What to know about the Alabama voting rights case

The Supreme Court hears an Alabama challenge to voting rights; North Korea fires a missile over Japan. 

Tonight's Sentences was written by Jariel Arvin.

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SCOTUS weighs Black voting power in Alabama

Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images

• The Supreme Court on Tuesday heard oral arguments in a case that could further undermine the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which prohibits racial discrimination against minority voters. [Reuters / Andrew Chung and Nate Raymond]
• The case concerns Alabama’s congressional map, which gives Black voters a real chance of electing their candidate of choice in one out of seven districts. However, more than a quarter of the state’s population is Black. [NPR / Nina Totenberg]
• When Merrill v. Milligan was decided in a lower court earlier this year, a three-judge panel which included two Donald Trump appointees ruled Alabama’s map unlawfully diluted Black voting power. The panel ordered the state to redraw the map with an additional majority-Black district before the upcoming 2022 midterm elections. [Associated Press / Mark Sherman]
• The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 shortly afterward to reverse the panel’s decision and keep Alabama’s map in place. Now the Court will decide whether the map gives Black Alabamians less opportunity to participate in the state’s electoral process. [CNN / Ariane de Vogue]
• The conservative-majority Court will likely rule in Alabama’s favor, given its past rulings against voting rights. But the Court could rule narrowly or eliminate protections against racial gerrymandering. [Vox / Ian Millhiser]

📍 If you read just one story

Vox’s Ian Millhiser explains how the Supreme Court dismantled the 1965 Voting Rights Act. [Vox / Ian Millhiser]

North Korea fires missile over Japan

• North Korea fired a ballistic missile over northern Japan Tuesday morning for the first time since 2017. [CNN]
• Japan urged people to shelter underground but stopped short of shooting the missile down when officials determined the test didn’t pose a threat. [ABC News / Melissa Gaffney, Anthony Trotter, and Hakyung Kate Lee]
• North Korea has performed dozens of missile tests in 2022 — the most in over a decade. While it’s difficult to determine leader Kim Jong Un’s intentions, North Korea claims the missile tests are in preparation for a US or South Korean invasion. [NBC News / Alexander Smith]
• President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida condemned the test. The US will ask the UN National Security Council to meet on North Korea Wednesday. [Reuters / Hyonhee Shin, Josh Smith, and Kantaro Komiya]

Ukraine gained momentum in fighting in the Kherson region over the weekend, one of four Russia claims to have annexed. Three factors may now determine the country’s future: war fatigue in the West, Putin’s unpredictability, and what constitutes a victory. [Vox / Jonathan Guyer]

• In 2009, Herschel Walker, a pro-life Republican candidate for Senate in Georgia, paid for a woman with whom he conceived a child to have an abortion. [Daily Beast / Roger Sollenberger]
• he Trump Misc for this: Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday filed an emergency request asking the Supreme Court to intervene in the Mar-a-Lago documents case. [CNN / Tierney Sneed]
• Paris joined other French cities in boycotting big-screen viewings of World Cup games for fans over human rights violations in Qatar. [Associated Press / Jade Le Deley and Barbara Surk]

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“What strikes me about this case is that under our precedent it's kind of a slam dunk if you just take our existing precedent the way it is.”

[Justice Elena Kagan on the Alabama voting rights case / Roll Call]

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