Category Archives: Tennessee

Monster storm system in US south kills at least 35 people

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Several people killed in Kansas dust storm while scattered tornadoes cause fatalities in Missouri

Violent tornadoes ripped through parts of the US, wiping out schools and toppling semitractor-trailers in several states, part of a monster storm that killed at least 35 people as more severe weather was expected.

In western Kansas, a dust storm was reported to have killed eight people as high winds produced blowing dust over the interstate, causing collisions of more than 71 vehicles on the I-70.

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Recent school shooters appear to have crossed paths in online extremist groups

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Report reveals that teen who killed one student in Nashville area interacted with Wisconsin shooter who killed two

Two teenagers who carried out deadly shootings before killing themselves at their respective high schools in attacks roughly a month apart from each other appear to have crossed paths online, according to a new joint report from ProPublica and Wisconsin Watch.

The first shooting took place on 16 December at the Abundant Life Christian school in Madison, Wisconsin. Two people – a teacher and a 14-year-old student – were killed by the shooter, 15-year-old Natalie Rupnow, before she killed herself.

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Bob Bryar, former My Chemical Romance drummer, dies aged 44

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Longest-standing drummer of pop-punk band said to have influenced emo movement was found dead in Tennessee

Bob Bryar, the former drummer of the US pop-punk band My Chemical Romance which was said to have influenced the youth culture movement emo, has died aged 44.

Bryar’s body was found in his home in Tennessee last week. The entertainment news outlet TMZ, which was the first to report his death, said that according to police no foul play was suspected as his possessions, including musical equipment and weapons, were untouched.

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Tennessee man involved in Capitol riot convicted of planning to kill federal agents

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Edward Kelley created ‘kill list’ of FBI agents and others who investigated his role on January 6, prosecutors say

A Tennessee man who was arrested for his involvement in the January 6 Capitol riot in 2021 was convicted on Wednesday of planning to kill federal investigators.

Edward Kelley, 35, was found guilty in Knoxville of conspiracy to murder federal employees, solicitation to commit a crime of violence, and influencing a federal official by threat, the US attorney’s office said in a news release.

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Man who allegedly disguised killing as bear attack captured in South Carolina

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Nicholas Wayne Hamlett arrested almost one month after police found body of Steven Lloyd of Tennessee

Authorities in South Carolina have captured a man who allegedly murdered a hiker in woodlands in Tennessee then attempted to disguise the killing as a bear attack.

Nicholas Wayne Hamlett was arrested in Columbia on Sunday night almost one month after police found the body of the hiker, Steven Lloyd of Knoxville, Tennessee, close to the Cherahola Skyway in Monroe county, 80 miles north-east of Chattanooga.

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Two US boys die in separate Halloween hayride tractor accidents

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Deaths occurred on consecutive days in Tennessee and Minnesota as children were struck by vehicles

Two boys recently died at separate Halloween-themed haunted hayride attractions in tractor accidents, authorities said.

The first boy died about 10.45 pm on 11 October at the Haunted Hilltop Halloween event in Hamilton county, Tennessee. A group of children at the event were playing near a path through which hay ride tractors drove, the Hamilton county sheriff’s department said.

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Tennessee shootout near university leaves one dead and nine wounded

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Gunfire erupted between two groups during homecoming events at Tennessee State University, police say

One person was killed and nine others wounded in a shootout amid a crowd near a university in Tennessee Saturday afternoon, police said.

A crowd that gathered earlier in the day for homecoming events at Tennessee State University was beginning to thin out when the gunfire erupted between two groups around 5pm, said Nashville police spokesperson Don Aaron. He said shell casings indicate that gunfire was exchanged across a street near campus between the groups.

Guardian staff contributed reporting

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Hurricane Helene: more than 200 dead as search for missing people continues

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Hurricane that made landfall as category 4 last week is described as one of deadliest storms in US history

A week after Hurricane Helene made landfall in the US, search-and-rescue teams continue to look for missing people in parts of the south-east that were devastated by the storm, and nearly a million people in the region remain without power.

Officials have reported at least 215 deaths across six states, and have warned that the toll is expected to rise as recovery efforts continue. A separate NBC News tally found that at least 202 people have died, including at least 98 in North Carolina, 19 in Florida, 33 in Georgia, 39 in South Carolina, 11 in Tennessee and two in Virginia.

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Hurricane Helene’s ‘historic flooding’ made worse by global heating, Fema says

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It will be ‘complicated recovery’ in five states, says disaster relief agency, with hurricane killing at least 91 people so far

The head of the US disaster relief agency has called Hurricane Helene, which has killed nearly 100 people, a “true multi-state event” that caused “significant infrastructure damage” and had been made worse because of global heating.

The storm killed at least 91 people, according to state and local officials in South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia. Officials feared more bodies would be discovered.

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At least 64 dead and millions without power after Helene devastates south-eastern US

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Flooding and landslides strike southern Appalachians after hurricane pummeled region and wreaked havoc

At least 64 people have been confirmed dead and almost 3.5 million were without power on Saturday, after strong winds and torrential rain from Hurricane Helene wreaked unprecedented havoc across large swathes of the south-eastern United States.

Historic flooding continued over parts of the southern Appalachians on Saturday, as first responders worked to reach stranded communities in trying conditions while local authorities began to assess the scale of the damage and displacement.

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Hospital patients in Tennessee airlifted in dramatic rescue amid Helene floods

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More than 50 patients and staff evacuated from Unicoi hospital in Erwin after deadly hurricane overwhelms area

More than 50 hospital patients and staff were airlifted from the roof of the building in Tennessee on Friday afternoon in a dramatic rescue operation after flash flooding overwhelmed the area.

An urgent evacuation was launched as the storm effects of Hurricane Helene were felt far and wide, with the state emergency agency and the national guard responding to the situation that quickly unfolded at Unicoi hospital in Erwin, Tennessee, about 100 miles outside Knoxville.

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Tennessee man testifies that he and another man killed rapper Young Dolph

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Cornelius Smith said he and Justin Johnson shot Young Dolph after brother of rival rapper Yo Gotti put a hit on him

A Memphis man testified on Monday that he and a second person shot and killed rapper Young Dolph after Big Jook, the brother of rapper Yo Gotti, put a hit on him.

Cornelius Smith identified himself and Justin Johnson as the two people seen on a 17 November 2021, surveillance video exiting a white Mercedes outside a Memphis, Tennessee, cookie store about 30 seconds after Young Dolph entered the store and then opening fire in broad daylight.

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Tennessee judge allows gun control questions to go on Memphis ballot

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City council approved proposals risking ire of Republicans threatening to withhold millions in state funding

A Tennessee judge has ruled that three gun control questions can go on the November ballot in Memphis, even as top Republican state leaders have threatened to withhold tens of millions of dollars in state funding should city leaders put the initiative before voters.

The Daily Memphian reports that Shelby county chancellor Melanie Taylor Jefferson sided with the Memphis city council, which sued the Shelby county election commission last month for refusing to put gun control measures on the ballot.

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Three ex-Memphis officers charged in killing of Tyre Nichols to stand trial

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Trial for Tadarrius Bean, Justin Smith Jr, and Demetrius Haley begins on charges linked to 29-year-old’s 2023 death

The federal trial of three former Memphis police officers charged in the killing of Tyre Nichols begins Monday.

Ex-officers Tadarrius Bean, Justin Smith Jr, and Demetrius Haley will stand trial for federal civil rights and conspiracy charges in connection to Nichols’s death, according to an announcement from the Department of Justice last year.

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Missouri woman charged in scheme to steal Graceland and extort Presley heirs

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Lisa Jeanine Findley, 53, arrested for falsely claiming Elvis Presley’s daughter borrowed $3.8m from a bogus lender

A Missouri woman has been arrested on charges that she orchestrated a scheme to defraud Elvis Presley’s family by trying to auction off his Graceland mansion and property, before a judge halted the mysterious foreclosure sale, the US justice department said on Friday.

Lisa Jeanine Findley, 53, of Kimberling City, Missouri, falsely claimed Presley’s daughter borrowed $3.8m from a bogus private lender and pledged Graceland as collateral for the loan. She fabricated loan documents, tried to extort Presley’s family out of $2.85m to settle the matter, and published a fraudulent foreclosure notice in a Memphis newspaper announcing that Graceland would be auctioned off to the highest bidder, prosecutors said.

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‘Hawk tuah’ girl leans into craze she ignited but looks forward to moving on

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Hailey Welch details in podcast interview how viral clip has upended her life and doesn’t want it to ‘be her image’

When she went viral in a video clip showing her coining the onomatopoeia “hawk tuah” to describe what intimate act reliably drives men wild in her experience, Hailey Welch thought about keeping herself hidden from the masses.

Then the rumor circulated that the photogenic blonde in the video with the thick southern drawl was actually the daughter of a humiliated religious leader. The attention had caused the woman to be fired from her education job, another rumor claimed. And social media users started creating fake accounts with photos of her.

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Tennessee passes bill to allow teachers to carry concealed guns despite protests

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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.

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Tennessee legislature passes bill banning marriage between first cousins

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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.

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Super Tuesday 2024 live: millions of voters head to polls in the US as Haley suggests she could stay in the race

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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.

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Tennessee advances bill to ban people from helping minors obtain abortion

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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.

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