The Supreme Court ruled this morning that portions of Texas’ congressional redistricting violate the protections of the Voting Rights Act. Justice Kennedy wrote the majority opinion, which held that the redistricting of Texas Congressional District 23 infringed upon Hispanic voters’ right to choose a candidate under the act. The court also ruled that states could approve new congressional boundaries more often than every ten years.

The Israeli military has moved troops and tanks into the Gaza strip in search of a soldier who was abducted early this week. Israeli planes have attacked three bridges and a power station there. There are also reports of an Israeli air attack on a Hamas training base in a former Jewish settlement. No casualties have yet been reported.

A Senate vote on amending the Constitution to prohibit burning of the American flag fell short by one vote yesterday. Sixty-six senators voted “Yea” – just shy of the two-thirds majority needed for moving such an amendment forward. Fourteen Democrats voted for the measure, and three Republicans voted against it.

Iraqi authorities have captured an al-Qaida suspect who they say played an important part in the February bombing of a mosque in Samarra, one of Shiite Islam’s holiest places. The bombing, which brought down the mosque’s famous golden dome, touched off a series of bloody sectarian attacks throughout the country. The authorities said the mastermind of the attack is still at large.

New rules for state welfare agencies and their clients will require that fifty percent of a state’s welfare recipients also work. The changes, created in response to a budget President Bush signed in February, ends a “caseload reduction credit” that decreased the required proportion of worker recipients in some states to five percent.

TPMCafe’s drink of choice prevents adult onset diabetes, according to a study by researchers at the University of Minnesota. Postmenopausal women who drank more than six cups of coffee per day were 22 percent less likely to develop the disease; those who drank more than six cups of decaffeinated coffee (which gets only a modest endorsement from this Web site) decreased their chances of getting diabetes by 33 percent.