The Tennessee Department of Transportation will suspend all interstate construction work this Easter weekend in anticipation of increased holiday travel. TDOT crews and contractors will stop all road construction work that requires lane closures beginning Thursday, April 1 at 6:00 p.m. through Monday, April 5 at 6:00 a.m. This will provide maximum roadway capacity to motorists expected to travel across the state this holiday weekend. Motorists will still encounter some long-term lane closures on construction projects that will remain in place. While lane closure activity will be stopped, some workers may be on-site in construction zones and reduced speed...

Bedford County Sheriff’s Department investigators have arrested Dakota Bryson, age 19, a suspect in an aggravated burglary that occurred in Wartrace on March 19. Last Wednesday, detectives Trey Green and Chris Brown were able to recover five stolen firearms from the aggravated burglary. Bryson has been charged with aggravated burglary and theft of property over $10,000. Your content goes here. Edit or remove this text inline or in the module Content settings. You can also style every aspect of this content in the module Design settings and even apply custom CSS to this text in the module Advanced...

Legislation that seeks to protect small business during a state of emergency passed the Tennessee Commerce Committee this week. “The Covid-19 pandemic presented many challenges for small businesses across the state. Those that were not deemed essential suffered while their bigger competitors were allowed to remain open, ultimately giving government the authority to pick winners and losers in business,” it was stated in a newsletter sent out by state representative Rush Bricken.  House Bill 855, also known as the “Business Fairness Act,” provides businesses with the assurance that they cannot be forced to close while larger competitors stay open,...

For the first time this year, the Tennessee Gas Price Average decreased week over week – falling 2 cents over the last week. The Tennessee Gas Price average is now $2.67 which is nearly 17 cents more than one month ago and 89 cents more than one year ago. The average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline in Coffee County is $2.56. This is 10 cents below the state average and 30 cents below the national average, which comes in at $2.86. “Growing stock levels and cheaper crude oil prices are putting downward pressure on pump prices...

Both chambers of the Tennessee General Assembly gave final approval to legislation that claims to protect the competitive balance of women’s sports last week. House Bill 3 aims to ensure that female athletes are not discriminated against by clarifying that participation in public middle and high school interscholastic sports must correspond with a student’s biological gender at birth. A weekly roundup from Tennessee Republican Rush Bricken states: “Local school districts have a legitimate interest and obligation to ensure they are not creating opportunities for undue injury to children who participate in interscholastic activities and sports. The bill ensures boys...

The General Assembly on Thursday gave final approval for legislation giving Tennessee’s governor the authority to issue an executive order requiring all schools across the state to offer in-person learning. House Bill 225 gives the governor this authority in the instance of an emergency, which is defined as an “occurrence or threat, whether natural, technological, or manmade, that results or may result in substantial injury or harm to the population, including disease outbreaks and epidemics, or substantial damage to or loss of property.” In addition to giving the governor the ability to issue the statewide order, the bill also...

More than 790,000 Tennesseans have been infected with COVID-19, and more than 11,000 have lost their lives one year into the novel coronavirus pandemic. Health-care workers say the experiences of patients without health coverage during the pandemic should prompt lawmakers to consider Medicaid expansion. CEO of Matthew Walker Comprehensive Health Center, Katina Beard, said the state’s essential workers, who are disproportionately Black and Brown people, also are more likely to work in jobs that do not provide health coverage. “So we have seen a direct impact in what the coronavirus did for individuals,” said Beard, “particularly in their ability...

Tennessee’s unemployment rate for February 2021 has reached near pre-pandemic levels, according to data released by the Department of Labor and Workforce Development (TDLWD). February’s statewide, seasonally adjusted unemployment rate is 4.9%, which is just one percentage point higher than it was in February 2020, one month before the COVID-19 health crisis created an economic slowdown across Tennessee. Overall, unemployment in Tennessee is down 0.2 of a percentage point from January’s revised rate of 5.1%. When compared to February’s nationwide seasonally adjusted rate of 6.2%, unemployment in Tennessee is 1.3 percentage points lower than the national average. Total nonfarm...