By CHARLES W. JOHNSON / News Editor for the Southern Standard This is one of the messages appearing on billboards across Tennessee urging motorists to watch out for motorcyclists. Though their numbers are growing, motorcyclists still represent one of the smallest segments of the driving population in the U.S.They are also, through no fault of…

By DUANE SHERRILL / Staff Reporter for the Southern Standard SMEDLEY Criminal charges have been dismissed against the reigning Fairest of the Fair and her roommates after a teen-age guest in their home was hospitalized after taking an overdose.Charges of contributing to the delinquency of a minor were dismissed Monday against 2004 Fairest of the…

By DUANE SHERRILL / Staff Reporter for the Southern Standard The Steel Workers Union has drawn a line in the sand saying either Bridgestone come up with a better offer or the workers will walk at midnight July 15.Meanwhile the company says it has a fair offer on the table and that Bridgestone has a…

ATLANTA (AP) — A civil rights group said Monday that it will launch a series of protests against the suburban Atlanta county where a prosecutor declined to revisit the case of a jailed black man who died days after he was stunned with a Taser. The Atlanta-based Southern Christian Leadership Conference previously had asked that…

WASHINGTON (AP) — Home builder Marsha Elliott is selling two units in a brand new stucco and stone duplex. But the buyer isn’t planning to move in or rent. Hoping to capitalize on rapidly rising home prices, the buyer intends to sell the units shortly after the July closing, Elliott says. It’s part of the…

ROME (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI rails against Europe in his first book published since becoming pope, chastising a culture that he says excludes God from life and allows innocent lives — the unborn — to be taken from God through legalized abortion. “The Europe of Benedict: In the crisis of cultures” was written when…

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush says he is determined to complete the mission of establishing democracy in Iraq because the world will be a better place for it, and so those who have fallen in combat will not have died in vain. At a joint news conference Monday with European leaders, the president also defended…

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — The clamps are coming down on released sex offenders like never before. Laws restrict where they can live, Web sites list their names, satellites track their steps. Neighbors and bosses force them from their homes and jobs. The tightening of restrictions around the country comes after several recent slayings of children,…

DOVER (AP) — Controlled burning in the Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area is bringing part of the 173,000-acre peninsula on the Kentucky-Tennessee border closer to how it might have looked in the early 1700s. Native American cultures practiced basic land management, including selective tree thinning and clearing to support wildlife and healthier forests,…

NASHVILLE (AP) — Conservative religious leader Rev. Jerry Falwell credited evangelicals for putting President George Bush in office in 2004 and said the Christian group now has its eye on defeating Hillary Clinton should she run in the next presidential election. “The church won the 2004 elections and don’t let anyone tell you any differently,”…