King at the helm before his assassination, “there was tension around strategy” in the 1950s and 1960s.

But even “through that tension, through many episodes, we were able to get directly in the right place.”

Barrow and Brown write for the Associated Press.

BARBIE actress Margot Robbie stands and delivers in a dandy highwayman outfit.

The Aussie, 35, wore a black tailcoat jacket with gold embroidery — like 1980s singer Adam Ant.

She was attending the London West End premiere of the play 1536 — a drama about three Essex women set in Tudor England during Anne Boleyn’s downfall.

Margot, a producer on the play, said at The Ambassadors Theatre: “The conversations these women have are the same ones that women now are having.”

Earlier this year we revealed how Margot was named the world’s most beautiful woman.

The Aussie beat fellow actress Scarlett Johannson to the honour in the poll organised by website Ranker.

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There were more than seven million votes cast in total.

But the married mum-of-one has not always been convinced about her looks.

She once said: “In my big group of girlfriends at home, I am definitely not the best looking.

“I did not grow up feeling like I was particularly attractive.”