By Jon Styf Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signed a tax cut Thursday that is estimated at $412 million, with $272.8 million of that attributed to a three-month grocery tax holiday. Lee’s office called it the single-largest tax cut in state history. The grocery tax holiday will start Aug. 1 and run through Oct. 31. “Tennessee’s legacy of responsible fiscal stewardship has allowed our state to weather national economic storms while maintaining a balanced budget and cutting taxes for Tennesseans,” Lee said in a statement. “We thank the General Assembly for partnering with us to make the right investments for Tennessee…
Author: Article submitted
By JC Bowman NASHVILLE, TN — When education leaders talk about lightening the load, it isn’t about doing less, it is about focusing efforts on what is most important. Stephen Covey made a career out of teaching others how to prioritize their time and tasks for greater effectiveness and efficiency. Professional Educators of Tennessee has built a professional learning conference around helping our teachers and administrators learn ways to lighten their load as they navigate the ever-changing education landscape. We need a paradigm shift in education policy to give educators on the ground the right tools and policies which allow…
By Corky Siemaszko OKLAHOMA CITY, OK — The governor of Oklahoma has called for the resignations of the sheriff and other top officials in a rural county after they were recorded talking about “beating, killing and burying” a father/son team of local reporters — and lamenting that they could no longer hang Black people with a “damned rope.” Gov. Kevin Stitt called for McCurtain County Sheriff Kevin Clardy, county Commissioner Mark Jennings, sheriff’s investigator Alicia Manning, and Jail Administrator Larry Hendrix to step down after the McCurtain County Gazette-News published an article over the weekend about what was captured on…
By Sheryl Allen Huff NASHVILLE, TN — Rev. Keith Caldwell, a Nashville native, is a longtime grassroots community organizer who, through years of working at the intersection of Race and Poverty across the Southern Region, organically emerged through the ranks to become a civil rights leader who served as the president of the Nashville Branch–NAACP during the organization’s 100-year commemoration in 2018. Caldwell was appointed to serve as Senior Pastor to Centenary UMC (United Methodist Church) in Memphis, Tennessee by Bishop William McAlilly of the Tennessee / Western Kentucky Conference of the United Methodist Church. It is a legacy church…
By David Waters Geoffrey Canada, president of the Harlem Children’s Zone, addressed in a launch of More for Memphis, an ambitious community development initiative to improve social and economic mobility in Memphis and Shelby County. (Photo courtesy of More for Memphis) For tens of thousands of children in Memphis, most of them children of color, poverty is not a temporary living condition. It’s a trap constructed generations ago and maintained by adults, policies and systems that neglect, exclude and exploit. A child who grows up in a low-income home in Memphis has about a 4 percent chance of becoming a high-income…
Nashville, TN —In August of 2022, I was selected to be a part of the first inaugural class of interns for the Biden-Harris Administration. After two years of no interns, the White House reinstated its White House Internship Program and allowed 127 current or recently graduated college students to embark on an opportunity of a lifetime. I was one of the youngest of the group at 18 years old. Placed in the Office of the First Lady to support Joining Forces, a White House initiative that supports military and veteran families, caregivers, and survivors. I assisted with stakeholder engagement and completed…
HERMITAGE, Tenn. – Williamson County-based Cupola Animal Hospitals is opening its third state-of-the-art animal hospital and pet spa this May, its first in Davidson County. Located in Nashville’s Hermitage neighborhood, North Lake Animal Hospital’s team of experienced veterinarians will offer preventative, emergency, and surgical pet care in addition to integrative and complementary medicine approaches like acupuncture and herbal medicine. The North Lake Animal Hospital team includes Drs. Cason McIntruff, Molly White, and Brenda Arras. These doctors provide specialty expertise ranging from internal medicine to therapy and rehabilitation. “With veterinary medicine, one size does not fit all, which is why we…
NORFOLK, VIRGINIA-Virginia’s department of social services, division of child support enforcement was hit with a lawsuit today for filing an improper and false notice and recorded lien of child support in the Norfolk Circuit Court and disseminated to others, it appears over the past 15 years. Instead of releasing the improper lien, the Virginia Department of Social Services, Division of Child Support Enforcement — doubled down and it appears has spent fifteen years ignoring the unfounded filing and refused to release the false notice and recorded lien of child support until recently, according to a petition filed by the couple…
Nashville has many treasured assets that add to the community’s quality of life. High among this list is the historic Centennial Park, a 132-acre urban green space that has been Nashville’s central park for generations. A part of the draw is its central location in the middle of the city at 2500 West End Avenue, and its notoriety as a major destination for locals and visitors who enjoy the park’s abundance of ongoing arts and cultural events and the Parthenon. Listed on the prestigious National Register for Historic Places, Centennial Park was established in 1903 and features a one-mile walking…
To the Editor: The Supreme Court has a serious ethics problem, and the latest revelations about Clarence Thomas should be alarming to every American. For twenty years, Thomas has accepted high-end, luxury, all-expense-paid vacations around the world from Republican megadonor Harlan Crow. What’s more, he also sold three properties to the billionaire and never reported it on his financial disclosures. And now, it’s come to light that Crow paid the private school tuition for Thomas’s grandnephew. And he never disclosed any of it to the public. Supreme Court decisions impact every facet of American life. Because of this, justices must…