Tennessee | featured news

A 61-year-old man was shot to death by police while his wife was handcuffed in another room during a drug raid on the wrong house. Police admitted their mistake, saying faulty information from a drug informant contributed to the death of John Adams Wednesday night. They intended to raid the home next door.

A winter storm dropped heavy snow Monday and churned up sharp gusts of wind across a swath of the Northern Plains and Upper Mississippi Valley before it was expected to push east.

Tennessee state senator Stacey Campfield has reintroduced his infamous “Don’t Say Gay” bill, with enhancements, including the tattletale clause requiring school teachers and counselors to tell parents if their kids are gay, under various scenarios. Campfield recently introduced a bill that would cut welfare to families if their children don’t perform well in school, calling it a step toward “breaking the cycle of poverty.”

Open your notebooks and sharpen your pencils. School for thousands of public school students is about to get quite a bit longer. Five states were to announce on Monday that they will add at least 300 hours of learning time to the calendar in some schools starting in 2013. Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York and Tennessee will take part in the initiative, which is intended to boost student achievement and make U.S. schools more competitive on a global level.

A Memphis police officer was shot and critically injured Thursday afternoon by a second officer who was aiming at a dog, officials said Thursday afternoon. Willie Bryant, a 32-year-old member of the Organized Crime Unit, was taken to the Regional Medical Center at Memphis in stable condition, but was later downgraded to critical. He was taken into surgery Thursday afternoon, Memphis Police Department Director Toney Armstrong said.

"It is believed that members of the fraternity were utilizing rubber tubing inserted into their rectums as a conduit for alcohol," according to a police report.

A Tennessee man was shot and killed Saturday during a meeting to sell guns to two men who answered an ad on Craigslist. Joshua McLean, 30, of Nashville, and his brother met the two men at a Nashville shopping center Saturday night, according to a WTVF-TV report.

Desmond Hatchett of Knoxville, Tenn., doesn't deny fathering 30 children, by 11 mothers no less -- instead, he's pleading with the state to help him out with child support.

The search for a man accused of abducting a Tennessee woman and her three young daughters intensified.

One person was killed and 16 others injured Thursday in three separate chain-reaction crashes involving 176 cars north of Nashville, authorities said.