The State: “The founder of an anti-abortion group who shot and wounded a man during a confrontation in front of Planned Parenthood in Columbia has been arrested. According to records from the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center in Columbia, Mark Baumgartner was taken into custody Tuesday. Baumgartner is being charged with assault and battery of…

The Guardian: “Charlotte has engaged in a bless-their-hearts approach to the surge befitting a city full of bankers who want results while minimizing risks. “Bless your heart” sounds nice, often said in complete sincerity, but widely understood by southerners to be a quiet way to tell someone they’re an idiot when offered in the right…

HuffPo: “The long battle over injecting Christianity into public schools is escalating in Texas, as state Attorney General Ken Paxton pursues lawsuits against schools that have refused to comply with a state law saying the Ten Commandments must be displayed in classrooms. The law has put schools in a difficult position, forcing them to weigh whether to…

C-SPAN: “Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) talks about eight Black representatives from South Carolina who served in Congress during the Reconstruction Era. The eight included Joseph Rainey, the first Black politician elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, and Robert Smalls, a Civil War hero who fled the Confederacy to fight for the Union Army. Both…

Tallahassee Democrat: “The latest battle in a nearly year-long effort to block Florida’s first black bear hunting season in a decade begins Nov. 17 with a demonstration at the state’s Capitol and will intensify a week later across the street in a Leon County courtroom. …Meanwhile, attorneys for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission and Bear Warriors United, a nonprofit dedicated to preservation of wildlife and habitat,…

AR Times: “In 2025, Arkansas Republicans passed a number of bills designed to limit or restrict Arkansans’ ability to change state laws and amend the state constitution at the ballot box. It wasn’t the first time the state Legislature has chipped away at the ballot measure process — a right guaranteed under the Arkansas Constitution — but…

NY Times: “A special election for a heavily Republican House seat in Tennessee that was on virtually no one’s political radar a few months ago has surfaced as the unlikely new front in the fight for control of Congress…. The Republican candidate, Mr. Van Epps, remains strongly favored. Even Democrats privately acknowledge that he is likely…

Political Wire: “The House Ethics Committee said Wednesday it was moving forward with an investigation into Rep. Cory Mills, an announcement that came hours before the Florida Republican managed to fend off a censure vote,” the Wall Street Journal reports. “The secretive committee said the inquiry would consider whether Mills violated House rules or federal law, including…

NY Times: “A Tennessee judge on Monday temporarily blocked the deployment of the National Guard in Memphis, siding with state and local lawmakers who argued that Gov. Bill Lee had overstepped his constitutional authority in sending troops to the city. The ruling adds to a tangled legal landscape regarding the deployment of National Guard troops…

WaPo: “A Virginia man was sentenced to life in prison on federal hate crime and firearms charges Thursday, after pleading guilty to shooting two men because he suspected they were migrants from outside the United States. Douglas Wayne Cornett, 59, had told detectives that he was angry undocumented migrants were receiving resources from the government, according…