U.S. labor secretary says UAW win at Tennessee Volkswagen plant shows southern workers back unions
Acting U.S. Labor Secretary Julie Su says workers at southern auto plants should be free to unionize without employer or political interference, even as some southern states pass new laws meant to inhibit organized labor.
Investigation shows armed officer was hostage at home of Grammy winner who was killed by police
Newly released investigative files in the police shooting death of a Grammy-winning sound engineer revealed there was an armed Tennessee Bureau of Investigation officer in the home when Mark Capps began threatening his family with guns on Jan. 5.
Families form nonprofits to address gun, school safety after Nashville school shooting
Families connected to a Nashville school that experienced a fatal shooting earlier this year have created nonprofits to not only promote school safety and mental health resources, but also to form an action fund to push legislative policy changes.
In gun law push, Tennessee governor's office memo says NRA prefers to 'round up mentally ill people'
Documents obtained by The Associated Press show Tennessee Gov_ Bill Leeโs administration accused the National Rifle Association of wanting to use involuntary commitment laws โto round up mentally ill people and deprive them of other liberties."
After school shooting, Tenn. gun laws likely to remain lax
A federal judge quietly cleared the way to drop the minimum age to 18 for Tennesseans to carry handguns in public without a permit the same day Nashville residents were reeling from a fatal grade school shooting that left six dead, including three children.
Tenn. governor vows to sign anti-drag bill as photo surfaces
Republican Gov. Bill Lee says it would be โridiculousโ to conflate a recently surfaced yearbook photo of him wearing womenโs clothing in high school to drag show performances currently under attack in Tennessee and other GOP-led states.
Records: 2 people in execution knew drugs hadnโt been tested
Newly released records show at two least two people connected to a planned Tennessee execution that was abruptly put on hold April 21 knew the night before that the lethal injection drugs the state planned to use hadnโt undergone certain required testing.
Ford, battery maker face job requirement for Tennessee plant
A lease agreement says Ford Motor Co. and a South Korean company would have to create more than 5,000 full-time jobs at a planned electric pickup truck factory and battery manufacturing plant in Tennessee or pay back at least part of a $500 million state grant for the project.
Governor: Transgender athletes will 'destroy women's sports'
Bill Lee delivers his State of the State Address in War Memorial Auditorium, Monday, Feb. 8, 2021, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)NASHVILLE, Tenn. โ Republican Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee said Wednesday that transgender girls should be banned from playing on middle and high school sports teams or they will โdestroy women's sports.โโI do believe that transgenders participating in womenโs sports will destroy womenโs sports,โ Lee, who is up for reelection next year, told reporters. It's unclear how many transgender students are participating in public school sports in Tennessee. โI will say, that particular executive order is a tremendous overreach of the federal government into the states,โ Lee said Wednesday. Currently, a similar 2020 Idaho law has been blocked by a federal judge as a lawsuit makes it way in court.
Tennessee governor faces criticism for approach to virus
The Republican governor said Saturday, Dec. 19, 2020, that he has tested negative for the virus but will be quarantined at the Governors Residence out of an abundance of caution. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey, File)NASHVILLE, Tenn. โ As their state faced one of its toughest months of the pandemic, Tennesseans watched Gov. It was late December, and the stateโs hospitals were bursting at the seams with virus patients. The governor is quick to point out the stateโs swift COVID-19 vaccine rollout, praising Tennessee for being among the countryโs leaders in distributing the immunizations. If that isnโt important to you, Governor Lee, then what is?โ___Associated Press writers Jonathan Mattise and Travis Loller contributed to this report.
FBI at home of possible person of interest in Nashville bomb
FBI and ATF agents investigate a home Saturday, Dec. 26, 2020, in Nashville, Tenn. An explosion that shook the largely deserted streets of downtown Nashville early Christmas morning shattered windows, damaged buildings, and wounded three people. Asked whether the AT&T building could have been a possible target, Korneski said, โWeโre looking at every possible motive that could be involved." Mayor John Cooper has enforced a curfew in the downtown area until Sunday via executive order to limit public access to the area. โWe have two portable cell sites operating in downtown Nashville with numerous additional portable sites being deployed in the Nashville area and in the region.โRay Neville, president of technology at T-Mobile, said on Twitter that service disruptions affected Louisville, Nashville, Knoxville, Birmingham and Atlanta. The outages had even briefly grounded flights at the Nashville International Airport, but service was continuing normally as of Saturday.
The Latest: Tenn. governor enacts new virus restrictions
All Australian states have imposed restrictions on travelers from Sydney and parts of New South Wales because the coronavirus risk. The state on Sunday reported 1,536 new COVID-19 cases and 46 more deaths. ___TOPEKA, Kan. โ A FedEx executive says a higher-than-normal volume of Christmas-season package deliveries wonโt interfere with the companyโs effort to ship coronavirus vaccine doses. The first wave of coronavirus infections in New York โcame from Europe and we did nothing,โ the Democratic governor said. ___WASHINGTON โ President Donald Trumpโs surgeon general is defending Trumpโs not getting a coronavirus vaccine, saying there are medical reasons for it.
The Latest: Oregon doc's anti-mask comment draws suspension
And we must act as though anyone we are around may be infected.โThe cases reported Saturday trailed only the record 10,322 cases reported Tuesday. ___ROME โ Italy had more than 21,000 daily coronavirus cases and added 662 deaths in the last 24 hours. There were 14 more deaths reported Saturday, bringing the total to 1,874 confirmed deaths. Russiaโs 2.4 million confirmed cases is the fourth-largest caseload in the world behind the United States, India and Brazil. ___NEW DELHI โ India has registered 36,652 confirmed coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours.
Correction: Virus Outbreak-The Latest story
Posters on precautions against the coronavirus are displayed at a subway station in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2020. The signs on posters read "Precautions against the coronavirus and please wear a mask." (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)In a story Nov. 25, 2020, about a new U.S. estimate of missed coronavirus infections, The Associated Press erroneously reported an earlier calculation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Previously, the CDC estimated nine of every 10 cases were being missed, not one of every 10.
The Latest: Tennessee won't mandate vaccines in its schools
(AP Photo/Oded Balilty)NASHVILLE, Tenn. โ Tennesseeโs governor says that once coronavirus vaccines become available, they will be optional in the stateโs K-12 public schools. Itโs just going nowhere,โ Dr. Thomas Dobbs, Mississippiโs state health officer, said Monday during a meeting with members of the Mississippi Senate. State health officials said fatality updates on Tuesday are typically higher because of lag in reporting from the weekends. That includes more than 1,000 on intensive care units and more than 570 on ventilators, according to state Health Department data. โ-MADRID โ Spain is reporting a new daily record of 537 coronavirus deaths since the resurgence of the pandemic.
Court: Tennessee can enforce Down syndrome abortion ban
Bill Lee enacted the so-called โreason bansโ earlier this year as part of a sweeping anti-abortion measure. However, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals' decision will allow the state to enforce the reason bans while abortion rights groups continue their court battle against that law. The plaintiffs, which include Tennessee abortion providers being represented by reproductive rights groups, had argued the ban was improperly vague, but the court disagreed. Currently, more than a dozen states have similar reason bans in place. The rarity of the condition has prompted abortion rights groups to paint the Down syndrome bans as part of yet another thinly veiled effort by lawmakers to continue chipping away at a patient's right to an abortion.
The Latest: China says latest outbreak appears contained
(AP Photo/Andy Wong)BEIJING โ Officials in the northwestern China region of Xinjiang say they believe they have contained the countryโs latest coronavirus outbreak. It was the second consecutive day in which newly confirmed cases emerged entirely among such people. โ Belgium and Czech Republic top Europeโs highest number of coronavirus cases per 100,000 citizens, ahead of hotbeds France and Spain. ___MINNEAPOLIS โ Minnesota health officials are warning against traditional Halloween festivities amid the recent rise in coronavirus cases statewide. Italy has nearly 590,000 confirmed coronavirus cases and nearly 38,000 deaths, the second highest in Europe after Britain.
White House: Tennessee mask mandate 'must be implemented'
NASHVILLE, Tenn. โ The White House quietly told Tennessee early this week that โa statewide mask mandate must be implemented" to curb its growing spread of COVID-19, strong instructions that the White House and governor did not discuss publicly before the report emerged in a records request. In a statement late Friday, the governor's office said the White House report had not altered his thinking. Previous White House reports dating back to the summer have included similar recommendations, so the inclusion here is not novel." Earlier in the week, the governor and his health commissioner downplayed the importance of releasing those White House โred zoneโ reports. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Teachers could stay in classroom if exposed to COVID-19
(AP Photo/Mark Humphrey, File)ATLANTA New guidance from the President Donald Trump's administration that declares teachers to be critical infrastructure workers could give the green light to exempting teachers from quarantine requirements after being exposed to COVID-19 and instead send them back into the classroom. South Carolina health officials also describe teachers as critical infrastructure workers, although it's unclear if any district there is asking teachers to return before 14 days. Among the first districts to name teachers as critical infrastructure workers was eastern Tennessees Greene County, where the school board gave the designation to teachers July 13. At least five other school districts in Tennessee have given the designation to their teachers, seeking to exempt them from quarantine orders. Floyd County said Thursday it would reverse its designation of teachers as critical infrastructure workers.
Governors stress 'personal responsibility' over virus orders
When we have people dying in this state as a result of this virus, we should be taking personal responsibility for this, the Republican governor said. Elevating a message of personal responsibility over statewide crackdowns on businesses and requirements for people in public spaces has been a consistent approach among certain governors during the coronavirus crisis. She has consistently invoked personal responsibility as a key strategy in combating the virus. The personal responsibility ethos has been GOP orthodoxy for decades, often used to justify smaller government and promote individualism. In the current climate, personal responsibility is being used to encourage wearing masks, social distancing and avoiding large crowds without making those steps mandatory.