kentucky

April 16, 2013 - President Obama's latest budget proposes privatizing the Tennessee Valley Authority, which has been criticized as a socialist enterprise, yet Southern Republicans are opposing the plan. What's going on here?

January 18, 2013 - Southern states with weak gun laws are a major source of weapons used to commit crimes in other states -- but some of the region's political leaders say they plan to resist new federal initiatives to curb gun violence.

December 21, 2012 - Dec. 22 marks four years since a coal ash impoundment collapsed at a TVA power plant in Tennessee, inundating a community and two rivers. As EPA drags its feet over issuing federal coal ash rules, politicians backed by industry interests are maneuvering to block the agency's ability to protect people and the environment -- even though their states have been adversely affected by poor regulation.

December 14, 2012 - The economic downturn is pushing more U.S. children into poverty, and it's no longer a problem limited mostly to Southern states.

November 30, 2012 - In the wake of the latest election, the number of state legislatures under one-party control is at a historic high -- and half have partisan supermajorities. What does this mean for the future of politics nationally?

November 7, 2012 - Republicans won control of the Arkansas Senate and House for the first time since Reconstruction, while strengthening control in many other Southern statehouses. The "Solid South" is increasingly looking solid red.

October 5, 2012 - Though the South is the U.S. region with the greatest concentration of income inequality, its representatives in Washington are doing a poor job of bridging the gap.

September 24, 2012 - As the boom in oil and gas drilling sends a surge of waste into underground injection wells, safeguards for disposing of these materials are sometimes being ignored or circumvented.

August 13, 2012 - When the CIO launched a campaign to organize Southern workers in 1946, the region's elite fought back by exploiting fears about race and communism -- and fear remains the biggest obstacle to organizing today, as the UAW's campaign to unionize Nissan's Canton, Miss. plant shows.

July 17, 2012 - A new report finds that more than 4 million Southern citizens are blocked from voting by laws that deny citizenship to those with a felony on their record. In a state like Florida, it could tip the election.