CLINTON (AP) — Gov. Phil Bredesen got a first-hand look Thursday at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s multibillion-dollar efforts to reduce air pollution. The governor toured the Bull Run coal-fired power plant where TVA has begun building a $300 million scrubber system to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions. The plant, some 30 miles from the often smoggy…

OAK RIDGE (AP) — A week after attending the funeral of a corrections officer killed during an inmate escape, Gov. Phil Bredesen said Thursday he will work to make sure all Tennessee corrections officers are properly equipped. “That is something that I am going to look at. To see how we can get the proper…

OAK RIDGE (AP) — For every 100 students who enter the ninth grade in Tennessee, only 34 will go to college and just 14 will graduate within six years, Gov. Phil Bredesen said Thursday. “That is unacceptable,” the governor said in challenging teachers and businessmen at a Tennessee Business Roundtable summit on math and science…

KNOXVILLE (AP) — Vanderbilt ranked 18th among the best national universities and the University of Tennessee at Knoxville moved up to 85th in the U.S. News and World Report’s 2005 rankings. The magazine’s latest guide to “America’s Best Colleges” hits newsstands on Monday. The rankings are based on criteria such as graduation and retention rates,…

TO THE EDITOR: I sat in my office Monday morning drinking coffee, and recollecting on Sunday’s exciting worship service (one young man accepted Jesus Christ as Lord) and thinking about what an awesome God we serve and how He chooses to use us in spite of who we are. My heart was literally full of…

By George Plagenz / Columnist Weddings come in all guises, including nutty. I am thinking of a wedding in the zany 1960s where the bride wore only a smile as she rode through the village streets sidesaddle on a horse, Lady Godiva-style.The crowd lining the side of the street closest to where the bride on…

By Gene Lyons / Columnist Having voted in my last junior-high student-council election long ago, I am normally unmoved by suggestions that this column adopt a more upbeat perspective regarding President Bush. I can think of no good reason either to feign school spirit or pretend enthusiasm for the administration’s manifest failures, foreign and domestic.Even…

By Mike Vinson / Columnist A friend recently revealed to me a story that caused me to gasp and my bottom lip to drop. I just sat there speechless, staring my friend in the face, he staring right back at me. Fact of the matter is the story had such a profound effect on me…

The sixth annual Fest de Ville Gala on Sat., August 27, will benefit the comprehensive education program of the Tennessee Performing Arts Center. The black tie evening, a celebration of TPAC’s 25th anniversary, begins with a silent auction and cocktails at 6:30 p.m. in the main lobby, followed by dinner on the stage of Andrew…

Jennie Lynn Powers and Darren Riley Clark were married June 25 in a double ring ceremony held at the home of the bride’s parents. (Photo provided) Jennie Lynn Powers wed Darren Riley Clark in an outdoor ceremony June 25 at the home of the bride’s parents.The bride is the daughter of Joel and Julie Powers…