By KRISTEN WYATT / Associated Press Writer ATLANTA (AP) — They haven’t given up on the Confederate flag, but Southern heritage groups are now pushing for more acknowledgment of Georgia’s Civil War history. On Monday, a day before Georgians vote in a state flag referendum that doesn’t include the 1956 banner dominated by the Confederate…

By MARTHA MENDOZA / AP National Writer SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — When Zandra Rolon and Lori Rogers seized the opportunity for gay couples to marry in San Francisco and exchanged vows last week, they didn’t just tell their friends about it. They put it in the local paper. “People don’t have much exposure to same-sex…

By WILL LESTER / Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — Gay marriage is a more powerful social issue for voters than either abortion or gun control, a new poll suggests. Four in 10 voters say they would not vote for a candidate who disagrees with them on gay marriage, even if they agree with the…

By MARY DALRYMPLE / AP Tax Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — The first batch of checks mailed from the Internal Revenue Service this year showed the average tax refund climbed $97 compared to those issued at the same time last year, according to figures released Friday. Refunds mailed so far this year average $2,292, a 4.5…

EAST RIDGE (AP) — When students at a middle school told the principal Friday that a substitute teacher was behaving strangely and trying to buy Xanax, police said they arranged an undercover transaction. Police Lt. Tim Mullinax said the teacher, Kielah M. Anderson, 27, was arrested on a charge of possessing a controlled substance after…

OAK RIDGE (AP) — An evacuation earlier this month at an Oak Ridge nuclear cleanup site was blamed on an employee tampering with the site’s alarm system, officials said. The worker admitted to tampering with the system Feb. 4, triggering the building’s “criticality alarm,” said Dennis Hill, a spokesman for Bechtel Jacobs Co, the government’s…

CHATTANOOGA (AP) — Tennessee Rand Co. will add 100 jobs by expanding its change from all-purpose machining work to designing and making robotic systems for the automobile industry, a company spokesman said. The company plans an $11 million expansion in a new 200,000-square-foot facility next to its existing Moccasin Bend site. The jobs will be…

MEMPHIS (AP) — Predatory home lending in Memphis is a sinful epidemic, say city religious leaders who are banding together to combat it. The Shelby County Interfaith group representing 35 congregations plans to ask the Memphis City Council and Shelby County Commission to approve ordinances limiting fees and interest rates charged on home loans and…

KNOXVILLE (AP) — U.S. Rep. John J. Duncan Jr. has taken the Tennessee Valley Authority to task for subcontracting some work to India, and the federal utility is exploring whether to cancel two technical services contracts as a result. TVA Chairman Glenn McCullough Jr. told Duncan, a Knoxville Republican, that the agency will re-evaluate whether…

By DUNCAN MANSFIELD / Associated Press Writer KNOXVILLE (AP) — Tennessee Valley Authority lakes would stay high through Labor Day and tributary reservoirs wouldn’t fall so far in the winter, the TVA staff has recommended in a bid to boost recreation and lakeshore economies. The 1,800-page TVA report — the culmination of an $11 million,…