RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — The inscription “In God We Trust” on the facade of a government building in North Carolina does not violate the U.S. Constitution’s guidelines on the separation of church and state, a federal appeals court ruled Friday. A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously upheld a lower…

KNOXVILLE (AP) — Two teenagers were being held in juvenile jails after a fight resulted in three Knoxville police officers being sent to the hospital. Tyrone Jackson, 18, and Steven Soles, 17, were both charged with aggravated assault and resisting arrest Friday. The officers — one of whom was knocked unconscious — all spent the…

NASHVILLE (AP) — A high school teacher has been placed on paid administrative leave after distributing a fake test that made light of child abuse, shootings, drug use and teen pregnancy. Metro schools launched an investigation into the test allegedly distributed by Pearl-Cohn High School art teacher Warren Riker, 34, on Thursday. “He has admitted…

CHATTANOOGA (AP) — Shoeless Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist addressed an impromptu rally against the President’s social security plan at a downtown shoe store in Washington. About 25 members of Americans United to Protect Social Security quickly convened and chanted “We say organize; Frist says privatize!” during the peaceful protest on Friday after seeing Frist…

SEVIERVILLE (AP) — The general manager of a Smoky Mountains amusement park denied responsibility Saturday in a woman’s fatal fall from one of his carnival rides. Charles Stan Martin, 56, took the stand on the fourth day of his trial on charges of second-degree murder in the March 2004 death of June Carol Alexander. The…

WASHINGTON (AP) — Military installations waited for years to hear the Pentagon’s recommendations for the first round of base closings in a decade. But the announcement Friday didn’t clear anything up for one Tennessee Air Guard unit. The Nashville-based 118th Airlift Wing would lose its eight C-130H aircraft and most of its employees under the…

NASHVILLE (AP) — A Houston lawyer who called on Southern Baptists to remove their children from “godless” public schools last year is now asking churches to investigate whether schools are promoting acceptance of homosexuality. Bruce Shortt’s resolution was voted down last year, but he is proposing another to be considered at the Southern Baptist Convention…

By George Plagenz When the Rev. Max Dowell was rector of Christ Episcopal Church in Shaker Heights, Ohio, he would stand in the church parking lot on Sunday mornings as the fathers were dropping their children off at Sunday School.The men were intending to turn around and go home but they never even got their…

By Thomas Vaughn / Columnist Retired Army Col. David Hackworth died May 4. He was 74.Nicknamed “Hack”, he was a courageous,colorful, controversial character. His battlefield bravery puts him in the pantheon of American military heroes like our own Sgt Alvin York in WW I and Audie Murphy in WW II. He earned his first Silver…

By Charles W. Johnson / Columnist I was recently introduced to a wonderfully impertinent and irreverent Web site called, appropriately, BuzzWhack. This site’s stated purpose is “de-mystifying buzzwords.” Of course, everyone in this day and age knows about buzzwords, those arcane terms coined by pundits to describe some aspect of whatever industry or activity they…