* A Newsweek poll looks at the role of race in the 2008 elections. The survey creates a "Racial Resentment Index" among white voters, based on questions about "racial preferences, interracial marriage, attitudes toward social welfare and general attitudes toward... More...

Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan is making the news show rounds to discuss his new book about the Bush administration's use of propaganda to promote the war against Iraq and its state of denial during the Hurricane Katrina... More...

If the tragic dogfighting case involving football star Michael Vick can be said to have anything resembling a silver lining, maybe this is it.The Humane Society of the United States traveled to Florida's capital this week to unveil a new... More...

William Loren KatzGuest bloggerEarlier this month, Republican Governor Mike Huckabee at the National Rifle Association heard a backstage noise and joked that it was Senator Obama diving to the floor to avoid gunfire.A week later came some imitators: Senator Clinton... More...

Facing South has written extensively about the South's growing clout in national politics -- for example, the fact that the South will gain up to nine Congressional seats and Electoral College votes after the 2010 Census.But will Southern states be... More...

A new study from the Brookings Institution examines the carbon footprint of the nation's 100 largest metropolitan areas -- and finds that Southern cities dominate the list of the biggest carbon emitters.Lexington-Fayette, Ky. tops the roster of the 10 metro... More...

Speaking of housing and health woes in the Gulf, an Associated Press report documents the serious health problems facing children whose families moved into Federal Emergency Management Agency trailers after the disaster. Many of the young trailer dwellers are suffering... More...

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin will deliver his 2008 "State of the City" address this evening at the Port of New Orleans Cruise Terminal, and it's expected to be a boosterish affair, the Times-Picayune reports:"I look forward to speaking again... More...

It's been eight months since over 40,000 demonstrators descended on the small town of Jena, Louisiana to protest the case of the Jena 6. But the six African-American youth who were originally charged with attempted second-degree murder in the infamous... More...

Scott McClellan, the Texas native who served as White House press secretary from July 2003 to April 2006, has a new book out that's shocked many with its harsh criticism of an administration he loyally served.What Happened: Inside the Bush... More...

This past weekend, anti-coal activists took the fight against Duke Energy's plans to build a polluting new coal-fired power plant in North Carolina to the front yard of CEO Jim Rogers' Charlotte home.On a strip of grass next to the... More...

As the website iCasualties, which catalogs Iraq war casualties, reported in March:After five years in Iraq, the U.S. military has suffered over 33,000 casualties, more than 29,000 wounded and 4,000 dead, and it remains engulfed by three converging currents that... More...

We wanted to pass along the following message from the folks at the Katrina Information Network:The House of Representatives passed a domestic supplemental spending bill, but it did not include much needed funds for affordable housing in the Gulf states.... More...

We received this communication today from Steve Gates, senior communication director of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, a group that represents the interests of coal producers and coal-based utilities. He was commenting on our post from yesterday titled... More...

The Florida-based Coalition of Immokalee Workers have emerged victorious in their campaign demanding that Burger King boost wages and improve working conditions for thousands of farmworkers.As the AP reports, the campaign -- which saw Burger King being chastised in congressional... More...

There are some interesting developments in the saga of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, convicted in 2006 of bribery after what appears to have been a politically motivated prosecution. The Birmingham News reports:Former Gov. Don Siegelman asked the 11th Circuit... More...

On the heels of a U.S. company's announcement that it will auction off five dog clonings to the general public next month, two prominent animal welfare organizations have released a report documenting the cruelty inherent in the practice.Earlier this week,... More...

This week the Raleigh News & Observer profiled Institute for Southern Studies board member and North Carolina native Tim Tyson, a renowned lecturer, writer, and professor of African-American Studies.At once a public intellectual and social change advocate, Tyson has contributed... More...

Next month the U.S. Senate is expected to take up the Lieberman-Warner bill on climate change (S. 2191), legislation that would create a federally controlled market for carbon pollution by allowing industries to buy and sell emission allowances.In the meantime,... More...

A new study by scientist Tom Knutson and colleagues offers a little bit of good news for the hurricane-battered South.A meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's fluid dynamics lab in Princeton, N.J., Knutson says that global warming isn't... More...

If your kidneys are killing you, our warming climate may be partly to blame.A number of papers being presented at this week's 103rd Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Urological Association taking place in Orlando, Fla. link urinary tract diseases... More...

The office of North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper ignited a firestorm of controversy recently by issuing an advisory letter calling on the state's public colleges to bar admittance to undocumented immigrants. The opinion is based on a federal law... More...

Today, Kentuckians hit the polls for the final Southern primary in the 2008 election season. Sen. Hillary Clinton is the big favorite; an average of the latest five polls shows her up by 29 points in the contest for the... More...

We've reported extensively here on allegations of cronyism and other problems with the Department of Housing and Urban Development's work in post-Katrina New Orleans -- problems that culminated in the resignation earlier this year of former HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson,... More...

This year was the first "big election" test of North Carolina's new same-day registration and voting law, and results show it was a huge success.The law, which passed last year, allows voters to register and vote at over 200 one-stop... More...

As I reported yesterday, a national inter-faith group is expanding on the critical role that religious institutions have played in the Katrina rebuilding effort by launching the Isaiah Funds, an innovative loan and grant program to jump-start rebuilding in New... More...

Earlier this year, we reported on an incident at the Global Nuclear Fuel plant in Wilmington, N.C. in which moisture was found in a vessel containing uranium, a situation that can lead to a dangerous radiation release known as a... More...

This Sunday, the Louisiana Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals will be holding its second annual Gatsby Dog Second Line Parade and Celebration in the New Orleans neighborhood of Algiers. Originally set for May 15, the event was... More...

Could the South be contested territory again this election year? The New York Times this week looked at the role Sen. Barack Obama could play in making the South competitive for the Democrats.It's definitely clear that Obama will change the... More...

Fast-food giant Burger King announced this week that it fired two employees who posted libelous comments to public Web sites about the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), an organization pressing the company to pay a penny more per pound for... More...

A new study confirms what other reports have documented: workers who don't have unions lose out in their paychecks.The Center for Economic and Policy Research finds [pdf] that the "union premium" is 11.9% for employees nationally -- meaning, those who... More...

Reports continue to surface nationally about problems with Women's Voices Women Vote, in the wake of Facing South's investigation two weeks ago after concerns about deceptive election practices in North Carolina.This week's Willamette Week -- a paper in Portland, Oregon... More...

I'm in New Orleans this week with The Isaiah Funds, a new inter-faith effort to boost long-term rebuilding in the Gulf Coast.Faith groups were the unsung heroes of the Katrina response. It's difficult to find a storm victim in New... More...

The controversy that recently erupted in North Carolina over confusing, misleading and at times illegal voter registration tactics used by Women's Voices Women Vote has not discouraged the D.C. nonprofit from continuing similar efforts in Appalachian states with primaries this... More...

The recovery of Louisiana's people from Hurricane Katrina is far from complete.That's the conclusion of a report released today by the Louisiana Family Recovery Corps, a Baton Rouge-based nonprofit that helps families and individuals recover from storm-related losses. Titled "Progress... More...

In the ongoing controversy surrounding Women's Voices Women Vote and deceptive voter registration tactics, Adam Bonin of DailyKos conducted an interview with Page Gardner, founder and president of WVWV. As he notes in his introduction, "Ms. Gardner was able to... More...

The Sierra Club announced this week that it's sending formal notices of intent to sue to about 30 new coal plants across the country in an effort to force them to better control emissions of mercury and other toxic pollutants.... More...

It was a hard-fought primary, but a big day for democracy. Some odds and ends from last night's results in the North Carolina primary:* At 36% voter turnout, the 2008 primaries set a new record -- beating the previous mark... More...

Exit polls are showing that today's primaries in Indiana and North Carolina are headed towards predictable results: Clinton taking Indiana, Obama winning N.C.Meaning, today's primaries will likely settle nothing in the Democratic presidential contest, making the role of superdelegates all... More...

The winners of the 12th Annual Webby Awards have been announced, and the winner in the Charitable Organization - Nonprofit category is Katrina: An Un-Natural Disaster, a website created to showcase the work of fellows of the Open Society Institute.OSI... More...

Yesterday, Pam Spaulding -- who runs the popular blog Pam's House Blend, and also blogs for sites like FireDogLake and BlueNC -- posted the following comments on Facing South's investigation into voting rights in North Carolina and Women's Voices Women... More...

One of the key stories heading into today's North Carolina primary: the dramatic increase in African-American voters.* African-American voters have registered in record numbers in North Carolina -- 45,000 in the first three months of 2008, compared with just over... More...

Earlier this year, the national board of the Sierra Club voted to suspend the organization's Florida chapter for four years. That meant the immediate dismissal of a 27-member executive committee elected by the state's membership -- and its replacement by... More...

After weeks of planning, polls and punditry, the North Carolina primaries are here. This letter in today's Raleigh News & Observer captures the excitement in a state that hasn't had a primary count on the national stage in a long... More...

It has been six days since Facing South and the Institute for Southern Studies published our first investigation into the mysterious "Lamont Williams" robo-calls (listen to the audio file here) that blanketed North Carolina on the eve of the state's... More...

In the wake of national controversy surrounding Facing South's investigation into the use of illegal and deceptive robo-calls in North Carolina by Women's Voices Women Vote, actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus -- who had appeared in a Public Service Announcement for the... More...

The North Carolina NAACP has filed a formal complaint of possible voter suppression against Women's Voices Women Vote, the D.C. nonprofit that as we revealed earlier this week was behind the deceptive and illegal robo-calls made to state residents. The... More...

In response to our investigation of Women's Voices Women Vote and their illegal and deceptive voter outreach in North Carolina before the critical state primaries, some have defended their voter registration approach.No one seems to be defending Women's Voices' use... More...

Will Evans with the Center for Investigative Reporting has compiled a helpful chart documenting in detail the connections between the principals of Women's Voices Women Vote -- the nonprofit we discovered behind illegal election robo-calls in North Carolina -- and... More...

For those following Facing South's big story this week of illegal and deceptive election practices in North Carolina on the eve of the state's critical primary, you can hear more on WUNC 91.5's show The State of Things at noon... More...

Voting rights are a hot topic at Facing South this week, and Monday's Supreme Court decision OK'ing Indiana's voter ID law will have an especially big impact in the South.In at least two major states, voter ID laws had been... More...

Facing South's investigation into illegal robo-calls in North Carolina and deceptive election tactics in 10 other states by Women's Voices Women Vote has had quite an impact.Here are some of the major developments since we put up our first post... More...

The following comment is from Durham, N.C. resident and local Democratic Party leader Kevin Farmer, who received and recorded the illegal Women's Voices Women Vote robo-call and brought it to the attention of Democracy North Carolina:I'd like to clear up... More...

In a statement posted yesterday to the website of Women's Voices Women Vote, the D.C. nonprofit behind the illegal and deceptive robo-calls placed to North Carolina residents, President Page Gardner claims her group notified the N.C. State Board of Elections... More...

Two and a half months before the D.C. group Women's Voices Women Vote began making illegal, anonymous robo-calls to voters in North Carolina, they had promised to stop the practice nationally, after being investigated by state police in Virginia.As The... More...

Women's Voices Women Vote has responded in several forums to the issues we raised in yesterday's investigation about their illegal and deceptive voter outreach activities. The main response came from group founder and president Page Gardner, in a statement titled:... More...