Politics

October 16, 2012 - New campaign finance reports offer a glimpse into the backers of the N.C. Judicial Coalition, one of several outside spending groups backing a conservative justice for a tie-breaking seat on the state Supreme Court.

October 16, 2012 - Defend My Dividend calls itself a grassroots campaign to halt a dividend tax hike. But the group's ad buys are linked to trade groups for utilities and other dividend-paying companies.

October 12, 2012 - Voting-rights advocates are challenging North Carolina's new legislative and congressional districts as racially discriminatory.

October 11, 2012 - Civil rights leader Judith Browne Dianis of The Advancement Project makes the case for a new constitutional amendment protecting the right to vote, which most of the world's democracies already have.

October 11, 2012 - The Southern Environmental Law Center has filed a complaint on behalf of four environmental advocacy groups asking state regulators to require cleanup of documented groundwater contamination from coal ash storage ponds at 14 power plants owned by Duke Energy and its Progress Energy subsidiary.

October 10, 2012 - Amidst new controversy over its plan to monitor polls and challenge voters across the country, Texas-based True the Vote has insisted it's "nonpartisan." But recent IRS contribution records undermine that already-shaky claim.

October 9, 2012 - Congressman Paul Broun (R-Ga.) is under fire for recent remarks that evolution, embryology and the Big Bang theory are "lies straight from the pit of hell" -- especially since he's a member of the House Science Committee. But he's not the only member of that group who holds beliefs that put him at odds with mainstream science.