trump administration

June 17, 2020 - This week marks five years since the racist massacre of black worshippers at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. The grim anniversary finds America in turmoil over police violence and a global pandemic that also reveals our racial divisions. While we tend to think our nation's story is always getting better, recent events make that hope hard to sustain, writes South Carolina native John Cooper.

April 24, 2020 - A decade after the BP oil spill set off an environmental health disaster in communities across the Gulf Coast, the company and the rest of the U.S. oil and gas industry continue to inflict pain on vulnerable populations across the South — and they're now implicated in raising the death rate from the novel coronavirus in African-American communities across Louisiana.

December 20, 2019 - The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to soon hand down its decision over continuing an Obama-era program giving temporary reprieve from deportation to immigrants brought to the country as children. Nearly one-third of the program's active beneficiaries live in Southern states.  

November 18, 2019 - The Trump administration is taking comments on proposals to ease coal ash regulations that the EPA adopted after the catastrophic 2008 spill at a Tennessee Valley Authority power plant in East Tennessee. Critics say the proposed rules would take a toll on public health by allowing more pollution, and on the public purse by letting utilities shift costs.

September 12, 2019 - The more intense hurricanes now developing due to human-driven global warming are causing widespread pain throughout the U.S. South. But current policy choices mean some communities suffer more than others — and that environmental injustice will be among the topics addressed during this month's climate strike and U.N. climate summit.

September 9, 2019 - Neil Jacobs, the federal agency's acting head, was reportedly one of the people behind its controversial statement that attempted to lend credibility to the president's incorrect claim that the storm would impact Alabama. He was assisted by Julie Kay Roberts, the NOAA chief of staff and communications director who previously worked for the Trump campaign.

August 16, 2019 - In less than a month's time, the U.S. immigrant community has been devastated by a mass shooting in Texas carried out by a white supremacist inspired by Trump's rhetoric and an ICE raid that ripped apart families in Mississippi. Now, a new rule from the Trump administration declares poor immigrants as unworthy of green cards — but it's facing legal challenges.