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How Arkansas elects top judges challenged by civil rights group

A prominent civil rights group, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, has gone to federal court to get Arkansas to change the way seats on its top courts are filled.

The statewide election of all the judges on the state Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals violates the Voting Rights Act by denying "black voters an equal opportunity to participate in the political process," the group argued in a lawsuit filed Monday.


The state's population is 16 percent black but, because of the statewide election process, the suit maintains, no African-American candidate has ever been elected to the Arkansas Supreme Court.

The suit asks a federal judge to strike down the current election procedure and replace it with a new one. It suggests using a cumulative system, in which voters can choose several candidates on the ballot and those with the most votes fill the vacancies.

"Judges matter," said Natasha Merle of the NAACP. "Black voters in Arkansas have been consistently denied fairness and the opportunity to elect judges of their choice."

The named plaintiffs are three African-American voters and a pair non-profits, Christian Ministerial Alliance and Arkansas Community Institute.

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The Sanctuary City Debate: Understanding Federal-Local Divide in Immigration Enforcement
Police car lights.
Getty Images / Oliver Helbig

The Sanctuary City Debate: Understanding Federal-Local Divide in Immigration Enforcement

Immigration is governed by a patchwork of federal laws. Within the patchwork, one notable thread of law lies in the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996. The Act authorizes the Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) programs, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to work in tandem with local agencies and law enforcement on deterrence and enforcement efforts. Like the now-discontinued Secure Communities program that encouraged information sharing between local police agencies and ICE, the law specifically authorizes ICE to work with local and federal partners to detain and deport removal-eligible immigrants from the country.

What are Sanctuary Policies?

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Trump Slams Washington Commanders and Cleveland Guardians Over Name Changes

President Donald Trump speaks to the media as he departs the White House in Washington, DC.

(Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Trump Slams Washington Commanders and Cleveland Guardians Over Name Changes

Washington, D.C. — President Donald Trump has reignited controversy surrounding the Washington Commanders football team, demanding the franchise revert to its former name, the “Redskins,” a term widely condemned as a racial slur against Native Americans.

In a series of posts on Truth Social this past weekend, Trump declared, “The Washington 'Whatever's' should IMMEDIATELY change their name back to the Washington Redskins Football Team.” He went further, threatening to block the team’s $3.7 billion stadium deal in Washington, D.C., unless the name change is reversed.

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Media criticism
News media's vital to democracy, Americans say; then a partisan divide yawns
Tero Vesalainen/Getty Images

Public Media Under Fire: Why Project 2025 Is Reshaping NPR and PBS

This past spring and summer, The Fulcrum published a 30-part, nonpartisan series examining Project 2025—a sweeping policy blueprint for a potential second Trump administration. Our analysis explored the proposed reforms and their far-reaching implications across government. Now, as the 2025 administration begins to take shape, it’s time to move from speculation to reality.

In this follow-up, we turn our focus to one of the most consequential—and quietly unfolding—chapters of that blueprint: Funding cuts from NPR and PBS.

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Person voting

New York City’s election has gotten a lot of attention over the last few weeks, and ranked choice voting is a big part of the reason why.

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New York City’s Ranked Choice Voting: Democracy That’s Accountable to Voters

New York City’s election has gotten a lot of attention over the last few weeks, and ranked choice voting is a big part of the reason why.

Heads turned when 33-year-old state legislator Zohran Mamdani knocked off Andrew Cuomo, a former governor from one of the Democratic Party’s most prominent families. The earliest polls for the mayoral primary this winter found Mamdani struggling to reach even 1 percent.

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