AUSTIN, Texas — A federal court ruled Wednesday that Texas can change voting maps without supervision despite “grave concerns” and findings that Republicans used racial gerrymandering while trying to strengthen their majorities in Congress and the state Legislature.

The decision is key ahead of the census in 2020, when control of the Texas House is at stake and with it the power to influence new voting maps for the next decade.

Although the ruling is a win for Texas Republicans, the three-judge panel in San Antonio expressed doubts about the state’s ability to redraw maps in a fair way. Latino growth is driving Texas’ booming population, and recent census figures show Texas added nearly nine new Latino residents for every white resident in 2018.

Given those demographic changes, the judges said the Texas Legislature will likely continue finding ways to engage in “ingenious defiance of the Constitution.” In 2017, the same court found that GOP-drawn voting maps approved six years earlier by then-Gov. Rick Perry intentionally sought to dilute the voting power of minorities, a ruling that Democrats said demanded putting Texas elections under federal oversight.

But in part because the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that any problems with Texas maps had essentially been fixed, the court said there was insufficient reason to take the extraordinary step of mandating supervision.

“To be clear ... the Court has grave concerns about Texas’s past conduct,” said U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez, writing for the three-judge panel.

Trump vetoes Congress’ efforts to block Saudi arms sales

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has vetoed a trio of resolutions trying to block his administration from selling billions of dollars in weapons and maintenance support to Saudi Arabia.

Trump, who has sought to forge closer ties with Riyadh, had pledged to veto the resolutions of disapproval that passed the House and Senate last week.

The White House had argued that stopping the sale would send a signal that the United States doesn’t stand by its partners and allies, particularly at a time when threats against them are increasing.

The arms package, worth an estimated $8 billion, includes thousands of precision guided munitions, other bombs and ammunition, and aircraft maintenance support for Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Europe heat breaks records, temperatures set to go higher

BERLIN — Europeans cooled off in public fountains Wednesday as a new heat wave spread across parts of the continent and is already breaking records.

In Kleine Brogel in northeastern Belgium, temperatures rose to 102.3 degrees, and the Royal Meteorological Institute said it was “the highest ever Belgian temperature” since record keeping began in 1833

The Dutch meteorological institute said a nearly 75-year record fell in the Netherlands as the southern city of Eindhoven reached a temperature of 102.7 on Wednesday.

And the mercury is expected to rise even further.

Paris and other parts of France could see temperatures exceeding 104 on Thursday along with Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg and Switzerland.

Governor acknowledges Native Hawaiian plight on Mauna Kea

HONOLULU — After a week of tension and dozens of arrests, Hawaii’s governor is vowing to find a peaceful resolution to the ongoing stalemate with Native Hawaiian activists who are trying to prevent the construction of another telescope atop a Big Island volcano.

Gov. David Ige visited the protest site Tuesday evening after acknowledging that their grievances were not just about the new observatory but also the treatment of Native Hawaiians going back more than a century.

Activists have been blocking a road to prevent equipment and crews from reaching the summit of Mauna Kea.

Some Native Hawaiians consider the summit sacred and say building the Thirty Meter Telescope will do more harm to a site that hosts more than a dozen observatories.

S Korea: N Korea fires 2 unidentified projectiles

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea fired two unidentified projectiles into sea on Thursday, South Korea’s military said, the first launches in more than two months as North Korean and U.S. officials work to restart nuclear diplomacy.

The South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the projectiles fired from the eastern coastal town of Wonsan flew 267 miles, and that the South Korean and U.S. militaries were analyzing details of the launches.

Thursday’s launches came as the North was ramping up pressure on the United States ahead of the possible resumption of nuclear diplomacy.

During a third summit at the Korean border in June, President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un agreed to resume nuclear negotiations, which had been deadlocked since their second summit in February ended with no agreement.

Watchdog says US running short on time for census

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Census Bureau is running short on time to complete key parts of its planning for the once-a-decade head count of every U.S. resident, officials with a government watchdog agency told lawmakers Wednesday.

Government Accountability Office officials told members of the House Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties that the bureau is at risk of falling behind on hiring, implementing systems for online responses to the questionnaire and some cybersecurity matters.

GAO officials said the bureau has hired only about 900 of the 1,500 specialists it had hoped to have by now for outreach in minority communities for the 2020 Census next spring. The bureau eventually hopes to hire almost a half-million temporary workers for next year’s count.

In Somalia: A suicide bomber walked into the office of Mogadishu’s mayor and detonated explosives strapped to his waist, killing six people and badly wounding the mayor and his deputy minutes after a visit from the new United Nations envoy, Somali officials said Wednesday.

The attack claimed by the extremist group al-Shabab occurred after the envoy to Somalia, James Swan, paid the mayor a “courtesy call” and left the compound, an official at the mayor’s office said.

The security officials said the attack appeared to be a shift in tactics, as the extremists in the past had rarely managed to infiltrate heavily fortified government buildings without first detonating one or more vehicle bombs.