Metro Pulse

It’s Democratic National Convention week! The Tennessee Congressional Primaries are nearly a month past us! One more convention to go, and then no one has to pay attention again until November. Full story »

City Beat: They were whipping it up at the Crowne Plaza on election night as the slate of winning Republican candidates was introduced to loud applause—it looked like old times, the dark specter of February a dim memory. Full story »

City Beat: Since July 27, Annette Mendola has heard the question innumerable times. “It’s very poignant,” she says. “People keep asking, ‘How will you ever feel safe in that church again?’ and ‘How will you ever feel safe letting your child out of your sight again?’” Full story »

Knoxville Area Transit, flanked by financial crises associated with rising gasoline prices, laid out a strategy last week to the Knoxville Transportation Authority, as well as to citizens in attendance, in the large conference room at the City County Building. The KTA unanimously approved KAT’s proposals for raising more revenue for the bus system; and the KTA unanimously rejected all of KAT’s proposals for route cutbacks. Full story »

A month after the June 23 approval of the Knox County budget, library patrons got a 50 percent increase—in the time they’re allowed to keep materials without incurring fines. As of July 22, the system returned to its three-week loan period for books and audiobooks, up from the two-week circulation limit set in February. Full story »

City Beat: The Greater Knoxville Sports Hall of Fame’s annual induction banquet at the Knoxville Convention Center last Thursday was a bittersweet reunion for Jackie Walker’s teammates, family, friends, and coaches who came to see him posthumously honored. Many of them were pioneers in their own right. There was Lester McClain, who enrolled at the University of Tennessee in 1968 and was the school’s first black football player. And there was Walker’s classmate Andy Bennett. The three of them formed their own support system. At the banquet, Bennett and McClain represented sort of a Missing Man formation, Two Musketeers. Full story »

City Beat: The Downtown North/Interstate 275 revitalization plan to make North Central Street more attractive to residents and to businesses was warmly received by most of the 175 in attendance at its first public meeting July 8. There were a few objections to attempting to draw people to the area while prostitutes work their trade up and down Central and homeless people are habitually sprawled on nearby sidewalks, but most greeted the plan with optimism. Full story »

The Damon and Stella Foundation for Mental Health is an unusual sort of non-profit organization, dedicated as it is primarily to producing public service announcements (PSAs). But then the circumstances that created it were most unusual—and tragic—when namesakes Damon Ivey and Stella Barrett took their own lives within days of one another in early 2006. Full story »

City Beat: We’re here again to examine some of the Knoxville area’s biggest, and most interesting, political patrons. It’s July, and the presidential primaries are definitely, finally over. The general race is in full swing. Again, finally. Next up, the state’s Congressional Primary, at the beginning of August. Full story »

They’ve sat since March 11, through cold and rain and, now, oppressive heat, every weekday from 9 in the morning until 3 in the afternoon. Angela Murphy says they’ve seen it all—she and one other member of the Carpenters Union Local No. 50—from passing motorists who honk horns and lift middle fingers to local residents who shout encouragement. Full story »

City Beat: The cost of four full-page color ads on a Wednesday in the Knoxville News Sentinel could have run Knox Accountability $7,500 as an insert, as much as $34,579.20 if it ran in the paper itself. But the group, which two weeks ago started its petition drive to get seven amendments to the Knox County Charter on the November ballot, didn’t have to spend a dime. Full story »

Outside a bar, next door to a liquor store, on the road leading to the Cumberland Avenue Strip... the locations of 15 street signs installed three weeks ago to encourage drivers to “Be Aware, Don’t Drive Impaired” were carefully chosen by the Knoxville Police Department. Full story »

City Beat: If the deadline for the Knox Charter petitions were today, Knox Accountability would need just over 36,000 signatures on each of its two petitions to get its seven proposed amendments on the November ballot. Full story »

Meredith Yates will stop following in her mother Anne Yates’ footsteps by the end of August. Since the senior Yates’ death in October 2007, her daughter has been operating the stores her mother founded, the organic food market Nature’s Pantry and the holistic wellness center Well By Nature. But about a month ago, she put both Bearden Hill/Kingston Pike buildings on the market, and will close her doors Aug. 31. Full story »

City Beat: When the news hit Tuesday that the Board of Trustees at the University of Tennessee would be postponing a decision on some major program cuts, including the highly-regarded, 225-student, 44-faculty-member Department of Audiology and Speech Pathology, you would think that ASP Professor and Associate Department Head Dr. Ashley Harkrider would be relieved. Full story »