TBR Chancellor Says ‘Hard to Understand’ Bias Protection for Religious Groups

The Tennessee Board of Regents is questioning the logic of legislation that prevents public colleges from enforcing nondiscrimination rules on religious student groups. The bill responds to an ongoing dispute at Vanderbilt University, even though private institutions are excluded.

An Army sergeant from Fort Campbell is scheduled to receive the Distinguished Service Cross, the second highest award in the U.S. military.

An amended bill that overhauls civil service rules for state workers now has the support of the state employees association. It’s up for final votes this week, though it hasn’t exactly sailed through the state House.

The Federal Aviation Administration is preparing rules to let drone aircraft fly in the same air space as manned aircraft. But meantime, drones can still fly at lower elevations. And one state representative wants to make sure police in Tennessee don’t use drones for illegal spying.

State Representative Gary Moore, a Nashville Democrat, won’t run for re-election to his Bellevue district this fall.

A nonprofit that preserves Civil War battlefields is buying up hundreds of new acres to add to the historic site of Shiloh, which marks its 150th anniversary tomorrow. Thousands of men died and many more were wounded at Shiloh, which is southwest of Nashville, on the border near Alabama and Mississippi.

The Tennessee House of Representatives passed a bill Thursday that gives some legal cover to gun-carry permit holders who get caught with a firearm on posted property.

Completing a nuclear reactor south of Crossville will cost TVA as much as $2 billion more than original estimates and take three years longer. On Thursday TVA executives gave a sort of pep talk to workers finishing Watts Bar Unit 2.

The Tennessee Senate has passed a new set of definitions for public school sex education, with the proposal’s sponsor agreeing that it will still be okay to talk about contraception in class.

Tennessee has one of the lightest tax burdens in the country, according to new research from the non-partisan Tax Foundation. The group calculates how far into the year people must work to pay off their federal and state taxes.