Thousands of Mississippians, along with allies from other southern states, gathered at the state’s War Memorial Building auditorium on Wednesday in support of voting rights. It was the latest in a series of actions protesting the supreme court’s recent decision gutting the provision of the Voting Rights Act preventing racial discrimination, and held on a site integral to the state’s history of Black disenfranchisement.
Section 2 “stopped states, counties, cities, from passing redistricting maps that discriminate against Black voters and it led to the biggest growth of Black political power since Reconstruction”, said Amir Badat, the southern states director at the voting rights group Fair Fight Action.
“And now, the Roberts court has opened the door to the biggest destruction of Black political power since the end of Reconstruction.”
The rally was led by a coalition of organizations, including People’s Advocacy Institute, Mississippi Votes, Mississippi Poor People’s Campaign, One Voice, Fair Fight, Mississippi for a Just World and NAACP, among them. It followed the “All Roads Lead to the South” rally in Montgomery, Alabama, over the weekend.
Detained activists from a 
President Trump on Wednesday attacked the Senate parliamentarian, accusing her of issuing reviews of Senate rules that have treated Republicans unfairly and calling for Republicans to end the filibuster.
Two activists seized by Israeli forces in international waters while en route to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza have been threatened with death or lengthy imprisonment, their lawyers said on Monday.
Mahmoud Khilla waited for nearly two and half years for the remains of his family to be retrieved from under the rubble of their home before he decided to take matters into his own hands. The Israeli military bombed the five story building in Jabaliya, north of Gaza City, on December 21, 2023, demolishing it with two missiles and killing all 39 people inside. Mahmoud had gone out just 10 minutes earlier to get some food for dinner. He returned to find a massacre.
A massive overnight Russian drone strike partially destroyed a multi-story residential building in Konotop, Sumy Oblast, injuring at least six people and prompting an urgent search-and-rescue operation for residents feared trapped beneath the debris, local officials said.
The two teenage assailants responsible for a mass shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego, California, rushed toward the mosque “fully armored” with handguns and rifles, authorities said.
More than 17,000 people were under evacuation orders in southern California on Tuesday as a wildfire threatened suburban homes.
