Sparta resident and Warren County native Oval Hitchcock, 67, died unexpectedly March 6 at his home.The co-owner of Spar Gas in Sparta and a member of Findlay Church of Christ, he was the son of the late Joe and Geneva Curtis Hitchcock; and was preceded in death by his wife Betty Jean Nunley Hitchcock in…

By JASON STRAZIUSO / Associated Press Writer NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. (AP) — The TV news report is hard to ignore: An unsuspecting man goes to a house where he allegedly thinks a teenage girl is waiting to have sex with him, but instead he is met by a TV reporter with a camera and microphone.…

By RYAN J. FOLEY / Associated Press Writer ADEL, Iowa (AP) — A health care model being tested at a nursing home in central Iowa may hold the key to alleviating overcrowded hospitals and reducing costs while improving long-term health care for frail seniors, doctors say. The goal of the study, funded by the Centers…

By ALLEN G. BREED / Associated Press Writer When small-town Mayor Jason West started presiding over gay weddings, he saw it as nothing short of “the flowering of the largest civil rights movement the country’s had in a generation.” “The people who would forbid gays from marrying in this country are those who would have…

KNOXVILLE (AP) — Some 18,000 consumers in Tennessee received an unwarranted $7.50 charge on their monthly telephone bills thanks to an error by AT&T. Representatives of the New Jersey-based company acknowledged the error during a Friday meeting with Tennessee Regulatory Authority officials. The mistake impacted former AT&T customers who use BellSouth, which in many cases…

NASHVILLE (AP) — Nashville police officers will now be required to get permission from their supervisors before participating in pursuits of suspected criminals, Chief Ronal Serpas has decided. The officers must also receive additional authorization from supervisors as conditions of the chase change, said Serpas, who announced the policy Friday. “We’re trying to strike a…

MC PHEE MURFREESBORO (AP) — Dozens of Middle Tennessee State University professors have called for a faculty and staff vote on the leadership of school president Sidney McPhee, who is struggling to move beyond a sexual harassment complaint against him.Educational leadership professor Joel Hausler has asked the Faculty Senate to sponsor a campuswide referendum, while…

By Diana West / Columnist What does John Kerry stand for? This is now the political parlor game of the election season upon us. Of course, what doesn’t John Kerry stand for?There may be something purely comic in the anecdote about the Kerry constituent who, in 1991, received two letters from the Massachusetts senator, nine…

By Ed Kimbrell / Columnist As if there aren’t enough problems associated with public schools, now comes word once again of how poor and often erroneous our school textbooks are, especially in history. To the burdened parent, this is troubling news but to those living inside the battleground of textbook selection, it’s an old and…

By Will Stewart American society has no lack of problems. Terrorism, meth and other hard drugs, gun violence, domestic violence, rape, assault, murder, sexual abuse, child pornography ? these are but a few of the problems we face. Love and marriage, however, are not problems.Love and marriage, of the homosexual variety, came under attack in…