Nearly half of all Tennesseans receiving unemployment benefits will stop getting checks at the end of the year. The state Department of Labor is putting 39,000 people on notice. Many of these folks have been receiving $275 a week from the government for as long as two years. And a Labor Department spokesman says it’s unlikely there will be another extension. The end of benefits for 39,000 people won’t necessarily ease pressure on the state’s unemployment trust fund. All of the money is coming from federal coffers. Starting in January, unemployment benefits return to the standard 26 weeks, which...

AAA projects 43.6 million Americans will take a trip of 50 miles or more away from home between Wednesday, Nov. 21 and Sunday, Nov. 25. This represents a 0.7 percent increase from the 43.3 million people who traveled last year. In Tennessee, over 997-thousand people will be traveling for their Thanksgiving Day meal. Auto travel remains the preferred mode of transportation this Thanksgiving with 39.1 million Americans traveling via automobile, approximately 90 percent of all...

Higher education officials are recommending tuition increases at Tennessee’s community colleges and universities. Tennessee Higher Education Commission director Richard Rhoda told Gov. Bill Haslam on Tuesday that a hike of as much as 3% was being recommended for community colleges and up to 6% for universities. The commission was to vote on the increases at its meeting later this week. The commission was among the last of several state departments that presented budgets to the governor on Tuesday. Despite improving state revenues, the Republican governor has asked state departments to develop plans for a 5% spending cut as a...

Police are investigating a homicide after a man was found shot to death inside his home and a woman was badly hurt in rural Coffee County on Tuesday morning. Deputies with the Coffee County Sheriff’s Department were called to the intersection of Pocahontas and Maple Springs Road just after 8 a.m. and found a woman who had been badly beaten. A passerby had called 911 after seeing the woman running from the home at 7951 Maple Springs Road. Authorities said she was covered in blood and screaming for help. When authorities went the home, they found her fiancé’s body,...

A Manchester man has been booked into the Coffee County Jail on rape charges. According to an indictment from the Coffee County Grand Jury, 33-year-old Joshua Daniel Thompson was charged with raping a woman in May of this year. Thompson was booked into the Coffee County Jail and later made a $50,000 bond. Manchester Police Investigator Bill Sipe investigated the...

The grand opening of Nissan’s new electric car battery plant in Smyrna has been cancelled. A spokesperson for the automaker says scheduling conflicts have been encountered “among key stakeholders.” The plant quietly started producing lithium-ion batteries last month, according to the company. And the first Nissan Leaf made in the U.S. is still supposed to roll off the nearby assembly line around the first of the year. Nissan received a $1.4 billion loan from the federal government to build the battery plant and retool an existing vehicle production...

A Tennessee teenager who survived nearly three days in a ravine after wrecking his truck in north Alabama says he expects to be walking on his own within two weeks. A trucker spotted 19-year-old Tyler Campbell beside a guardrail along Interstate 65 near Ardmore on Tuesday afternoon. The teenager from Dellrose, Tenn. in Lincoln County wrecked Saturday night, severely breaking his leg and fracturing his shoulder. He finally managed to crawl out of the ravine to the guardrail, where he was spotted. Doctors at Huntsville Hospital put pins in his right leg on Wednesday and had him standing up...

Gas prices continue to drop across the Southeast region as motorists gear up for Thanksgiving travel. This is positive news for travelers who are paying less for a gallon of gas than they did this time last year. Here in the Coffee County the low price in Manchester is $3.14 and in Tullahoma it’s $3.06. Although gas prices are on a downward trend, the cost for a barrel of oil increased slightly. “Although oil prices inched up slightly, retail gas prices are expected to fall throughout the month,” said Jessica Brady of AAA. A barrel of oil closed Friday...