NASHVILLE (AP) Gov. Phil Bredesen was in a hospital yesterday with flu-like symptoms that doctors said could have been caused by a tick bite, his spokeswoman said. Bredesen, 62, fell ill Monday with a severe headache and high fever, spokeswoman Lydia Lenker said Tuesday afternoon. He was admitted to Centennial Medical Center in Nashville where…

DUNLAP, Tenn. (AP) A 6-year-old boy died when his Batman cape was caught up in an all-terrain vehicle and choked him, authorities said. Dawson Grant was playing with his small ATV Sunday morning when a cape he was wearing became entangled in the vehicle’s sprocket and axle, Sequatchie County Deputy Chief Clint Walker said Monday.…

By James Clark If a teacher wants to maintain a personal Web site, he or she should enjoy the same First Amendments rights as every other American adult. But it?s fairly easy to see where floodgates to potential problems can burst open when students post comments on their teacher?s Web site. This comes dangerously close…

By Charlie Johnson Should a local high school teacher be subjected to public scrutiny for maintaining a personal Web site on MySpace.com? That?s the question being posed around the community right. Most people agree there would be no story had it not been for the situation that developed between former Centertown teacher Pamela Rogers and…

Jim Mullen TV advertisers are angry with me. Well, not me personally, but people like me who have stopped watching live television. We’re good enough to only watch television recorded on our digital video recorders. Whatever, whenever — Letterman at 8 a.m., “Desperate Housewives” at 5:47 on a Tuesday, the evening news at noon. My…

Duane Sherrill I?m sick and tired of folks trying to make me feel guilty about driving my car. Have you noticed since the oil price spike and the current war in Iraq how experts have tried to blame America?s reliance on foreign oil as the overriding reason for the state we?re in? They make the…

William Rusher It is probably wise not to make too much of Ned Lamont’s victory over Sen. Joseph Lieberman in Connecticut’s recent Democratic senatorial primary. In the first place, Connecticut is a thoroughly liberal Northeastern state, wedged between New York and Massachusetts, and is therefore hardly a very good barometer of American public opinion in…

Steve C. Stubblefield CFSA Director In simpler times, when a producer visited the county Farm Service Agency (FSA) county office to sign a form there was no questions about how to sign. The producer simply signed his or her name of the dotted line. ?In today?s world of entities ? trusts, limited partnerships, limited liability…

Presented by the Department of Urban Forestry, 474-TREE This week?s plant of the week has special significance to the nursery industry in Middle Tennessee. Carolina Allspice was one of the first commercially grown plants dating back to the mid 1880?s when H.H. Boyd collected seeds from this native plant, thus spawning a multi-million industry and…

It sure was hot last week, but most folks got some rain late in the week so we can be happy about that. Wednesday night I went down and watched some of the cattle sell at the Pfizer Pre-Conditioned Sale held at the local barn. Now, David Mason and the rest of the Simpson clan…