SCOTUS comes through for Black Alabama voters

A 5-4 Supreme Court ruling backs Black voting rights in Alabama; El Niño’s return could supercharge global weather extremes.

Tonight's Sentences was written by Jariel Arvin.

The Supreme Court's surprise voting rights decision

Alex Wong/Getty Images

• Thursday, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that Alabama’s congressional maps diminished Black voting power, and ordered the state to redraw them. [Vox / Ian Millhiser]
• Republicans drew Alabama’s congressional maps after the 2020 census such that Black voters had the numbers to elect their preferred candidate in only one of seven districts. The state is more than 25 percent Black. [NPR / Nina Totenberg]
• Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined the court’s three liberals in finding Alabama violated a section of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that prohibits racial bias in voting. [Reuters / John Kruzel]
• The unexpected decision is a victory for voting rights advocates who warned ruling for Alabama would dilute minority voting power in districts across the country. [New York Times / Adam Liptak]
• Alabama will soon have two majority-Black voting districts, meaning Democrats will likely pick up a House seat. [Associated Press / Mark Sherman]

What El Niño means for global weather

• El Niño, the Pacific Ocean’s warming phenomenon that brings extreme conditions to much of the globe, returned on Thursday, according to the National Weather Service. [Vox / Umair Irfan]
• As a result, the southern US may see wetter weather while the Pacific Northwest and Ohio Valley could experience drier conditions. [CNBC / Catherine Clifford]
• Much of South America, India, and Indonesia face dry, warm weather while Pacific island countries can expect more tropical storms. [AP / Seth Borenstein and Isabella O’Malley]
• Experts worry this year’s El Niño could be stronger than normal as global ocean surface temperatures are already the warmest on record. [Reuters / Gloria Dickie]
• El Niño is likely to exacerbate the impacts of human-caused climate change and set temperature records in 2023 or 2024. [Axios / Andrew Freedman]

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Actor Elliot Page’s new memoir Pageboy encourages empathy for the trans experience as Republican-led states back anti-trans legislation. [Vox / Aja Romano]

• Federal authorities have charged Bob’s Burgers actor Jay Johnston for his involvement in the US Capitol riot on January 6, 2021. [ABC News / Quinn Owen]
• Far-right conservatives forced the House of Representatives to postpone voting until next week over Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s debt ceiling deal. [Guardian]
• Pat Robertson, the conservative evangelical TV host who helped center the Christian right in Republican politics, died Thursday at 93. [CNN]

“I think we’re definitely expecting to break global temperature records this year.”

[Dillon Amaya, a NOAA scientist, on the impact of this year’s El Niño / Vox]

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