Economy

March 31, 2017 - The main contractor for four nuclear reactors under construction in Georgia and South Carolina declared itself broke this week due to massive cost overruns on the projects. Ratepayers have already forked over billions of dollars for the long-delayed reactors, but their future is now uncertain.

March 30, 2017 - At the time of his assassination, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was in Memphis, Tennessee, preparing to march with the city's striking sanitation workers. Labor protests on the anniversary of his death next week will continue the work he was doing during his final days to connect race and class.

March 29, 2017 - Following Congress's failure to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal announced he was exploring Medicaid expansion under the law while Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe renewed his expansion quest. They join North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, who announced earlier this month that he'd seek to join the four other Southern states that have already expanded the program.

March 24, 2017 - Groups representing some of the most embattled workers and marginalized communities in the South and nation have called a general strike for May 1 to send a message to the Trump administration and its corporate allies. It's the biggest effort of its kind in 70 years.

March 22, 2017 - Congress created the Appalachian Regional Commission and the Delta Regional Authority to promote economic development in two of the nation's most economically distressed regions, but President Trump has proposed ending the agencies' modest funding altogether.

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 10, 2017 - President Trump is cheering Exxon Mobil's plans for a $20 billion expansion along the Gulf Coast. But what will that mean for the people who have to live with the pollution given Trump's other plans to gut the EPA and close its environmental justice office?

March 9, 2017 - An immigration raid at a Mexican restaurant in West Virginia this week led to the arrest of three men who now face deportation. While some locals cheered the action as a solution to the state's economic crisis, facts show that's a delusion.

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 2, 2017 - Hundreds of workers and civil rights advocates plan to march to the Nissan factory in Canton, Mississippi, this Saturday and call on the automaker to respect employees' right to a union election free from intimidation. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and actor and activist Danny Glover will lead the protest.