north carolina

January 26, 2018 - A proposed constitutional amendment would give the state legislature control over choosing judges — a power it has not had since the Civil War.

January 19, 2018 - Federal funding for the Children's Health Insurance Program, which covers nearly 3 million children in the South, isn't guaranteed for every state past Jan. 19. If Congress fails to find a fix, the results would be disastrous in a region consistently ranked low for children's health outcomes.

January 18, 2018 - Thomas Farr's nomination to serve as a federal judge in eastern North Carolina has met opposition because of his involvement in efforts to suppress the African-American vote. Less well-known are his efforts to quash workers' organizing rights.

January 16, 2018 - Split precincts where some voters cast ballots in one race and some in another are to blame for the chaos in a critical Virginia House race that's still being contested in the courts — and the problem is even worse in some other heavily gerrymandered states like North Carolina.

January 5, 2018 - The Trump administration announced an aggressive proposal to bring offshore drilling to Southern states where governors oppose it, despite a federal law that says their wishes should be considered. Governors, both Democrat and Republican, say they plan to fight it.

December 15, 2017 - The project's developers are airing TV commercials claiming that the fracked-gas pipeline would be an economic boon for North Carolina. But a new economic analysis adds to a growing body of evidence that calls those claims into question.

December 15, 2017 - Over half of the South's governor's offices, six of its U.S. Senate seats, and all of its U.S. House seats are up for grabs next year. We run down the races to keep an eye on.

November 29, 2017 - The North Carolina Commission of Inquiry on Torture will hold public hearings in Raleigh this week on the state's complicity in the Bush-era program, under a new president who wants to bring torture back.

November 21, 2017 - Striking farmworkers in Kentucky recently won a settlement over wage-theft claims, and now a farmworkers' union is suing North Carolina over a new law that curbs the group's organizing power.

November 17, 2017 - This month's elections in Georgia and Virginia showed that Democrats can make inroads in Southern state legislatures, but gerrymandering still tilts the field in favor of Republicans.