Across the South, Republicans are working to take advantage of a new political landscape after a divided U.S. Supreme Court freed all or part of 15 states, many of them in the old Confederacy, from having to ask Washington's permission before changing election procedures in jurisdictions with histories of discrimination.
After the high court announced its momentous ruling Tuesday, officials in Texas and Mississippi pledged to immediately implement laws requiring voters to show photo identification before getting a ballot. North Carolina Republicans promised they would quickly try to adopt a similar law. Florida now appears free to set its early voting hours however Gov. Rick Scott and the GOP Legislature please. And Georgia's most populous county likely will use county commission districts that Republican state legislators drew over the objections of local Democrats.
Helped by a marathon speech, Texas Democrats have managed to block a bill that would shut most of the abortion clinics in the state.
Democratic state Senator Wendy Davis spoke for more than 10 hours, in a stalling speech known as a filibuster, at the state capitol in Austin.
Republicans then scrambled to pass the bill, but the vote was ruled too late for a midnight deadline.
The bill would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy.
In his first public comments on the case, Mr. Putin said that Mr. Snowden — the former National Security Agency contractor who leaked documents about American surveillance programs — had committed no crime on Russian soil and was "a free man" who could choose his own destination. "We can only extradite some foreign nationals to the countries with which we have the relevant international agreements on extradition," he added. "With the United States, we have no such agreement."
