A middle-school counselor in Tennessee is being called a hero after talking a teenager into handing over a loaded handgun. Media outlets report that a 14-year-old boy went to Sycamore Middle School Wednesday asking to speak with counselor Molly Hudgens. Authorities say he told her he was having problems and was going to kill teachers and a police officer, but no students; he told her she was the only one who could talk him out of it. And so she did.

An East Tennessee State University student was arrested Wednesday after going to a Black Lives Matter protest on campus wearing a gorilla mask and handing out bananas. Tristan Rettke, an 18-year-old freshman, wore overalls and a gorilla mask and, wandering barefoot while holding a burlap sack with a Confederate flag and a marijuana leaf on it, offered bananas to students who were protesting, according to a report by ETSU police. He was arrested and charged with civil rights intimidation.

As Generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson were winning their smashing victory at the Second Battle of Bull Run in Virginia, another Confederate army triumphed even more decisively at the little known battle of Richmond, Ky., led in part by the man destined to be known as the “Stonewall of the West”: Gen. Patrick Cleburne.

At around two in the morning on Sept. 7, 1861, Confederate soldiers burst into the home of Julia Marcum, intent on killing her father....The 16-year-old girl lived with her parents and five siblings on a farm in Scott County, Tenn., northwest of Knoxville near the Kentucky border.

University in Tennessee will pay United Daughters of the Confederacy $1.2 million for the right to strike the word from a campus building.

Charges stem from cellphone photo of Rep. Curry Todd removing opponents' campaign signs. By Clay Bailey.

A Quest for the Forgotten Stories of the Tennessee River. By Clay Duda. (July 21, 2016)

An investigation of a Tennessee state legislator released Wednesday found he took advantage of his position to sexually harass at least 22 women, including a then-20-year-old college student who told investigators Rep. Jeremy Durham plied her with a cooler full of beer and had sex with her in his office in 2014. Another woman interviewed was a lobbyist who nicknamed Durham "Pants Candy" after she said he rummaged in his pocket before suggestively offering her a dirty, unwrapped mint.

If you like fireflies, you will like this. It's especially nice to play with firefly videos.

Full-time employees at Tennessee’s public colleges and universities can now carry handguns on campus under a bill that became law Monday, although without the governor’s signature. Gov. Bill Haslam (R) returned the bill to the state’s General Assembly on Monday, and in a letter to the speakers of the House and Senate, he explained why he was allowing SB 2376 to become law without his signature.

Meet the Tennessee lawmaker who will protect women in bathrooms from transgendered "predators" and then ask them for pics of their boobs.

Having already made a .50-caliber sniper gun the official state rifle, Tennessee lawmakers on Monday gave final approval to making the Holy Bible the state’s official book. The state Senate voted 19-8 in favor of the bill despite arguments by the state attorney general that the measure conflicts with… By Erik Schelzig. (Apr. 4)

Wild Cub

Bill would have extended the law beyond its July 1 sunset date.

Tennessee lawmakers have defeated a proposal to expand municipal broadband, with one state representative accusing fellow elected officials of caving to pressure from lobbyists. "It's a testament to the power of lobbying against this bill and not listening to our electorate," Rep. Kevin Brooks (R-Cleveland) told reporters after the vote, according to a Times Free Press article yesterday.

Lawmakers caved to lobbyists, disappointed rep says.

The horrific lynching of Ell Persons was national news in 1917, then forgotten. Nearly 100 years later, his story is coming back to life. By Martha Park.

An 11-year-old boy in Jefferson County, Tennessee, has been sentenced to spend the next eight years in juvenile prison for the murder of an 8-year-old girl, according to a court document. The boy was found guilty of first-degree murder for shooting MaKayla Dyer in the chest with a shotgun after she refused to let him play with her puppy, according to a sentencing document obtained by The Newport Plain Talk and posted online by CNN affiliate WATE in Knoxville.

NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center (SPC) is projecting a moderate risk of severe weather for Wednesday from eastern Arkansas across northern Mississippi and Arkansas into western Tennessee and Kentucky, with lesser risks over a large surrounding area covering most of the nation between the Mississippi and the Appalachians.

During a Tuesday morning rally in the light drizzle at Legislative Plaza, a half dozen people held signs saying "Green Cross Tennessee."