A divided US Supreme Court voided a central part of the Voting Rights Act, a law put in place during the Civil Rights movement to prevent historically racist states from creating obstacles to voting, Tuesday. - Chief Justice John Roberts delivered the Supreme Court’s opinion in Shelby County vs. Holder on Tuesday. The 5-4 decision, evidence of clear partisan lines in the nation’s highest court, was celebrated by Southern states and criticized by President Barack Obama for declaring federal oversight on state election changes unconstitutional. Roberts did not specify which, if any, part of the Constitution the rule violated. Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), invalidated by Tuesday’s decision, explained the formula used by Congress to identify regions of the US subject to extra scrutiny when local lawmakers try to change election rules. Section 4 was the precursor to Section 5, which gives the federal government the power to “preclear” any state or local changes in election rules that could potentially prevent minorities from voting.

Huffington Post: Voting Rights Act Section 4 Struck Down By Supreme Court

USDJ: Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act - When Congress enacted the Voting Rights Act of 1965, it determined that racial discrimination in voting had been more prevalent in certain areas of the country. Section 4(a) of the Act established a formula to identify those areas and to provide for more stringent remedies where appropriate. The first of these targeted remedies was a five-year suspension of "a test or device," such as a literacy test as a prerequisite to register to vote. The second was the requirement for review, under Section 5, of any change affecting voting made by a covered area either by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia or by the Attorney General. [...]

Patrick Martin: US Supreme Court guts Voting Rights Act - The opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts is insolent in its dismissal of any concern over five unelected judges overturning an act of Congress and defying the popular will. This ruling will shock and anger millions of working people—and it should. In striking down a key section of the Voting Rights Act, the court majority defied the plain language of the Constitution. The Fifteenth Amendment, adopted in the wake of the Civil War, reads: Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Kevin Rudd has prevailed in a dramatic Labor leadership ballot, defeating Julia Gillard and paving the way for him to return to the prime ministership. - Labor caucus returning officer Chris Hayes informed the nation that Mr Rudd won the leadership ballot 57-45. But his return has triggered an avalanche of departures from not only Labor's frontbench, but from their side of the Parliament. The ballot means Ms Gillard - Australia's first female prime minister - will quit politics at the next election, following her vow to retire if she lost.

ABC News: Live: Kevin Rudd defeats Julia Gillard in Labor leadership spill
Herald Sun: Gillard has been voted out only 2 months before the election
James Delingpole: Rudd defenestrates Gillard: Aussie politics makes Game of Thrones look tame

A trove of classified documents supplied to The Guardian newspaper by NSA leaker Edward Snowden has been copied and shared with several people around the globe, journalist Glenn Greenwald told The Daily Beast on Tuesday. - Greenwald, the Guardian reporter who first began publishing National Security Agency documents earlier this month after meeting with the former intelligence contractor, told journalist Eli Lake that Snowden made arrangements to ensure others around the world have encrypted copies of that information should any circumstances allow the data or its source to be compromised. Snowden “has taken extreme precautions to make sure many different people around the world have these archives to insure the stories will inevitably be published,” Greenwald said. He added that the files are “highly encrypted” and corresponding passwords to render them readable have not yet been distributed. According to Lake, Greenwald said, “if anything happens at all to Edward Snowden, he told me he has arranged for them to get access to the full archives.” Greenwald previously claimed that Snowden provided him with the archives of "thousands" of documents, dozens of which he considered to be newsworthy. Revelations published thus far by The Guardian and attributed to Snowden have generated international headlines and responses from presidential administrations worldwide.

A friend of an award-winning reporter, who died last week in a car accident, says Michael Hastings was investigating the CIA at the time of his suspicious death. - Sgt. Joe Biggs told Fox News on Tuesday that Hastings was working on a story about the CIA and that it was “going to be the biggest story yet.” He added that “something didn’t feel right” after Hastings sent a panicked email saying the authorities were on his tail. Biggs said that Hastings was a safe driver that drove “like a grandma,” making it extremely unlikely that he would speed in the morning that he crashed. Hastings, 33, died on June 18 in a one-car crash in Los Angeles which shocked his colleagues and the American public.

Communications satellite service provider Intelsat has announced it will take Iranian channels off the air as of next week as the West's campaign against free speech intensifies. - In a letter to the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), the Luxembourg-based company cited the illegal US sanctions against the IRIB president as the main reason behind its decision. The 24-hour English-language news channel Press TV and Iran's Spanish-language channel Hispan TV are among the channels to be banned from July 1. Press TV and other Iranian channels have come under an unprecedented wave of attacks by European governments and satellite companies since January 2012. ■ European companies say they are “abiding by” the anti-Iran sanctions. However, the spokesman for the EU foreign policy chief, Michael Mann, has told Press TV that the sanctions do not apply to Iranian media.

Bulgarians have been out on the streets for a week by the thousands but with very few exceptions, international media outlets have chosen not to cover the protests. - On the surface, the decision makes sense. People in Sofia took to the streets a week ago today after Delyan Peevski – a well known oligarch, media mogul and politician – was appointed chief of Bulgaria’s State Agency for National Security. The appointment was rushed through and before anybody even knew he was up for the position, Peevski was already giving interviews and sharing his vision for the office. Bulgarians wouldn’t have it. Organizing on Facebook and Twitter, people took to the streets and within 24 hours of the first protest, Prime Minister Oresharski had already retracted the appointment. Why cover a protest that seems to be directed at a very specific person, who was appointed to a very specific position and, especially, after the appointment has already been retracted? This is not news. For a Western audience, the story was over before it even started.

Increasing numbers of people in the UK are not able to afford the basic cost of a funeral for a loved one, according to an annual report[.pdf], The Cost of Dying, published by Sun Life Direct, a UK insurance company in conjunction with Bath University. ■ Separate research in a report, Final Rights[.pdf], carried out via the Citizens Advice Bureau in Bath and North East Somerset also concluded, “Funeral Payments from the Social Fund are invariably considerably less than the cost of a basic funeral.” The Social Fund is a government scheme administered by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), which provides money to families or individuals on a low income to meet some expenses that they are unable to cover. ■ The average cost of a funeral is £3,091. This figure has risen 71 percent in the last nine years, with the cost of a burial rising 10 percent in the last year. These costs are prohibitive for those on welfare benefits or on a low or average income, and place undue stress and mental strain on people who are already grieving. Many people have to resort to “pauper’s funeral” arrangements because the government will not pay for full funeral costs under the Funeral Payment scheme. ■ The DWP has turned down up to half of all applications to the Social Fund for requests for help with funeral costs. It is estimated that the shortfall on funeral payments stands at £118 million—up from £85 million in 2010. The Cost of Dying explains that the scheme is now completely inundated with requests for financial help. Of the 69,000 requests in 2011, 34,500 were turned down. Just over 38,000 Social Fund payments were made in Britain in 2011-12, at a total cost of £47 million.

Peter Symonds: US diplomatic thuggery in pursuit of Snowden - The Obama administration’s diplomatic bullying against Russia, China, Hong Kong and Ecuador in its efforts to seize NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is exposing to the world the lawlessness of US imperialism. The White House is insisting that Snowden be handed over to face espionage charges in the US. His only “crime”, however, has been to expose the NSA’s massive electronic spying operations against the entire American population as well as people and governments around the world in breach of the US Constitution and international law. ■ Russian President Vladimir Putin responded yesterday, dismissing Washington’s accusations that the government was aiding a fugitive as “ravings and rubbish.” He pointed out that Snowden, who is currently in the transit area of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport, had not entered Russia and had broken no Russian law. The US has no extradition treaty with Russia.

The Guardian: US [arrogantly] warns Moscow not to let Edward Snowden escape Russia

Paul Craig Roberts: A New Beginning Without Washington’s Sanctimonious Mask - Secretary of State John Kerry has been issuing warnings hand over fist. He has threatened Russia, China, Ecuador, and every country that aids and abets Snowden’s escape from the Washington Stasi. Those who don’t do Washington’s bidding, Kerry declared, will suffer adverse impacts on their relationship with the US. What a stupid thing for Kerry to say! Here is a guy who once was for peace but who has been turned by NSA spying on his personal affairs into an asset for the NSA. Try to realize the extraordinary arrogance and hubris in Kerry’s threat that China, Russia, and other countries will suffer bad relations with the US. Kerry is saying that amerika doesn’t have to care whether “the indispensable people” have bad relations with other countries, but those countries have to be concerned if they have bad relations with the “indispensable country.” What an arrogant posture for the US government to present to the world!

Former NSA contractor Snowden remains in the transit zone of a Moscow airport. President Putin said that Snowden never crossed the Russian border and doesn’t fall under any extradition treaty. He called accusations against Russia “nonsense and rubbish.” - “It is true that Snowden has arrived to Moscow, and it really came as a surprise for us. He arrived as a transit passenger, and didn't need a [Russian] visa, or any other documents. As a transit passenger he is entitled to buy a ticket and fly to wherever he wants,” Vladimir Putin said as he spoke to journalists in Finland. Edward Snowden is still at the transit area of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport, Putin stressed. He said that any accusations against Russia are “nonsense and rubbish,” as the former NSA contractor “has not crossed” the Russian border. The President also pointed out that there is no extradition treaty between Russia and the US, which makes it impossible to extradite people like Snowden. Snowden “has not committed any crime” on Russian soil, Putin added. Russian security agencies “have never worked with and are not working with” the former CIA employee, he also stressed. "Snowden is a free person. The sooner he chooses his final destination, the better it is for him and Russia," Putin said. He also expressed hope that the Snowden saga would not have any negative impact on Russian-American relations and that the US "will understand this.”

China rebuked the United States on Tuesday for accusing it of facilitating the flight of fugitive U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden, and said suggestions that it had done so were "baseless and unacceptable". - The remarks from the Chinese foreign ministry and earlier comments from state media have underscored the strain in ties between the two countries since Snowden, who is wanted by the U.S. government on charges of espionage, fled Hong Kong on Sunday. The White House said the decision by the Chinese territory to allow Snowden to leave was "a deliberate choice by the government to release a fugitive despite a valid arrest warrant, and that decision unquestionably has a negative impact on the U.S.-China relationship. China rejected the accusation.

Russia Today: ‘Mad invader, eavesdropper’: China slams US after Snowden accusations

Peter Symonds: US issues threats to China, Russia over Snowden - Speaking from New Delhi, US Secretary of State John Kerry warned Moscow that there would be “without doubt ... consequences” if Russian authorities did not give up Snowden. “They are on notice with respect to our desires. It would be deeply disappointing if he was wilfully allowed to board an aeroplane,” he declared. Kerry’s appeal for Russia “to live by the standards of the law” was utterly hypocritical given that Snowden has revealed through his actions massive and illegal spying operations on the population of the United States and the world.

The Taoiseach and sections of the media may want to pull the wool over people’s eyes, but in reality, Obama is no friend of the Irish people, writes Clare Daly. - WHAT was really so “outrageous” about the points I made [video] regarding the visit of President Obama and the G8 summit on Tuesday morning? Of course the Obamas, like anyone else, have a right to visit our country and enjoy the benefits we have to offer. However, we cannot afford to let a sideshow develop whereby the situation becomes completely depoliticised. I criticised the sycophantic behaviour of members of the Irish Government during the visit because quite frankly, I like many others, felt that it was an embarrassing display. It was almost reminiscent of the old days of subservient tugging of the forelock as your feudal overlord pays you a visit. Of course none of the other G8 leaders are any better, but then the media did not feel the need to parade stories of what these people ate for lunch on every front page across the country. ■ The Taoiseach and sections of the media may want to continue to pull the wool over people’s eyes when it comes to the Obamas, but in reality, Obama is no friend of peace or the Irish people. When Ireland, in talks with the troika in 2010, attempted to repudiate some of the illegitimate banking debt, it was Obama who instructed Timothy Geithner to derail any deal to burn the bondholders and insisted they should be repaid in full. That intervention, by the United States, meant that the entire cost of the bank bailout was loaded on to the Irish people.

Russia Today: ‘Hypocrite of the century’: Irish MP blasts US president’s G8 visit