Bill Would Ban “Girls Gone Wild” Videos

A state Senate committee will take up a bill this week to ban television advertising of “Girls Gone Wild” videos. Dickson Senator Doug Jackson played parts of the TV advertisements during a meeting last week of the Senate Commerce Committee. He argues that the advertising for the DVDs should be barred because the product is […]

By a vote of 218 to 212, the US House of Representatives today passed a 124 billion dollar war appropriations bill, including a a deadline for bringing combat troops home from Iraq. The measure, crafted by Democratic leadership, requires President Bush to bring soldiers home before September 2008-or sooner if the Iraqi government does not […]

Metro Mayor Bill Purcell presented the 2007-08 budget to the Metro Council this morning, a $1.5 billion proposal that remains in flux until June. Purcell says the passage of Governor Phil Bredesen’s proposed 40-cent-a-pack cigarette tax can make as much as a $10 Million difference to the Metro school budget. “This is a $1.5 billion […]

An environmental group is at odds with the city of Franklin over a proposal to expand a small drinking water plant. Even though most of the city’s water is purchased from a regional utility, Franklin maintains a small water works on the Harpeth River. Now officials are asking the state for approval to expand that […]

Starting (today/yesterday) 15 Davidson County Sheriffs have authority to review the immigration status of jail inmates. The group just finished four weeks training from the Homeland Security Department. The sheriff’s office was recently approved by the department to participate in a relatively new federal program known as 287-G. Davidson County deputies will work in tandem […]

A Senate committee told the Tennessee Department of Environment to produce decades-worth of written records about the health of the Clinch River.

For the last several years, Tennessee has ranked last in the country for its meager funding of home-based care for the elderly. (Today/yesterday) one group began its push to help the state jump to at least 49th, which would still mean spending more than four times the current level. While more than 1.2-billion dollars goes […]

In an openly partisan slap, Democrats in the Tennessee House killed two bills that had passed full floor votes in the Republican-led Senate. A bill to require drivers’ license exams in English only narrowly failed in the House Transportation subcommittee late yesterday. Members brought in Speaker Jimmy Naifeh, an ex-officio member of all House committees, […]

Outside the Metro Council meeting last night, members of Nashville’s homeless community set up tents on the lawn of the public square. It was an awareness effort by the Nashville Homeless Power Project. The group put out a release this morning that says 16 homeless individuals and advocates were arrested overnight.

After more than a year in the works, the Metro Council passed a bill last night that allows the construction of a 19-story Westin Hotel on Lower Broadway.  Two council members had filed an amendment limiting the height of the hotel to 12 stories, but in the end there was no debate on the council […]