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An Amazon data center is under construction in rural Hamlet, N.C. (Courtesy of Larry Baldwin/NC Environmental Advocacy Corps) This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News , a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here . HENDERSON, N.C.—On a recent summer evening Mitzi Parrott, who lives in Vance County, saw a television commercial on the evening news that gave her pause. Kathie Hamm and Bobbie Lequire, also of Vance County, saw it, too, streaming on Sling and posted on Nextdoor. The ad extolled the purported economic benefits of data centers, including the claim that these enormous power-hungry facilities pay their own energy costs so “North Carolina families don’t have to.” “I knew it wasn’t true, and it concerned me that other people wouldn’t know the other side,” said Parrott, whose land could back up to a proposed data center. “I figured somebody in the data center industry had to be be...

Flock Safety license plate readers are typically mounted on tall poles, with a camera and solar panel on top. The company says its technology is used in more than 6,000 communities across 49 states in partnership with thousands of law enforcement agencies nationwide. (Photo courtesy of Flock Safety) Flock Safety is tightening privacy and oversight controls for its nationwide network of automated license plate readers as more communities pull back from the technology and lawmakers across the political spectrum push for new restrictions. The company announced Thursday that it will recommend that police agencies retain license plate reader data for seven days, down from 30, while adding tools to restrict data sharing between agencies and detect potentially abusive searches. Flock also plans to require law enforcement users to associate searches with case codes and automatically suspend users whose activity is flagged as abnormal. The changes come amid growing scrutiny of a surveillance...

Demolition work continued where the East Wing once stood at the White House on Dec. 8, 2025. President Donald Trump ordered the 123-year-old East Wing and Jacqueline Kennedy Garden leveled to make way for a new 90,000-square-foot ballroom. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump asked the U.S. Supreme Court Thursday to intervene in a lower court decision that halts his $400 million White House ballroom construction unless he receives authorization from Congress. The administration  requested the justices grant an immediate stay to a 2-1 federal appeals court  decision that sided with historic preservationists who argued Trump doesn’t have the authority to build a 90,000-square-foot ballroom where the White House East Wing stood until Trump ordered its  demolition in October 2025. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued the decision on Aug. 7 but delayed the ruling for two weeks to allow the administration time to app...

Students walk across the University of Louisville campus. Kentucky is one of 17 states the Trump administration sued to block in-state tuition for students in the country without permanent legal immigration status. (Photo by McKenna Horsley/Kentucky Lantern) WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Justice has sued New York, Connecticut and Vermont over laws that allow immigrants in the country without permanent legal status to pay in-state college tuition in the states where they live. The suits,  filed Aug. 10 , are part of a larger push from the Trump administration to go after states with such policies, as the administration seeks to curb any benefits that could be extended to people without permanent legal status.   Since President Donald Trump re-took office, the DOJ has sued 17 states over laws that allow noncitizen students who meet certain requirements access to in-state tuition at public colleges and universities, regardless of their immigration status.  In f...

Colorado state Sen. Mike Weissman, a Democrat, speaks at a February news conference about immigration enforcement-related bills at the Colorado Capitol. Democratic lawmakers nationwide proposed nearly 250 bills this year in statehouses seeking to limit federal immigration enforcement efforts. (Photo by Sara Wilson/Colorado Newsline) Democratic lawmakers proposed nearly 250 bills in state capitols this year seeking to limit federal immigration efforts as they sought to push back against what they view as federal government overreach.  In a new report tallying 2026 action, State Futures, a nonprofit coordinating hundreds of Democratic lawmakers across the states, tracked 242 pieces of such legislation introduced across 32 states. About a fifth of them passed. Most of the measures address the ramped up immigration enforcement efforts that have defined President Donald Trump’s second term.  Some of those bills have faced Republican opposition and White House challenges. But Democratic g...

Idaho Democratic state Rep. Brooke Green, her toddler Bridger Byington, and her baby Bryson Byington at the Boise River in Boise, Idaho, on August 6, 2026. Opposition to the two ways that Green had her children, IVF and surrogacy, is rising. (Photo by Otto Kitsinger for Stateline) Brooke Green thought she needed a mammogram. Green, a Democratic state representative in Idaho, knew that breast cancer ran in her family and she “just had an inkling” that she should be tested. She was two weeks shy of the day her last remaining embryo would be implanted through in vitro fertilization. It was the one shot she had left to give her firstborn son a sibling, since it took several rounds of in vitro fertilization to get pregnant the first time. The mammogram confirmed her fears: There was in fact a lump in her breast, and a biopsy of the tumor confirmed it was cancer. Worse yet, it was a type of cancer fueled by estrogen and progesterone, two of the main hormones that skyrocket during pregnanc...