Tennessee

Parents across Tennessee will soon be able to put taxpayer dollars toward the cost of attending private school. State lawmakers Thursday narrowly voted to expand Gov. Bill Lee’s school voucher program statewide, less than a year after a similar measure failed.

Under the Education Freedom Act, families can use taxpayer dollars to cover the cost of K-12 private school to the tune of just over $7,000 for each child — more than some school districts currently receive in per-student funding. The money will go directly from the state to the private school and can cover anything from tuition and fees to laptops and classroom supplies for the student.

Two-thirds of the families expected to receive that money are already enrolled in private school, according to a state review.

Rep. Chris Hurt, R-Hall, attempted to add an amendment to ensure that private schools don’t discriminate against students with disabilities in the admission’s process. He said he wanted to guarantee that his own daughter, who has a disability, would have the same opportunities as other students.

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/22618167

Goodlettsville police say they responded this morning to a bomb threat at the home of Pete Hegseth, president-elect Donald Trump’s pick for Secretary of Defense.

The heavy police presence led to the closure of portions of Patton Branch and Madison Creek roads in the Sumner County portion of Goodlettsville Wednesday.

This is one of a number of threats and swatting attacks against Trump cabinet nominees across the country.

“Last night and this morning, several of President Trump’s Cabinet nominees and Administration appointees were targeted in violent, unAmerican threats to their lives and those who live with them,” Trump transition spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.

She said the attacks “ranged from bomb threats to ‘swatting.’ In response, law enforcement and other authorities acted quickly to ensure the safety of those who were targeted. President Trump and the entire Transition team are grateful for their swift action.”

Swatting entails generating an emergency law enforcement response against a target victim under false pretenses.

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With the growth of institutional mega-landlords in Memphis, many have worried about how they would treat their tenants and their properties.

But these concerns may have missed the main point, according to new research from Austin Harrison, assistant professor at Rhodes College, and researchers at Georgia State University.

The bigger issue, Harrison told MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, is the sheer number of homes companies are purchasing and the fact that these homes seem quite unlikely to return to owner occupants anytime soon. Absent government action, this trend will make it extremely difficult for the city to grow its homeownership rate or even maintain its current one.

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MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Tyre Nichols’ parents, RowVaughn and Rodney Wells, plan to be in the courtroom as fired Memphis detectives Justin Smith, Tadarrius Bean and Demetrius Haley go on trial Monday in the beating death of their son after a traffic stop in 2023.

“You’re the mother. You want to make sure that what they’re saying is correct and you want to make sure that everything is going accordingly,” says RowVaughn Wells. “So you have to sit there and listen, even though you don’t want to.”

The former police officers are charged with depriving Tyre Nichols of his rights through excessive use of force, failure to intervene and obstruction of justice for conspiring to cover up what happened.

The felony charges carry a possible sentence of life in prison or the death penalty. Two other former policemen indicted in the case have pleaded guilty.

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/18976129

A second former Memphis police officer changed his plea to guilty on Friday in connection to alleged civil rights violations that ended in the beating death of Tyre Nichols.

A change of plea for former officer Emmitt Martin was entered in the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Mark Norris, records showed.

Back in November, another former Memphis officer, Desmond Mills Jr., changed his plea to guilty to federal charges of excessive force and obstruction of justice. The defendant agreed to cooperate with prosecutors and face up to 15 years behind bars.

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/27534898

The principal’s action was the result of a new state law that had gone into effect just months earlier, heightening penalties for students who make threats at school. Passed after a former student shot and killed six people at The Covenant School in Nashville, the law requires students to be expelled for at least a year if they threaten mass violence on school property, making it a zero-tolerance offense.

Tennessee lawmakers claimed that ramping up punishments for threats would help prevent serious acts of violence. “What we’re really doing is sending a message that says ‘Hey, this is not a joke, this is not a joking matter, so don’t do this,’” state Sen. Jon Lundberg, a co-sponsor of the legislation, told a Chattanooga news station a week and a half after the law went into effect.

Tennessee school officials have used the law to expel students for mildly disruptive behavior, according to advocates and lawyers across the state who spoke with ProPublica. (In Tennessee and a number of other states, expulsions aren’t necessarily permanent.) Some students have been expelled even when officials themselves determined that the threat was not credible. Lawmakers did put a new fix in place in May that limits expulsions to students who make “valid” threats of mass violence. But that still leaves it up to administrators to determine which threats are valid.

In some cases last school year, administrators handed off the responsibility of dealing with minor incidents to law enforcement. As a result, the type of misbehavior that would normally result in a scolding or brief suspension has led to children being not just expelled but also arrested, charged and placed in juvenile detention, according to juvenile defense lawyers and a recent lawsuit.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/27137940

A mother whose son was having a seizure in his Tennessee apartment said in a federal lawsuit that police and paramedics subjected the 23-year-old to “inhumane acts of violence” instead of treating him, then covered up their use of deadly force.

The death of Austin Hunter Turner was one of more than 1,000 nationally that an investigation led by The Associated Press identified as happening after police officers used physical force or weapons that were supposed to stop, but not kill, people.

The lawsuit, filed this week in federal court, came after AP reporters shared police body-camera video they had unearthed with Turner’s parents, who didn’t know it existed. That footage made the family doubt the official conclusion that a drug overdose killed their son.

Citing the AP’s reporting and many of the details it disclosed, the lawsuit focused on how officers’ own video contradicted the police version of what happened inside Turner’s small apartment in the northeastern Tennessee city of Bristol.

Driving is an essential part of life in most parts of Tennessee. And if you don’t speak English — or a handful of other languages — getting a driver’s license can be difficult. That’s why a coalition of Tennessee-based immigrant rights groups is filing a federal complaint against the state.

The Our State, Our Languages Coalition alleges that the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security and Driver Services Division fail to provide sufficient language access to the driver’s exam, violating civil rights law.

At the core of the coalition’s complaint is guidance which requires agencies that receive federal funds to provide meaningful access to their services. Federal guidance states agencies should provide translation or interpretation if at least 1,000 people or 5% of the population have limited English proficiency. In Tennessee, that would include Arabic, Chinese, Somali, Kurdish, and more, said the coalition.

Tennessee’s written driving test is already offered in Spanish, German, Japanese and Korean. However, most of those language options are linked to auto manufacturers moving to the state. The road test is offered only in English.

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/18561678

For Roderick Givens, a radiation oncologist, the expansion of Medicaid isn’t just a policy issue. He practices medicine in a rural area in the Mississippi Delta and he sees daily how Medicaid coverage could help his uninsured patients.

“I can’t tell you the number of patients who I see who come in with advanced disease, who have full-time jobs,” Givens said. “They haven’t seen a physician in years. They can’t afford it. They don’t have coverage.”

This spring, the Mississippi Legislature considered but ultimately failed to expand Medicaid, which would have extended coverage to around 200,000 low-income residents. Mississippi is one of 10 states that haven’t expanded Medicaid, the state and federal health insurance program for people with low incomes or disabilities.

Seven of those states are in the South. But as more conservative-leaning states like North Carolina adopt it, the drumbeat of support, as one Southern state lawmaker put it, grows louder.

Advocates for expanding Medicaid say opposition is largely being driven by political polarization, rather than cost concerns.

Starting July 1, a new law on modified trucks and cars could mean fines for certain drivers.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee in March signed legislation banning a modification known commonly as a “Carolina squat,” which refers to cars and trucks with front ends raised to sit higher off the ground than the backs of vehicles, so that the bodies of the vehicles are no longer parallel to the ground.

Former state Rep. Scotty Campbell is suing the state Legislature’s top administrator, saying he was forced out amid a workplace harassment complaint filed by an intern in 2023.

Campbell, an East Tennessee Republican, filed a lawsuit Tuesday saying he was “forced to resign upon threat of being expelled – that day – and losing his health insurance” by House Republican Caucus Chairman Jeremy Faison. The filing also says Faison was believed to be conspiring with others to keep the media from finding out a similar complaint had been filed against him.

The former lawmaker filed a public records petition Tuesday in Davidson County Circuit Court against Connie Ridley, director of Legislative Administration, court documents show. The filing contends Ridley and others refused to disclose state records Campbell requested and is entitled to receive under state law.

Campbell resigned April 20 after a subcommittee investigation found he sexually harassed an intern.

Around noon that day, Campbell told the Tennessee Lookout he would not step away from the Legislature even though the Workplace Discrimination & Harassment Subcommittee determined he violated state policy. The subcommittee’s work was done secretly, and members were not allowed to comment on their deliberation.

Two hours later, though, he had vacated the Capitol complex, including the Cordell Hull Building where legislators’ offices are located.

House Speaker Cameron Sexton and House Majority Leader William Lamberth that night denied telling Campbell to leave, but Faison declined to say anything when asked by the Tennessee Lookout.