Good evening. I'm Jeff Bennett. I'm the Navaz is away. On the news hour tonight,

new propaganda video of hostages being held by Hamas ramp up the pressure on Israel to reach a ceasefire.

We speak with the cousin of one of the hostages forced to dig his own grave.

They actually managed to break his spirit using this horrible terror tactics of stopping him deliberately.

Recent trade deals come with a promise to buy U.S. energy in exchange for lower tariffs.

But how realistic are those pledges and can the president deliver on his plans?

And a worrying decline in maternal mental health, what the research and mothers themselves say could be the cause.

I lay awake at night, you know, worried about my children's future if worse things happen in our economy

or if things get more difficult for us.

Welcome to the News Hour.

We begin tonight in Texas where the state's attorney general is ramping up pressure on House Democrats who left the state to block a vote on a new congressional map.

Ken Paxton says he's seeking court orders to declare the Democrat seats vacant if they aren't back to work by Friday. There being 94 members present, a quorum is not present.

For a second day in a row, the state's legislature failed to reach a quorum.

The map the Democrats are trying to block would help give Republicans as many as five more seats in next year's midterm elections.

Some of the Democrats are in Illinois.

They said today that the redrawn map would disenfranchise voters of color and that they're

not backing down.

Right now there's folks saying that we walked out.

And I think everyone behind me will say we're standing up and as Texans would say we're standing

tall. There's others that are saying

and warning us that they're going to arrest us or make us pay fines. I'll pay that price for

America. Today, Republican Texas Senator John Cornyn called on the FBI to take, quote, any

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