North Carolina voters have chosen Democrats in three straight elections for governor; the state’s Republican-led legislature has countered by siphoning off some of the powers that traditionally came with the job. These power grabs have had a profound effect on both democracy in the state and on the everyday lives of North Carolina residents, Democrats argue. The changes are “weakening…
Source
Electricity bills for millions of utility customers are skyrocketing across the U.S. while the number of households facing extreme utility debt is mounting. Energy costs are being turbocharged by the AI data center boom, which is prolonging the burning of fossil fuels in the face of intensifying climate chaos. Overseeing all this is a powerful regime of investor-owned utilities that dominate our…
Source
Despite repeated promises from President Donald Trump on the campaign trail to lower the cost of energy, consumers in the United States collectively paid $12 billion more for natural gas to power their homes over the first nine months of 2025 — about $124 more per family — than they did a year earlier, according to a new report on federal data by the watchdog group Public Citizen.
Source
A bipartisan group of 13 governors is pushing to deregulate the permitting of energy infrastructure in the U.S., arguing that doing so is necessary to “win the AI race, lower costs for consumers, and responsibly develop the advanced energy sources of the future.” But in reality, deregulating energy infrastructure construction would be a disastrous mistake that would increase greenhouse gas…
Source
The Debt Collective is perhaps best known for the ripple effects of the small student loan repayment strike the group organized against a defunct for-profit college in 2015. The strike grew into a nationwide movement demanding justice for millions of people facing overwhelming student debt. By 2025, the Biden administration had approved $188.8 billion in student debt relief for more than 5 million…
Source