Tennessee

The gunk on the water had thinned to a gray scrim in front of Mike Thomas' riverfront home -- a small sign of progress one week after one of the worst coal ash spills in American history. But as Thomas drove along the bluff over the Emory River, he pointed to big piles of sludgy, dark gray ash, a byproduct of coal combustion, that had been accidentally disgorged by the nearby electricity plant. The heaps jutted from the water's surface like ugly volcanic islands.

Tennessee seems to be the gift that keeps on giving to the UCLA football program. A year ago, the Volunteers came to the Rose Bowl and decided to stop running, even though they were averaging five yards per carry. They also decided not to press Bruins receivers, even though their defense was being picked apart. The result was a 27-24 UCLA victory. But the parting gift came after the season, when Tennessee's new coaching staff decided to back off from recruiting tailback Damien Thigpen , allowing an opening for UCLA.

A Chinese couple who fought for seven years to get their daughter back from foster care won a judge's approval Thursday to avoid deportation by leaving the United States voluntarily. Shaoqiang and Qin Luo He regained custody of 8-year-old Anna Mae in July on orders from the state Supreme Court. The high court overturned a Memphis judge who cleared the way in 2004 for an American couple, Jerry and Louise Baker, to adopt the child over her parents' objections.

They knew they couldn't set this little country community right in a day -- the storms had been too brutal for that. But at least, they figured, they could clean it up. All along the two-lane road through town, men in hunting jackets moved around quickly in heavy machinery, plowing and piling debris. Farmers in ball caps amputated horizontal cedars, poplars and pines with buzzing chain saws. Church ladies in fresh makeup and work gloves tidied the yards in front of roofless homes.

C. Barton Crattie, a Georgia land surveyor, did not expect to start a border war when he penned a newspaper article about a flawed 1818 survey that placed his state a mile below the Tennessee River. The mistake in calculating Georgia's northern corner, he figured, was just an odd historical footnote, an interesting digression for those who fret that the drought-stricken state will soon run out of water. "Unfortunately for . . .

A man killed his ex-girlfriend's current boyfriend, her mother and two other people, then killed himself after police caught up with him in a rural area, authorities said. Rusty L. Rumley came to the family's apartment in a public housing complex Wednesday morning under the ruse of needing help moving furniture, Bristol Police Chief Blaine Wade said.

For the first time in more than half a century, the Odell residence is quiet. There are no squeaks and pops from the electric motor that powered an "iron lung" pumping air in and out of Dianne Odell's body. A thunderstorm knocked out the power to her home Wednesday, shutting off the massive metal machine that had helped her breathe for nearly 60 years. It was about 3 a.m. when the electricity went out at Odell's home in Jackson, a small Tennessee town about 90 miles northeast of Memphis.

A gunman opened fire at a church youth performance Sunday, killing two people, including a man witnesses said had shielded others. Seven adults were injured but no children were harmed at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church. Members said they dove under pews or ran from the building when the shooting started. Congregants tackled the gunman. Jim D. Adkisson, 58, was charged with first-degree murder and held on $1-million bail, according to city spokesman Randy Kenner.

The Tennessee Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a Chinese immigrant couple should be reunited with their daughter almost eight years after she was placed in foster care with an American family. In a case that has prompted fierce debate about ethnic and cultural bias in the U.S. judicial system, the state high court unanimously overturned a 2004 decision by a Memphis judge who removed the parental rights of Jack and Casey He.

Gov. Phil Bredesen postponed four executions Thursday so the state could review and better document its procedures for lethal injection. Bredesen, a Democrat, reiterated his support for the death penalty but said he was issuing the reprieves because he was concerned the written protocol for execution wasn't specific enough. "The document describes the drugs to be used; it doesn't describe how much is to be used. That's a huge failure of that document," Bredesen said.