Justice
July 14, 2016 -
Alton Sterling was shot to death by police outside a Baton Rouge convenience store while selling CDs to get by. With a felony conviction on his record, Sterling faced significant employment barriers — but efforts are underway in Louisiana and elsewhere to dismantle at least some of them through so-called "ban the box" laws.
July 12, 2016 -
The Baton Rouge Police Department, under fire for a militarized response to protests over last week's police shooting of Alton Sterling, is among the Louisiana law enforcement agencies that got surplus military gear through the Defense Department's 1033 program.
July 8, 2016 -
With federal officials saying they've found nothing to prove the 2014 hanging death of the 17-year-old North Carolina youth was not self-inflicted, his death joins a list of other hangings of black men that have been ruled suicides despite suspicions of foul play. Another happened just this week in Atlanta.
July 8, 2016 -
A charitable nonprofit is paying for TV and web ads that urge Attorney General Roy Cooper — a Democrat challenging incumbent Republican Pat McCrory for governor — to defend the state's controversial HB2, which he's called unconstitutional. How does a charity get away with what looks like political advertising?
July 1, 2016 -
As the U.S. celebrates its 240th Independence Day, Frederick Douglass' 1852 speech "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July" serves as a reminder that there are still those who are excluded from the American dream.
July 1, 2016 -
This week the U.S. Supreme Court struck down two Texas laws that created significant barriers to women's reproductive freedom. The ruling immediately resulted in similar laws being scrapped in other states including Alabama and Mississippi, and more could fall.
June 30, 2016 -
In Southern battleground states, the growing Latino electorate could be a decisive voting bloc — and especially motivated after last week's 4-4 Supreme Court deadlock effectively halted President Obama's deportation relief programs.
