Cities and towns across Mississippi are still trying to recover from hurricanes Katrina and Rita, but their efforts are complicated by what community advocates call misplaced priorities. More...

Media coverage of the Katrina four-year anniversary has focused on what happened four years ago -- but what's happening today? Listen to the Institute's director discuss a new study grading Obama and Congress on today's recovery efforts. More...

The federal government has released information to environmental groups showing there are 584 coal ash dumps across the country -- almost double the number previously identified. But some utilities including Duke Energy, Progress Energy and the Southern Co. are still withholding data on their dumps, claiming it's "confidential business information." More...

What took place in New Orleans following Katrina was no less than a war, in which victims whose only crimes were poverty and blackness were treated as enemies of the state, reports James Ridgeway. More...

A coalition of more than 300 grassroots groups will be delivering letters this week to the local offices of U.S. senators calling for tougher regulations on greenhouse gas pollution than what's now being considered. More...

Florida has become the 19th state to borrow funds to keep unemployment benefits flowing after its unemployment trust fund ran dry. More...

This is the first year that Congressional leadership and the U.S. president did not travel to the Gulf Coast to honor the anniversary of our nation's largest disaster. Leaders in Washington still have much to learn from community leaders on the ground working every day to restore their neighborhoods, reports Jeffrey Buchanan. More...

The Obama administration unveiled plans this week to create a federal task force to overhaul management of coastal restoration efforts in Louisiana and Mississippi. The move comes in response to growing criticism of the Corps' foot-dragging. More...

Join us on three radio programs today as we talk about the Institute's new report "Grading the Katrina Recovery" and the state of Gulf Coast rebuilding four years after the storm More...

Progress has been made on many fronts in the last few years, but New Orleans' housing crisis shows how federal and state policies have failed to help the region's most vulnerable residents rebuild. More...

Four years on, there's another victim face down in the waters of Hurricane Katrina: Dr. Ivor van Heerden. Investigative journalist Greg Palast reports. More...

The stories of post-disaster New Orleans are captured in a new book of photography by Joseph Rodriguez. More...

Stories of people surviving Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath continue to flood bookstores. More...

North Carolina lawmakers passed a bipartisan bill that will allow 16- and 17-year-olds to pre-register to vote. More...

In the months following Katrina, chilling reports of the euthanasia of patients at New Orleans' Memorial Medical Center emerged. A new report by ProPublica aims to shine a light on "what happened in the frantic days when Memorial was cut off from the world." More...

As the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina nears, a coalition of 17 advocacy groups calls for action to restore nature's protective barriers and better protect Gulf Coast communities from future storms. More...

AUGUST 2009 | In the Katrina-devastated Gulf Coast, the election of Barack Obama and a new Congress brought hope for a renewed commitment to finishing up the job of full recovery. But four years after the storm, a survey of local leaders finds many believe Obama hasn't lived up to his promises -- and that little in Washington has changed. More...

Thousands of homeless people are living in New Orleans' storm damaged and abandoned homes and buildings. Four years after Katrina, recovery and rebuilding has come slow to this city, reports Jordan Flaherty. More...

This week, across the Gulf Coast thousands of people will be gathering together for vigils, rallies, marches, cultural events and commemorations to mark the 4th anniversary of Katrina's landfall. More...

Four years after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, efforts to restore Louisiana's coastal wetlands are stalled, leaving communities vulnerable to storm damage. So why is the state's senior U.S. senator pushing to allow oil and gas companies -- who are responsible for much of the coast's destruction -- to drill off Florida's Panhandle? More...

A new report assesses the impact of the 2005 hurricanes on the Gulf Coast and the challenges the area might face during the upcoming 2010 Census. More...

New research by scientists with Duke University and the Georgia Institute of Technology details hazards from the coal ash spilled last year from the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston power plant. The findings come as TVA considers shutting down some of its older coal plants. More...

This week marks four years since Hurricane Katrina devastated the U.S. Gulf Coast. To mark the occasion and to draw attention to the region's ongoing needs, supporters of the Gulf Coast Civic Works Act will rally in front of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office to urge her to support passage of the legislation. More...

Officials in Oxford, Ala. appear to be backing away from controversial plans to destroy a 1,500-year-old ceremonial Indian monument in order to use the dirt as fill for a new Sam's Club. Meanwhile, a costly sinkhole has been discovered at the store's construction site. More...

An upcoming conference on the green rebuilding of New Orleans is looking for people interested in presenting papers or posters to promote a discussion of green rebuilding practices in the wake of the Hurricane Katrina disaster. More...

New Orleans' low-income residents and communities of color are finding themselves locked out of housing in the city. More...

Health insurance corporations and their front groups are playing hardball to force nervous Democrats to dilute their health care reform plan. It remains to be seen whether these insurance industry streetfighters will ultimately prevail, but for now they have succeeded in reframing the debate, reports Phil Mattera. More...

North Carolina-based Bank of America is the biggest mortgage servicer in the business. And judging by Treasury Department data, its customers searching for loan modifications are the most frustrated. More...

Four years after Katrina, New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region still face major challenges due to blight, unaffordable housing and vulnerable flood protection, according to a new briefing from the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center. More...

A new study revealed this week that income inequality in the U.S. is more severe today than at any time since World War I, and the current recession is taking its heaviest toll on the worst-off members of our society, reports Zach Carter. More...

As the health care battle continues, the Obama administration is starting to make a moral case for health reform. But on the ground, grassroots activists are already busy working to reshape the language of the debate -- they're pushing for the right to call health care a human right. More...

Behind the anger visible in recent town hall meetings about health care reform is a surging, right-wing populist movement fearful of the nation's changing demographics, and anxious about having an African-American CEO in Washington, says Chip Berlet. More...

On December 19, 2007, Grace Head, a 66 year-old resident of Arlington, Texas, set her Doberman Pinscher on two black neighbors, Silk Littlejohn and Broderick Gamble after telling them they had to abandon their home. Alan Bean reports on how city officials responded to that hate crime. More...

As reform advocates step up their organizing, town hall meetings have calmed down and leveled-out the debate. Just over a week ago, advocates in Rocky Mount, NC didn't find it so easy to speak out. More...

Can New Orleans be a model for green rebuilding? The Sierra Club released a report this week examining the green rebuilding efforts under way in post-Katrina New Orleans. More...

Blue Dog Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN) is pointing to rural electric cooperatives as a model for health care in opposing a "public option." But just last year, Cooper authored a journal article taking electric co-ops to task for a wide range of "deeply troubling anti-consumer behaviors." More...

Thanks to you, Facing South is rapidly growing in readership and impact -- and becoming a stronger voice for a better South. More...

The strategies used by the "tea-party" clique were perfected in fighting progressive immigration reform. Now the new battlefield is the health care reform town hall meetings, reports Henry Fernandez. More...

In a major breakthrough Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered a new hearing for Georgia death-row inmate Troy Davis. Davis' case has become one of most high-profile death penalty cases in the United States, and has helped to spur a growing movement against the death penalty in the South. More...

The Texas Republican and former House Majority leader stepped down from his job with the law firm DLA Piper after controversy over his leadership of FreedomWorks, a corporate-funded group that's helping organize rowdy protests against health reform. More...

A new Gallup poll ranking states by ideology finds Deep South rank as highly-conservative -- but Great Plains and Mountain West states do, too. More...

As the fourth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina nears, a statistical snapshot reveals how much New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are still struggling. More...

Facing South helps change the national debate on health reform; Town Hall Tracker launched; Big Oil hops on the town hall train; and most dispatches on the Southern wing of the Obama backlash More...

In the latest from our Town Hall Tracker project, a fan of Americans for Prosperity challenges Rep. Tom Perriello -- not over health care, but Obama's citizenship. More...

Health reform isn't being debated today -- it's being swift-boated. Instead of getting mired in mud-slinging, prospects for reform depend on the ability of advocates to harness their greatest strength: power in numbers More...

The Southern Poverty Law Center reports an uptick in far-right militia activity, motivated in part by the election of an African-American president. More...

Listen to us discuss the health reform debate, Southern politics and other hot issues on Durham's local radio show "Shooting the Bull" More...

Inspired by the corporate-backed protest movement against health insurance reform, an alliance founded and funded by the oil industry and other business interests opposed to greenhouse gas regulation is planning a series of rallies against climate legislation. More...

Despite raucous protests, members of Congress are moving ahead with town hall meetings this week, with events today in Alabama, Georgia and North Carolina. Help Facing South cover these events! More...

Help us watchdog town hall meetings being held by members of Congress across the South -- see our first video from Rep. Brad Miller's town hall in Raleigh, North Carolina! More...

New polls out from a North Carolina polling firm find that large percentages of voters in that state and Virginia don't believe President Obama was actually born in the United States -- while a surprising number also question whether Hawaii is really part of the country. More...

With those opposed to the president's politically cautious Democratic agenda decrying him as a "socialist," anti-racist writer and educator Tim Wise digs into the phenomenon and asks: Is "socialism" racist code for the long-standing white fear that black folks will steal from them? More...

A longtime proponent of advance care planning, U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) says the effort to portray such planning as creating "death panels" is "nuts." But he's no fan of the Obama administration's reform plan, either. More...

The office of Rep. David Scott of suburban Atlanta was also hit with other graffiti using racial slurs and calling for "Death to all Marxists!" The lawmaker believes he's been targeted over remarks he made at a recent town hall on health care reform, which he supports. More...

Responding to a question about fears over health care reform, the President addresses misinformation about advance care planning entailing "death panels" -- and cites information from the story we helped break about one of the biggest proponents of such planning being a conservative Republican Senator from Georgia. More...

Sarah Palin appears to have picked up the misinformation that led to her "death panel" charges from the Liberty Counsel -- a far-right religious group affiliated with Jerry Falwell's Liberty University empire in Lynchburg, Va. More...

A Georgia Republican who's been one of the most outspoken advocates of advance care planning says he doesn't understand how the facts around the issue have gotten "so mixed up." But other Republican leaders including Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue and Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour have declined the chance to challenge Palin's propaganda. More...

Sue Sturgis' report yesterday showing that one of the biggest advocates of Sarah Palin's so-called "death panels" was a pro-life Republican, Sen. Johnny Isakson of Georgia, generated national media buzz and changed the health care debate More...

AUGUST 2009 | Some of the anger over health care reform focuses on a provision encouraging elderly patients to plan for end-of-life care, a provision misrepresented by opponents as a "death panel" to determine who lives and who dies. But one of the biggest promoters of advance care planning is Sen. Johnny Isakson of Georgia -- a pro-life Republican. More...

Not following Facing South on Twitter yet? Do it now to get fresh news and links to interesting stories about the South. More...

The President has nominated Joseph Pizarchik to head the federal agency that regulates coal mining practices. Pointing to his pro-industry record as a mining regulator in Pennsylvania, environmentalists are calling on Senators to vote no. More...

Immigrant rights activists are applauding the Obama Administration's plans to reform the nation's immigration detention system, including halting the detainment of immigrant families at the notorious T. Don Hutto detention center in Texas. More...

Some groups are expressing shock that corporate lobby groups and the public-relations firms they hire are using deceptive tactics, but Phil Mattera of Dirt Diggers Digest argues this is "akin to expressing shock that gambling is taking place in Casablanca." More...

A supporter of President Obama's proposal to expand health care coverage to more Americans, U.S. Rep. Brad Miller (D-N.C.) has announced he won't be holding any town hall meetings on the topic because of the threat of violence. More...

THURS 8/6 | In what social justice advocates are calling a milestone victory for the South, North Carolina lawmakers approved a bill allowing people facing the death penalty to challenge prosecutions on the grounds of racial bias. More...

It turns out that a P.R. firm working on behalf of the coal lobby forged letters from groups representing women and senior citizens as well as blacks and Hispanics. A lawmaker is demanding answers. More...

Two former employees of the controversial N.C.-based private security firm now known as Xe have made shocking allegations in federal court in Virginia, accusing the company and its founder of serious crimes in Iraq. More...

William Jefferson, the former Louisiana Congressman who represented parts of New Orleans, was convicted Wednesday of 11 of 16 counts of corruption. More...

With political observers raising concerns that Southern Republicans "have seceded from sanity," a growing number of Southerners are seceding from the Republican Party. More...

Members of Congress holding town hall meetings to discuss health care reform are being met by angry demonstrators who are disrupting the gatherings. But these are no grassroots protests -- they're organized by groups representing corporate interests with a financial stake in blocking real change. More...

The recent hunger strikes at a Louisiana detention facility make the case for getting Immigration officials to be more accountable for the conditions at detention centers, something the Obama administration should be mindful of when pushing for immigration reform. More...

Sixteen bank failures -- one-quarter of all bank failures in the United States so far this year -- have been reported in Georgia. Why are the state's banks so vulnerable? More...

Civil rights and voting rights groups are praising the Democracy Restoration Act of 2009, a bill recently introduced in Congress that would allow people released from prison to vote in federal elections. More...

The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity says it's "outraged" that a firm working on its behalf forged anti-climate bill letters that appeared to come from minority advocacy groups. But it's not the first time ACCCE has been linked to deceptive practices -- we busted them last year for a misleading phone call on other climate legislation. More...

A controversial development deal in Oxford, Ala. involves bulldozing a 1,500-year-old Native American sacred monument and using the dirt as fill for a new link in the Wal-Mart chain. More...

Immigrant detainees at a privately-run detention center in rural south Louisiana have waged a series of hunger strikes during the past four weeks to protest inhumane conditions and human rights violations at the jail. More...

Bonner & Associates, a Washington firm that specializes in creating what look like grassroots movements which are in fact funded by corporate interests, is busted forging anti-climate bill letters to a Virginia congressman that appear to come from the NAACP and a Hispanic nonprofit. More...

A state commission spent two years crafting rules to monitor water pollution at factory farms -- but a state senator with close ties to the hog industry got his colleagues to unanimously pass a bill nixing those rules. Will the House follow suit? More...