north carolina

March 24, 2017 - Though death sentences and executions have decreased nationally in recent years, the South continues to execute people at a disproportionate rate — but the movement to end the death penalty is picking up momentum there.

March 16, 2017 - While the state has seen political battles over promoting renewable energy, voters across the partisan spectrum — including Trump supporters — agree that it should. They're also united in their objection to Duke Energy's coal ash cleanup plans and monopoly status and want to see the state's energy market opened to competition.

March 16, 2017 - A high-profile incident involving a 15-year-old Black student in North Carolina who lashed out against a verbal bully has focused attention on the rise of racist harassment in schools following Trump's election. While some might think words don't actually hurt anyone, studies show otherwise.

March 10, 2017 - Transgender women — and especially trans women of color — face disproportionate violence, with at least seven murders in the U.S. so far this year. Most of these occurred in the South, where state hate crime laws don't cover gender identity, and where lawmakers are stirring up transphobia with so-called "bathroom bills."

March 10, 2017 - Reflecting national trends, many state courts in the South are seeing growing political and partisan attacks on judicial independence.

March 7, 2017 - When it comes to pay equity between women and men, the South lags behind the U.S. overall, where women still earn just 80 cents on average for every $1 a man makes. Equal pay is one of the driving issues behind this week's A Day Without a Woman protest.

March 3, 2017 - With several Southern legislatures considering bills to penalize cities that decline to cooperate with federal immigration authorities, faith leaders and college students are taking steps to protect the undocumented from deportation.

February 22, 2017 - What's being billed as "Resistance Recess" is drawing vocal protesters to public meetings with members of Congress to express their opposition to President Trump and the Republican agenda — and some meetings are going ahead even without lawmakers there.

February 16, 2017 - ICE picked up almost 700 immigrants in operations across Southern states and the country last week, spreading fear in communities but also mobilizing resistance.

February 15, 2017 - Gerrymandering voting district lines is one way to rob political power from people of color, but another is not drawing any lines at all. A lawsuit filed last week is challenging such an at-large voting system in one Eastern North Carolina county — and history suggests the plaintiffs stand a good chance of winning.