1A

Imagine a small town in rural Tennessee — a town square, a yellow brick courthouse, a family-owned restaurant, a café, and beautiful sunrises and sunsets across the Appalachian foothills. Now, imagine a group of far-right real estate developers — backed by Silicon Valley venture capital and with powerful ties to Washington — move into town. They have a vision to build a new kind of community and t...

For some of you, it’s still a week away. For others — the doors are already open. It’s back to school. But in this edition of 1A , it’s all about the teachers. They’ve been called heroes. They’ve fought for better salaries and benefits. They‘ve been asked to do more with less. They’ve started go-fund-me campaigns to pay for your classroom supplies when the funding just isn’t there. Last year, we a...

Between 1950 and 1975, an estimated 1.5 million women were sent to homes for unwed mothers across the United States. There, most were hidden away from their families and communities until they gave birth and placed their babies for adoption. Some of those adoptions were involuntary. That type of experience is hard to forget. For one family, a past that had been buried for decades finally came to l...

Following a Supreme Court decision that cleared the way, a federal judge lifted a nationwide block on President Donald Trump’s executive order that limited mail-in voting ahead of the midterm elections. A historic drought in the northwestern United States is supercharging what’s on track to already be a historic wildfire season. And reporting from The Wall Street Journal indicated that Trump inter...

Four years after the fall of Roe v. Wade upended federal protections for abortion access, abortion opponents have set their sights on a new target in the world of fertility: surrogacy. A gestational surrogate is a woman who carries an embryo that was formed using the egg of another woman. Before the pregnancy, the surrogate also agrees to return the baby to its intended parents once born. At its c...

On Tuesday, August 25th, American country musician, philanthropist, and icon Dolly Parton died at the age of 80 in Nashville, Tennessee.  Years before her death, she asked her nephew and head of security, Bryan Seaver, to make a video announcing her passing. In the video posted to social media yesterday, he shared this exchange with his aunt:   “Dolly called me and said she wants to rest on a beau...

Throughout history, people have been fascinated by automation, technological progress, and how it can change our lives. In 1956, General Motors made a film about the distant future of 19 76 , when cars would drive themselves with the help of traffic-control towers. In 1993, AT&T envisioned what sounds a lot like today’s smart home and smart watch technology. Much of what the companies behind these...

The current Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the deadliest in the country’s history. With over 2,500 deaths and more than 5,000 confirmed cases, it’s now the second largest ever worldwide. And it’s spreading at record speed. It’s even outpacing the West Africa outbreak that killed more than 11,000 people between 2014 and 2016. What do we know about why this outbreak is mov...

Imagine that the U.S. isn’t a democracy. Instead, it;s run like a corporation. The nation’s leader acts as a CEO and always has the final say. This would be a world of unchecked capitalism. It’s a world where countries are replaced with privately-owned startups, and technology renders democracy obsolete. It sounds like a setup to a dystopian sci-fi movie. But it’s a world that some of the biggest...

The United States’ national debt has now surpassed $40 trillion, a milestone that forecasters thought the country wouldn’t reach for months. President Donald Trump drew the ire of many military families, lawmakers, and the public when he was asked if the deployment of the USS Lincoln to the Middle East had gone on too long. He responded by saying, “No no no no…not nearly long enough.” Florida Stat...

On the night of Sept. 27, 2024, Hurricane Helene dropped a historic wall of rain on the southern Appalachian mountains. Some 31 inches of water fell in three days. The Swannanoa River rose 27 feet. Roads, bridges, and entire communities – very little was left in the storm’s aftermath.   More than 250 people died across the Southeast. More than a hundred of them in North Carolina alone. It was the...

If you have a favorite wellness podcaster or influencer, you’ve probably heard about peptides. These injectable compounds are comprised of a string of amino acids and promise effects like weight loss, better sleep, muscle growth and more. Given the potential benefits, it comes as no surprise that interest has exploded. The market is ready to provide. It’s already valued around $140 billion and by...

When was the last time you went to the doctor? Not necessarily for something big, not for a broken finger or the flu. Just a checkup. A regular annual visit to make sure everything is ok with your health. For about a third of Americans, it’s probably been too long. In 2024, more than 100 million people did not have a regular primary doctor at all, according to the National Association of Community...

Donald Trump is adding billions of dollars to his personal fortune while he serves as president. In 2024, the president made about $600 million. In his first year of his second term in office, that number jumped to more than $2.2 billion. The latest White House disclosures show most of those earnings came from cryptocurrency and crypto-related businesses. He also continues to make millions from re...

Haitians that used to have Temporary Protected Status are facing a new reality in the United States. Immigration operations targeting members of this community are currently underway at the direction of the Department of Homeland Security. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced this week she would be leaving her post within the Trump administration. And new reporting indicates that...

When Head Start was founded, the idea was simple: give low-income kids a running start before kindergarten — not just with preschool classes and childcare, but with health screenings and support for their families. Some 60 years later, it serves more than 750,000 children — and their families — every year. But the Trump administration thinks the program is too costly and inefficient. Last week, it...

Nationwide, students, teachers, and parents are gearing up for the school year. And measles is spreading. The U.S. has already logged more cases this year than in all of 2025. It’s the highest count in 35 years. That’s in large part because measles vaccination rates have slipped below 95 percent – the threshold public health experts say is needed to stop community spread.   Last week on CNN, Healt...

Journalists often say, “Follow the money.” But what if we said, “Follow billions of dollars to understand who controls this country’s political policy, technology and culture” instead? Tesla CEO, Elon Musk dropped $200 million on the 2024 election and later headed up the now defunct Department of Government Efficiency. Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos’s company paid $48 million to license and distribute...

From school board officials and city council members, to decisions over roads and disaster relief budgets, local elections make a direct impact on your day-to-day life. But state and local elections get less attention, less media coverage, and lower voter turnout. In November’s municipal elections in Dallas, Texas, some 14 council seats were up for the vote but turnout was just 8 percent. And aver...

Progressive Senate Candidate Abdul El-Sayed won his Michigan primary this week, sending a strong message to the Democratic party establishment that backed his opponent. Dr. Anthony Fauci was found in contempt of Congress on Thursday. The vote by the Senate Homeland Security Committee came after Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment right over 100 times during a recent hearing. And reports indicate the...

Artificial intelligence is rapidly changing how we work, live, and engage with the world. Whether that’s using ChatGPT to do our taxes or spending hours sifting through AI generated images on social media.  It’s also reshaping our education system. Roughly half of U.S. students said they used AI in some way for school, according to a 2025 survey from the Rand Corporation. But some students aren’t...

Affording groceries is becoming a struggle for many Americans. Food prices are up 33 percent since 2019. That’s according to federal data analyzed by the Associated Press. It’s led some people to change their diets or where they shop. Others are taking more drastic measures by dipping into their savings or going into credit card debt. A 2025 survey from the Urban Institute found that one in four p...

Data centers. They’ve been all over the news. Last month, protesters showed up in 125 cities across the country on a single Saturday to demonstrate against these structures, either proposed or completed. But are the politicians listening? We sit down for the second part of our data center deep dive. This time, we talk politics. Why have data centers become a political flashpoint so quickly? And wh...

Should judges be elected? That’s the question Kansas voters are answering on the ballot this month. A constitutional amendment aims to change how judges are chosen in the state – abandoning the 68-year-old system of appointing judges. Proponents of the change say elections put the choice back in voters’ hands. And their arguments aren’t new: Republicans in Kansas have long argued for judicial elec...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in Washington this week for his first visit to the White House since the war in Iran began. Former CDC head Anthony Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment rights as he sat in before Congress during a hearing led by Sen. Rand Paul concerning the doctor’s COVID diaries. And Temporary Protected Status lapsed for hundreds of thousands of Haitians living in the...