News

With a 5-to-3 vote Tuesday night, Chattanooga city council approved an ordinance on second reading that officially makes the city the third in Tennessee to extend city employee benefits to unmarried domestic partners, either gay or straight.  The ordinance also updates Chattanooga’s discrimination clause to prohibit the city from firing workers based on sexual orientation or gender identity and protects them from workplace harassment. 

After months of fiery public debate, the council approved the first reading of the ordinance last week by a single vote.

In a press alert sent to local media Monday night, Oak Ridge Police Chief James Akagi described an email phishing scam in which the recipient was informed of a red light camera violation and given a false hyperlink to see photos of the violation and pay the fine.  Akagi’s alert suggested those receiving the email should immediately delete it.

As it turns out, no such scam existed. 

State Senator Randy McNally of Oak Ridge and State Representative Ryan Haynes of Knoxville say they’ll introduce legislation calling for required drug testing for all Tennessee judges.

Nine days after announcing it would notify 66,000 customers they would have to find new policies, the largest health insurance provider in Tennessee says it plans to extend those policies for another year.

Labor officials with Volkswagen say a decision over union representation at the automaker's Chattanooga plant won’t affect the possibility of expanding production there. Volkswagen officials have said the company may add another vehicle to the production line at its lone U.S. plant in Chattanooga.

  Thank you. They’re just two little words, and they seem insignificant considering how much we truly appreciate all of the listeners who renewed their memberships or became first-time members of WUOT during our fall fund drive Nov. 11-16, as well as all of the people and organizations that helped make this drive possible.

Fewer Tennesseans own their own homes today than before the Great Recession, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The American Community Survey (ACS) found the percentage of Tennesseans who owned a home dropped slightly, from a little more than 70 percent in 2007 to 67.5 percent in 2012. The housing crash of 2007 marked the end of a three-year period in which home ownership rates in Tennessee increased.

Last summer, Tennessee state legislators requested a study on foreign-born refugees in the state but have now rejected the findings of the report. The legislature’s Fiscal Review Committee commissioned the study to try to understand the impact on Tennessee’s budget of state-funded services for refugees.

After weeks of fervent public debate, rallies, packed hearings and letters to the editor, an ordinance to extend benefits to the unmarried partners of Chattanooga city workers came down to one vote.

With a five-to-four vote, Chattanooga moved one step closer to becoming Tennessee’s third city to extend city employee benefits to gay and unmarried couples.  Collegedale and Knoxville both adopted similar policies earlier this year.