danielpotter

First Lady Michelle Obama paid a lunchtime visit to Nashville today. Several hundred people attended the $500-a-plate downtown fundraiser for her husband’s reelection campaign.

State officials are still pushing the rules-change that Governor Bill Haslam wanted in order to evict Occupy Nashville. It would add another way the state could keep occupiers from planting tents on the plaza outside the capitol, on top of the law Haslam signed last month.

U.S. Representative Jim Cooper complains many in Congress don’t want to take on the messy federal budget until after this fall’s election. Cooper says the conventional wisdom is they’ll work out a deal in the less political lame-duck session afterward, but he warns they shouldn’t wait.

Nashville Congressman Jim Cooper says despite international outcry over North Korea’s military buildup, the U.S. is not keen on confrontation. A botched North Korean satellite launch has helped stoke fears the isolated country is preparing for another nuclear test.

Army Chief of Staff General Ray Odierno says he’s talked with soldiers preparing to deploy to Afghanistan about trusting their Afghan partners. Odierno was visiting Fort Campbell, where about four hundred soldiers are preparing to return to Afghanistan.

The Army Chief of Staff says looming budget cuts for the military will not shrink Fort Campbell by much. Right now the post on the Tennessee-Kentucky border has close to 30 thousand soldiers.

Tennessee lawmakers are eyeing what some see as a tax hike on solar panels in the state. Wrangling over the measure comes as officials are cutting the ribbon on a state-owned solar farm visible from the Interstate in West Tennessee.

Tennessee Congressman Diane Black got an earful from constituents Tuesday night about roll-your-own tobacco shops. About two-dozen people turned out for Black’s town-hall meeting in Lebanon.

It’s too early to know whether the unseasonably warm March will ripple into higher summer electric bills across the state. A major factor could be rising temperatures in area rivers, which the Tennessee Valley Authority uses to cool its power plants.