By WILL STEWART / Staff Reporter for the Southern Standard GREER Set to map their high school careers and beyond, all Warren County eighth-graders will soon be pre-registering for the ninth grade at a series of meetings to be held around the county.By state law, all current eighth-graders and their parents are required to attend…

Duane Sherrill photo Raul Diaz, 22, suffered non-critical injuries Monday afternoon when his vehicle overturned near the entrance to Medley’s Diner in Centertown on Nashville Highway. Diaz went into a ditch in an attempt to miss a vehicle, driven by Kimberly Annette Fann, 40, which was turning into the parking lot. Diaz’s vehicle overturned in…

By DUANE SHERRILL / Staff Reporter for the Southern Standard Gas prices are soaring locally and up to an average of $1.76 a gallon across the nation, a record. With gas prices reaching historically high levels, the numbers of drive-offs from the pump have also skyrocketed with retailers around the country reporting a 300 percent…

By WILL STEWART / Staff Reporter for the Southern Standard John Weitzel, left, and Brad Anderson After proving its worth on the marching field in the fall, Warren County High School’s band took straight superior honors at the Middle Tennessee School Band and Orchestra Association 2004 Concert Festival held earlier this month.In achieving this feat,…

By DUANE SHERRILL / Staff Reporter for the Southern Standard Burglars hit one of the busiest parts of the city sometime Sunday morning, using a blow torch to break into Village Car Wash.“This is one of the highest traffic areas in town and is no more than 100 feet from a drive-thru window which is…

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE / AP Business Writer SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Google Inc. has fine-tuned its popular online search engine with a new look designed to boost its Froogle shopping service and alert users to previously unheralded tools for getting sharper results. The changes unveiled Monday are the latest in a series of moves Google…

By DANIEL Q. HANEY / AP Medical Editor ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Getting modest amounts of exercise, even just an easy half-hour walk a day, appears to substantially improve women’s chances of surviving breast cancer. Staying active has long been thought to lower the risk of getting cancer, but a new report says it may…

By EILEEN ALT POWELL / AP Business Writer NEW YORK (AP) — Lisa McKinley learned the hard way what can happen when you bounce checks. McKinley, 36, a single mother with four children in Milwaukee, got into trouble last year when everything went wrong all at once: The company she worked for went out of…

By MARTHA BRYSON HODEL / Associated Press Writer HUNTINGTON, W.Va. (AP) — Designing transportation projects with economic development in mind is the next task for improving the economy of the Appalachian region, U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta said Monday. “Appalachia needs this marriage of transportation and development expertise,” Mineta said during a meeting with…

By LAURAN NEERGAARD / AP Medical Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — The pollen starting to blanket the country means more than stuffy noses and runny eyes for millions of Americans: Allergies actually are the most common cause of asthma. Yet many sufferers don’t know that pollen or other allergens are triggering their asthma attacks, knowledge that…