Homo sapiens, London Zoo’s newest exhibit are seen in their enclosure in London Thursday. The four day exhibit highlights the spread of earth’s most adaptable species and the importance of man’s place in the planet’s eco-system. (AP Photo) LONDON (AP) — At London Zoo, you can talk to the animals — and now some of…

Shown at the offices of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education is president David French, Wednesday, Aug. 17, 2005, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/George Widman) PHILADELPHIA (AP) — When part-time college student Jihad Daniel received a campuswide e-mail invitation to see a movie about lesbians, he balked. “These are perversions,” he replied to the e-mail’s…

DANDRIDGE (AP) — All three students involved in a school restroom shooting have now been charged, according to Jefferson County Sheriff David Davenport. Two seventh-graders had been taken into custody after a third student was shot in the leg while they were handling a gun in a school restroom. The student’s wound was minor and…

COLUMBIA (AP) — A rare sunflower found in Maury and six other Tennessee counties has been removed from the federal government’s list of threatened plants. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service removed Eggert’s sunflower from its listing as threatened under the Endangered Species Act because new populations have been identified and other populations secured, agency…

DANDRIDGE (AP) — A school bus driver in Cocke County supplemented his income with a thriving side business selling cocaine and other drugs, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said Friday. Dewey Lynn Phillips, 50, is charged with possessing 12.5 kilograms, or about 27 pounds, of cocaine, 33 pounds of marijuana and assorted paraphernalia. The street…

NASHVILLE (AP) — Nashville tourism officials aren’t exactly rolling out the red carpet for Miss America. The beauty pageant is leaving Atlantic City, N.J., after 84 years, and Nashville has been mentioned as a possible new home, along with Orlando, Fla. But the president of the Nashville Convention and Visitors Bureau said he’s not sure…

NASHVILLE (AP) — Troubled country music singer Mindy McCready was arrested Friday in Florida on a charge of violating her probation on a drug conviction in Tennessee, authorities said. A spokeswoman for the Pinellas County sheriff’s department said McCready was jailed early Friday night on an arrest warrant issued Aug. 8. According to the warrant,…

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal panel voted Friday to strip Nashville’s 118th Airlift Wing of its eight C-130 transport planes, which would send an estimated 175 jobs out of state. But that decision could be voided by a lawsuit filed by Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen challenging the federal government’s ability to close a unit that…

MURFREESBORO (AP) — Members of an anti-gay church are set to protest at the funerals of two Tennessee soldiers this weekend, a plan that is being condemned by local clergy and the father of one of those killed. Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., said it would demonstrate against homosexuality at Saturday’s funerals for Staff…

NASHVILLE (AP) — Country music’s “Redneck Woman” promises to keep her can of Skoal in her back pocket from now on. Tennessee’s attorney general had asked Gretchen Wilson not to pull out a can of smokeless tobacco during performances of her new song “Skoal Ring” because it glamorized tobacco use. A warning letter said the…