By LISA HOBBS The first meeting of the McMinnville Downtown Revenue Finance Corporation will be held today at 5 p.m. at the Chamber of Commerce. MDRFC was established to administer the Payment In Lieu Of Taxes (PILOT) program, an incentive program that aims to encourage commercial real estate development in and around downtown McMinnville. There…

By DUANE SHERRILL A mother who left home to attend her estranged husband?s probation meeting is charged with child neglect for leaving her two children locked out in the cold. The suspect, Angela Darlene Rines Perez, 32, is charged with child neglect for the incident which occurred Friday afternoon following school. The Department of Children?s…

GERMANTOWN, Tenn. (AP) ? Pausing over a plate of pork barbecue, Neil Harkavy gave two simple reasons he believes smoking should be banned in Tennessee restaurants. ?It?s unhealthy, No. 1,? he said, ?and it doesn?t smell good.? That pretty well sums up the feelings of many nonsmokers who will be watching the state Legislature this…

NASHVILLE (AP) ? Former state Sen. John Ford said Friday he cannot afford a private attorney and may need a public defender to represent him on charges relating to consulting deals he had with state contractors while he was in the Legislature. Ford is accused of taking more than $800,000 in consultant payments from two…

LITTLE ROCK (AP) ? Toyota Motor Corp. has narrowed its choices for a new automotive manufacturing plant to two ? Marion in eastern Arkansas and Chattanooga, Tenn., a newspaper reported Saturday. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette cited three unnamed sources the paper said were familiar with the Japanese carmaker?s expansion plans. One source said Toyota could choose…

By Thomas Vaughn In the 2006 Congressional election campaigns, Democrats derided what they called a ?culture of corruption,? cultivated and condoned by the Republicans. In case you missed it, Democrats aren?t exactly amateurs when it comes to cashing in on corruption ??at taxpayers expense.?Of 17 convicted former legislators still drawing or eligible to draw their…

By Morton Kondracke The good news on the budget front is that both the Bush administration and Congressional Democrats want to eliminate the deficit by 2012. The bad news is they are at daggers-drawn about how to do it. President Bush wants to keep all of his tax cuts alive indefinitely and freeze domestic spending,…

Knoxville News Sentinel When has too much money ever been a problem? And so it is with the Tennessee lottery scholarships. So far, there is $315 million in reserve that has accumulated in the scholarship program since it was launched three years ago. That’s well above the $50 million reserve mandated by state law to…

By Lisa Hobbs I spend most of my time trying to teach my children right from wrong, not to tell lies, monitoring their activities, telling them when they have done good or bad and guiding them in the way to being law-abiding, respectable adults. Not mentioned, but I?m also a shoulder to cry on, a…

SHANNON, Miss. (AP) ? Upholstered furniture maker Alan White Co. is laying off more than 300 workers at its facility in Shannon. It is the fourth such announcement in six months for the $4 billion furniture industry in Mississippi, which employs some 21,000 workers. Privately held Alan White, which was founded in 1953 and is…