The Maui fire rescue, Alabama voting districts, and no more boring salads were the first things that came up

What Happened in Maui, Puerto Rico, During the First Three Days of the Maui Fire: The New Redistricting Plan

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Josh Green ordered a review of what happened in the early hours of the fire. The death toll has risen to at least 96, and at least 2,700 structures have been destroyed. Green predicted the damage across Maui to be close to $6 billion.

But there is only one majority-Black district in the new redistricting plan passed by the state’s Republican-controlled legislature last month. The map’s challengers say that the court’s requirements do not meet the fact that black Alabamians make up three quarters of the voting age population.

The Salad-Making Tips of NPR’s Bobby Allyn at Maalaea Harbor: How Ivey and Kavanaugh Revisited Alabama’s Voting Rights Act

NPR’s Bobby Allyn is definitely a real human. He recently sat down in front of an eyeball-scanning silver orb that confirmed his identity. The orbs are part of Worldcoin, a cryptocurrency project that aims to scan billions of human irises. Co-founded by ChatGPT’s Sam Altman, the company wants to help authenticate whether the users behind cryptocurrency accounts are human or bot.

Many people living in and around the town of Lahaina are unable to return to the burn zone. At Maalaea Harbor, a group of tour boat operators has been taking supplies to the town on boats that usually take people snorkeling or dolphin watching. The volunteers were with NPR over the weekend. The photos show that the grassroots initiative, local surfing community and neighbors are filling in gaps that official channels have not been able to.

I hope you’re reading this before you’ve packed your lunch. Most Americans don’t meet the daily vegetable intake requirement. But with these salad-making tips, you’ll not only eat more vegetables — you’ll never have a sad work lunch salad ever again.

The state of Alabama is taking an unusual legal position as it heads into a closely watched court hearing this week about its congressional voting districts.

After signing the contested map into law in July, Republican Gov. Kay Ivey issued a statement saying, “The Legislature knows our state, our people and our districts better than the federal courts or activist groups.”

Ahead of this week’s hearing, the state has been trying to get the three-judge panel to allow its attorneys to argue that the panel’s earlier ruling that requires two opportunity districts for Black voters no longer applies.

In Alabama’s recent court briefs, there are a number of references to a concurring opinion by the Supreme Court’s liberal justices who voted to uphold the Voting Rights Act and against the state of Alabama.

Kavanaugh’s opinion echoed an argument by conservative Justice Clarence Thomas that questions whether it’s constitutional for Congress to allow race-based redistricting to go on indefinitely.

Given how Kavanaugh has already voted in this case, however, Crayton says it’s clear that the justice is “not inclined to, in one year, somehow think that the state refusing to draw a second majority-Black district was somehow compliant” with the three-judge panel’s order or the Supreme Court.

Peyton McCrary, a former historian in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division who now teaches at the George Washington University Law School, is also skeptical of Alabama’s likelihood of getting the Supreme Court to weigh in again for this case.