New Recovery School District Could Overhaul 11 Schools Next Year

As part of the legislature’s special session in January, Governor Phil Bredesen wants to create a new kind of district for failing schools. It could upend two schools in Nashville that have been struggling for years.

Nashville International Airport has clocked three months of positive passenger numbers. November traffic grew more than 3% over last year.

One year into a colossal cleanup, the Tennessee Valley Authority still doesn’t know where it’s going to put all the ash that spilled from a massive holding pond at a coal plant west of Knoxville. Every day workers dredge thousands of tons of ash from the Emory river, which was smothered after an earthen dam burst a year ago. Three hundred acres of sludge – over 200 football fields worth – blanketed the river and nearby countryside last year. WPLN’s Daniel Potter reports on TVA’s billion-dollar cleanup of one of the worst environmental disasters of its kind.

The Metro Sports Authority decided today to dig deeper into the finances of the Nashville Predators. Board members are worried about the financial health of the team’s owners.

An official with the Environmental Protection Agency says cleanup of the TVA ash spill in Kingston will likely continue for another five years. That’s longer than the estimate TVA officials gave at a Congressional hearing last week, when CEO Tom Kilgore said it would take until 2013.

Tennessee’s unemployment fund may need to borrow money to cover the cost of unemployment benefits. The question for legislators is whether that loan should come from the federal government or from within the state itself.

Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander has signed onto a proposal to limit the Obama Administration’s ability to reduce green house gas emissions. Republican aren’t happy with the news coming out of climate talks in Copenhagen.

By the end of this week, the Centers for Disease Control says 35 states will open H1N1 vaccines to everyone. Tennessee was one of the first, opening doses to the general public last week.

As the state takes over collection of business taxes from local governments, county clerks are having to hold the hands of some businesses through the transition.

Between car assembly workers and employees at supply factories, an estimated 4,000 Tennesseans were affected when General Motors shut down its Spring Hill plant last month. Now, the state is using stimulus money to offer them training for new jobs.