U.S. top court backs review of Virginia voting districts in race case

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday told a lower court in a voting rights case to reassess whether Virginia's Republican-led legislature unlawfully tried to dilute the clout of black voters when it drew a series of state legislative districts. A group of voters who filed the legal challenge said the lawmakers improperly considered race as a factor when mapping boundaries of state House of Delegates voting districts. A federal district court in 2015 upheld 12 districts, but the justices directed a three-judge panel of the lower court to take a fresh look at the propriety of 11 of those.