Politics

January 27, 2023 - The North Carolina Utilities Commission's newly adopted plan to limit Duke Energy's climate-disrupting pollution calls for new gas-burning plants — even though they leak methane, a greenhouse gas that in the short term is even more potent than carbon. Forty-five scientists recently called Duke's planned gas expansion "entirely indefensible from a climate and public health perspective," and advocates vowed to fight the proposed plants.

January 27, 2023 - Republican state lawmakers across the South are creating harsh new penalties for even minor voting infractions — an effort that advocates worry could curb the surge in electoral participation the region has experienced in recent years.

January 26, 2023 - MacArthur "genius award" winner Loretta Ross helped launch the reproductive justice movement and co-founded SisterSong, a Georgia-based nonprofit that works to improve systems impacting the reproductive lives of marginalized communities. Facing South spoke with the professor and public intellectual about conditions post-Roe — and how Southern legislatures that oppose abortion can make parenting easier. 

January 24, 2023 - The poverty rate for people with disabilities is more than double that of our nondisabled counterparts, and the disparity is being driven by state policy choices that force us into institutions unnecessarily and allow employers to pay us subminimum wages. Some Southern states have already embraced reforms, and others should act now.

January 13, 2023 - The Food and Drug Administration is now allowing pharmacies to stock the abortion medication mifepristone. But most Southern states have near-total abortion bans while the rest restrict abortion pill access, so the decision does not make it easier for most residents seeking to terminate pregnancies.

January 13, 2023 - Formerly a reporter for the Chatham News + Record and editor of UNC's The Daily Tar Heel, Devarajan is the latest recipient of a fellowship created to support a new generation of social change journalists. The program honors Julian Bond, the civil rights veteran and journalist who cofounded the Institute for Southern Studies, the nonprofit publisher of Facing South.

January 12, 2023 - After another contentious U.S. Senate runoff election in Georgia, state officials are reckoning with a cumbersome and expensive system that's rooted in Jim Crow, and that burdens voters and taxpayers.