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Republicans in the state could hold a 9-0 advantage in the U.S. House with their new map, after the Supreme Court weakened the Voting Rights Act last week.
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"The country's most important civil rights law no longer effectively exists, and that's going to have ramifications on American democracy for a very long time." Mother Jones correspondent Ari Berman reacts to the Supreme Court's recent 6-3 decision rejecting key principles of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Since the court issued its ruling last week, Republican-controlled states have begun to redraw their voting maps in a "gerrymandering arms race" that "could lead to the largest drop in Black representation since the Jim Crow era," explains Berman. "We're returning to the days of literacy tests and poll taxes — not through those devices, but through specifically trying to eliminate Black office holders. And Southern legislators are very clear they are going to do this. They feel unshackled by the Supreme Court ruling. They are being pressured by President Trump to do it, and they feel like all the guardrails are off right now."
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Representative Tom Barrett, a Michigan Republican facing a tough re-election race, introduced a bill to impose limits on the use of military force in Iran and end the fighting this summer.
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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won big in state-level elections this week, with the Hindu nationalist BJP now controlling over 70% of the country. Leading opposition politician and Chief Minister of West Bengal Mamata Banerjee has refused to recognize the results as legitimate, accusing the Modi government of mass disenfranchisement. Ahead of elections, 9 million names were deleted from the rolls under a process called "Special Intensive Revision" (SIR). The process, conducted by India's Election Commission, "vitiates and creates an electoral advantage by pitting Hindu voters against Muslim voters," says political scientist Gilles Verniers. Rather than the advertised purge of deceased and duplicate voters, SIR appears to have primarily affected Muslims and other minorities. Nearly 3 million voters in West Bengal, where more than a quarter of the population is Muslim, were unable to cast their vote.
From New Delhi, journalist Arfa Khanum Sherwani says blatant election interference has destroyed Indians' faith in democratic elections. "The general public does not think the elections are free and fair in India," she explains. "So this is a sad day for democracy, for people who believe that not only today, but tomorrow's India should also be democratic."
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Gaza is facing an "environmental and biological apocalypse" under Israeli bombardment and blockade, reports Palestinian aid worker Eyad Amawi of the Gaza Relief Committee. Israel's destruction of infrastructure has become a "generator for disease," with sewage contamination and rodent infestation now an everyday hazard for refugees living in tent camps. "[It's] no longer just bombardment or physical destruction. It is the collapse of every essential condition required for human survival: water, food, health, dignity, shelter, safety, everything." Amawi also comments on the extended detention of two international activists with the Global Sumud Flotilla. Thiago Ávila and Saif Abukeshek will not be released before this weekend, according to the latest update from the Israeli military. Neither has been charged with any crime.
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The polls on Thursday will be the biggest test of public opinion since the general election in 2024.
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The Republican senator from Maine, running for re-election at age 73 in one of this year's top Senate races, made the disclosure after mounting online scrutiny on the left.
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