NASHVILLE (AP) — The Legislature endorsed a new law that opens records on employment searches that government agencies hand over to private search firms. The Senate unanimously endorsed the idea Monday night at the prompting of Sen. David Fowler, R-Signal Mountain. It had already cleared the House. The measure would apply to executive searches ranging…

CHATTANOOGA (AP) — The United States’ continued involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan is hurting Army recruiting across the nation and in Tennessee, particularly with females. Of the 1,191 National Guard enlistments statewide between Oct. 1, 2003, and Sept. 30, 2004, only 131 — or about 11 percent — were female, said Lee Elder, spokesman for…

CHATTANOOGA (AP) — More money is needed for the increased number of Hamilton County students interested in Bible classes, according to a private group. Doug Stromberg, president of the Public School Bible Study Committee, said four schools have asked to add a social studies elective to study the Bible next year. And two of the…

KNOXVILLE (AP) — The attorney for an East Tennessee amusement park manager convicted in the death of a woman who fell 60 feet to her death from a carnival ride said he will seek probation for his client. A prison term would be too harsh a punishment for Charles Stan Martin, 56, said Bryan Delius.…

NASHVILLE (AP) — The state House has approved a bill to restrict credit card companies’ solicitation on university campuses. The University of Tennessee system has contracts with credit card companies that allow them to use the UT name on the cards and contact students and alumni. The bill could reduce the amount the university gets…

NASHVILLE (AP) — Partisan wrangling and personal feuds could doom bills that would shed light on the lobbying money that flows into the state Capitol. Two lobbying disclosure proposals — one favored by Democratic leaders and the other backed by key Republicans — jockeyed for favor Tuesday. But without consensus on which one to advance,…

NASHVILLE (AP) — Thousands of people who could be cut from TennCare would receive a pharmacy discount card and other benefits under legislation that’s moving through the General Assembly in its final weeks. “The goal is to give all enrollees to be disenrolled some help,” Senate Minority Leader Jim Kyle said Tuesday. Kyle sponsored the…

By Diana West / Columnist Something I do while perusing the morning Internet is read the military obituaries in the British press, mainly The Daily Telegraph.Invariably, these write-ups mark the passing of a veteran of World War II in the kind of scope and detail, as critic James Bowman has noted, rarely found in an…

William Ovid (Willo) Collins III, born Nov. 26, 1940, died May 12 of cancer.The son of William Ovid Collins Jr. of Nashville and the late Elizabeth Cornelius Collins, he is survived by daughter Tina Collins of Mobile, Ala., sister Ellen C. Hamilton of Dalzell, S.C., niece Ashley Hamilton, nephews Ian and Adam Hamilton, and companion…

Woodbury resident and Cannon County native Wavel Merriman Alford, 61, died May 16 at Centennial Medical Center after a short illness.A retired Aquatech employee and a member of Pleasant View Baptist Church, she was the daughter of Martha Merriman of Woodbury and the late Walter Merriman; and was preceded in death by husband, Tom Alford.She…