State’s Republicans passed the bill, which the governor is now expected to sign, despite criticism from teachers and parents
Tennessee lawmakers passed a bill on Tuesday that would allow teachers to carry concealed handguns in schools despite protests at the state capitol.
House Republicans passed the bill, one of the biggest gun moves since a mass shooting in a Nashville Christian school left three children and three adults dead last year.
Continue reading...Proposal sails through, with one vocal opponent saying gay first cousins do not risk having a child with birth defects
The Republican-led Tennessee legislature has overwhelmingly voted to send the Republican governor, Bill Lee, a proposal that would ban marriage between first cousins.
The statehouse cast a 75-2 vote on Thursday on the bill after the senate previously approved it without any opposition.
Continue reading...Donald Trump looks all but certain of Republican presidential nomination as Nikki Haley rejects suggestions of third-party bid and says she may keep fighting
Over at CNN, Ronald Brownstein has an analysis piece which looks a little at the potential weakness of Donald Trump support away from his core base. Brownstein writes:
[Trump’s] performance so far reflects his success at transforming the Republican Party in his image. He’s reshaped the Republicans into a more blue-collar, populist and pugnacious party, focused more on his volatile blend of resentments against elites and cultural and racial change than the Ronald Reagan-era priorities of smaller government and active global leadership that former South Carolina Gov Nikki Haley has stressed.
But while the primaries have underscored Trump’s grip on the GOP, they have also demonstrated continued vulnerability for him in the areas where he has labored since he first announced his candidacy in 2015 – particularly among the white-collar suburban voters who mostly leaned toward the GOP before his emergence. The early 2024 nominating contests have shown that a substantial minority of Republican-leaning voters remain resistant to Trump’s vision.
Continue reading...Proposed bill that could see prison sentences of up to 15 years for breaching rules moves forward in state legislature
Tennessee state legislators moved on Tuesday to advance a bill that would ban people from taking minors for an abortion without parental permission – an act that the bill has dubbed “abortion trafficking”.
If someone illegally “recruits, harbors, or transports a pregnant unemancipated minor” for an abortion, they could face three to 15 years in prison under the proposed bill, which has now advanced out of a state house subcommittee after a hearing.
Continue reading...Cold snap continues from south to Pacific north-west, with thaw not expected until next week
The deep freeze affecting millions of people across the US is continuing this weekend, as bitterly frigid air spilled into the midwest from Canada amid high winds that could make it feel like -30F (-34C) outside in some areas.
The list of severe weather events was growing as the US struggled with the intense cold and news reports said at least 55 people across 10 states had been killed in weather-related incidents over the past week or so since the cold snap hit.
Continue reading...At least 16 states will fund largely unregulated facilities that try to convince people to continue their pregnancies
In the months since the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, at least 16 states have agreed to funnel more than $250m in taxpayer dollars towards anti-abortion facilities and programs that try to convince people to continue their pregnancies.
Much of that money is set to go to anti-abortion counseling centers, or crisis pregnancy centers, according to data provided by the Guttmacher Institute and Equity Forward, organizations that support abortion rights. It has been paid out throughout 2023 and will stretch into 2025.
Continue reading...Two leaks of anhydrous ammonia were reported at La Quesera Mexicana in Greeneville on Wednesday morning
Twenty-nine workers at a Tennessee cheese factory were sent to the hospital on Wednesday morning after a leak of anhydrous ammonia, the Greeneville city manager, Todd Smith, said at a news conference.
The Greeneville fire department was first called to La Quesera Mexicana at 7.15am when a leak occurred during maintenance on a valve. Six people were hospitalized at the time.
Continue reading...Satanic clubs, whose members do not worship the devil, usually formed in response to presence of religious groups in schools
Community members in a Tennessee school district want to banish Satan from their children’s halls after the formation of a new club was announced.
The After School Satan Club (ASSC) wants to establish a branch in Chimneyrock elementary school in the Memphis-Shelby county schools (MSCS) district.
Continue reading...Three deaths reported in Montgomery county and a further three in the suburbs of Nashville, officials say
Severe storms and tornadoes in Tennessee killed at least six people on Saturday and caused what local emergency services described as extensive damage with tens of thousands of residents without power.
Nashville police said in a statement Sunday that a two-year-old boy and his mother were among three people killed there.
Continue reading...Desmond Mills Jr is one of five officers charged in the beating death of the Black man who called for his mother as he was attacked
A former Memphis police officer pleaded guilty on Thursday in the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols, becoming the first of five officers charged to reverse course, with prosecutors recommending up to 15 years in prison.
Desmond Mills Jr entered his plea during a hearing at the Memphis federal courthouse as part of a larger agreement to settle charges in state court as well. It was not immediately clear if any of the other officers would follow suit.
Continue reading...Olivia Hill, 57, a military veteran, joins the Nashville city council in historic election
A transgender woman won election to a seat on Nashville’s city council, becoming the first openly transgender person to be voted into political office in Tennessee.
Olivia Hill, 57, secured one of the four open at-large seats on the metro council of Nashville, a politically liberal city in an overwhelmingly conservative state.
Continue reading...The Center for Reproductive Rights has taken legal action on behalf of women denied care in Idaho, Oklahoma and Tennessee
Women who say they were denied abortions in medical emergencies have taken legal action in Idaho, Oklahoma and Tennessee, in the latest attempt to challenge abortion bans that, abortion patients and doctors say, prevent people from getting care even when their health is in danger.
The lawsuits in Idaho and Tennessee, along with a federal complaint against a hospital in Oklahoma, were filed on Tuesday by the Center for Reproductive Rights, which filed a similar lawsuit on behalf of women in Texas earlier this year. Tuesday’s filings were first reported by the Washington Post.
Continue reading...Tami Manis wins Guinness world record for her 5ft 8in mullet after going 33 years without a haircut
What does one get by going 33 years without a haircut? Tennessee’s Tami Manis knows – the world record for longest mullet on a female.
Manis, 58, spoke on Thursday about her path to clinching what is arguably one of the most unusual marks maintained by Guinness world records. In an interview published by the organization known for curating a database of more than 40,000 world records, she revealed how the music video for the 1985 song Voices Carry by the rock band ‘Til Tuesday inspired her to begin growing her hair particularly long in the back.
Continue reading...The union representing workers at the grocery chain had asked the company to allow more breaks and cooler working conditions
A Kroger distribution center employee has died on the job in Memphis amid hot working conditions, adding to a national debate in the US over the risk to workers during heatwaves.
The worker was identified as Tony Rufus, members from his union announced.
Continue reading...Law allows for termination if patient’s water breaks too early or in cases of ectopic pregnancy, but critics say it is not enough
A Texas law about to take effect on Friday carves out exceptions to the state’s abortion ban.
In June, the Republican governor, Greg Abbott, quietly signed HB 3058, allowing doctors to provide abortion care when a patient’s water breaks too early for the fetus to survive, or when a patient is suffering from an ectopic pregnancy.
Continue reading...Officers shot and wounded armed man who fired shots and was trying to gain entry to Margolin Hebrew Academy, police say
Police in Memphis said they had likely prevented a mass shooting after they shot a man who earlier was reported to have opened fire at a Jewish day school in the Tennessee city.
In a statement and news conference, local police said they had responded to a report of a white man with a handgun shooting outside the Margolin Hebrew Academy and trying to gain entry to the building.
Continue reading...Many of the 40,000 people in the suburb of Germantown under order to avoid using water for everything except flushing toilets
A diesel fuel spill that contaminated the water supply system of Germantown, Tennessee, has left residents unable to drink their tap water as the city’s public works crew rush to flush out the contaminated water.
The city first told residents on 20 July that a spill at a treatment plant tainted the water supply system. The order came after residents reported a fuel smell in their water. Officials said that a generator at the plant spilled diesel fuel into a reservoir after the facility lost power during recent storms.
Continue reading...State condemned as ‘the bottom of the barrel on rights restoration’ after change by state’s division of elections
Tennessee, already one of the strictest and most complicated states in the country for voting rights restoration, has enacted a new policy that makes it nearly impossible for people with felony convictions to regain their right to vote.
Tennessee has one of the highest rates of disenfranchisement in the United States. More than 9% of the voting age population, or around 471,600 Tennesseans, can’t vote because of a felony conviction, according to a 2022 estimate by the Sentencing Project, a criminal justice non-profit. More than 21% of Black adults are disenfranchised.
Continue reading...Josiah Garcia reportedly told undercover agent he was an excellent shot and willing to torture people and cut off fingers or ears
Fake website RentAHitman.com has snagged another would-be killer-for-hire after a US soldier applied to be an assassin and accepted his first (fake) mission apparently believing it to be real.
Josiah Garcia, a Tennessee air national guardsman, was arrested after federal agents said he responded to an online ad through the parody website.
Continue reading...Reinstatement by unanimous vote of local commission follows similar move for fellow Black Democrat Justin Jones
The second of two Black Democrats who were kicked out of the Republican-led house of representatives in the Tennessee legislature followed his colleague back to work at the capitol on Thursday, a week after their expulsion for participating in a gun control protest propelled them into the national spotlight.
State representative Justin Pearson, a lawmaker from Memphis, was sworn in on Thursday outside the statehouse in Nashville. The day before, Shelby county commissioners had unanimously voted to reinstate him after an expulsion he, his fellow expelled lawmaker Justin Jones and others have denounced as motivated by racism.
Continue reading...