north carolina

May 25, 2018 - Because 90 percent of those who fall in the Medicaid coverage gap reside in the South, thousands of Southerners have already died because of a lack of health care access. Now Southern states are beginning to adopt Medicaid work requirements that will strip many of their health care coverage. 

May 24, 2018 - A key permit voided. An environmental justice complaint. Accusations of fraud. In recent weeks, Dominion and Duke Energy's proposed pipeline to carry fracked gas from West Virginia at least as far south as North Carolina has faced several setbacks. But the developers plan on moving ahead with the $6.5 billion project anyway — and they're investing in creating a political climate favorable to those plans.

May 17, 2018 - The state's public schoolteachers held a historic march to the legislature this week to demand higher pay and per-pupil spending — the latest in a series of teacher revolts that have won policy changes in states including Kentucky and West Virginia.

May 11, 2018 - With protests ongoing over the planned Bayou Bridge oil pipeline, the Louisiana legislature advanced a bill this week creating new crimes with stiff penalties for conspiracy to trespass on pipeline property — part of a broader trend of states and the federal government targeting protest actions.

May 10, 2018 - As federal courts have released some school districts from orders requiring desegregation, schools in the South have become more racially segregated than they've been in 50 years. Trump's judicial nominees and his Department of Justice could make things worse.

May 4, 2018 - The plaintiffs in the historic federal nuisance lawsuit against the hog industry's waste disposal practices in North Carolina could face complications in collecting the $50 million verdict because of an industry-promoted state law that limits punitive damages. Their attorneys are challenging the law's constitutionality.

April 27, 2018 - A federal appeals court recently ruled that Florida can keep its harsh re-enfranchisement system in place. But a November ballot referendum there could lead to reforms, which have also recently come to states including Alabama and Virginia.

April 27, 2018 - Armed with a new study documenting the deadly poverty that plagues the U.S., coalitions in at least 40 states — including every state in the South — are preparing for 40 days of direct action to demand an end to public policies that hurt the most vulnerable. 

April 25, 2018 - The first peer-reviewed study of ads bought on Facebook to influence the 2016 election is renewing calls for Congress to pass the Honest Ads Act, which would close disclosure loopholes for political ads on social media. The stalled bill is opposed by groups including Americans for Prosperity and an anti-regulatory think tank with a connection to Senate leader Mitch McConnell.

April 19, 2018 - A law targeting white-supremacist terrorism is being used to sue a conservative Virginia activist who falsely accused people of voting illegally — the latest example of how the Reconstruction-era statute remains relevant today.