MIAMI--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 5, 2026--
For more than 20 years, the South Florida community has demonstrated unwavering support for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital®. On April 25, that support reached a historic high when the FedEx/St. Jude Angels and Stars Gala, presented by Genesis Prime Group, LLC, raised $1.7 million – the first time this event has surpassed $1 million.
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Keynote speaker Dr. Victor Santana, a St. Jude faculty member who has spent 42 years at the institution and serves as Charles B. Pratt Endowed Chair in Solid Tumor Research, shared his perspective drawn from decades of work in pediatric cancer research. He highlighted how St. Jude has helped push the overall childhood cancer survival rate in the U.S. from 20% in 1962 to more than 80% today, while continuing to share research breakthroughs worldwide to help children in more places.
A powerful moment featured St. Jude patient Slater and his family, who shared their journey facing neuroblastoma and how the compassion, care, and research at St. Jude made a lasting impact on their lives. Slater later joined the event chairs on stage to help announce the evening’s fundraising milestone as the room filled with cheers and confetti.
The event was chaired by Marilé and Jorge Luis Lopez, Esq., and Dr. Eric and Regina Moskow, and co-hosted by Gloria Ordaz, anchor and journalist for Telemundo 51, and Jason Carter, entertainment reporter for Local 10 News. Guests were welcomed with a star‑studded red carpet and cocktail reception, followed by a seated dinner, live auction, live entertainment, and music by celebrity DJ Africa.
Celebrity attendees included Captain Lee Rosbach of Bravo’s Below Deck, Chef Adrianne Calvo, Carlos Adyan, host of En Casa con Telemundo, Stephanie Himonidis, host of Siéntese Quien Pueda, and other notable community and media leaders. Sponsors for the evening included FedEx, MFO Ventures, Genesis Prime Group, Bomnin, M.E. Gil, and additional corporate and community partners whose generosity continues to fuel the mission of St. Jude.
Visit www.stjude.org/angelsandstars to find additional events, volunteer opportunities, and more ways to connect with St. Jude supporters in Miami and across South Florida.
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital ®
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is leading the way the world understands, treats and defeats childhood cancer and other life-threatening diseases. Its purpose is clear: Finding cures. Saving children. ® It is the only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center devoted solely to children. When St. Jude opened in 1962, childhood cancer was largely considered incurable. Since then, St. Jude has helped push the overall survival rate from 20% to more than 80% in the United States, and it won't stop until no child dies from cancer. St. Jude shares the breakthroughs it makes to help doctors and researchers at local hospitals and cancer centers around the world improve the quality of treatment and care for even more children. Because of generous donors, families never receive a bill from St. Jude for treatment, travel, housing or food, so they can focus on helping their child live. Visit St. Jude Inspire to discover powerful St. Jude stories of hope, strength, love and kindness. Support the St. Jude mission by donating at stjude.org, liking St. Jude on Facebook, following St. Jude on X, Instagram, LinkedIn and TikTok, and subscribing to its YouTube channel.
Captain Lee Rosbach of Below Deck and Chef Calvo at the FedEx/St. Jude Angels and Stars Gala. Photo courtesy of ALSAC/St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital
Co‑event chairs Dr. Eric Moskow and Regina Moskow attend the FedEx/St. Jude Angels and Stars Gala in Miami. Photo courtesy of ALSAC/St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — As civil rights advocates protest, Republican lawmakers in several Southern states are seizing on the opportunity afforded by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling to redraw congressional districts ahead of the November midterm elections.
The latest state to jump on the redistricting bandwagon is Tennessee, where a special legislative session is to begin Tuesday, a day after a similar session kicked off in Alabama. In Louisiana, lawmakers also are making plans for new U.S. House districts after the Supreme Court last week struck down the state's current map.
The high court’s ruling said Louisiana relied too heavily on race when creating a second Black-majority House district as it attempted to comply with the Voting Rights Act. The ruling last week significantly altered a decades-old understanding of the law, giving Republicans in various states grounds to try to eliminate majority-Black districts that have elected Democrats.
It could lessen congressional representation for Black Americans and other minorities, reversing decades of gains in minority voting rights.
President Donald Trump has been encouraging more states to join in redistricting as Republicans seek to hold on to their narrow House majority in this year’s elections.
Alabama lawmakers heard testimony Tuesday on legislation that would allow a special congressional primary, if the Supreme Court clears the way for the state to change its U.S. House districts.
In light of the court's ruling on Louisiana's districts, Alabama officials have asked the high court to set aside a judicial order to use a U.S. House map that includes two districts with a substantial number of Black voters and instead let the state revert to a map previously passed by Republican lawmakers. That map could help the GOP win at least one of those two seats currently held by Democrats.
Alabama's primaries are scheduled for May 19. If the Supreme Court grants the state's request after or too close to the primary, the legislation under consideration would ignore the results of that primary and direct the governor to schedule a new primary under the revised districts.
“This is the voice of the people,” Alabama House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter said while promoting the Republican plan. “We had three judges determine how five million people were supposed to vote, and I don’t think that’s the way.”
During a House committee hearing, several Black residents urged lawmakers not to change the current congressional districts.
“Representation matters — not just politically but in access, in power and in who gets to be heard,” said Eliza Jane Franklin, of rural Barbour County.
Republican Gov. Bill Lee called Tennessee lawmakers into a special session to consider a plan that could break up the state’s lone Democratic-held U.S. House district, centered on the majority-Black city of Memphis. The move comes after pressure from Trump.
The candidate qualifying period in Tennessee ended in March, and the primary election is scheduled for Aug. 6.
Some clergy members have denounced the plan to split Memphis’ congressional district, and Martin Luther King III sent a letter to Tennessee legislative leaders expressing “grave concern” about it.
“This decision undermines the work that my father, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., carried out to help secure passage of the Voting Rights Act,” he wrote, noting that his father was assassinated in Memphis. He added: “Do not dismantle the only Congressional district that provides Black voters in Memphis a fair opportunity to have a voice in our democracy. Do not take this nation back to the days of Jim Crow.”
After last week’s Supreme Court decision, Louisiana moved to delay its May 16 congressional primary to allow time for lawmakers to approve new U.S. House districts.
Louisiana state Sen. Caleb Kleinpeter, a Republican who chairs a Senate committee tasked with redistricting, told The Associated Press that his committee plans to hold a public hearing Friday. Kleinpeter said lawmakers are still weighing their options, including bills that would eliminate one or both of the state’s two majority-Black Congressional districts.
Democrats and civil rights groups have filed several lawsuits challenging the suspension of Louisiana's congressional primary. They are encouraging people in Louisiana — where early voting already is underway — to go ahead and cast votes in the congressional primaries in case courts later allow them to be counted.
Legislative voting districts typically are redrawn only once a decade, after a census, to account for population changes. But Trump urged Texas Republicans last year to redraw U.S. House districts to give the party an advantage. Democrats in California responded by doing the same, and then other states joined in.
Florida became the eighth state to enact new House districts when Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis announced on Monday he had signed a redrawn map passed by the GOP-controlled Legislature. It could help Republicans win as many as four additional House seats. The new map was immediately challenged in court as a partisan gerrymander that violates a Florida constitutional provision against drawing districts that favor one political party over another.
All told, Republicans think they could gain as many as 13 seats from new congressional districts in five states, while Democrats think they could pick up as many as 10 seats from new districts adopted in three states. The newly proposed redistricting in Southern states could add to the Republicans’ tally.
Chandler reported from Montgomery, Alabama, and Lieb from Jefferson City, Missouri. Associated Press writers Jack Brook in New Orleans and Nicholas Riccardi in Denver contributed to this report.
FILE - Pansies bloom in front of the Alabama Statehouse in Montgomery, Ala., April 11, 2008. (AP Photo/Dave Martin, File)
FILE - The Tennessee Capitol is seen, Jan. 22, 2024, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV, File)
