McMinnville residents like to think of their Cumberland Plateau town as the nursery capital of the world. It’s safe to say it’s the industry’s center in Tennessee where the so-called ‘green industry’ makes nearly a 4-billion dollar impact annually. It ranks third in agriculture revenue, behind cattle and poultry. But this year, business is bad. Extreme weather conditions have left many nurserymen looking to cash in on crop insurance. They’re realizing that, unlike row-crop farmers, the federal program leaves tree farms in the lurch. WPLN’s Blake Farmer reports.

Two Tennessee women told a congressional committee last week that the music industry must stop slandering women to make a profit. Congressional concern over offensive stereotypes in hip hop music is nothing new. But it’s getting a new look since Don Imus was fired for using racist and sexist slurs to describe a women’s basketball […]

Fred Thompson continues a cruise through the state today at several campaign fundraisers after three yesterday in Clarksville, Murfreesboro and Franklin. The former Tennessee senator has used his wide support here to raise money for his presidential bid. “You know I won two races here by 20 points each and left office under my own […]

African Americans account for nearly half of all new HIV AIDS infections in the U.S. every year, and the number is growing fastest in the South. In Middle Tennessee, about 52% of those with HIV or AIDS are African American. Phil Wilson directs the Los Angeles based Black AIDS Institute. At a forum at Meharry […]

The Nashville Opera will soon break ground on it’s first-ever headquarters. A soloist sang an aria yesterday as plans were unveiled for a 6-million dollar facility that includes a small performance space and an education center. Nashville Opera executive director Carol Penterman says her organization has established itself as a respected opera company even without […]

The Country Music Association is offering group health insurance coverage to its six-thousand members around the U-S. Nearly 70-percent of the CMA’s members are self-employed as artists, publicists and engineers, thus making insurance coverage expensive if not impossible to get. The program known as ‘CMA Sound Healthcare’ comes from a partnership with Vanderbilt University Medical […]

One week out from the Nashville Predators’ season opener, a campaign to sell at least 10-thousand season tickets is still about 650 short of meeting that goal. In a final push, business leaders like Doug Contidorio showed up to a breakfast event (this morning/yesterday) to hear a sales pitch for season tickets. Contidorio, who is […]

After being sworn into office Friday, the new Metro Council met for the first time last night. It was the shortest meeting in recent memory, lasting little more than 10 minutes. Mayor Karl Dean gave a short address, saying he wants to have open lines of communication with council members. Only three bills were on […]

The 9-member board of the Tennessee Valley Authority meets tomorrow and nuclear power will top the agenda. Directors of the public utility are expected to approve the first application for a new nuclear reactor in more than 30 years. The federal utility is leading the charge to build a reactor at a site called ‘Bellefonte’ […]

Both houses of Congress now have passed a 21-billion dollar funding bill for water projects around the country. 10-million of that will go toward an ambitious proposal to completely rebuild Nashville’s riverfront. Project director Chris Koster says it could be two years before that money makes it all the way downstream to Metro¬. Barring a […]