Across the country, 23 Republicans running for Congress in 2008 fared worse than John McCain did in their districts -- and the majority were in the South. More...

Georgia's Department of Human Resources is considering privatizing much or all of its public mental health hospital network and closing its mental health facilities in cities like Savannah and Augusta. More...

From 2002 to 2007, the coal power industry's annual spending on lobbying was $93,000. In 2008, it spent more than 100 times that -- not counting the additional $38 million for so-called "clean coal" ads. More...

The FBI is examining whether civil rights laws were violated in the case of Henry Glover, a New Orleans resident whose charred body was found shortly after Hurricane Katrina hit in August, 2005. More...

Far-right commentators are blaming "illegal aliens" for the subprime mortgage meltdown and subsequent crisis. They're not telling the truth. More...

A new study finds that payday lending debt traps overwhelmingly cluster in African-American and Latino neighborhoods, stripping millions from these communities annually. More...

While governors of several Southern states turn down millions in federal stimulus funds, the residents of those states continue to experience some of the worse economic fallout from the current recession. More...

In the latest batch of data released last week by the U.S. Census Bureau, Raleigh has taken over Atlanta as the nation's fastest growing metro area. More...

FEMA finally hit the send button on a database the CDC needs to start a study on the health of children who lived in formaldehyde-contaminated trailers after Hurricane Katrina. More...

John Hope Franklin, one of the nation's most prominent historians of life in the South and the African-American experience, died Wednesday in Durham, N.C. of heart failure. More...

The Department of Justice has accused election officials in Clay County, Kentucky with changing election results on electronic voting machines -- the first federal charges ever brought for e-vote tampering. Christian Smith-Socaris reports. More...

Historian Kieran Taylor remembers a relentless champion for working-class culture and a driving force behind the American Folklife Center. More...

As Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainee population booms in the U.S., medical care in detention has become a critical issue. Some recent cases of immigrant deaths while in custody might be just the tip of the iceberg. Cheryl Little reports. More...

The move cuts disposal costs for uranium enrichment companies but calls into question the NRC's respect for scientific integrity. More...

Freddie Mac awarded a contract to a Florida-based subprime loan servicer with a history of customer dissatisfaction and run-ins with the government for a pilot program to help 5,000 homeowners. More...

As concerns about reliance on foreign energy resources increase and states try to reduce carbon emissions and expand renewable energy use, the idea of public financing for home solar systems has been gaining momentum. More...

While the research will go on in other states, the recent Georgia stem-cell bill is the wrong message for the state to be sending to sufferers of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. Georgia State Senators Tim Golden and Doug Stoner give their take on the proposed ban. More...

The Environmental Protection Agency has issued letters aimed at slowing down the issuance of such mining permits in West Virginia and Kentucky -- and it says reviews of other permit requests are planned. More...

Corporate lobbies have stepped up their work against the Employee Free Choice Act, claiming the bill would enable union leaders to intimidate and coerce workers into supporting the union. But more and more research shows that it's the bosses who do the intimidating. More...

When it comes to union organizing, are elections the problem, or is it the very uneven playing field on which they're held, where the employer has all the advantages? Labor Notes talks with Gene Bruskin, who coordinated the union campaign at the Smithfield Foods hog butcher in Tar Heel, North Carolina. More...

Zephyr Teachout has helped launch a group that believes banks should never be allowed to get 'too big to fail' -- and is organizing demonstrations across the South and country on April 11 to make the case. More...

Exxon Mobil reported 2008 profits of $45.2 billion -- yet it's facing a fine of only $5,000 for worker safety violations at its Louisiana refinery during Hurricane Gustav, and it has failed to pay $92 million it still owes for the Exxon Valdez disaster. More...

Some three and a half years after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans residents will finally get a chance to put the Army Corps of Engineers on trial. More...

Why would companies dining at the public trough turn around and bite the hand that feeds them? Phil Mattera of Dirt Diggers Digest reports. More...

The civil action against CACI International over its interrogations at Iraq's notorious Abu Ghraib prison could have important ramifications for other government contractors. More...

A look at the AIG bailout by the numbers. More...

Since President Obama lifted Bush-era restrictions on federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research, the fight against the practice has shifted to states including Georgia, Mississippi and Texas, reports Adam Thompson of the Progressive States Network. More...

The Southern Poverty Law Center says the number of hate groups is growing -- fueled in part by anger over immigration, the economy and the election of President Obama. More...

Southern politicians are among the most vocal critics of federal stimulus programs today. In the 1930s, Southern leaders saw public investment as the key to economic prosperity. What happened? More...

Outraged by the decision, environmental advocates plan civil disobedience over the company's Cliffside plant next month. More...

Business groups are saying the Employee Free Choice Act would mean "the end of civilization as we know it." Institute director Chris Kromm talks on GRITtv about myths and realities behind the labor legislation. More...

Arkansas will be pushed into the spotlight as the battle over the Employee Free Choice Act heats up in Congress -- where the state's two senators may hold deciding swing votes deciding the bill's fate. More...

The federal agency charged with protecting the public from pollution is accused of suppressing research suggesting a possible link between waste-coal-burning power plants and blood cancer. More...

Seven Southern states received at least $100 million each thanks to taxpayer bailout money passed through insurance giant AIG. More...

Could tapping the ocean's currents represent the energy wave of the future? More...

A corporate-backed study claiming to prove the Employee Free Choice Act would cost 600,000 jobs has drawn widespread criticism for its bias and shaky research -- but that hasn't stopped some in the media and Congress from using it to oppose the labor bill. More...

Did you know that pro-union workers were illegally fired in 30 percent of U.S. union election campaigns in 2007 -- and that this number has been steadily rising in recent years? Read on for more eye-opening figures that illustrate why labor is pushing for the Employee Free Choice Act. More...

Passing voter ID laws is quickly becoming one of the GOP's top issues for the 2009 legislative session. From Texas to South Carolina, lawmakers are working to see the controversial voter laws take root in the South. More...

In a case from North Carolina, the high court ruled that the Voting Rights Act protects the voting power of minority groups only when they make up the majority of a legislative district's electorate, Christian Smith-Socaris of the Progressive States Network reports. More...

Last week Tennessee Valley Authority police arrested a UMD volunteer for trespassing after he gave a partially blind grandmother a ride to her home near the site of the company's massive ash spill. An attorney for the group says the arrest is part of a pattern of police harassment of activists since the disaster. More...

The rural Tennessee native who helped found the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Color of Change and Green For All will advise President Obama on green jobs creation. More...

A study claiming a labor bill before Congress would destroy 600,000 jobs is being seized on by business groups and the media. But few have mentioned the corporate interests backing the report -- and no one is looking at the shaky research itself. More...

As crackdowns on illegal immigrants continue to escalate in Nashville, Tenn., local ethnic media are leading an effort to end the detentions - even as some of them struggle for their own survival. More...

It was a long time ago. But it hasn't gone away. An Emory University film scholar has written a new book that examines just where fact, fiction and debate converge in the true-life story of the deaths Leo Frank and Mary Phagan. More...

The U.S. Senate's anti-union Southerners show how the region's conservatism preserves a status quo that serves elite interests, says University of Mississippi Prof. Joseph B. Atkins. More...

The latest American Religious Identification Survey finds the number of non-Catholic Christians declining in every Southern state except Louisiana. More...

Under the leadership of Gov. Steve Beshear, will the Bluegrass State change its official song to "My Green Kentucky Home"? More...

Latino voters didn't make up a huge share of North Carolina voters in 2009. But Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling says they're growing -- especially in places that are trending to the Democrats. More...

D.C. parents were outraged by reports today that Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) allegedly claimed public school kids are more likely to join gangs than graduate. DeMint says it was a mis-quote, but what's the reality behind public schools in D.C. -- and South Carolina? More...

The debate over mountaintop removal mining is heating up: Federal lawmakers introduced a bill to end the practice, a Jesuit school has divested holdings in a major mountaintop removal company, and Kentucky native Ashley Judd is speaking out. More...

President Obama named one of the nation's most experienced hurricane managers to direct the troubled Federal Emergency Management Agency. More...

Facing massive budget crises, states are beginning to move away from the "lock-'em-up" approach to crime. Is the South ready to make the shift? More...

An audit finds widespread credit card abuse at the federal corporation, while lawsuits pile up and demands mount for tougher regulation of coal ash. More...

Lawmakers in the Lone Star State are feuding over how infrastructure stimulus dollars will be spent, reports Michael Grabell of ProPublica. Has the state broken the law by failing to direct the money to economically distressed areas? More...

There has been ample grumbling from bankers who took the Treasury Department's money. ProPublica reports on the first bank to actually follow through and return the money. More...

Climate justice activists are following in the footsteps of Martin Luther King Jr. today by engaging in mass civil disobedience to demand U.S. action on global warming. More...

Georgia lawmakers approved Georgia Power's plan to force customers to pay for nuclear reactors that haven't been built yet -- and may never be built. Is a similar scheme afoot in your state? More...