News in brief

By The Associated Press

U.S. indicts Guatemalan suspect on smuggling charges

U.S. authorities have announced the indictment of a Guatemalan suspect who they say helped coordinate a human smuggling effort that ended with 53 migrants dead in a sweltering tractor-trailer in San Antonio.

Officials announced Thursday that Rigoberto Román Miranda Orozco is charged with six counts of migrant smuggling resulting in death or serious injury in the deadliest attempt from the U.S. Mexico border. Authorities alleged he can be connected to four of migrants in the trailer, three of whom died.

Arrests related to the 2022 deaths in Texas have climbed to more than a dozen and now stretch to Central America. It follows years of investigations into the deadliest smuggling attempt from the U.S.-Mexico border.

Judges dismiss suit against Tennessee’s political maps

NASHVILLE, Tenn. | A federal judicial panel has dismissed a lawsuit alleging that Tennessee’s U.S. House maps and those for the state Senate amount to unconstitutional racial gerrymandering.

“In sum, the complaint alleges facts that are consistent with a racial gerrymander,” stated the ruling, which was issued Wednesday. “But the facts are also consistent with a political gerrymander.”

The complaint was the first court challenge over a 2022 congressional redistricting map that carved up Democratic-leaning Nashville to help Republicans flip a seat in last year’s elections, a move that critics claimed was done to dilute the power of Black voters and other communities of color in one of the state’s few Democratic strongholds.

—From AP reports