Braving southern summer heat, humidity and waving signs, including “First the Great Recession, Now the Great Regression,” more than 2,000 North Carolinians gathered at the state Capitol in Raleigh at the 11th Moral Monday to protest extreme actions of the legislature and Gov. Pat McCrory (R).

With the focus on women’s issues—especially women’s health care—more than 100 people, including about 70 women, were arrested for civil disobedience when they refused to leave the General Assembly building.

Today’s Moral Monday action in Raleigh, N.C., will focus on women’s issues. It is the 11th Moral Monday event to protest the extreme actions of the legislature and Gov. Pat McCrory (R). Says the Rev. William Barber II, president of the North Carolina NAACP:

Women are speaking out on unemployment, poverty, Medicaid, voting rights, women's rights and education from a moral and constitutional perspective. 

The District of Columbia City Council today didn’t pay Walmart’s “blackmail” demand and instead told the giant retailer that if it wants to operate within the District, it must pay its workers a living wage.

In an 8–5 vote the council approved a measure that sets a $12.50 an hour wage for workers in “big box” stores like Walmart. The vote came the day after Walmart sent squad of high-level executives from its Arkansas headquarters to try and strong-arm council members to defeat the living wage bill.

Rhode Island appears set to become the third state to require paid family leave for private employees after the State House approved the legislation on Tuesday.  The bill passed the Senate several days ago. The Senate has to approve a technical change in the House bill and then the legislation goes on to Gov. Lincoln Chafee (D), who is expected to sign it.  

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon (D) vetoed a bill on Tuesday that would've created a database of information on all Missouri residents who have filed workers' compensation claims for workplace injuries. The database would have made the personal information of the program filers available to private employers. Nixon said the proposed database is an "affront" to the privacy rights of the state's citizens.

The Rhode Island State Senate passed legislation that would grant 80% of the state's workers access to paid family leave, allowing them to take paid time off for a new child or to care for family members. The House now must take up the bill before it adjourns in the next few days. If it passes, Rhode Island would become the third state, after California and New Jersey, to offer such a plan.

Nineteen Arizona firefighters, 18 from an elite wildfire unit, were killed Sunday in an out-of-control blaze about 80 miles north of Phoenix. The members of the Prescott Fire Department’s Granite Mountain Interagency Hotshot Crew team were dispatched to the front lines of the Yarnell Hill fire to establish a fire line to try to slow fire that reportedly had wind-driven flames as high as 20 feet.

Chris Hall, a teacher at a school in Dorchester, Mass., and a member of the Boston Teachers Union/AFT Local 66, is making art with students with autism—and his students are making impressive strides, thanks to his unique teaching gifts.

“Chris brought something out of my child and out of our kids at the Lee School. He made the impossible possible,” said Liz Gomes. Her son, nine-year-old Mason, is one of Hall’s students. Non-verbal until the age of five, Mason deals with autism and ADHD.

Following the U.S. Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling in the Shelby County v. Holder case striking down a portion of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), several states immediately took steps to increase voter suppression efforts. The court ruled unconstitutional the formula used to determine which states and locales needed to get preclearance from the Department of Justice before making changes in voting process. In recent years, Republicans have ramped up efforts to limit the right to vote, particularly through the use of voter identification laws that require eligible voters to purchase state-issued IDs before they can cast their ballots.

On Thursday morning, the New York City Council overrode a veto by Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I) to pass a new paid sick days requirement for businesses with more than 15 employees. Employees at those businesses will earn five paid sick days each year. The law will be implemented in 2014 and initially it will apply to companies with 20 or more employees; after a year and a half it will apply to businesses with 15 or more workers. Smaller businesses will be required to provide their employees with five unpaid sick days. The victory for both workers and consumers makes New York the largest city with a paid sick days requirement.