Photo illustration by BuzzFeed News / Alamy (2)

After a state audit criticized the record-keeping practices of a cash fund for paying Missouri executioners, the Department of Corrections reacted by changing its policies to make them more lax.

The fund has been plagued by consistent documentation problems, from before and after the audit’s release, according to a review of the payments by BuzzFeed News.

As BuzzFeed News reported in January, Missouri has handed out hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash to its executioners. The state uses cash payments to limit the paper trail, in an effort to keep the identities of the executioners hidden.

A 2015 state audit looking at some of the disbursements from the fund over an 11-month period found that the fund was mismanaged, run in violation of Department of Corrections policy.

The Department of Corrections pledged to do better, and just weeks ago its director told a legislative committee that it had fixed the problem.

However, a BuzzFeed News examination of years of payments to executioners found record-keeping and oversight problems were pervasive — and were not fixed in the wake of the audit. The department instead changed its policy, allowing for thousands of dollars in cash to change hands without a witness present — a requirement that had been put in place as a way to avoid fraudulent payments. In addition, the head of the department misled a state lawmaker when he was asked about documentation problems with the fund.

BuzzFeed News reviewed 20 cash payments that occurred after the audit’s release. Of those, only nine receipts followed the audit’s recommendations. The others, payments of $36,115.52 in total, either were blank, had no witness sign off on the payment, or had a witness sign the receipt — but on a different date than the payment occurred.

The findings of the review look more like an attempt to avoid or ignore the problems highlighted by the 2015 audit than an effort to fix the problems.

The 2015 audit found the department had “not consistently complied with established procedures to ensure payments to execution team members are properly authorized, controlled, and documented.”

“The DOC did not record the amount of the cash payments on receipt forms signed by execution team members and did not always require the exchange of the cash payments to be acknowledged by a witness signature, as required by DOC procedures,” the audit found.

The Missouri Auditor’s Office told the DOC that “to comply with established procedures,” the payments should be “supported by the signature of a witness who verified the delivery of the cash payment.”

However, the department did the exact opposite. Instead, the head of the department, George Lombardi, changed the policy, allowing for cash payments to be handed out to the execution drug supplier without a witness to attest to it.

Since then, a high-ranking corrections official has delivered multiple payments of $7,178.88 to an unknown execution drug supplier without a witness to sign off on the payment. Instead, on a later day, a witness signs off that the department received the drugs.

“Since the February 2015 audit, all cash payment receipts to execution team members have been signed by a department employee in order to document the actual receipt of goods or services, which is in compliance with the department’s policy and procedure,” a corrections spokesperson wrote in a statement.

“The copies of the receipts that you received… were the bottom copy of a three-page carbon copy form that can be difficult to distinguish signatures, especially if the signee lightly signs and dates the form,” the spokesperson wrote.

Although the department’s practices comply with its new internal policy, it does not comply with auditor’s recommendation.

The auditor’s office told BuzzFeed News in a statement that “it is the expectation of this office that audit recommendations are implemented.”

Old policy (2008-2015)

New policy (February 2015-present)

The head of the department, George Lombardi, did not disclose the change to a legislative committee when he was grilled about the audit.

At a hearing, he said his department enacted changes following the audit’s criticisms, and immediately began having witnesses attest that the cash went to the correct recipient.

“The auditor was correct in calling us on [not having witnesses sign off on cash payments], and we changed it immediately,” Lombardi said, when asked by a state lawmaker.

“So now, when these cash payments occur, somebody is there to witness that exchange of cash?” Rep. Jeremy LaFaver asked.

“Correct,” Lombardi said.

However, that answer is misleading. If there is a witness there to see the cash change hands, it is not reflected on many of the receipts. And Lombardi’s policy change made it so that no witness is required.

The department declined to comment on Lombardi’s testimony. Gov. Jay Nixon’s office, who appointed Lombardi, did not respond to a request for comment.

Before the policy change, the department required someone witness all of the cash payments, and sign off that they occurred. The limited audit showed this was not always followed, and a more thorough review by BuzzFeed News shows the problems have existed since the original policy was adopted in 2008.

Of 78 receipts showing $94,000 in disbursements from June 2008 to August 2013, 30 had some sort of problem. Some had no amount listed. Others had no witness sign off on the payment. Three receipts, for $5,000 in total, were entirely blank.

Read the documents:

(Georgia Department of Corrections via AP)

Georgia executed Joshua Bishop Thursday evening for beating a man to death in 1994.

When Bishop was 19, he helped kill Leverett Morrison, 35, so he could take the keys to his Jeep. Bishop tried to grab the keys out of Morrison's pocket while he was asleep. When he woke up, Bishop and an accomplice hit him with a car battery, and then beat him with a rod until he was dead.

They left Morrison's body between two trash bins. The accomplice received life in prison.

On Thursday, Georgia's Board of Pardons and Paroles denied clemency, and the state's supreme court denied his request for a stay. Late Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court also declined to halt his execution.

Bishop was the state's third execution this year, and the nation's ninth.

LINK: Georgia Executioners Struggled To Set IVs In Recent Lethal Injections

Nostradonaldmus.

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In an interview in 2011, Donald Trump predicted that rising inflation would push the price of a loaf of bread to $25 and that there could be riots in the streets.

Today, a cost of a loaf of bread costs $2.32 on average.

Asked on NewsMaxTV in January 2011 if he, like wealthy investor George Soros, felt that the economic recovery was temporary, Trump said, "If by the question, you mean, he's thinks that it's going to get worse. I would say that he possibly is right."

"If oil prices are allowed to inflate and keep inflating, if the dollar keeps going down in value — which is not is not good because you're going to pay $25 for a loaf of bread pretty soon," he continued. "If you look at what's happening with our food prices, they're going through the roof. We could end up being another Egypt."

"You could have riots in our streets also," added Trump. "So, if he thinks things are going to get worse by the way he phrased that, or by the you phrase, I think there's a very distinct possibility that things could get worse yes."

“These guys agree on nothing but they both said to this group of senators, ‘what’s going on in the presidential race?’”

same

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

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Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine said in a radio interview this week that during an overseas trip in January, both Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed dismay at the anti-Muslim rhetoric coming from some of the candidates in the presidential race.

"I'm on the Foreign Relations Committee, and so I do spend time abroad visiting our troops," Kaine told the VA Talk Radio Network this week. "I was in the Middle East in January and back-to-back had evening meetings with Prime Minister Netanyahu in Israel and President Erdoğan in Turkey. These guys agree on nothing but they both said to this group of senators 'what's going on in the presidential race?'"

"And especially, they were very worried about some of the anti-Muslim rhetoric coming out of some of the candidates because they are societies that are too sectarian," continued the Virginia Democrat. "They hope one day to be less, but the only way to get there is if they have an example of a country where people of different religions can live and work together and go to school together and make it work. We've been that example for them and they're very nervous when they see us backsliding."

Earlier in the interview, Kaine said the race was "the silliest" he's ever seen, but noted that historically some past elections had been especially nasty as well.

Sanders’ Poughkeepsie, New York office is an old bank building. The rest goes how you’d expect.

The Bernie Sanders campaign recently opened a field office in Poughkeepsie, New York — part of the campaign's full-scale push for votes ahead of the April 19th primary. The location is the former Poughkeepsie Savings Bank.

An old photo of the bank from Google Street View.

Google / Via google.com

The bank ended its financial services life as a branch of TD Bank. Sanders' bank-busting supporters had fun turning the location into a Bernie HQ. This is the entrance:

Photos were shared with BuzzFeed News by a Sanders campaign source.

Bernie Sanders Campaign

This is the lobby:

Bernie Sanders Campaign

The Berniest part: Staffers turned the vault into a "crime scene" — complete with police tape.

Bernie Sanders Campaign

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Jim Young / Reuters

WASHINGTON — The Republican National Committee has hired veteran strategist Telly Lovelace as its next communications director for black media, three sources tell BuzzFeed News.

Lovelace faces the daunting task of repairing the Republican brand within the black community at a time when Donald Trump is drawing white supremacists into the party.

It's a job some have said is a reason for recent departures at the RNC. Although Trump has said he will fight for the black vote, his likely nomination has already hurt Republicans in the black community, and party insiders warn Lovelace is going to have to be good at spinning Trump's statements and rhetoric — and even then, he'll need the full support of party leaders if he's going to succeed.

“I’m not so sure that the role is irrelevant insofar as it is unsupported,” said Leah Wright Rigueur, the author of The Loneliness of the Black Republican, in an email to BuzzFeed News. “The position is only powerful if the full force and funding of the RNC is behind it, and if the rest of the party embraces, in both actions and behaviors, the message of inclusion.”

“As an added burden, repairing the relationship between African Americans and the GOP is becoming increasingly difficult. The RNC’s black outreach looks especially insincere when viewed in the shadow of Donald Trump, who continues to alienate black voters," Rigueur said.

Still, one prominent black strategist insisted being the black face of the Republican Party is still "a desirable position. In this position, a person could potentially be the face, voice, and brains behind inclusion of blacks in the GOP."

On Friday afternoon, the RNC released a statement saying Lovelace was a "welcome addition."

“Engaging with Black voters and all diverse communities across the country is a top priority for the RNC,” chairman Reince Priebus said in a statement. “Telly is a welcome addition to our team, and I’m confident his experience will help us build on our commitment to cultivate relationships and trust with Black media and Black communities.”

For decades, Republicans have continued to loose ground to Democrats in the black community. Following the 2012 election, top Republicans vowed to try and finally turn things around, committing to identifying ways in which to regain trust and support amongst black Americans.

In it's 2014 Growth and Opportunity Project report, the GOP insisted the party and black voters have much in common, but conceded that "the Republican Party must be committed to building a lasting relationship within the African-American community year-round, based on mutual respect and with a spirit of caring."

Although the national party has done some work to build inroads into the black community, most of that work is quickly being undone by Trump, who has continuously clashed with Black Lives Matters activists, defended supporters who have beaten black protesters at his rallies, and used what many activists see as racially coded language when talking about black Americans.

That dynamic means an even bigger lift for the black face of the Republican Party, and that responsibility will fall now to Lovelace, who takes over for the departed Orlando Watson. It wasn't immediately clear when Lovelace will start at the RNC, but two sources said he and the RNC reached an agreement Thursday.

The announcement drew the attention of the Democrats.

“God bless Telly Lovelace on his new role," Deshundra Jefferson, a DNC spokesperson told BuzzFeed News. "The Republican Party has worked hard to further alienate black voters this election cycle, and the dog whistles that the GOP has been blowing the past few years have come full circle now that Donald Trump looks like their presumptive nominee.”

Mandel Ngan / AFP / Getty Images

In one of his sharpest rebukes yet against Donald Trump, President Obama said Friday the Republican presidential candidate "doesn't know much" about foreign policy, nuclear proliferation or "the world generally,"

The comments came at the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, where he was asked about comments Trump recently made about Japan and South Korea developing their own nuclear weapons.

"The person who made the statements doesn't know much about foreign policy, or nuclear policy, or the Korean Peninsula, or the world generally," Obama said during a press conference. "I said before, people pay attention to American elections."

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CNN

Trump has suggested that Japan and South Korea should develop nuclear weapons as a deterrent to North Korean military ambitions, an argument he's made to reduce U.S. military presence in the area.

Obama noted that Trump's comments came up during his discussions with world leaders in Washington during the summit.

"We don't want someone in the Oval Office who doesn't recognize how important that is," he said.

Trump has made other comments about nuclear weapons that have made headlines in recent days, including saying he would not rule out using nuclear bombs in Europe.

Obama said even countries who are used to a "carnival atmosphere" in their own politics are looking for "sobriety and clarity" in the U.S.

Mark Kauzlarich / Reuters

Roger Stone, the longtime Republican political operative and current ally of Donald Trump, says he's trying to organize protests at the Republican convention in Cleveland this summer to disrupt any effort by the party to "steal" the nomination from the frontrunner.

Stone tweeted several times on Friday evening about his plans, announcing a "Stop the Steal March on Cleveland" and calling on supporters to get to Cleveland for the convention in July.

Stone told BuzzFeed News over email that he is planning "#DaysofRage," a seeming reference to the Weatherman-organized Days of Rage protests that took place in Chicago in 1969. Asked to elaborate, Stone said he was talking about "rally-protests -at delegate hotels street theater."

Stone said the campaign was not involved in organizing this, instead saying the protests will be "organized by Trump nation," but said that "we did inform them." He said he had "issued the call to action" on Infowars, the Alex Jones-run conspiracy show, on March 30, that they "will stage protests at hotels of state delegates of states supporting the BIG STEAL," and that he and Jones would be speaking (Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul are both invited).

Stone, a colorful figure known for his dirty trickster reputation, worked for the Trump campaign until August, when he and the campaign parted ways after disagreement over Trump's feud with Megyn Kelly. But Stone still supports Trump and acknowledges talking to him even though he no longer works for him. "We just have a rhythm," Stone told GQ this week.

In the same GQ interview, Stone hinted at unrest at the convention, saying "I think there'd be extreme anger by the Trump supporters. I don't know that it would boil over into violence. Trump is certainly not advocating violence."

There have been a spate of violent incidents at Trump rallies, and the campaign appears to condone violence from the top down — Trump has stood by his campaign manager who has been charged with simple battery after grabbing a reporter, and has promised to pay legal fees for supporters who physically confront protesters. This has led to concerns that a contested convention this year could boil over into violence in Cleveland fueled by disgruntled Trump supporters; Trump himself has predicted "riots" if the convention doesn't lead to him as the nominee.

It's unclear how serious Stone is about his protest plans, but he is certainly stoking the flames of the idea that Trump is about to get the nomination stolen out from under him. "The Bush, Cruz, Rubio, Romney, Ryan, McConnell faction has united and is moving into high gear to steal the nomination from Trump," Stone wrote in a column for Infowars earlier this week.

John Locher / AP

MIAMI - Let's get this out of the way. Donald Trump is toxic with most Latino voters. A new USC/LA Times poll found that in California he has 9% favorable and 87% unfavorable ratings, the worst in a long series of historically terrible polls.

Still — even a low percentage of Latino voters would mean a couple million Hispanic supporters. And an observer of this divisive election cycle might ask: who are these people?

One answer, found in public polling, in interviews at polling places in Nevada and Florida, and in conversations with self-identified Trump supporters on Facebook, appears to be that they're the types of people otherwise disposed to like Donald Trump. Older men; former members of the military; people enraged by the power of the establishment; American nationalists. Another answer reflects the diversity within the term “Latino”: Some of Trump’s supporters’ families have been American citizens for centuries, don’t know any undocumented immigrants, or don’t identify with newcomers from Mexico and elsewhere — all reasons that contribute to why they embrace his immigration stances.

One thing they all have in common, though, is a thick skin.

"I’ve gotten a lot of crap from friends and family about supporting him," said Ted Yanez, 26, from Eugene, Oregon, whose family has Mexican ancestry. "There's quite a stigma around Trump and his ideas of securing the border."

"As a Hispanic who supports or leans towards Trump you get caught in a race war."

"I'm not winning any popularity contests," said Jesse Lopez from Corpus Christi, Texas, of his constant battles on Facebook with Latinos branding him a traitor. Another supporter, 54, and an internet sales manager for a car dealership in Los Angeles named John Avila, lamented that "as a Hispanic who supports or leans towards Trump you get caught in a race war."

And for Ileana Garcia, a Cuban-American former radio and TV personality from Miami who said she became “enamored” with Trump after the first debate, there have also been suggestions that future professional opportunities will be limited by her public cheerleading for Trump on Facebook.

“Friends at Univision have said ‘if you ever want to do voiceover work again don’t say that, don’t put that up there,’” she said.

Courtesy Ileana Garcia

Many of their votes have been counted in the early primaries. Trump already has secured Hispanic Republican votes in states like Nevada — where he was the first to trumpet (sorry) that he had support from 44% of Latinos in Nevada, according to not always reliable caucus entrance polls. In Florida, where he blew away Cuban-American Marco Rubio making his last stand in his home state, Trump garnered 26% of the sizable Latino vote, but 40% of the non-Cuban Hispanic vote.

One thing many Trump supporters have in common is an aversion to a new generation of identity politics, and to the growing pan-Latino identity that has drawn people from diverse backgrounds into an increasingly coherent force in American politics.

In interviews, his supporters stressed their American roots. No one was just Puerto Rican or Mexican, and few used a hyphenated identity common in the Hispanic community. One said his family "has been in the country a couple hundred years" and another when asked his ethnicity said his family was "from Texas, which used to be Mexico."

"I don’t speak Spanish, and the Mexican culture doesn't resonate with me," said Avila.

Lopez, who voted for Trump in the Texas primary, identifies as American with Latino ancestry and is a 20-year Navy veteran. He said he was once a "radical Latino" who marched with Cesar Chavez for migrant worker rights in Los Angeles and Arizona but later in life worked for military police in places like Camp Pendleton in San Diego, along with customs and border patrol where he saw "many illegals" cross the border.

“Holy crap, that’s exactly that’s how I feel,” Lopez remembers thinking when Trump announced his candidacy.

Yanez from Oregon, who has a white mother and a Latino father, said that while he puts “Hispanic” on official forms, his father puts that he is white because they are “pale.” He said something which would be anathema to many Latino immigrants: that Trump’s plan to deport undocumented immigrants might improve the image of Hispanics across the country, because while more are going to college, negative stereotypes that stigmatize the entire community still persist.

“When he says he loves the Mexican people, I don’t think he actually hates any single race or group,” Yanez said, finishing the thought. “I think he legitimately wants to help make things better for everybody.”

Unprompted, almost all of Trump’s Hispanic supporters were quick to bring up a charge that is widely accepted among his many detractors: That he’s a racist.

"I don’t think he’s a racist, I just think he’s not a politician."

"I don’t think he’s a racist, I just think he’s not a politician," said Victor Velazquez, who like many others BuzzFeed News spoke with was part of one of the various Hispanics for Trump Facebook pages.

Velazquez, 62, from Paterson, New Jersey said he is a Puerto Rican American, and that people like Trump because he is an outsider.

He likened Washington to a relay race where "a whole bunch of insiders, who control the whole nation and control the wealth" endlessly pass the baton from one to the other.

“He has immense sincerity and conviction, he is like un viejo malcriado, like an uncle who misbehaves,” said Garcia from Miami. “He says really stupid things sometimes but he meant them at that moment. He is the most sincere one. He doesn’t know how to explain it, he doesn’t know how to be politically correct.”

And while one of the persistent criticisms of Trump has been that his rhetoric leans in an authoritarian strongman direction, many of his Hispanic supporters said they liked him because he is literally a strong man who says what he means.

Dave Maestas, 43, is a retired special forces green beret who spent 20 years in the military. To him Trump exudes leadership.

"In my experience, a lot of Latinos that I know in the military community, 90% are for Trump," he said.

"Mexican-Americans respond to somebody that is willing to say things and not be afraid to say them," said Robert Ruiz Rios Parra, 61, from Phoenix.

"We have to make sure we have strong military and safe borders," said Christopher Gomez, 41, from Irving, Texas. "We have to worry about the Muslims too — well not Muslims — the terrorist people. He’s a strong guy, he's concerned with security."

"I don’t see how the country as a whole is going to stomach mass deportation and a wall being built."

Trump has gotten to where he is because from that first summer day last June he hammered on the issue of illegal immigration, offending Mexicans and immigrants along the way when he characterized those coming across the border as criminals and rapists. Many of his Hispanic supporters say they weren't offended because they don't believe he was referring to them.

"He didn't insult all Mexicans by his comments," said Antonio Rios, 20, a former Bernie Sanders supporter who flipped to Trump and voted for him in the Kentucky primary.

"I'm open-minded enough to understand what he meant," Rios wrote in an interview he insisted be conducted over Facebook Messenger. "I'm not going to let liberal biased media outlets decide how I should feel."

"I’m a third generation Mexican-American so I didn’t take it personally," Parra from Phoenix said, alleging murders related to Mexican drug cartels that no one hears about. "A lot of people that aren’t from around here, they don’t understand what Arizonans are going through, with the bulk of the drugs coming through here."

"I’m Hispanic, he wants to build a wall to stop illegal immigration, that’s something I’m totally for," said Alexi Juan Lopez, a 23-year-old Cuban American student at Florida International University. "America is only great if we live by the law."

Lopez is a true believer — he early voted for Trump and can often be found trying to get people to join a Millennials for Trump Facebook page that he posts on college Republican pages. But the Trump bandwagon among youth isn't exactly bursting at the seams.

"Out of my friends, I’m the only one supporting Trump," he said.

The physical symbol of the division Trump has sewn — and of what many American Latinos see as his hostility — is the wall he says he’d build on the Mexican border. Some of his supporters have no problem with that either.

Clara Roteta

(Adrian Carrasquillo/BuzzFeed)

"I believe in the wall, he's going to build the wall," said Clara Roteta, a respiratory therapist, interviewed the day of the Florida primary at the famed Versailles Cuban restaurant in Miami’s Little Havana. "Not to keep people away, but to keep illegals away from the U.S."

But many Hispanic Trump supporters aren't so sure that he really plans to build a wall along the border or deport millions of undocumented immigrants.

"I don’t think he would," Avila from Los Angeles said, drawing a parallel between the wall and Obama's effort to push an immigration overhaul through Congress.

"That’s why we have the Senate and House of Representatives in place. They’ve offset some of the stuff Obama wants to do, it would be the same kind of thing, but it moves us in the right direction. I don’t see how the country as a whole is going to stomach mass deportation and a wall being built,” he said.

Maestas — who said that as "a military man security is one of the greatest concerns I have for the country" — conceded his belief that "no one is going to make 12 million illegal immigrants leave our country."

“I really don’t think he’s going to build a wall.”

“I really don’t think he’s going to build a wall,” said Jose Martinez a 60-year-old Mexican-American dentist from San Diego who said he fears drug cartel violence could make its way up to where he lives and put his two college-aged children at risk. “I don’t think he’s going to deport everyone.”

One thing Hispanic Trump supporters have to grapple with that may not affect others, is what it would look like to actually deport millions of undocumented immigrants currently in the country, many with ties to American citizen Latinos.

Most BuzzFeed News spoke with said they do not know someone in the country illegally.

"Honestly, I think a lot of people are offended because they probably either know someone, a friend or family member, who is here illegally," Yanez from Oregon said, not unkindly. "I personally don’t know anybody, I never met somebody who is not here legally. I can understand how it might be harmful to them personally," he added, noting that it's not just Mexicans who would be affected and with Ronald Reagan's 1986 amnesty, "a lot of them came from Ireland."

The only Trump supporter who said they knew people in the country illegally was Parra who both said the law is the law but also seemed to struggle with the idea of mass deportation of people he knows.

"I don’t want the people deported but right now we are at that point that we need someone who is going to make hard decisions," he said.

"I don’t take offense to it, but I do think about the people who are here illegally," — he continued, before seeming to grapple with the thought — "but I don’t know what’s right and what’s wrong."

The polling firm Latino Decisions found in 2014 that 58% of Latinos know someone who is undocumented, and a 2013 national survey found that one-third of Latino registered voters have an undocumented family member, further illuminating the extent to which immigration is a personal issue, and why Hispanic Trump supporters are so few and far between.

Jesse Lopez, 20-year Navy veteran

Many expect Trump to moderate his tone or policies in a general election matchup with Hillary Clinton. And while Trump’s backtracks and misstatements haven’t seemed to hurt him, it could present problems for him if one of these areas is immigration, as many of his Latino supporters believe it is. “He may be like a lot of politicians saying a bit of what we want to hear,” Gomez from Texas, conceded.

And Trump, whose favorability with women has plummeted, could struggle with Latinas who have voted for Clinton at higher rates than Hispanic men in places with large Latino electorates like Texas and Florida, according to exit polls.

But while they wait to see who a general election Trump might be, Trump’s Latino supporters are trying to combat a new set of stereotypes.

Lopez, the Navy veteran, volunteered some facts about himself before getting off the phone.

"By the way, I have a Bachelor’s degree, I make $75,000 a year,” he said. “I don’t live in a trailer, I'm not a hillbilly.”

Chris Geidner/BuzzFeed

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Monday that states may use total population in making redistricting decisions — and need not use voting population, as some conservatives had sought.

Sue Evenwel and Edward Pfenninger had challenged Texas' state legislative redistricting, arguing the state had to include consideration of the eligible voting population in redrawing its legislative borders.

The challenge could have upended state redistricting decisions across the nation — all of which use total population currently in making redistricting decisions. Critics raised questions about how a decision requiring consideration of eligible voters in redistricting would affect representation of children below voting age and, thus, families, as well as prison populations and immigrants not eligible to vote.

A victory for Evenwel and Pfenninger could have led to states across the nation being forced to reconfigure their state legislative maps to ensure that new “one person, one vote” voter-based metrics still would result in maps that treat voters equally across districts.

The high court, analyzing its history of "one person, one vote" cases, rejected that request. "As history, precedent, and practice demonstrate, it is plainly permissible" to use total population for state redistricting, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the court.

Although Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito joined the court's decision allowing total population to be used, they did not join Ginsburg's opinion for the court.

Alito, for his part, apparently believed the court's opinion went too far toward suggesting that total population was required to be used, as opposed to only ruling that states could decide to use total population. In an opinion concurring only in the court's judgment, Alito, joined by Thomas, criticized portions of the majority opinion that "suggest[]" historical evidence of a constitutional requirement for use of total population in redistricting.

Thomas, wrote separately as well, criticizing the court's history on the entire "one person, one vote" principle, writing "the majority has failed to provide a sound basis for the one-person, one-vote principle because no such basis exists." Nonetheless, he joined the court's judgment because he believed states have "significant leeway" in deciding how to handle redistricting decisions and that includes using total population.

LINK: Read the Supreme Court's decision in Evenwel v. Abbott.

Kamil Krzaczynski / Reuters

MADISON, Wisconsin — Ted Cruz warned establishment Republicans on Monday of a possible "revolt" if they try to nominate a compromise candidate at the convention this summer.

"Washington doesn’t control what happens," Cruz told reporters ahead of a taping of Megyn Kelly's show here. "The delegates control what happens."

"This fevered pipe dream of Washington, that at the convention they will parachute in some white knight who will save the Washington establishment, it is nothing less than a pipe dream," Cruz said. "It ain't gonna happen. If it did, the people would quite rightly revolt."

"If over 80 percent of the delegates are Cruz delegates and Trump delegates, under what universe do 1000 Trump delegates or 1000 Cruz delegates go vote for some uber-Washington lobbyist who hasn’t been on the ballot?" Cruz said.

Cruz didn't name anyone in particular. But this morning, Politico's Playbook reported that establishment Republicans were seriously considering Speaker of the House Paul Ryan as someone who could be nominated at the convention this summer, if none of the current candidates reach 1237 delegates in the primary and the convention is contested.

While sharp, Cruz's language was more muted than Trump's has been on the topic of what may happen at a contested convention. Trump has warned of actual riots if he does not win the nomination at the convention. And former Trump adviser Roger Stone has said he is planning protests at the convention, anticipating that the party will "steal" the nomination from Trump.

This morning, Cruz was asked about Stone's plan on the Jay Weber radio show in Wisconsin, and said “Look, they are welcome to engage in whatever left-wing Democratic dirty tricks they want to. If Roger Stone wants to try to turn the Republican convention into the 1968 Democratic convention and he can join the anarchists and Black Lives Matter in protesting and trying to intimidate people, knock yourself out. I think that is grossly irresponsible and I think delegates at the Republican convention will recognize that for what it is.”

Trump praised the Japanese economic model just as the Lost Decade was beginning.

Shannon Stapleton / Reuters

In an interview with the Washington Post on Saturday, Donald Trump predicted a "very massive recession" was coming, adding that "it's a terrible time right now" to invest in the stock market.

It's not the first time Trump has offered up his economic forecast. In the years before his current run for president, the billionaire businessman and reality TV star has frequently cast himself as an expert on the economy, while providing analysis that often turned out to be wildly incorrect.

During this time, Trump at various points predicted imminent economic collapse, even going so far to suggest in 2011 that the price of bread would soon rise to $25. But his optimistic predictions have been wrong, too, such as when he argued in 2005 and 2006, just before the housing crisis, that the real estate market would continue to be strong.

Trump said in 1991, at the beginning of what is known in Japan as the Lost Decade, that the Japanese economic model was "totally brilliant."

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"You look at Japan, the way the've managed their economy, it's totally brilliant," Trump said on Joan Rivers' talk show. "What they've done is totally brilliant."

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“The rules of this new economy, an international economy, will not be the same.”

Gretchen Ertl / Reuters

Donald Trump, whose promises to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States from China and Mexico have been a cornerstone of his campaign, wrote in his 2011 self-help book that the industrial economy was gone and never coming back.

"Since the market crash that began in 2007, the biggest crash since the Great Depression, many have been waiting for the economy to come back," writes Trump with Robert Kiyosaki, with whom he teamed up with to author Midas Touch: Why Some Entrepreneurs Get Rich — and Why Most Don't. "The economy will come back, but it will not be the same economy. The old economy of the Industrial Age is dying, and a new economy of the Information Age is emerging. The rules of this new economy, an international economy, will not be the same."

"And the old ideas from the Industrial Age — job security for life, pensions, benefits, and labor unions — will not be able to survive in our new Information Age," continues the pair in their co-signed introduction. "Many of today's Fortune 500 businesses that were born in the Industrial Age will fade away. The Fortune 500 companies of tomorrow will emerge from this crisis, led by a new era of entrepreneurialism and a new class of entrepreneurs."

The change is one Trump links, like many historians, to the year 1989 and the commercialization of the Internet.

"The world changed in 1989, the year the Berlin Wall came down and the World Wide Web went up," writes Trump. "Those events signaled the end of the Industrial Age and the beginning of the Information Age. Today, your competition is everywhere. Your competition is in everyone's home, office, and cell phone. The cyber world of "Free" is taking down one-time mega-brands such as TIME magazine, because TIME has no idea how to compete in our new world. On top of that, technology speeds up transaction time. The reason we have 20-year-old billionaires and 50-year-old unemployed, college-educated people is because businesses in the cyber-world can sell to more people faster for lower prices and with fewer employees."

During his presidential campaign, Trump has repeatedly attacks U.S. trade deals for negatively impacting American workers, and has lamented the collapse of domestic manufacturing, saying several times, "We don't make anything anymore."

Jim Young / Reuters

WASHINGTON — The Democratic National Committee on Tuesday will publicly release a breakdown of its hiring and contracting practices that reveal incremental gains in diversity and inclusion over the past five years.

A DNC official said the move is part of a commitment that the DNC's staff reflects the “great variety of perspectives, backgrounds and experiences that make up our party and our country," according a release made available to BuzzFeed News.

In 2015, women made up 48% of DNC employees, according to a memo reviewed by BuzzFeed News; 35.9% were people of color, up from 32.1%. Blacks made up of 18.9% of the party's workforce last year, and 7.7% of employees were Hispanic-American; 8.1% were Asian-American or Pacific Islander; 1.2% were Native American.

"The statistics also reflect that half of the Democratic National Committee’s senior staff members are now female and that two-thirds are persons of color," the memo reads.

The Democrats said diverse suppliers and vendors registered to do business with the DNC had also improved — something that has been a source of scrutiny and contention in the past. The DNC said it has a directory of close to 500 minority-owned businesses. In 2015, nearly a quarter of DNC contracts (25% of the total dollars spent by the DNC) went to such small businesses.

“A commitment to diversity takes more than words on paper,” DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz said in an email statement to BuzzFeed News. “It takes a concerted effort to expand outreach and engage diverse communities at every level. Democrats fundamentally believe in the American promise that everyone, regardless of who they are or what their last name is, should have a fair shot at the American Dream, and I am proud of the Democratic Party’s diversity goals and achievements."

On Monday, several groups gave the DNC credit for its commitment to increased transparency.

Inclusv, a group started this election cycle that challenged electoral campaigns to release their numbers on diversity and inclusion, applauded the release and its content. In December, Inclusv asked the DNC to release diversity numbers. They met in January, and the DNC agreed to release them to the general public.

"Inclusv applauds this significant and transparent step by the DNC to publish its staff and contracting diversity data," Inclusv co-founder Alida Garcia told BuzzFeed News in a statement. "This sets a great example for state parties to follow to ensure that diversity and inclusion are prioritized across the country to build efforts that are truly reflective of the American electorate."

Kouri Marshall, the executive director of Democratic GAIN, a progressive membership association that facilitates recruitment and training in politics, said the numbers signaled marked improvement but warned that the Democrats work is not done.

“These numbers are a step forward. However, there is still more work to do in terms of diversity especially as it relates specifically to contracting opportunities for minority owned firms and vendors," Marshall told BuzzFeed News in an interview. "On paper commitments to diversity and inclusion only work well when they are followed up by action. We are all hoping to see that action during the 2016 cycle and beyond.”

The DNC named Gregory Hinton, who led the effort behind researching and reporting diversity numbers, to the role of chief diversity officer in 2011. "That role has been responsible for developing a pipeline of talent that is helping the DNC and other Democratic Party committees identify talent across every relevant field in political campaign operations," the memo reads.

"Diversity is the definition of the American experience, and if the Republican Party continues to alienate and divide, it should expect to continue to lose the White House for generations to come," Wasserman Schultz said.

A deep dive.

Ted Cruz likes to tell jokes.

Nancy Wiechec / Reuters

He's fond of one in particular about Walker, Texas Ranger star Chuck Norris.

The joke follows a very simple construction. Some people, usually children, wear Superman pajamas. Superman wears Chuck Norris pajamas. And Chuck Norris wears the pajamas of whichever politician Cruz is attempting to flatter at the time.

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Gov. Robert Bentley has admitted making sexual statements to a top aide, but denied having a physical relationship with her.

Gov. Robert Bentley listens to a phone call as Rebekah Mason announces his win for Alabama governor in 2014.

Brynn Anderson / AP

Alabama lawmakers announced Tuesday they had began an impeachment process against Gov. Robert Bentley amid a sex scandal.

"The articles of impeachment will be presented today on Gov. Bentley," State Rep. Ed Henry, who is leading the effort, told reporters at a news conference.

"We've never tried to impeach a governor before," he said, adding that "the process begins today."

On March 30, Henry announced that he would start the impeachment process against the governor, who admitted last month to making inappropriate and sexual comments to his top aide, Rebekah Mason, but denied having a physical relationship with her. On the same day, Mason resigned from her position as a senior political advisor to Bentley.

The two-term governor was accused by Spencer Collier, the state's former law enforcement secretary, of making sexually charged comments and having an improper relationship with Mason, while he was married to his wife Dianne. Bentley's wife filed for divorced last fall. Collier's accusations came after he was fired about the possible misuse of state funds.

The governor, who apologized for saying "some inappropriate things," has insisted that he did not do anything illegal and has refused to resign. In a statement released Tuesday that condemned the impeachment process.

"There are no grounds for impeachment, and I will vigorously defend myself and my administration from this political attack," he said. "Today's press conference is nothing more than political grandstanding intended to grab headlines and take the focus away from the important issues the Legislature still has to address before the end of the session."

In audio recordings from 2014 released to AL.com, Bentley can be heard talking to a woman about how he liked touching her breasts. Collier also said that Bentley had told him "he was still madly in love with Rebekah Mason."

"We're looking at this governor who has betrayed the trust of the people of Alabama through actions and lies that have caused us to have some doubt about his leadership," Henry said at Tuesday's news conference. "The only course the people of Alabama have to address this issue is through the impeachment process and the process is going to start today."

"We know what was going on in that relationship," Henry said. "It's hard to believe that hasn't clouded his judgement and that he hasn't used his office to cover up those allegations. This calls into question everything the governor does."

Henry said that after introducing the articles of impeachment lawmakers would begin to "dig and investigate ourselves what has been done."

LINK: Alabama Governor’s Top Aide Quits Amid Sex Scandal

LINK: Alabama Governor Admits He Made Sexual Comments To Top Aide

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“I’d like the message to get to the governor that I am on day three of my period.”

On March 24, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence signed the HEA 1337 bill into effect.

Aaron P. Bernstein / Getty Images

In response to the law, one anonymous woman started a Facebook page, "Periods for Pence."

Facebook: Periods

The page notes that some women on their periods may unknowingly expel a fertilized egg and thus have a miscarriage and be potentially liable if the egg is not correctly disposed of.

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In the early 1990s, the New York Post reported that Bruni and Trump were romantically linked.

Saul Loeb / AFP / Getty Images

On the morning of June 26, 1991, Donald Trump's picture was splashed across the front page of the New York Post. Next to the photo, which featured his then-girlfriend Marla Maples, was the headline "IT'S OVER."

Trump, according to the Post, was leaving Maples for Italian model (and future first lady of France) Carla Bruni. That morning, NBC's Today ran with the report.

"And Donald Trump is reportedly breaking up with Marla Maples, the woman said to have come between him and his wife Ivana," anchor Doreen Gentzler announced. "The New York Post is reporting that she's been ordered out of Trump's luxury high-rise apartment, and that Trump has begun dating an Italian model named Carla Bruni."

Trump confirmed to the Post the next day that Bruni was the "new one" in his life. Bruni, however, vehemently denied she was dating Trump, and according to one biography, Trump himself planted the story for publicity.

The episode illustrates just how personally involved Trump is in managing his own image through the press, a tactic he used to great effect as he rose to prominence in New York and one he continues to use as he runs for president.

"Trump is obviously a lunatic," Bruni said of the story in an interview with the Daily Mail later that year. "It's so untrue and I'm deeply embarrassed by it all. I've only ever met him once, about a year ago, at a big charity party in New York. And I haven't seen him since, of that I'm sure."

New York Post

"It's all nonsense," she said of any linking to Trump, saying perhaps it was mistaken identity.

"No doubt there are hundreds of models called Carla," she told the Mail. "Just because I'm well known they may have jumped to conclusions and put the wrong face to the name."

Even Trump agreed when caught by the Mail, saying there was no romance.

"These stories are sheer nonsense," he said, but added: "She is a friend."

However, Bruni, according to Harry Hurt III's Trump biography Lost Tycoon, was no friend to Trump.

"Carla does not, however, consider Donald J. Trump one of the world's 'great men,'" writes Hurt. "After her arrival in New York he tracked her down at the Mayfair Regent hotel and tried to ingratiate himself. Carla mischievously informed Donald that her 'sister' was coming to town. He immediately offered to provide a room at the Plaza Hotel. The visitor was actually one of Carla's longtime female friends, who showed up at the Plaza with a boyfriend in tow. Carla and her friends spent the next few days ordering room service and gloating over the way they fooled the 'King of Tacky.'"

Hurt writes that, after confirming that Bruni was not dating anybody else, he began a rumor that he and Bruni were in a relationship, leading her to confront Trump directly for spreading the rumors.

"'How dare you do this!' she screams at him. 'It's not true!'" Hurt writes.

Evidence of Trump's direct involvement emerged in People, which ran an article suggesting Trump posed as his own PR man in a phone interview with the magazine.

"On June 26, the tabloid New York Post ran a front-page headline announcing that Trump, 45, had dumped his longtime sweetheart, Marla Maples, 27, and taken up with an Italian model named Carla. A curious PEOPLE reporter called Trump's office to ask if the story were true. Five minutes later, a man identifying himself as John Miller called back, said he was handling publicity for Trump and confirmed everything, in detail. Yes, said Miller, it was over with Marla. 'It doesn't matter to [Donald] if Marla talks; he truly doesn't care.' As for that diamond ring Trump bought Marla several weeks ago, 'It was never an engagement ring,' said Miller, who went on to brag about the army of women he said were rabidly chasing The Donald: Madonna was one, he said, Kim Basinger another. 'Important, beautiful women call him all the time,' said Miller. It was a fascinating interview, made all the more fascinating when the reporter realized that the man she was talking to seemed to be...no, it couldn't be...yep, it apparently was: Donald Trump, posing as a fictitious PR man."

The magazine then played the tape for Maples, who identified the voice on the phone as Trump's.

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BRIAN BLANCO / Reuters

A campaign spokesperson for Rep. David Jolly, a Republican Senate candidate in Florida, admitted to BuzzFeed News on Tuesday that the campaign has edited Jolly's Wikipedia page to remove unflattering information.

Sarah Bascom, Jolly’s spokesperson, confirmed that the campaign removed references to Jolly’s past career as a lobbyist, his association with the Church of Scientology, his support for same sex marriage, and political contributions he made to Democratic candidates. Bascom accused a unspecified rival campaign of adding what she described as "campaign propaganda" in the first place.

Two edits were made — one on March 15 and one on April 4 — by a user named “Bascomcomm”. Bascom is the president of Bascom Communications & Consulting, a political firm in Florida.

“We were notified a few months ago that a consultant who works for one of our us senate [sic] opponents has been intentionally editing the David Jolly Wikipedia page to follow their opposition research messaging so they can use it in a mail or digital campaign,” Bascom told BuzzFeed News in an email.

“Once we found about it, we went in and attempted to correct his page to be consistent with all of his public bios.”

Each piece of information deleted by the campaign was cited, and some of it has been included in his Wikipedia page for more than a year. After the Jolly campaign deleted the information the first time, on March 15, it was reinstated later in the day by another user. On April 4, the campaign again deleted the information before it was again reinstated.

Asked by BuzzFeed News which Wikipedia users were associated with a rival campaign, Bascom pointed to two users named “CFredkin” and “Champaign Supernova.” Both users have a long history of Wikipedia editing of politicians on both sides of aisle, dating back years. In 2014, “Champaign Supernova” was awarded a Wikipedia “Barnstar Award” for editing the pages of members of Congress. “CFredkin” received a “Barnstar award” as well.

Bascom, asked abut the user's credentials responded, “Yes, we are aware of that. We disagree with his rejection of our edits, and the fact that he is mainly rejecting our edits but not the ones made months ago by someone clearly wanting a public negative narrative against David Jolly. And the other user is who we have been told is tied [to} an opposing campaign.”

User “Champaign Supernova” didn’t respond to a request for comment on their Wikipedia Talk Page about the accusation for the Jolly campaign.

Bascom declined requests to name the rival campaign she is accusing of editing Jolly's Wikipedia page.

“I have been told by numerous people who is behind it, but I can't use that,” she said. “That would be unethical.”

One line removed, read:

Jolly's relationship with the Church of Scientology, which is based inside his congressional district in Clearwater, Florida, has been reported on in the press, including Jolly's attendance at various fundraising events hosted by the organization.

It was replaced by another:

Jolly has filed legislation to provide additional and more permanent flood insurance relief, improve health care and education choices for our veterans, extend the life of ongoing beach renourishment projects for Pinellas County, and provide for investments in transportation and infrastructure, health care research and education. Jolly has also worked to eliminate wasteful government spending and cap the total tax burden on individuals and families.

The campaign also deleted a sentence that said Jolly was pro-life, but linked to an article that reported he had donated to Rep. Allyson Schwartz, a former Democratic congresswoman from Pennsylvania who was also an executive at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Philadelphia.

They also removed all mention of Jolly’s previous career as a lobbyist.

One passage initially read:

In 2007, Jolly began work as a lobbyist with Washington, D.C. firm Van Scoyoc Associates. Eventually, he opened his own firm, Three Bridges Advisors in 2011, and contributed political donations to both Republicans and Democrats during his time as a lobbyist. Jolly officially had his name removed from the Lobby Registry to run for the vacant House seat.

But was replaced with:

Before his successful bid to represent Florida’s 13th Congressional District, Jolly served as a vice president of a Clearwater-based specialty finance firm, as well as chief executive officer of a Pinellas County professional services company supporting life-cycle philanthropy of non-profits and individuals. Prior to that, Jolly created and owned multiple businesses, including a communications firm, a law firm and a consulting firm.

Mention of his divorce and support for same-sex marriage were also removed.

Additionally, the campaign made small, cosmetic edits. One edit changed a subhead from “Committee on Appropriations,” to “House Committee on Appropriations.” Another altered “75%” to “75 percent”, and lowercased the title “General Counsel”.

A sample edit can be seen below. The entire list can be viewed here.

Kamil Krzaczynski / Reuters

MILWAUKEE — Ted Cruz declared his victory in Wisconsin a turning point in the race on Tuesday.

Both Donald Trump and Cruz kept a busy slate of events in the days leading up to the primary, and Cruz deployed a fleet of endorsers who did events on their own with his wife, Heidi. Trump, appearing to sense the need to put in extra work in a state where he was behind, even reportedly skipped his grandson’s bris to continue campaigning here after spending a full week off the campaign trail before that.

Cruz’s win here will hand him the lion’s share of Wisconsin’s 42 delegates and further dent Trump’s winning image. But the high could be short-lived. The next primary is in New York, Trump’s home state, where he is expected to dominate and which yields 95 delegates. Cruz slowed Trump, and made a contested convention more likely, but he didn’t stop him.

After the race was called, Cruz spoke to a couple hundred supporters gathered inside the American Serb Hall here (a venue that makes a cameo in Hunter S. Thompson’s account of the 1972 election as the site of a George Wallace speech).

Cruz used the opportunity to try and mark Wisconsin as the beginning of the end of Trump and redefine himself as a broadly appealing general election candidate.

“Tonight is a turning point,” Cruz said. “It is a rallying cry."

Cruz emphasized that the “full spectrum” of the Republican Party is uniting behind him, citing establishment endorsers like Jeb Bush and Lindsey Graham, and made an appeal to women, drawing a contrast with Trump, who is broadly unpopular among women: “Strong women can accomplish anything in the United States of America,” Cruz said, citing his mother and wife.

“Hillary, get ready, here we come,” Cruz finished.

Cruz benefited, as he has throughout the primary, from a disciplined organization and key endorsements, including Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, who ended his own presidential bid relatively early on in the process. And Trump stumbled badly over the past week, changing his position on abortion five times in three days and giving embarrassingly uninformed interviews, all coming on the heels of his campaign manager being charged with simple battery in Florida. The anti-Trump movement was more coordinated than ever before in Wisconsin, with forces like Our Principles PAC spending $2 million on advertising and making 1 million voter contacts, the PAC said in an email sent to reporters.

Cruz dealt with his own obstacles in the days leading up to the primary, including the continued presence of John Kasich, whom Cruz plainly views as an irritant blocking his path to a solo fight against Trump. Before March 15, Kasich wasn’t much on Cruz’s radar. But the Cruz team has increasingly turned its firepower on Kasich, running ads and putting out mailers to try to get him out of the way.

“I’m assuming he’s auditioning to be Donald Trump’s vice president,” Cruz communications adviser Jason Miller told reporters at Cruz’s election night party in Milwaukee. “I’m sure Dennis Rodman and Omarosa and Gary Busey are gonna be real distressed to learn they have competition. That’s really all that it can be. A rational person can’t look at the John Kasich candidacy and have any understanding of why he’s continuing in this race unless he’s trying to help Donald Trump.”

The specter of a possible contested convention is looming larger and larger over the primary. Cruz increasingly acknowledges that his path to the nomination may involve a convention floor battle if no one reaches 1,237 delegates by the end of the voting process.

Pressed on whether the campaign now acknowledges that as the more likely scenario, Miller hedged, saying, “We’re trying to win the nomination, you can do that two ways,” and “There are a number of scenarios by which we can get to 1237.”

During his speech, Cruz said, “I am more and more convinced that our campaign is going to earn the 1,237 delegates" necessary for the nomination, but added that it would be "either before Cleveland or at the convention in Cleveland."

The race will now turn east to New York, and then states like Connecticut and Delaware that are not natural territory for Cruz. He is campaigning on Wednesday in the Bronx and the day after in upstate New York.