Political Wire: “At least six local political news websites across Alabama and Florida have been secretly taking payments from power companies to run stories attacking clean energy, NPR reports. Emily Atkin: “This is a high-stakes story for both the climate and democracy. It shows fossil fuel interests taking advantage of a struggling local news environment to push…

NC Policy Watch: “Rev. William Barber, former head of the N.C. NAACP, will lead a new center at the Yale Divinity School. Barber announced the creation of the Center for Public Theology & Public Policy in a Twitter post Monday, saying it will “prepare a new generation of moral leaders to be active participants in creating a just…

WUNC: “Overman is one of around 40 practicing abortion doulas in North Carolina, according to an estimate from local abortion rights groups — a number that could soon grow. North Carolina groups that train doulas say they’ve seen an uptick in people wanting to become abortion doulas in the months since Roe v. Wade was overturned. Every…

TX Tribune: “Despite challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, there was neither widespread voter fraud nor other serious issues in Texas’ 2020 elections, according to an audit of four of Texas’ largest counties released Monday evening by Secretary of State John Scott’s office. While the 359-page report did find some “irregularities,” it nonetheless reinforced what election experts…

WUNC: “A Democratic presidential candidate has won North Carolina only once since 1976, when Barack Obama defeated Republican John McCain by less than half a percentage point in 2008. Democrats have lost U.S. Senate races in 2010, 2014, 2016, 2020 and 2022. To understand why North Carolina Democrats keep falling short, WFAE reporters traveled U.S….

ATL Journal Constitution: “Stacey Abrams raised more than $103 million for her failed rematch this year against Gov. Brian Kemp, a record-setting haul for a Georgia gubernatorial race that allowed her to experiment with unconventional ways to promote her candidacy. But her campaign’s expenditures have come under sharper scrutiny as new details emerge about the tight cash…

AL Political Reporter: “The Alabama Supreme Court is into fiction writing.  Maybe this trek was inevitable, given its disregard for the truth and facts in so many of the opinions issued by the high court, but still, it’s somewhat surprising to see it. To see, for example, a couple of justices from the state’s highest…

WaPo: “Early in the pandemic, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis repeatedly praised President Donald Trump for the expedited development and rollout of a coronavirus vaccine. The governor’s office pushed for $480 million in pandemic resources, including media campaigns promoting the shots, according to state budget documents. And DeSantis, a Republican, even lauded the Biden administration for helping to…

North State Journal: “A 2018 law requiring photo identification to vote in North Carolina remains invalidated after a narrow majority on the state Supreme Court agreed Friday with a lower court decision that struck it down. In a 4-3 decision, the court’s Democratic justices said they saw no reason to disturb the 2021 ruling that voided the…

NY Times: “A Tennessee man already facing charges of assaulting a police officer during the storming of the Capitol last year was charged on Friday with plotting to assassinate several of the federal agents who had investigated him and to attack the F.B.I.’s field office in Knoxville, Tenn. The plot by the man, Edward Kelley,…