Ukraine and Russia strikes hit homes and oil depot near Black Sea
At least three civilians were reported injured in the city near the Black Sea, which has been repeatedly shelled by Russian forces. Ukraine's State Emergency Service posted photos of firefighters at the scene after the missile strike.
Early on Sunday a massive oil depot fire was raging near Russia's Black Sea resort of Sochi - blamed by the Russian authorities on a Ukrainian drone attack. Sochi's airport in the same area - Adler district - suspended flights.
Krasnodar Region Governor Veniamin Kondratyev said on Telegram that drone debris had hit a fuel tank, and 127 firefighters were tackling the blaze.
The drone attack was one of several launched by Ukraine over the weekend, targeting installations in the southern Russian cities of Ryazan, Penza and Voronezh. The governor of Voronezh said four people were injured in one drone strike.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called for stronger international sanctions on Russia this week after a deadly attack on Kyiv on Thursday killed at least 31 people.
More than 300 drones and eight cruise missiles were launched in the assault, Ukrainian officials said, making the attack one of the deadliest on the capital since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
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USA Today
19 minutes ago
- USA Today
Supreme Court could end race-based voting districts. Good. They're antiquated.
Considering race inherently means discrimination in the sense that you believe skin color is an important factor in vote choice. A redistricting war between red and blue states has erupted in response to Texas' new proposed map, prompting Democrats nationwide to go on the offensive. This isn't the only reason redistricting is making headlines. The Supreme Court has indicated that it will be considering whether race-based districts are constitutional next term. The colorblind approach taken by the conservative justices on many other issues, such as college admissions and employment discrimination, indicates that they may be skeptical of race-based districting as well. The Supreme Court should strike down racial considerations in the districting process. Many states have interpreted the Voting Rights Act to mandate the creation of a specific number of majority-minority districts, which is in tension with the Supreme Court's precedents on the matter. It's unconstitutional to consider race when creating district maps In this case, Louisiana has adopted a new districting map, adding a second majority-Black district to the state. The state is being accused of violating the 14th Amendment. The Supreme Court has ordered briefing on, as the order phrased it, 'Whether the State's intentional creation of a second majority-minority congressional district violates the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments to the U. S. Constitution.' Navigating race in the districting process poses a unique challenge. States cannot create districts based solely on race, for fear of violating the equal protection clause, but they also fear that they will run afoul of the Voting Rights Act if they take a colorblind approach. However, the Supreme Court may rule that all race-based considerations in districting are unconstitutional, alleviating the burden on states to navigate the narrow space left by these two forces. They would be justified in doing so. Opinion: I'm a Democrat who left Texas. New GOP maps will silence Latino voters. The Supreme Court has made it clear in recent cases that they are skeptical of any policy dealing with group characteristics rather than individuals. Justice Clarence Thomas has called the practice of race-based redistricting in response to general past discrimination 'utterly divorced from the sort of 'specific, identified instances of past discrimination' that this Court demands to justify a race-based remedy. Nor is a race-conscious approach reflective of modern times, compared with those at the time of the Voting Rights Act's passage in 1965. Multiple Supreme Court justices have lamented race-based remedial solutions that have no end point. Some have suggested that race-conscious practices can be employed to address specific injustices in their aftermath, but that such programs must have an end point. Six decades later, proponents of race-based considerations in the districting process would have these guidelines in place for eternity. It's understandable why explicit mandates based on race might have been a necessary evil in the 1960s, but the systematic discrimination that spurred the need for such requirements is now long in the past. Race-based districting makes no sense In Louisiana v. Callais, in particular, the facts are particularly egregious. In a desperate quest to create an additional majority minority district, Louisiana has created a monstrosity of a district, stretching across the majority of the state's width and height in order to group together as many Black people as possible. Situations like these demonstrate how overemphasis on race can lead to the neglect of other factors vital to districting, such as compactness and continuity. Opinion: Do you think the Supreme Court is partisan? Well you're wrong. Race should not prevail over other important considerations. A cluster of neighboring counties with similar regional struggles has more in common than two majority-Black cities on opposite sides of a state. Considering race inherently means discrimination in the sense that you believe skin color is an important factor in vote choice. It should go without saying, but explicit attempts to minimize the impact of minority voters in elections also run afoul of these principles as well. Opinion alerts: Get columns from your favorite columnists + expert analysis on top issues, delivered straight to your device through the USA TODAY app. Don't have the app? Download it for free from your app store. Race isn't any more important in districting considerations than any other characteristic that correlates with voting patterns. Districting based on race makes little more sense than grouping together people of a certain income level, education level, age range or any other group that can be thought of as having some form of collective interests. The assumption that minority groups themselves are a cohesive voting unit is one rooted in past trends, but in a misunderstanding of where the end point of racial progress ought to be. The goal of districting with regard to race is not that each racial group has its own unique form of representation; rather, it is that race, in the end, is no longer a meaningful differentiation in voting patterns. It is inevitably prejudiced to assume that race is a valuable determining factor in vote choice. There is little reason to believe that a White person put into the exact same upbringing as someone from any specific minority group would have any different voting tendencies. Race may correlate with vote patterns, but it tells you absolutely nothing valuable about an individual. Even if grouping individuals based on race is intended to achieve equal representation, it may run afoul of equal protection. Dace Potas is an opinion columnist for USA TODAY and a graduate of DePaul University with a degree in political science. You can read diverse opinions from our USA TODAY columnists and other writers on the Opinion front page, on X, formerly Twitter, @usatodayopinion and in our Opinion newsletter.
CNN
19 minutes ago
- CNN
Top Kremlin aide says agreement reached for Trump-Putin meeting ‘in coming days'
Russia Donald TrumpFacebookTweetLink Follow Top Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov has said that an agreement has been reached for US President Donald Trump to meet his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin 'in the coming days,' and the parties have begun working on preparations, according to Russian state media RIA Novosti. This is a developing story and will be updated.
Bloomberg
20 minutes ago
- Bloomberg
Russia Says Putin-Trump Summit to Take Place Within Days
By Updated on Save Presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump will meet for summit talks within the next few days, the Kremlin said Thursday. Russia and the US have agreed on a venue for the meeting and 'together with our American colleagues, we are starting to work on specific issues,' with a goal for the talks to take place next week, Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters, according to the Interfax news service. He didn't identify where the summit will be held.
