Category Archives: Tennessee

‘On the right side of history’: ousted Tennessee vaccine official on mandates, myths and muzzles

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Dr Michelle Fiscus says vaccine mandates, like seat belt laws, will get people to do the right thing for the good of all

Dr Michelle Fiscus worked in the health sector for almost 20 years, most recently as Tennessee’s top vaccine official. Until the day she was fired, she got excellent job performance reviews. And then one day she sent out a reminder that in Tennessee, children over the age of 14 may choose to be vaccinated without asking their parents first.

And she lost her job.

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Tennessee woman drowns seconds after filming rising floodwaters

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Linda Almond posted a 70-second live clip while trapped in her house as a torrent of murky brown water rushed by outside

A harrowing video posted to Facebook captured the terrifying moments a woman filmed as the floodwaters surged past her house, seconds before she herself was swept to her death.

Related: ‘It’s just unbelievable’: Tennessee surveys wreckage after floods kill 22

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Tennessee floods death toll rises after homes and businesses destroyed – video

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The flooding in rural areas on Saturday took out roads, cellphone towers and telephone lines, leaving families uncertain about whether loved ones survived. Many of the missing live in neighborhoods where the water rose fastest, Humphreys county sheriff Chris Davis said.

At the White House in Washington, Joe Biden said he expressed his 'deepest condolences for the sudden and tragic loss of life through this flash flood'

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‘It’s just unbelievable’: Tennessee surveys wreckage after floods kill 22

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Succession of thunderstorms deposited record-breaking 17in of rain in some parts of state

Tennesseans were surveying the mangled wreckage of towns and communities across the middle of the state on Monday, after a record-breaking deluge caused flash flooding that swept away houses, shattered lives and left at least 22 people dead and many more missing.

Related: A midwestern town moved uphill to survive climate crisis. Can others do the same?

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Tennessee floods death toll rises to 22 as Biden offers help

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  • Record rainfall fueled flash floods in rural town of Waverly
  • Governor surveys devastation as families seek missing

At least 22 people were confirmed dead on Sunday as rescue crews searched desperately amid shattered homes for dozens still missing after record-breaking rain sent floodwaters surging through parts of Tennessee.

Related: A midwestern town moved uphill to survive climate crisis. Can others do the same?

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Tennessee radio host doubted and mocked vaccines – now he has Covid

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A conservative radio host in Tennessee who urged listeners not to get vaccinated against Covid-19 has changed track and called on listeners to get the shot, after contracting the virus and ending up in hospital in “very serious condition”.

Related: Fox News backs Covid vaccination – a pity no one told Tucker Carlson

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‘Heart-wrenching’: inside a hospital grappling with Delta and vaccine hesitancy

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As the variant tears its way through the US and vaccination rates plateau in the state, hospitals are experiencing a new wave of cases

Nurse Matt Robinson braced himself before pushing the heavy doors to the recently reopened Covid-19 ward at Methodist University hospital in downtown Memphis, Tennessee.

This hadn’t been in the script. After over a year of continuous work with Covid-19 patients throughout the pandemic, the burnout brought on by constant exposure to death and trauma, Robinson had hoped his job might return to normal.

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John McAfee: antivirus entrepreneur found dead in Spanish prison

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McAfee’s extradition to the US on tax charges had been approved hours earlier

The antivirus software entrepreneur John McAfee has been found dead in his cell in Spain, hours after the country’s highest court approved his extradition to the United States, where he was wanted on tax-related criminal charges that carry a prison sentence of up to 30 years.

Catalan’s regional police force, the Mossos d’Esquadra, confirmed a report in El País that McAfee, 75, had been found dead in the Brians 2 prison near Barcelona, late on Wednesday.

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‘Craziest thing’: Police use Taser on escaped zebra in Tennessee

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It took nearly three hours to capture the zebra, who had escaped an exotic livestock auction

Law enforcement officials helped capture a loose zebra in middle Tennessee after it escaped from an exotic livestock auction.

According to news outlets, the Cookeville police department and Putnam county sheriff’s office assisted Triple W employees to capture the “agitated” zebra early Friday morning. Cookeville is about 80 miles (128km) east of Nashville.

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Police kill student who fired at them at Tennessee high school, authorities say

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Officer wounded after confrontation in Knoxville high school bathroom

A student at a Tennessee high school has been shot and killed by police after opening fire on officers responding to reports of a gunman on campus, authorities said on Monday.

David B Rausch, the director of the Tennessee bureau of investigation, said at a news conference that police found the student in a bathroom at Austin-East magnet high school in Knoxville, a city about 180 miles (290km) east of Nashville. They ordered him out, but he wouldn’t comply, and that is when he reportedly opened fire, Rausch said. Police fired back.

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Nashville explosion: investigators work to find motive behind Christmas blast

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  • Anthony Warner, 63, died in Friday explosion he set off
  • Hundreds of tips and leads given to police and agencies

Federal authorities are working to piece together the motive behind the Christmas Day bombing in Nashville that severely damaged dozens of downtown buildings and injured three people.

Related: Nashville blast: officials identify Anthony Warner as the bomber

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Nashville blast: investigators name 63-year-old man as person of interest

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Blast caused damage to dozens of buildings and hurt three people as police reportedly examine whether bomber had 5G paranoia

Authorities in Tennessee on Sunday named a 63-year-old Nashville resident as a person of interest in the Christmas morning bombing that injured three people and destroyed sections of the city’s historic downtown.

The Nashville police chief John Drake linked Anthony Quinn Warner, from the south eastern suburb of Antioch, to the explosion that took place outside a facility owned by the telecommunications company AT&T and knocked out or impaired mobile phone services in several other cities.

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Blast that rocked downtown Nashville appears to be ‘intentional act’, police say

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  • Explosion linked to parked RV occurred at 6.45am
  • Three suffer non-critical injuries as structural damage reported

A large explosion that rocked downtown Nashville early on Christmas morning appears to have been an “intentional act”, according to local police, as the FBI announced it would lead the investigation into a blast that caused severe damage and left three people with non-critical injuries.

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Tennessee paper religious ad claims ‘Islam’ will detonate nuclear bomb in Nashville

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  • Editor of the Tennessean calls full-page advertisement ‘horrific’
  • Newspaper investigating ‘breakdown in the normal process’

A Tennessee newspaper said on Sunday it was investigating what its editor called a “horrific” full-page advertisement from a religious group that predicts a terrorist attack in Nashville next month.

The paid advertisement that appeared in Sunday’s editions of the Tennessean from the group Future For America claims Donald Trump “is the final president of the USA” and features a photo of Trump and Pope Francis.

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Judge overturns ban on abortions in Tennessee during Covid-19 crisis

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US state’s move was part of a temporary ban on non-essential medical procedures


A federal judge has barred the state of Tennessee from preventing abortions during a temporary ban on non-essential medical procedures to slow the spread of Covid-19.

US district judge, Bernard Friedman, said the defendants didn’t show that any appreciable amount of personal protective equipment (PPE) would be saved if the ban was applied to abortions.

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Nashville tornadoes: at least 25 people killed and hundreds homeless

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  • Fire crews and police comb through tornado’s wreckage
  • Torn walls and roofs, snapped power lines and downed trees

Tornadoes ripped across Tennessee as people slept early on Tuesday, shredding at least 140 buildings and killing at least 25 people. Authorities described painstaking efforts to find survivors in piles of rubble and wrecked basements as the death toll climbed.

A Tennessee emergency management agency spokeswoman raised the death toll on Tuesday morning, after police and fire crews spent hours pulling survivors and bodies from wrecked buildings.

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Electric eel lights up Christmas tree in Tennessee aquarium – video

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The Christmas tree at the Tennessee aquarium is being powered by an unusual renewable energy source – an electric eel. Miguel Wattson is the resident eel and through a special system that connects his tank to a nearby tree, the natural shocks he produces when he is looking for food or when he is excited, is being channelled to power fairy lights

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