Author
Coffee County judge denies Georgia man right to release full bodycam video in family’s traffic stop
A Coffee County judge on Tuesday denied a Georgia man’s request that he be allowed to publicly share unredacted dashboard and bodycam footage of a misdemeanor traffic stop that led to all five of his young children being sent to foster care. Deonte Williams, through his attorney, argued he has a First Amendment right to […]
Olivia Hill, Tennesssee’s first transgender elected official: “My main goal is to just do my job.”
Olivia Hill had no ambition to run for public office when she walked up to the microphone at a Washington D.C. gala last year to thank the keynote speaker for an inspirational talk about the power of voting. And she didn’t anticipate that Danica Roem – the first openly transgender woman elected to state office […]
Food City agrees to $44.5 million settlement with Tennessee over opioid role
Food City, a grocery chain with 130 stores in Tennessee, Virginia and Kentucky, has agreed to a $44.5 million settlement with the state over the role its in-store pharmacies played in fueling the opioid crisis, Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti announced Thursday. The settlement brings to an end a 2021 lawsuit that accused the privately-owned chain […]
Tennessee leads nation in arresting and punishing pregnant women
Tennessee, Alabama and South Carolina lead the nation in arresting and criminally punishing women for allegedly posing a danger to their fetuses, according to a report released by advocacy group Pregnancy Justice. Nationwide, nearly 1,400 people were arrested or subject to disparate bail, sentencing and probation for conduct related to their pregnancies between 2005 and […]
Black-owned Knoxville radio station retains license
Knoxville’s only Black-owned radio station —with its local jazz shows, Sunday morning Gospel and weekday hip hop and R&B programming — will remain on air, a Federal Communications Commission judge ruled last week. For nearly two years, “Jammin” 99.7 FM/1040 WJBE has been the target of FCC enforcement officials, who invoked a federal character clause […]
Tennessee Attorney General, ACLU, agree to end suit over House sign ban
This story was updated Thursday to reflect the entry of an order dismissing the case. In a coda to a bruising special session of the Tennessee Legislature that wrapped up last month, lawyers representing three women who silently defied a House ban on signs and attorneys for the state have agreed to bring a First […]
Tennessee defends GOP measure that protects Confederate monuments
Five years ago — as part of a backlash against efforts in Memphis to remove a statue of Ku Klux Klan-founder Nathan Bedford Forrest from a city park — a Republican majority in the Tennessee Legislature enacted a new law aimed at preventing the removal of Confederate monuments from public spaces. The GOP amendment to […]
Controversial Murfreesboro landfill loses court fight to expand
Owners of Middle Tennessee’s biggest landfill lost a legal bid to expand their site by nearly 100 acres, with a court ruling on Friday that regional officials had correctly followed the rules in rejecting the plan. The order from Judge Russell Perkins brings to a close a two-year legal fight in Davidson County Chancery Court […]
Dickson County utility settles suit over sewage pollution
A public utility in Dickson County has settled a lawsuit brought by environmental groups over sewage pollution found in a small stream that flows to the Harpeth River, a key source of drinking water and recreation in Middle Tennessee. The agreement between the state regulators, the Water Authority of Dickson County and the Harpeth Conservancy […]
Former Tennessee Wildlife and Resources Agency biologist: agency manipulated data on deer disease
A state biologist claims he was confronted in his home by law enforcement officers with the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency on the same day he sent his boss’s superiors evidence that the state was falsifying data on wildlife diseases. After his cell phone, laptops and other items were confiscated, the biologist said he was then […]
New federal dashboard tracks heat-related health emergencies
Nearly one in four Tennessee counties is experiencing higher-than-average number of heat-related health emergencies, according to new federal dashboard that maps emergency medical services responses to heat-related illnesses. Launched last month by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Climate Change and Health Equity and the Department of Transportation National Highway Traffic […]
6th Circuit Court of Appeals promises swift ruling on Tennessee ban on gender-affirming care for minors
A federal appeals court has promised a swift decision in a legal challenge to Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming healthcare for minors. At issue during Friday’s oral arguments, held before a three-judge panel of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals: whether to set aside a lower court’s temporary block of the law. The appeals court has […]