News

A Knox County judge will determine this week whether the staff of Criminal Court Clerk Joy McCroskey is legally immune to liabilities stemming from mistakes made in McCroskey's office.

Last October, reports began surfacing of wrongful arrests, unlawful detentions and other problems that were eventually traced back to errors made in McCroskey's office. One of the people arrested by mistake, Jodi White, is now suing the county for civil damages.

Knox County Schools Superintendent Jim McIntyre is requesting a raise for teachers in next year’s budget after a year in which he often found himself squarely in their crosshairs.

The budget going before the school board this evening will contain a proposal to raise teacher salaries in Knox County by three percent.  Currently, the average Knox County teacher earns $45,609, which places the system 38th among Tennessee’s public school districts.

Political out-of-town junkets are often the target of pork barrel spending critics and voters. But an analysis of records shows that, at least in Knoxville and Knox County, elected officials are conscientious about reducing taxpayer burdens for their trips.

WUOT's Chrissy Keuper and Knoxville News Sentinel Nashville Bureau Chief Tom Humphrey catch up on what's happening in the Tennessee General Assembly…

Did you know nearly a quarter of all mammal species on Earth are bats? WUOT's Chrissy Keuper learned this and more when she spoke with Dr. Merlin Tuttle, founder of Bat Conservation International.

On March 21, Governor Bill Haslam signed a bill called "Amelia's Law.”  The law was named after a Blount County teenager who was killed by an impaired driver.  But WUOT's Brandon Hollingsworth reports the bill bears little resemblance to the one proposed last year by the girl's mother.

  A bill passed by House and Senate committees on Wednesday would ease restrictive language that has kept the Department of Correction from using the electric chair as a means to execute death row inmates.

A state Senate committee approved a proposal to create a limited school voucher program on Wednesday, even as questions remain about how large the effort should be.

The Senate's proposal would include 5,000 low-income students from poorly-performing Tennessee schools in the program's first year, expanding to 20,000 students in its fourth year, according to the Memphis Commercial Appeal.

Some Tennesseans will start receiving account credits or checks this week as part of a partial agreement resolving an e-book price-fixing lawsuit.

The lawsuit was filed by Tennessee Attorney General Bob Cooper and attorneys general from 32 other states against Apple, Inc., and five of the nation's six largest e-book publishers (Hachette Book Group Inc., HarperCollins Publishers LLC, Simon & Schuster Inc., Holtzbrinck Publishers, LLC, d/b/a Macmillan, and Penguin Group (USA) Inc.). 

  A bill that would have made Daylight Saving Time permanent in Tennessee has failed to pass a House committee after facing resistance from East Tennesseans.

The bill would have eliminated the biannual “Spring Forward/Fall Back” switch from standard to daylight time and back.  The bill’s sponsors say most Tennesseans are in favor of the idea, but acknowledge the bulk of that support comes from Middle and West Tennessee, two regions located in the Central Time Zone.