Jonathan Drew | Associated Press

Alan and Elise Thompson issued the statement through a lawyer that acknowledges the pain caused by their son, Austin, and expresses grief for the five killed on Thursday, including their other teenage son, 16-year-old James.

It's a victory for the state NAACP, which said it shows that “rigging elections by trampling on the rights of Black voters has consequences.”

North Carolina’s Supreme Court opened the door Friday to nullifying a voter ID mandate approved by citizens in 2018. The court's 4-3 majority said lawmakers who put it on the ballot were elected from districts tainted by illegal racial bias.

Republican lawmakers in North Carolina have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to curtail the powers of state courts to intervene in the drawing of congressional districts. The renewed effort is not expected to change maps for the current election cycle.

Walter E. Dellinger has died. The noted constitutional scholar argued numerous cases before the Supreme Court, served in top positions in the Justice Department and was a professor at Duke Law School. He died Wednesday in Chapel Hill at 80.

A federal judge has ruled that North Carolina’s flagship public university may continue to consider race as a factor in its undergraduate admissions. The ruling goes against a group working to undo affirmative action.

District Attorney Andrew Womble said Andrew Brown Jr.'s actions caused deputies to believe it was necessary to use deadly force. Brown ignored deputies' commands to stop and began to drive his car directly at one of the officers, Womble told a news conference.

Lawyers for relatives of Andrew Brown Jr., a Black man fatally shot by deputies, said Tuesday that body camera videos show that he didn’t strike them with his car before they opened fire, contradicting a local prosecutor.

A judge has denied requests to release body camera video in the case of a Black man who killed by North Carolina deputies. The decision came shortly after a North Carolina prosecutor said that Andrew Brown Jr. had hit law enforcement officers with his car before they opened fire.

A funeral will be held next week for Andrew Brown Jr., a Black man shot and killed by North Carolina deputies, with the Rev. Al Sharpton delivering the eulogy.