OXNARD, Calif. (AP) — Dallas Cowboys tight end Princeton Fant is out for the season after sustaining a knee injury in training camp Monday.
Fant tore his ACL and partially tore his MCL, and he will undergo surgery in the coming weeks, head coach Brian Schottenheimer said Tuesday. Fant was hurt on a knee-on-knee hit to his left leg after being blocked backward into running back Israel Abanikanda during the Cowboys' first full pads practice.
Fant has appeared in 11 games over three seasons for the Cowboys, playing mostly on special teams, after being signed as an undrafted free agent out of Tennessee in 2023. He is the cousin of New Orleans Saints tight end Noah Fant.
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Dallas Cowboys tight end Princeton Fant makes a catch during the NFL football team's training camp, Saturday, Aug. 1, 2026, in Oxnard, Calif. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
Maryland lawmakers are getting closer to asking the state's voters to decide in November whether to clear the way for a new congressional map that would favor Democrats in all eight of the state’s U.S. House districts.
On Tuesday, lawmakers in the Democratic-dominated House approved putting an amendment on the ballot to allow the change. The Senate was expected to vote on it later in the day. Sending it to voters requires three-fifths approval of both legislative chambers, who met in a special session to consider the change.
In a state where Democrats now occupy seven of the eight House seats, Republicans are calling the effort a blatant power grab.
In debate in the House on Tuesday, Republican Delegate Kevin Hornberger told his colleagues: “Just because we can go ultra-partisan doesn't mean we should go ultra-partisan.” Other Republicans said constituents weren't behind it and one Democratic lawmaker worried that the change could cost rural parts of the state federal resources if they're put in the same districts with suburban areas. The measure still passed 96-38.
If the amendment is ultimately approved, it would be part of a rapid reconfiguration of congressional district lines that began last year when President Donald Trump urged Republican-controlled states to adjust their maps to help the party in the 2026 midterm elections. Normally, redistricting happens just once a decade after new Census data is released.
Eight states — Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee and Texas — have redrawn maps to help Republicans, who could pick up as many as 16 seats due to the redistricting. New maps in California and Utah could give Democrats an advantage in six races.
Maryland moved more slowly because Democratic state Senate President Bill Ferguson blocked an earlier initiative aimed at putting new maps in place for this year. He was worried that the state Supreme Court, with most of its members appointed by a Republican former governor, could backfire — especially because a judge in 2022 rejected a new map that could have boosted the Democrats.
Ferguson said his view changed after the U.S. Supreme Court weakened the Voting Rights Act in April, giving Republicans grounds for reconfiguring districts with large minority populations in Southern states.
The question that could go to voters is designed to make it hard for the court to reject redistricting. It would make it clear that the parameters the judge cited — including that districts be compact in form and have regard given to “natural boundaries” — apply only to state legislative districts, not congressional ones.
That would allow congressional districts to cross the Chesapeake Bay. Currently, the only district on the rural Eastern Shore east of the Bay is also the only one represented by a Republican, Rep. Andy Harris, the chair of the conservative House Freedom Caucus.
FILE - The Maryland State House in Annapolis, Md., June 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Robert Yoon, File)
