Politics
August 14, 2014 -
The 60 Plus Association shelled out $11 million in independent expenditures in the 2010 and 2012 election cycles but didn't account for the spending in reports to the IRS. The nonprofit, funded by the billionaire Koch brothers and the oil and gas industry, is spending heavily to defeat Democratic U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan of North Carolina in her race against Republican state House Speaker Thom Tillis.
August 12, 2014 -
Last week a federal judge denied a request to block North Carolina's restrictive new voting law from being enforced for this November's election. Voting rights activists say they'll redouble efforts to register African-American voters and help them turn out, with a mass voting rights rally planned for Raleigh on Aug. 28 -- the 51st anniversary of the March on Washington.
August 11, 2014 -
To mark International Youth Day, a personal finance website looked at living and economic conditions for young people in the United States. The findings do not reflect well on the South.
August 8, 2014 -
Proponents of voter ID laws say they're needed to prevent fraud, but a study of all reported cases of the kind of fraud they address found just 31 credible incidents over 14 years out of a billion ballots cast. But about 3,000 votes have been rejected for lack of ID in just four states with the nation's strictest voter ID laws, with blacks and the poor most at risk of disenfranchisement.
August 7, 2014 -
This week Gov. Pat McCrory announced that his budget director, conservative mega-donor and businessman Art Pope, will resign. The move frees Pope to resume leadership in the political influence machine he's built just in time for the fall elections.
August 7, 2014 -
A national coalition of young racial justice organizers has launched a public education campaign to change how young people think about voting and boost turnout for this year's election. The #KnowYourPower campaign will use social media to reach millennials, the demographic cohort whose starting birth year is usually identified as 1982.
August 1, 2014 -
At the same time North Carolina legislators are cutting funding for programs due to a $1.5 billion budget shortfall caused by tax cuts, they want to pay for new State Board of Elections positions to investigate voter fraud -- despite ample evidence showing it's not a problem.
