Victories after court strike down voting restrictions in North Carolina, wisconsin, kansas, and taxes. E will speak to ari berman we are heading into the first president ial cycle in 50 years without the full protections of the Voting Rights act. What that means in practice, Eckstein States have new voting restrictions in place for the first president ial cycle. It is urgent to restore the Voting Rights act and make it easier to vote in a whole lot of ways, things like early voting and sameday Voter Registration, automatic Voter Registration. Amy all that and more, coming up. Welcome to democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. A federal Appeals Court has struck down voting restrictions in North Carolina saying they disproportionately affected African Americans. In the ruling, the threejudge panel from the Fourth Circuit wrote the new provisions target African Americans with almost surgical precision. The law had been challenged the by the Justice Department the , North Carolina naacp, and other civil Rights Groups after its passage in 2013 limited the forms of i. D. Acceptable at poling places as well as restricting how people could register. As a result, about 5 of the states registered voters, primarily africanamericans, would have been excluded from being able to cast a ballot. This is bob hall, executive director of democracy North Carolina, speaking to democracy now about how the rules affected North Carolinas president ial primaries earlier this year. That would send a registration, we had over 8000 voters able to use sameday registration. That is, they were not registered but they showed up in early voting and were able to use that provision to vote. It is disproportionately africanamerican, young people. They want to get rid of that. Amy meanwhile in wisconsin, the u. S. Fourth Circuit Court of appeals overturned similar election laws there, finding they disenfranchised minority voters and were tailored to benefit the republican politicians who enacted them. U. S. District judge James Peterson wrote in his opinion the wisconsin experience demonstrates that a preoccupation with mostly phantom Election Fraud leads to real incidents of disenfranchisement, which undermine rather than enhance confidence in elections, particularly in minority communities. Peterson did not overturn a photo i. D. Provision for voters in the state, but called the Current System for issuing i. D. s a wretched failure that predominantly affected African American and latino citizens. On friday, a court also ruled against republican voting laws in kansas, where a county judge said the state must count votes cast by people who registered without providing citizenship documents. Those decisions all come a week after a similar ruling against a voter i. D. Law in texas. Well have more on the rulings after headlines. In election news, khizr khan, the father of a muslim u. S. Soldier died in iraq, are speaking out on donald trump. Meanwhile, donald trump has continued to argue that nato has become obsolete. Speaking to George Stephanopoulos sunday, trump said nato had been unable to stop russias annexation of crimea last year. He might alsod formally recognize russias takeover of crimea. Mr. Trump he was very emotional and probably looked like a nice guy to me. His wife, if you look at his wife, she was standing there and had nothing to say. Allowed to have anything to say. You tell me. But plenty of people in britain that. Amy some Democratic Party officials have suggested russia is behind the release of Democratic Party emails in an effort to help sway the election to trump, but no evidence to back the claim has been provided. In flint, michigan, six more state employees are facing criminal charges in connection with the lead poisoning of flint hoss flint water. The six charged work for the Michigan Department of health and Human Services and the Michigan Department of environmental quality, and are accused of having tried to cover up the problem of lead contamination in the citys water once state officials became aware of it. This is Michigan Attorney general bill schuette. Some failed to act, others minimized harm done and arrogantly chose to ignore data. Some intentionally altered ures and covered up covered up Significant Health risks. Two Companies Committed fraud and were negligent and made a bad situation worse. Amy three other state and city officials also face felony charges in the case. Flints lead poisoning began last year when an unelected emergency manager appointed by michigan Governor Rick Snyder switched the source of the citys Drinking Water to the corrosive flint river. Today, the water in flint is still poisoned and unsafe to drink. The former head of booking at fox news says former ceo roger ailes sexually harassed her for two decades. Ailes resigned last week amidst multiple claims of sexual harassment. Laurie luhn told new York Magazine that fox news knew about the harassment and helped cover it up. Luhn said the harassment amounted to psychological torture and ruined her life. Luhn called ailes a predator and said her duties included luring young female fox employees into oneonone situations with ailes that she knew could result in harassment. In international news, hundreds of residents of the syrian city of aleppo demonstrated and burned tires sunday to protest the ongoing siege by Syrian Government forces and their allies. The demonstration took place shortly before rebels fighting the Syrian Government began a new offensive to break the siege. The u. N. Says about a quarter million civilians are trapped in the rebelheld portion of aleppo and facing a worsening humanitarian situation. Rebelheld areas of the city have been surrounded by Government Forces since last month and subjected to heavy aerial bombardment, including the destruction of a number of hospitals. Wikileaks founder Julian Assange says the group has released information about Hillary Clintons campaign. This comes after wikileaks released 20,000 dnc emails, revealing how the Democratic Party favored Hillary Clinton and worked behind the scenes to discredit and defeat bernie sanders. Dnc chairwoman Debbie Wasserman schultz resigned as a result of the leaks. Two canadians were rearrested on friday just hours after the Supreme Court of British Columbia cleared them of terrorism charges. Civil liberties groups hailed the ruling that freed john nuttall and Amanda Korody after a judge declared federal police had entrapped them. It was the first time entrapment has been successfully used a defense in a terrorism prosecution in north america. Civil Rights Groups accuse the fbi of similarly entrapping terrorism suspects in the u. S. But on friday, nuttal and korody were rearrested on a peace bond, a canadian law that allows authorities to monitor or detain people who it thinks may commit a crime. Here in the u. S. , the Baltimore City council will decide next month whether to increase the citys minimum wage to 15 an hour. The councils Labor Committee voted 4to0 last week to send the bill to the 15member council. Mayor stephanie rawlingsblake has said she would sign the bill if it reaches her desk. Baltimore is the latest jurisdiction nationwide to consider an increase. Washington, d. C. , seattle, and San Francisco have approved increases to 15 an hour. California and new york have approved statewide increases to 15. Baltimore workers are presently subject to the state minimum wage, which is 8. 75. A judge publicly reprimanded jail officials in louisville, kentucky, friday after they sent a woman into her courtroom with no pants on last week. The woman said she was arrested in a county 80 miles away on a bench warrant for not completing a shoplifting intervention course in 2014. The woman said she had been in jail since sunday five days before she appeared in the courtroom of judge amber wolf. Andefused to give her pants any kind of hygiene projec prods that she needed. No pants . I in with this on sunday. Excuse me . She requested excuse me . Is this for real . Amy judge wolf then called officials at the Jefferson County jail directly from the courtroom on her phone and reprimanded them. The woman also told wolf other woman in the jail had received similar treatment. In more election news, the parents of the u. S. Soldier who died serving in iraq are denouncing donald trump who attacked them following his speech at the Democratic National convention. This is khan speaking thursday night in philadelphia at the dnc. Donald trump, youre asking americans to trust you with. Heir future let me ask you, have you even read the United States constitution . [applause] i will gladly lend you my copy. ,my that was khzir khan speaking on stage of the dnc beside his wife. Their son, u. S. Army captain, theposthumously awarded bronze star. And sunday was the First Anniversary of the murder of mexican journalist ruben espinosa. On july 31, 2015, espinosa was killed by gunmen in an apartment in mexico city, alongside human rights activist nadia vera and three other women. No one has been charged in their murders. Its widely believed espinosa and vera were targeted as a result of their work in the Southern State of veracruz. This is rubens sister, alma espinosa, speaking sunday. My brother ruben was a photojournalist. He was a very humane person. We are assisting they both suffered harassment. We also nt them to investigate this apart from him, they have killed many journalists in the state of veracruz. So many have died and no one pays attention. They are killing them and no one does anything. Amy and those are some of the headlines. This is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. Voting rights advocates have won a number of major victories that could reshape the november election. Over the past 10 days, a series of Court Rulings have struck down new voting restrictions in North Carolina, wisconsin, kansas and texas. , on friday, a u. S. Appeals court struck down a North Carolina law that required voters to show photo identification scaled back early , voting, ended out of precinct voting, and prevented residents from registering to vote on election day. In a remarkable judgment, the threejudge panel found North Carolinas law targeted africanamericans with almost surgical precision. The judge found that the legislators wrote the law after requesting data that showed africanamericans disproportionately used early voting in both 2008 and 2012. Judge diana motz wrote we cannot ignore the recent evidence that, because of race, the legislature enacted one of the largest restrictions of the franchise in modern North Carolina history. Meanwhile in wisconsin, a federal judge has struck down a string of wisconsin voting restrictions passed by the Republicanled Legislature and signed by Governor Scott walker. U. S. District judge James Peterson wrote that the objective of the law was to suppress the reliably democratic vote of milwaukees African Americans. A week earlier, the u. S. Court of appeals for the fifth circuit struck down a texas law which has been described as the nations most restrictive voteri. D. Law. In a 9to6 ruling, the court found the law has a discriminatory effect on minorities Voting Rights. Joining us now is ari berman. He is a senior contributing writer for the nation where he covers Voting Rights. His book give us the ballot , the modern struggle for Voting Rights in america, will be out in paperback tomorrow. Bermans recent piece for the nation is called, the countrys worst antivoting law was just struck down in North Carolina. Ari, welcome back to democracy now explain what happened there first. Whats the decision in North Carolina, my opinion, was the biggest victory for Voting Rights since the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights act in 2013. It was a significant because North Carolina passed the countrys worst voting restrictions. They did not just require strict voter id, they cut back on early voting, eliminated sameday Voter Registration and out of precinct voting, eliminated crew registration for 16yearold and 17yearolds and just a month after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights act and john roberts said that voting discrimination was largely a thing of the past. Both what North Carolina did and when they did it made this ruling so significant. It was really remarkable to see the Fourth Circuit use such want language in describing what North Carolina did. That they did target black voters with almost surgical precision. This was not about stopping voter fraud. This was about Voter Suppression and suppressing black votes. Amy explain exactly how it worked. How the law worked. It worked in a bunch of ways. First off, the law said you had to show strict forms of government issued id, excluding government ids that africanamericans were most like a have. They cut back on the ability to show up and register to vote before the election, which is critically important in a state like North Carolina which has a very diverse demographic. They eliminated the ability to vote anywhere in your county. People who work along shift, they can go and vote after their jobs as opposed to having to go back to their home area. They eliminated crew registration for 16yearolds and 17yearolds. All of these reforms that North Carolina implemented, the state got rid of. What was fascinating, the court laid out a very coherent narrative. They said beginning in two thousand, North Carolina adopted these reforms like early voting and send a registration. As a result, Voter Participation increased dramatically. It went from 37 footer turnout to 12. Most important, the disparity between black and white voters was eliminated. Black Voter Registration increased over white registration and turnout in 2008 and 2012. It was that very moment that North Carolina legislature decided to go after all of the different voting methods used by africanamericans. The Fourth Circuit basically said, this was not a coincidence. The legislature new what had increased black turnout and those were the very voting methods the legislature decided to eliminate. Amy can you explain more about sunday voting . It is historically called souls to the polls. Africanamerican churches tell the constituents to go vote. It is an important day. North carolina eliminated one of two days of sunday voting. The Legislature Said the the Fourth Circuit said the legislature had data showing sunday voting was used more in africanamerican communities by democratic voters, and that is why they eliminated this. The Fourth Circuits of the elimination of sunday voting was the closest thing to a smoking gun that you will ever find an modern times. Th