Federal judges in the US on Tuesday blocked Texas from using a new congressional map intended to flip several Democratic-held seats in the US House of Representatives, the lower house of Congress, to Republican control in next year's midterm elections.  Texas Governor Greg Abbott had signed the new map into law on August 29, following an acrimonious voting process and amid retalliatory plans in California (a Democrat-held state of similar stature in the west of the US) to redraw congressional