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--Several thousand people joined forces for the sixth annual Historic Thousands on Jones Street rally, where a broad alliance cheered for a long list of causes, including more lenient immigration laws, increased education spending, protection of unions, reduction of the wealth gap, and resistance to the state's proposed amendment to ban same-sex marriage.

The overriding message of the rally, organized by state and national NAACP leaders, was that North Carolina's Republican-led legislature has infringed on the rights of underrepresented groups, from gay people to victims of racially tainted convictions. Read more here and click this for a photo gallery.

--If you want learn how to protect a bank, you ask a famous bank robber like Willie Sutton. If you want to know how to clean up Washington, you ask Jack Abramoff. Read Rob Christensen's column about Abramoff here.

--What can Charlotte expect to unfold on its uptown streets should thousands of protesters arrive for September's Democratic National Convention? The Observer reviewed what happened in four convention host cities since 2004. Before those events, organizers promised minimal disruptions, free expression and business-friendly climates. But in a number of ways, promises fell short of what actually happened. Read more here.

Opponents of legislative and congressional districts either disregard or don't understand the law when they criticize the maps Republicans have drawn, lawyers for the state and GOP leaders said in court Thursday.

A three-judge panel heard arguments in the state and the GOP's motion to dismiss a lawsuit over new district maps that opponents say illegally separate voters by race. The Superior Court judges did not issue a decision. Read more here.

The latest in a long history of legal battles over North Carolina voting districts starts today with the first of two legal challenges to the state's new voting plans.

A group of Democratic activists is expected to file suit today in Wake County Superior Court. A coalition of groups including the NAACP and the N.C. League of Women Voters plans to file Friday.

The suits come on the heels of the U.S. Justice Department's approval of the plans that redraw legislative and congressional voting districts for the next decade.

The districts were the first in a century drawn by a Republican-controlled legislature. Most analysts say they give the GOP an electoral edge.

North Carolina has fought legal battles over voting districts since 1981. Several cases have wound up in the U.S. Supreme Court. At one point, no congressional district in the country had been litigated as much as the 12th District, represented by Charlotte Democrat Mel Watt.

Republicans also are confident of beating back the latest challenges.

"They have a very high hurdle to (leap)," said Rep. David Lewis, a Harnett County Republican who chaired the House redistricting committee. "If the lawsuits are at all like the debate and some of the inflammatory rhetoric that's been falsely lobbed at the plans, I don't think they will get very far." Read more here.

The North Carolina NAACP sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday asking them not to preclear what they call a regressive and racially motivated redistricting plan drafted by the Republican legislature.

In a statement describing the comment letter, the organization said the GOP plan to reconfigure electoral districts violates the 1965 Voting Rights Act, saying it "will be impossible for the state to disprove the unlawful racial motivation and animus or that the plans will not negatively and unlawfully impact minority communities."

The letter is a precursor to a formal lawsuit that is expected to challenge the plan if the federal government does not reject it.

By the NAACP's analysis: "The race-based maps that were rammed through the state legislature this summer by right-wing extremists pack 48 percent of all North Carolina African-American voters into just three U.S. House districts. They try to pack 52 percent of all black voters into just 27 of the 120 state House districts. Their aim is to pack 47 percent of all African-American voters into just 10 state Senate districts. Their maps intentionally split voting districts to bleach out African Americans and other minorities from some, and reassign black voters to others that already have high minority representation."

"We are concerned that these proposed districts are being developed in a manner that have the intent, purpose and effect of segregating minority voters in noncohesive and competing communities of interest and illegally pack and stack minorities into a few 'set-aside' districts which will weaken the minority voice and political influence across the state," said Irving Joyner, an attorney with the organization.