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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A retired professor of electrical engineering at the University of Tennessee was convicted on Wednesday of violating U.S. arms export controls and passing sensitive data to a Chinese national, the U.S. Justice Department said.

She had enormous hair, I mean, vast hair, but I'm not going to hold that against her. It was 20 years ago, after all, when Sarah Palin -- then Sarah Heath -- worked as a local sportscaster for KTUU in Alaska. "The Iditarod, of course, is the biggie, but it's not the only mushing going on," she said. "This race is part of Gillingham's Beaver Roundup." From the Beaver Roundup to the Republican Roundup. Is this a great country or what? Tonight, Palin will address the nation as the Republicans' vice presidential candidate. Some people wonder if she was a...

DENVER, en route to BLOOMINGTON -- On Friday late, as the sparkle and glow from Thursday night's Obama-rama spectacular at Invesco Field was receding slightly, to something like mortal dimensions, a group of Democratic stragglers from Tennessee were hanging in the downstairs lounge of the Marriott Tech Center Hotel. They fell to talking about Republican nominee-to-be John McCain's surprise choice of Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential running mate. Two members of this tight little group were Will Cheek of Nashville, a former state party chairman and a Democrat's Democrat, and his equally committed wife Joan. Amid what was...

John McCain now leads Barack Obama in the Volunteer State by twenty-four percentage points in Tennessee. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in the Volunteer State shows McCain with a 56% to 32% margin. That’s essentially where the race stood in April although Obama managed to close the gap to fifteen points in June, shortly after wrapping up the Democratic nomination. When “leaners” are included, McCain now leads Obama 60% to 35%. Leaners are survey participants who initially indicate no preference for either major candidate but indicate that they are leaning towards either McCain or Obama. Fifty-seven percent (57%) say...

Cheryl Bynum admires John McCain so much that she did something for him she wouldn't do for just any politician. She became a Republican. "He's like your father or brother or someone you feel like you can trust," said Bynum, who lives in Knoxville. "He's the guy you call when you're in trouble." Bynum considers herself a political moderate and was registered as an Independent before McCain decided to run for president. But once he jumped into the race, Bynum changed her voter registration to Republican, did volunteer work for his campaign and got herself elected as a delegate to...

. The Sharpie 500 Saturday 8:00 pm ET Bristol Motor Speedway SPEED Pre-race show at 5:00 ET ESPN Pre-race show at 7:00 ET Green flag 8:15 ET The FR Canteen God Bless Our Troops

A shooting at Central High School ended the day before it even began as one student was fatally shot Thursday morning. Students were in the cafeteria of the school when witnesses said they saw two male students shoving and would end with the death of Ryan McDonald, age 15. The school went into lockdown immediately as students run into rooms and teachers locked doors. Other area schools were also put into lockdown mode. The shooting occurred at 8:11 a.m. and the school resource officer was at the school at the time. By 8:13 a.m. Knoxville officers had arrived at the...

When they found out one of their own was going to deploy overseas with the Tennessee National Guard, the leadership and employees of Lochinvar Corp. didn’t waste any time. They immediately found out what they could do to help, and they worked together to help him and his unit before, during and after the deployment.

WASHINGTON, Aug. 20, 2008 – When they found out one of their own was going to deploy overseas with the Tennessee National Guard, the leadership and employees of Lochinvar Corp. didn’t waste any time. They immediately found out what they could do to help, and they worked together to help him and his unit before, during and after the deployment. The deploying employee, Army Sgt. 1st Class Bill Jacobs, who was an Apache helicopter platoon sergeant with the National Guard and a manufacturing engineer manager with Lochinvar, was so impressed with the level of support he received that he...

Gov. Phil Bredesen said he doesn't believe the information was part of a bigger political plot. "I think it's just somebody who has some time on their hands, which is a problem in its self, who is doing this kind of thing to show that he had access or to answer a question about somebody," said Bredesen. However, Republican Party Chair Robin Smith is skeptical of the governor's response. "The facts that are involved could impact very drastically the outcome of this November's election, so we're not talking about an internal affairs matter of impropriety. We're talking about strong allegations...

Two illegal aliens were taken into custody Saturday night when they couldn’t provide identification and were in possession of cocaine. Officers with the Unicoi County Sheriff’s Department were searching for a wanted person at a Rail Road Street residence when they found Gregorio E. Rodriguez, 32, of Harris Trailer Park in Erwin and Primitivo E. Rodriguez, 21, 400 Rail Road St., Erwin. Gregorio Rodriguez was operating a motor vehicle and drinking a Bud Light beer, Sheriff Kent Harris said in his report. He was questioned about the wanted person who was reportedly at the residence. He refused search of the...

They knew they were here illegally but decided to take the risk, hoping for better than what they left behind. They got jobs, rented homes and built lives in Chattanooga. For a while, the risk paid off. Then, one morning four months ago, their luck ran out. On April 16, supervisors at the Pilgrim’s Pride plant called some employees to a meeting in the cafeteria. “Someone stood in front of us and introduced himself (in English),” said 28-year-old César Mazariegos, who was arrested in the raid. “As soon as he said the word ‘immigration,’ we all stared at each other....

When Felicita Bautista prepared her husband’s coffee and kissed him goodbye on the morning of April 16, she thought she’d hear from him at lunchtime when he usually called. Instead, the phone rang at 8 a.m. Ms. Bautista’s husband, José Ramírez, told her immigration agents had raided the Pilgrim’s Pride chicken processing plant in downtown Chattanooga and that he had been arrested. “At first I didn’t believe him, I thought it was a joke, but he assured me it was true,” the 28-year-old Guatemala native said. Ms. Bautista’s husband, who had been in the United States illegally for five years...

At 7 months old, Kemberly Méndez doesn’t roll over or sit in a propped-up position. Her right thumb is flexed downward; her index finger is a nubbin and the rest of her right-hand fingers are webbed. Her short life has consisted of physical therapy sessions and visits to specialists who are treating her for Poland syndrome, a pattern of one-sided body malformations, usually on the right side, that are present at birth. But all the care Kemberly, a U.S. citizen, is receiving at Erlanger hospital and at the Shriners Hospital in Lexington, Ky., is in limbo because her mother is...

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- Authorities cut open a slain bear and found a shoe lost by a Florida man while fighting off a bear that attacked his 8-year-old son in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The footwear was discovered in the black bear's stomach during a necropsy at the University of Tennessee Veterinary Medical Center, Smokies spokeswoman Nancy Gray said Monday. < snip > John Pala, a 43-year-old health insurance salesman from Boca Raton with no backwoods experience, literally ran out of his shoes racing to the aid of his young son Evan when the bear pounced on the boy...

Apparent primary losers may soon give both Democrats and Republicans a chance to take a fresh look at crossover voting, which has long been accepted - at least tacitly and sometimes openly - by both parties in Tennessee. Recall, for example, that Bob Corker was criticized by opponents in the 2006 Republican U.S. Senate primary for past voting in Democratic primaries. The votes came while he was living in Nashville, serving as state finance commissioner. Corker readily acknowledged that he voted in Davidson County Democratic primaries but denied that made any difference in his GOP credentials. Davidson is strongly Democratic,...

Report shows items misidentified, oven temperature too high - OAK RIDGE - A federal spokesman confirmed that Oak Ridge workers overcooked some nuclear warhead components during a drying process to such an extent that the parts could no longer be "used as intended." Beyond that, the government isn't saying much.The incident at the Y-12 National Security Complex was revealed in a June 20 report by staff of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board.The timing was about a month after the Oak Ridge plant received approval to restart production work on W76 warheads, which had been delayed for more than a...

Fallout from the April immigration arrests at the Pilgrim’s Pride poultry plant in Chattanooga will be felt for months to come, and it will affect the entire community, local officials say. “This is something that’s going to be going on for many more months,” the Rev. Mike Feely, director of the St. Andrews Center, a resource for Chattanooga’s multicultural communities, said Thursday. “It’s not just somebody else that it’s happening to. It’s our community, our neighbors, our church members, children who are in school with our kids. These are people that are part of this community, as well.” In an...

CLINTON, Tenn. — Likening the case to the racial discord of the mid- to late 1950s in Anderson County, county school officials on Thursday night said this week's U.S. federal court hearing over a student's right to wear the Confederate flag symbol is being funded "by outside sources." "Regardless of what you read there's a lot more to it than our enforcement of our dress code," John Burrell, Anderson County Board of Education chairman, said during the county school board's regular monthly meeting. At the meeting's start, Anderson County school board members spent approximately 20 minutes in an executive session...

View This E-mail As A Web Page The American people are telling our elected officials: "Drill Here and Drill Now!" But five Republicans-in-Name-Only (RINOs) are siding with the NO NEW DRILLING CROWD in Congress and basically betraying American families suffering severe financial hardship because of the high price of gasoline at the pump. You've probably already heard the news. Five RINOs are trying to strike a deal with the devil and they're calling it a "compromise." But like last year's so-called attempted "compromise" on amnesty for 12-20 million illegal aliens... it is NO SUCH THING! In actuality, it's a complete and...

The predictable reaction’s ensuing as we speak, in fact, as Politico presses Tennessee GOP spokesman Bill Hobbs for an explanation. Hobbs should have consulted his rulebook. Verdict: Racist. Sentence: A prominent mention in Peter Beinart’s next column.

Although Andres Ramirez didn’t visit the doctor very often when he lived in Mexico, he now goes to the Chattanooga Homeless Health Care Clinic at least once every three months to treat his diabetes. “Part of it is our culture,” said the 35-year-old, who has lived in the United States for 14 years. “We are not used to going to the doctor unless we feel very sick. “As Hispanics, we don’t go to the doctor regularly because most of the time we come here to work and we say we don’t have time for the doctor,” he said. “Which shouldn’t...

At this moment there are more than 300 million people living in the United States. How many are here illegally is uncertain and the estimated number changes depending on the political or social persuasion of the numerator. While liberal or “compassionate” Americans like to denounce any objections to the presence of illegal aliens as racism or bigotry over just a few, indeed as little as 12 million, cooler heads place the number closer to double and maybe even triple that amount. While those same high-minded theologians and social reformers also claim that the few illegal aliens are only here for...

Here are the misguided Senators who joined the Gang of 10. Please let them know what you think of their actions. I've included their contact information and the press releases bragging about their participation in the gang of 10. Sen. Lindsey Graham:http://lgraham.senate.gov/public/ Email:http://lgraham.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.EmailSenatorGrahamSenator Graham Press Relases Contact: Wes Hickman (202) 224-5972 or Kevin Bishop (864) 250-1417 Date: 08/01/2008'Gang of 10' Introduces Bipartisan Energy Proposal WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) helped draft and signed on to a bipartisan energy proposal that enables our nation become more energy independent.  The proposal, New Energy Reform Act of 2008 from the...

The repeated thud-thuds you heard were the wheels of the bus -- driven first by abortion-rights advocates Emily's List. Then by former U.S. Rep. Harold Ford Jr. and then presidential contender Barack Obama himself, all rolling over congressional wannabe Nikki Tinker, who is a black woman. Her offense -- and it was an especially stupid one -- was tasteless attack ads. One linked U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, a white, Jewish man, to the Ku Klux Klan. (Doesn't she know the Klan hated Jews just as much as black folk?) The other ad charged Cohen was voting against prayer in school...

Members of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) and Tyson Foods workers at the poultry processing plant in Shelbyville overwhelmingly voted to overturn a union contract provision that replaced Labor Day as a paid holiday with the Muslim festival of Eid al-Fitr, it was announced this morning. The new agreement will increase the number of paid days off for workers in the current calendar year to include both Labor Day and the Muslim observance as paid holidays for workers in the Shelbyville plant. The agreement amends the existing contract negotiated last year, according to a press release from...

Press Release Labor Day Reinstated as Paid Holiday at Shelbyville, TN, Plant; Tyson Foods Requested Change from Union Springdale, Arkansas – August 8, 2008 - Tyson Foods, Inc. announced today it has reached a new agreement with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), an American union, reinstating Labor Day as one of the designated paid holidays under the contract for covered employees in the Shelbyville, Tennessee, plant. Tyson made this request on behalf of its Shelbyville plant employees, some of whom had expressed concern about the new contract provisions relative to paid holidays. In an effort to be...

A racially charged Democratic primary campaign ended Thursday with an incumbent congressman trouncing the opponent who ran an ad linking him to the Ku Klux Klan. Early, unofficial results showed Democrat Steve Cohen with 79 percent of the vote to 19 percent for Nikki Tinker, a black corporate lawyer who was his chief opponent in the district that covers Memphis.

With only hours to go before the polls close, former 9th District congressman Harold Ford Jr., now head of the Democratic Leadership Council, has joined in on the mounting chorus of criticism of recent TV ads by Nikki Tinker, who is challenging current incumbent Steve Cohen in today's Democratic primary. Ford's statement is as follows: "Whenever race, religion or gender is invoked in a political contest, it generally means the candidate has run out of legitimate arguments for why he/she should be elected. Communities and nations are always made weaker when political figures try to divide us for political advantage....

When polls opened at 7 a.m. in precincts throughout Shelby County, coverage of the State and Federal Primary and County General Election had extended to national newspapers and websites closely following Greater Memphis's two contested Congressional elections. Much of the coverage focused on the 9th Congressional District Democratic Primary, where incumbent Steve Cohen was in a rematch of sorts with corporate lawyer Nikki Tinker in a heated campaign that pushed to a boil in the hours before polls opened. State Rep. Joe Towns Jr. is also on the ballot, as are two others. The New York Times ran a 700-word...

Gore Hits the Waves with a Massive New Houseboat Former Vice President Al Gore, the Nobel-winning self-proclaimed global prophet of green, has made a lot of money from the so-called “crisis” of global warming. He has profited from best-selling books that tout the looming climatic catastrophe, won an Academy Award for a movie about his slideshow presentation that focuses on his “sky is falling” message about a world on the brink of environmental disaster. His business interests have been focused on the profit side of the equation when it comes to “global warming,” creating a “carbon credits” program that has...

I was getting ready to send a blistering email to congressman Tanner to demand drilling, opening up oil shale development, and more nuclear energy. When I went to his website, I found this. August 6, 2008 TANNER INTRODUCES 'FUEL ACT' Democratic bill calls for domestic drilling, seeks to lessen dependence on oil Congressman John Tanner has introduced legislation to address the nation’s energy crisis by lifting the ban on domestic drilling, encouraging the development of alternative fuels and investing in nuclear energy. The “Fulfilling U.S. Energy Leadership Act” (“FUEL Act”) was introduced August 1 by U.S. Reps. John Tanner (D-TN),...

The latest demographic estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau show the Hispanic population in the tri-state region is growing almost 12 times faster than other groups. According to 2007 population estimates released this morning, the Hispanic population of Hamilton County and the surrounding 20 counties has grown almost 60 percent since 2000, compared to 5 percent growth in non-Hispanic groups. Gordon and Murray counties in Georgia lead the region, with Hispanic populations surging 131 percent in Murray and 116 percent in Gordon, census figures show. The Hispanic population has grown 86 percent in DeKalb County, Ala., and 80 percent in...

The re-election campaign of incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. David Davis will today begin airing a TV ad that attempts to counter GOP challenger Phil Roe’s ad campaign accusing Davis of selling out to “Big Oil.” Davis’ ad says Roe, Johnson City’s mayor, is “deceiving voters” about Davis’ record and insists Davis hasn’t pocketed money from oil interests. The Davis ad also says the incumbent is “fighting to cut gas prices for our families with his ‘No More Excuses Energy Act.’” The “No More Excuses” legislation, which calls for offshore drilling and other practices to develop more American energy, was introduced...

Annual event near Y-12 features protest, praise of nukes - OAK RIDGE - At the minute Wednesday that an atomic bomb was dropped 63 years ago, Ralph Hutchison suddenly stopped reading somber reflections on that historic instant when the world forever changed.During the moment of silence that followed, a woman in favor of nuclear weapons could be heard in the background, defiantly singing "Onward Christian Soldiers." Such is the study in contrasts typical for the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance's annual commemoration of Hiroshima Day.In front of the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant, alliance members protested the production of nuclear weapons,...

The campaign of a Tennessee attorney running in the Democratic congressional primary is invoking race and religion in ads against the incumbent. Democratic attorney Nikki Tinker, who is seeking U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen's seat in the predominantly black district of Memphis, released an ad connecting Cohen, a white Jewish man, to the Ku Klux Klan and followed it up with an ad attacking his religious convictions, Politico reported Wednesday."Who is the real Steve Cohen, anyway?" a narrator says in the ad, as the sounds of a child praying play in the background. "While he's in our churches clapping his hands...

The staff of Congressman Steve Cohen called police to his home today after an argument with an Armenian-American activist in town from California ended with Cohen physically pushing him out the side door. Peter Musurlian, a documentary producer for Globalist Films in Glendale, Calif., followed a reporter from The Commercial Appeal into Cohen’s Overton Park home, where the Congressman had invited local media to respond to a commercial from Nikki Tinker, his 9th Congressional District opponent in Thursday’s Democratic Primary, that Cohen called “more mudslinging.” When members of Cohen’s staff realized who the cameraman was – Cohen said Musurlian followed...

A man arrested in a Tri-Cities traffic stop is on the F.B.I’s terror watch list, according to court documents filed by the Tennessee Highway Patrol. 27 year old Abdul H. Khan of Albuquerque, New Mexico, was pulled over on Highway 19E north of Elizabethton by Tennessee Highway Patrolman M.D. Musick. According to a court affidavit filed by Musick, Khan was going 77 m.p.h in a 55 m.p.h. zone, was driving on a revoked license, and was in possession of a stolen credit card. “I checked Mr. Khan’s driver’s license status through the NCIC computer and his privilege to drive was...

Tyson Foods says that Labor Day is still a holiday, but not for the union employees at the Shelbyville poultry processing facility, who will be taking off the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr instead. Meanwhile, the union that negotiated the controversial contract at the Shelbyville plant has removed the original press release announcing the holiday change from its web site, and the union president has described the backlash to the decision as "bigotry." The union had stated in a June 19 press release that 700 Muslims worked at the plant, while Tyson repeated Tuesday that there are only 250 Somalis...

Al Gore has a new boat and even it is green. The boat is docked at Hurricane Marina on Center Hill Lake in Smithville, about 70 miles east of Nashville. While it doesn't have solar panels yet, a spokesperson at Gore's office told News 2 they are scheduled to be installed Wednesday. The boat is named Bio-Solar One and has been called the "Toyota Prius of boats"...

Former Shelby County Commissioner Walter Bailey said Monday that the Nikki Tinker ad featuring pictures of a Ku Klux Klan rally and denunciations of incumbent Congressman Steve Cohen's vote not to remove the statue and remains of Nathan Bedford Forrest from a Memphis park "has nothing to do with race." Asked if injecting the incendiary television images into Thursday's 9th Congressional District Democratic Primary contest would be seen as racially divisive, Bailey said: "That may be an ancillary side of it, but that's not the main focus, and it's not the intended focus." Cohen's campaign pushed back vigorously on the...

In his two most recent campaign commercials, 9th District Congressman Steve Cohen spends valuable seconds of airtime explaining a most mundane electoral process. "You need to ask for a Democratic ballot on Thursday to vote for me," he says in the latest, created especially to run on Comedy Central's satirical late-night show, "The Colbert Report." He said the same thing in another spot, "Greatest Honor," and Memphis radio listeners have heard Cohen provide instructions in even greater detail. In his attempt to run up votes in the Democratic primary contest against Nikki Tinker, Joe Towns Jr. and two other candidates,...

I sent an email to Tyson regarding my thoughts on the celebration of a Muslim holiday and the following is their response..... as a liberal once told me you vote with your dollars, I won't be buying Tyson.... "Contrary to recent reports, Labor Day has not been done away with at the Tyson plant in Shelbyville, TN. Recent RWDSU (Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union) contract negotiations resulted in a different holiday for workers covered by the contract, for which the union bargained. Employees not covered by the contract will still have Labor Day as a paid holiday. The union...

Well, folks, here it is--the beginning (or maybe the middle) of the end of America as we know it. Tyson Foods is now ending employees' paid day off for Labor Day and, instead, giving 'em the paid day off for the Muslim festival, Eid Al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan. It is the most important holiday in Islam. It will be interesting to see how Tyson calculates which day it is, since Muslims are never really sure on which day or two it falls until right before--and since Shi'ites and Sunnis frequently feud about when it falls. Since I...

<p>SHELBYVILLE, Tenn. - Workers at the Tyson Foods poultry processing plant in Shelbyville will no longer have a paid day off on Labor Day but will instead be given the Muslim holiday Eid al-Fitr as a holiday.</p> <p>According to a news release from the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, a new 5-year contract at the plant included the change to accommodate the hundreds of Somali Muslims who work at the plant .</p>

Food workers at the Shelbyville, Tenn., plant for Tyson Foods, which boasts on its corporate website that it strives "to honor God," will have time off for Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim holiday closing the month of Ramadan, instead of the American tradition Labor Day. Officials with the company told WND the labor union representing the 1,200 plant workers, including about 700 immigrants from Somalia who largely are Muslim, sought the holiday change in the new five-year contract, and the company agreed.

SHELBYVILLE, Tenn. - Workers at the Tyson Foods poultry processing plant in Shelbyville will no longer have a paid day off on Labor Day but will instead be given the Muslim holiday Eid al-Fitr as a holiday...

While first-term U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen was on the floor of the House on Tuesday, guiding passage of a historic resolution apologizing to African-American citizens for slavery and Jim Crow laws, his most prominent and well-funded Democratic primary opponent was out in the Memphis heat trying to win voters. Nikki Tinker likes to wear a baseball cap and athletic shoes to go with a skirt, giving her the look of a woman hard at work, and she would often show voters the tan line on her arms as evidence of it. She said she worked outside at the early-voting sites...

National, and even international, coverage of the shootings at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Church turned late this week into a discussion into whether it's safe in America to be a liberal.

Food workers at the Shelbyville, Tenn., plant for Tyson Foods, which boasts on its corporate website that it strives "to honor God," will have time off for Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim holiday closing the month of Ramadan, instead of the American tradition Labor Day. Officials with the company told WND the labor union representing the 1,200 plant workers, including about 700 immigrants from Somalia who largely are Muslim, sought the holiday change in the new five-year contract, and the company agreed. Officials with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union issue a press statement about the new "contract [that] creates...