Secretary of state Marco Rubio is visiting the Vatican today in an effort to mend ties after president Donald Trump’s criticisms of Pope Leo.

Rubio was also due to meet with the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who on the eve of his visit strongly defended Leo and criticized Trump’s attacks in understated diplomatic terms.

“Attacking him like that or criticizing what he does seems a bit strange to me, to say the least,” Parolin said Wednesday.

Parolin said Washington had requested Rubio’s audience, and that the pope was open to continued dialogue.

“We cannot ignore the United States,” Parolin said. “Despite some difficulties, they certainly remain a key partner for the Holy See, not least because they play a role in almost every situation we face today.”

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Republican lawmakers in Tennessee are poised to push through a plan later today that would carve up a majority-Black congressional district.

The move would reshape the electoral map to the GOP’s advantage as part of president Donald Trump’s strategy to try to hold on to a slim House majority in the November midterm elections.

The redistricting effort in Tennessee is one of several rapidly advancing plans in Southern states as Republicans try to leverage a US Supreme Court ruling that weakened the federal Voting Rights Act, AP reports.

The court ruled that Louisiana relied too heavily on race when creating a second Black-majority House district as it attempted to comply with the federal law.

The high court’s decision altered a decades-old understanding of the law, giving Republicans grounds to try to eliminate majority-Black districts that have elected Democrats.

Louisiana has postponed its congressional primary to give time for state lawmakers to craft a new House map.

Legislation awaiting a final vote in Alabama also would upend the state’s congressional primaries if courts allow the state to change its US House districts. In South Carolina, meanwhile, Republican lawmakers urged on by Trump have taken initial steps to add congressional redistricting to their agenda.

The states are the latest to join an already fierce national redistricting battle. Since Trump encouraged Texas to redraw its US House districts last year, eight states have adopted new congressional districts.

From that, Republicans think they could gain as many as 13 seats while Democrats think they could gain up to 10.

In other developments:

• Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged suicide note was released Wednesday. A federal judge has unsealed an alleged suicide note by Jeffrey Epstein, the first time the document has been made public.

• The Trump administration has claimed that migration has made Europe an “incubator” for terrorism, according to a recently published report on counter-terrorism strategies. The administration will focus counter-terrorism efforts on drug cartels.

• Republican politicians in Tennessee released a new congressional voting map that could go into effect before the midterm elections this November. The proposed map would eliminate the state’s only Democratic-controlled district by carving up a majority-Black voting bloc based in Memphis.

• More information was released on the suspect charged in connection to Monday’s shooting near JD Vance’s motorcade. The Texas man accused of firing a gun at law enforcement officers near the Washington monument this week was walking along the path of JD Vance’s motorcade before the shooting and made a vulgar remark about the White House after the confrontation, according to a court filing on Wednesday.

• The FBI’s director, Kash Patel, has allegedly given out customized bottles of bourbon at events, including ones where he is working in a official capacity, according to a report from the Atlantic.

• Donald Trump will be hosting the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, for a visit, a White House source confirmed to the Guardian. Trump and Lula, who was elected in 2023, will discuss “economic and security matters of shared importance”, the source said. The meeting is expected to take place this Thursday.