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Growing up on a small farm in Missouri, five miles outside of a town of 350 people, Glenn Jacobs viewed sports as his way out. He became a WWE star, and then, Knox County mayor. After eight years of leading Tennessee’s third-largest county, Jacobs is reflecting on his time in office. “My family didn’t really have a whole lot,” said Jacobs. “And if an unexpected expense came along, a car broke down, or something like that. Things get real tight. For my family, I always saw professional sports as my way out to a better life.” The son of a...

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) - Special Master W. Mark Ward has denied Christa Gail Pike’s emergency motion to reopen a hearing in her challenge to Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol. It’s an update the legal team for the only woman on Tennessee’s death row is calling disappointing. Pike and her representatives had tried to argue that the physician involved in Tony Carruthers’ botched May execution isn’t fit to play a part in Pike’s, something Ward said isn’t set in stone. “We are deeply disappointed in the Special Master’s denial of our emergency motion to reopen Christa Pike’s hearing to address the qualifications...

A routine knee replacement meant to restore 72-year-old Glenda Dorton's mobility has instead left her facing an uncertain future after her family says the wrong medication was injected before surgery. The Centerville, Tennessee woman arrived at Ascension Saint Thomas Hospital Midtown in Nashville on August 14 expecting a procedure that millions of Americans undergo each year. Her family says the operation itself went well, but what happened before it began changed everything. According to her daughter-in-law, Kristina Dorton, the medication placed into Glenda's spine for a pre-surgical epidural was not the intended anesthetic. She says it was potassium, a drug...

Two student athletes were killed and seven others injured, some critically, when a driver struck members of a Tennessee university cycling team during a training ride, authorities said Wednesday. The driver now faces multiple charges, including vehicular homicide by recklessness, officials said. The crash involving the vehicle and cyclists occurred Wednesday morning on a highway in Carter County, in the northeastern part of the state, according to the Tennessee Highway Patrol. The cycling team is from Milligan University, a private Christian institution in Elizabethton, school officials said. Eleven students were on the training ride at the time, according to Milligan...

Tyronne Brazille was pulled over in Memphis for a traffic violation when officers found the body of his wife A Louisiana man is accused of killing his wife and propping her body up in the passenger seat of his car and driving through multiple states before he was arrested in Tennessee, according to authorities. Tyronne Brazille, 50, was pulled over by police in Memphis for a traffic violation on Thursday when officers found the lifeless body of his wife, Lanessa Bradford, 50, in the passenger seat of his vehicle with a gunshot wound, WREG reported. Investigators allege Brazille shot and...

Tennessee Rep. Andy Ogles lost his primary Thursday, becoming the third House Republican to lose a renomination bid this year. Ogles was trailing former state Agriculture Commissioner Charlie Hatcher, 53 percent to 47 percent, when The Associated Press called the race for the 5th District at 10:10 p.m. Thursday. The result represents a rare defeat for President Donald Trump, who had reiterated his support for Ogles earlier Thursday, saying on social media that the second-term congressman was doing a “fantastic job.” It’s the second loss this week for a Trump-endorsed Republican, after Navy veteran Amir Hassan came up short in...

Blackburn advances to general election, first woman to win party nomination Despite polls predicting a tight race, U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn easily beats two Republican opponents By J. Holly McCall - August 6, 2026 8:42 pm U.S. Sen.Marsha Blackburn, photographed on Aug. 6, 2026, will be the Republican gubernatorial candidate in November (Photo: John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout) U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn on Thursday advanced to the general election in November, defeating U.S. Rep. John Rose and becoming the first woman to win the Republican nomination for governor. Despite polls in the final weeks of the campaign showing a tightening race, Blackburn...

The former president of Taylor Farms’ Tennessee division has been accused of stealing $32 million from the company through multiple schemes that included funneling money to a sham company and keeping his wife and other family members on the payroll. Taylor Farms, the major U.S. produce supplier at the center of a lettuce recall and diarrheal illness outbreak, made the allegations in a federal lawsuit filed in Tennessee. According to the lawsuit, Brian Thure served as president of Taylor Farms Tennessee from 2012 through March of this year. In the roughly 14 years he was head of the Tennessee division,...

Evangelical Christian leader Laurie Cardoza-Moore has called on President Trump to distance himself from recent statements about Israel made by his Vice President. ..She also objected to Vance's reported statement that those who disagreed with him over the issue could "go to hell," describing it as "a curse against the entire People of Israel." Concluding her remarks, Cardoza-Moore called on both Trump and Vance to take action. "Now is the time for the President to publicly distance himself from JD's words, and for Vance to apologize and sJul 21, 2026, 3:37 PMwitch gears.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., was accused of putting on an accent during a Memphis rally last week, with critics on social media comparing her to former Vice President Kamala Harris. Ocasio-Cortez was speaking at a campaign rally in Memphis on Friday for progressive U.S. House candidate Justin Pearson, who currently serves as a Tennessee state representative. "We cannot afford to leave Tennessee behind," she said. "We cannot afford to leave Kentucky behind, Alabama behind, Mississippi behind, Georgia behind, South Carolina behind. There is no country where we are split apart." "About a month or two ago, we were in Montgomery,...

The challenge the entire industry faces is that in every single location, I don't care whether it's Michigan, West Virginia, Texas, Mississippi, Tennessee, if you announce you're doing a data center, all of a sudden you get a plethora of misinformation, like it's three times the size of Manhattan, it's so hot it's gonna melt a hole in the ground, the amount of water it's going to use, it's gonna suck the ocean dry. All of this stuff is just not true. I think as we get the real facts out, we'll turn this around. There seems to be an...

Advocacy group calls on acting attorney general to lead ‘thorough, transparent federal investigation’The deaths in recent days of two Black men in Tennessee, one in the custody of police and the other at the hands of national guard troops, has prompted the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to demand the suspension of the so-called Memphis Safe Task Force, Donald Trump’s anti-crime alliance of federal, state and local law enforcement.In a letter to the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, on Friday, the NAACP also demanded “a thorough, transparent federal investigation” into the actions of the taskforce, which it...

This video from Black Conservative Perspective discusses the fatal shooting of 20-year-old Tyrron Johnson by Tennessee National Guard soldiers in downtown Memphis during the Fourth of July weekend (0:00-0:15, 1:45-2:30). Key takeaways from the video include: The Incident: According to authorities, officers were responding to reports of shots fired around 4:00 a.m. when they encountered Johnson with a handgun. A chase ensued, and soldiers shot and killed Johnson after he allegedly turned toward them while armed (0:15-0:54, 5:44-5:53). Investigation: The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) is currently leading an investigation into the shooting, at the request of the Shelby County...

A Tennessee soccer coach received a 30-year sentence for child exploitation and immigration offenses. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Tennessee says 66-year-old Camilo Campos-Hurtado of Franklin sexually exploited children, received child sexual abuse material, and had false immigration and identification documents. Campos pleaded guilty in June of last year on these charges: Sexual exploitation of a minor (four counts) Receiving visual depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct Using or possessing fraudulent immigration documents Possessing an identification document or authentication feature that was stolen or produced without lawful authority The attorney’s office requested a sentence...

A University of Tennessee professor will receive $1.9 million to settle a lawsuit accusing the school of violating her constitutional rights after officials sought to discipline her over social media posts criticizing conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Knox News reported Monday that the University of Tennessee System Board of Trustees approved a $1.9 million settlement for former professor Tamar Shirinian after she called Kirk, who was assassinated Sept. 10 during his "American Comeback Tour" at Utah Valley University, a "disgusting psychopath." Shirinian was put on administrative leave following a social media post where she had said in part, "The world is...

Five US states reject LGBT ‘pride’ month, reclaim June for marriage, family, GodThe governors of Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, and Utah issued proclamations that follow in the footsteps of Tennessee, which passed a resolution in April recognizing June as ‘Nuclear Family Month.’ Five U.S. states have now chosen to disregard homosexual and transgender “pride month,” casting aside the rainbow flag and reclaiming June for marriage, family, and God. The governors of Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, and Utah issued proclamations that follow in the footsteps of Tennessee, which passed a resolution in April recognizing the month of June as “Nuclear Family Month.”Tennessee’s resolution...

President Trump's envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner traveled to the national lab in Oak Ridge, Tennessee on Thursday for consultations with a team of technical experts that could play a role in nuclear negotiations with Iran, Axios has learned. Why it matters: The White House is trying to reach a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Iran to end the war and begin in-depth nuclear negotiations, and wants to have experts at the ready should those talks be launched. (snip)The intrigue: Axios was alerted on Thursday to the fact that Witkoff had made an unannounced trip to eastern Tennessee. Two...

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts is facing a new impeachment resolution put forward by a House Democrat. The long-shot effort was introduced on Thursday by Representative Steve Cohen. The Tennessee Democrat announced last week that he would forgo his reelection bid after it became clear he was unlikely to win, as the state moved swiftly to gerrymander following a seismic Supreme Court opinion in late April that gutted Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) has introduced articles of impeachment against Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, alleging “high crimes and misdemeanors by violating the Constitution, disregarding his statutory obligations as Chief Justice, and breaching his oaths of office.” “I am saddened that the United States Supreme Court, once the most admired federal institution, has now become a political actor. While Chief Justice Roberts may claim otherwise, it has become clear that the Court now routinely favors partisanship, the rich over the poor, and the powerful over the vulnerable. This is a shift that undermines the Constitution of the United States,...

A Tennessee man who was jailed for more than a month after refusing to take down a Facebook meme poking fun at the assassination of Charlie Kirk will be paid $850,000 as part of a settlement with officials. Larry Bushart, a 61-year-old retired police officer, spent 37 days behind bars under a $2 million bond before authorities dropped the felony charge against him in October. While in jail, he lost his post-retirement job and missed both his wedding anniversary and the birth of his granddaughter, according to a federal lawsuit Bushart filed against Perry County, Perry County Sheriff Nick Weems...