The Board of Immigration Appeals reinstated removal proceedings against Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian lawful permanent resident and Columbia University student activist, overturning an immigration judge's February dismissal of the case. The government had pursued Mahdawi's deportation under a rarely used foreign-policy provision invoked by the Secretary of State, after he was detained in 2025 over his pro-Palestinian advocacy and released by a federal court without being charged with any crime.
In early May 2026, MS NOW reported — with corroboration from PBS NewsHour, TheWrap, Poynter and Democracy Now — that the FBI had opened a criminal "insider threat" investigation into the sourcing behind Atlantic reporter Sarah Fitzpatrick's story documenting FBI Director Kash Patel's excessive drinking and erratic conduct. The probe is highly unusual: it does not stem from any disclosure of classified information and instead targets leaks to a journalist, a posture in which reporters have historically been treated only as witnesses. FBI agents assigned to the matter reportedly objected that they were not supposed to pursue it, and the bureau publicly denied the investigation.
On May 7, 2026, the Tennessee General Assembly passed and Governor Bill Lee signed a new congressional district map that splits Memphis — the population core of Tennessee's only majority-Black, Democratic-held U.S. House district — among three Republican-leaning districts. The action followed by eight days the U.S. Supreme Court's April 29, 2026 decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which substantially weakened Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and removed a key legal constraint on mid-decade racial-vote-dilution maps.
