Tag Archives: Tennessee

The Chattanooga Times Free Press reports: A U.S. District Court judge gave the go-ahead to a lawsuit against a former Hamilton County deputy accused of baptizing a woman against her will after a 2019 traffic stop. In addition to ruling that the suit against Daniel Wilkey, 28, may proceed, Tennessee Eastern District Court Judge Travis R. McDonough ruled that several …

Nashville’s ABC News affiliate reports: A local lawmaker has co-sponsored a bill that would allow ivermectin to be sold over the counter in Tennessee without a prescription. On Wednesday, the bill co-sponsored by Sen. Rusty Crowe (R-Johnson City) was passed by the state Senate. Senate Bill 2188 was introduced by Sen. Frank Niceley (R-Strawberry Plains) on Jan. 31. Crowe became …

Nashville’s Fox News affiliate reports: A Tennessee bill to be heard in the state senate Thursday would create a marriage class specifically for marriage between a man and a woman. SB562/HB233 creates a “Record of Marital Contract at Common Law” to be filed by county clerks and establishes common law marriage in the state as “between one man and one …

The Tennessean reports: A bill to place residency requirements on Tennessee congressional candidates cleared its final hurdle in the General Assembly on Monday as both chambers agreed to allow the requirements to take effect immediately upon signing. The House and Senate had previously passed competing versions of the bill, which implicitly targeted the candidacy of Morgan Ortagus, a former State …

Nashville’s CBS News affiliate reports: Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton has been subpoenaed to appear before a federal grand jury as part of an ongoing FBI investigation into Capitol Hill corruption. Legislative sources said they believe that as many as 10-12 other House Republicans were also served Tuesday with grand jury subpoenas. This dramatic development follows the recent guilty plea …

Via press release from the local police: On Thursday, March 10, 2022, at approximately 4:44PM, the Obion County Sheriff’s Office received a call of a loose camel near Shirley Farms on South Bluff Road in Obion, Tennessee attacking people. Deputies arrived on scene to find two unconscious victims on the ground at Shirley Farms and a camel still on the …

The Associated Press reports: House Republicans in Tennessee advanced legislation on Tuesday that would ban public schools from using textbooks or materials that “promote, normalize, support or address LGBT issues or lifestyles.” Critics argue the bill is similar to a measure that Florida’s Republican-dominated legislature passed just hours earlier, which would forbid instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in …

ABC News reports: Legislation introduced in the Tennessee state legislature this month is raising alarms from the state’s police union and gun control advocates who say it could turn the streets into the “old West.” Two bills in the state assembly and state senate, HB 254 and SB 2523, would amend Tennessee law and designate “a person who has been …

The Hill reports: Former State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus is jumping into the race for Tennessee’s 5th congressional district after winning a preemptive endorsement from former President Donald Trump. That endorsement was front and center in a video announcing Ortagus’s campaign on Monday that highlighted her ties to Trump. “Morgan worked with President Trump to not just make America great …

USA Today reports: A jury on Friday night found Travis Reinking guilty of first-degree murder in the deaths of four people at a Tennessee Waffle House in 2018, thwarting an attempted insanity defense and marking a dramatic conclusion to one of the city’s most high-profile criminal trials. The jury deliberated for nearly five hours. Reinking, 33, faced multiple murder charges …

Nashville Scene reports: HatWRKS, the Nashville headwear distributor previously famous mostly for various MAGA-adjacent messaging on the side of its Eighth Avenue store, found itself in a bit of a pickle last year. Its owner, Gigi Gaskins, posted a picture of a woman wearing a yellow Star of David, similar to the ones the Nazis made Jewish people wear, with …

Salon reports: A Tennessee state legislator introduced a joint resolution to “reprimand” the Associated Press (AP) for publishing an article highlighting racism within the military’s ranks, saying the outlet “engaged in the lowest form of yellow journalism.” The bill was proposed by Republican state Rep. Bud Hulsey, who objected to an AP story that ran back in May, entitled “Deep-rooted …

The Associated Press reports: Attorneys for a man who killed four people in a shooting at a Nashville Waffle House said Monday that Travis Reinking believed the restaurant patrons and employees were government agents whom he had been commanded by God to kill. Reinking, 32, was naked save for a green jacket when he opened fire inside the restaurant on …

The Insider reports: “Maus,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about the Holocaust, surged to the top of Amazon’s bestseller list over the weekend after a Tennessee school board removed it from its eighth-grade curriculum. As of Monday morning, “The Complete Maus,” which includes all volumes of the graphic novel, was number one on Amazon. Individual editions for volumes one and …

Chalkbeat Tennessee reports: Two Tennessee lawmakers have filed a bill aimed at purging books and other materials deemed “obscene or harmful to minors” from school libraries. The bill, filed this week by Republicans Rep. Scott Cepicky of Culleoka and Sen. Joey Hensley [photo] of Hohenwald, would apply to public schools, including charter schools. The proposal comes amid a national wave …

CNBC reports: A Tennessee school board has voted to remove the Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel “Maus” from an eighth-grade language arts curriculum due to concerns about profanity and an image of female nudity in its depiction of Polish Jews who survived the Holocaust. The Jan. 10 vote by the McMinn County School Board, which only began attracting attention Wednesday, comes …

Politico reports: Democratic Rep. Jim Cooper, a 32-year veteran of Congress, will retire at the end of this year, after Tennessee Republicans shredded his Nashville-based seat into three pieces in redistricting. He is the 29th House Democrat to leave the chamber to retire or seek higher office during this Congress. “No one tried harder to keep our city whole,” Cooper …

The Knox News reports: A Knoxville couple is suing the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services, saying a state-sponsored Christian-based adoption agency refused to help them because they are Jewish. The adoption agency, the Holston United Methodist Home for Children based in Greeneville, Tennessee, denied Elizabeth and Gabriel Rutan-Ram from acquiring Tennessee-mandated foster-parent training and a home-study certification as they attempted …

Knoxville’s ABC News affiliate reports: Investigators with the Knoxville Fire Department, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), have determined that the fire at the Planned Parenthood in Knoxville was purposely set. The KFD says the individual or individuals who started the fire have not been identified yet. The fire took place on Dec. 31 at around 6:39 …

Knoxville’s ABC News affiliate reports: Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents are assisting the Knoxville Fire Department’s investigation into Friday’s fire that destroyed a Planned Parenthood Center, but officials say there is no evidence at this time that indicates the fire was intentionally set. “It’s because it is Planned Parenthood, because of the political nature of Planned Parenthood,” …