Institute Index

March 28, 2014 - This week Amnesty International released its annual report on the death penalty worldwide, finding that the United States executes more people than just four other countries -- China, Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. It also shows that when it comes to state-sanctioned killing, the U.S. South is an outlier among outliers.

March 21, 2014 - Legal and regulatory pressure is building against North Carolina-based Duke Energy over its chronic mismanagement of toxic waste from coal-fired power plants. Meanwhile, environmental watchdogs using a hidden camera busted a Kentucky utility illegally dumping coal ash wastewater into the Ohio River.

March 13, 2014 - This week Glenn Ford, a black man wrongfully convicted of murder by an all-white jury in Louisiana, was freed after spending 30 years on death row at the state's notorious Angola penitentiary. What did he endure in a place where a federal judge has ruled conditions amount to "cruel and unusual punishment"?

March 7, 2014 - Given its tendency to contaminate water, coal ash is an obvious environmental issue. But its disproportionate impacts on low-income communities and people of color also make it a justice issue.

February 26, 2014 - Critical equipment at Florida Power & Light's St. Lucie nuclear plant on the Atlantic Coast near Fort Pierce, Fla. is showing worrisome signs of premature wear and tear -- a problem similar to one that resulted in a radioactive release at California's San Onofre nuclear plant, leading to its permanent shutdown.

February 21, 2014 - This week the Congressional Budget Office released an analysis that claimed raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour would reduce total employment. But many economic experts disagree -- including seven Nobel Prize winners and eight former presidents of the American Economic Association.

February 13, 2014 - Following Duke Energy's massive coal ash spill into the Dan River, North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R) has come under scrutiny for his unusually close relationship with the utility giant. We take a by-the-numbers look at just how tight they are.