Senate health committee Chairman Lamar Alexander on Tuesday said, “the cost of health care has remained in a black box.”   He said, “Secretary Azar recently told the story of his doctor ordering a routine echo cardio stress test. He was sent down the street and admitted to the hospital, where, after considerable effort on his part, he learned the test would ... (click for more)

It is football time in Tennessee—and at Morning Pointe of Hixson. Each year, the residents of the assisted living community eagerly anticipate the arrival of college football season. They can’t wait to wear their favorite team’s colors and cheer them on to victory.   “We have a lot of college sports fan at Hixson, and the fun rivalry has begun! Two of our biggest Vols ... (click for more)

City Transportation Director Blythe Bailey said Tuesday that the Black Creek Mountain Development Group will pay for a review by an engineering firm of plans for a new city road up Aetna Mountain to a planned major development on top. Geosyntec Consultants is charging $39,754 for the examination of the planned road that will roughly follow the track of the current dirt road that ... (click for more)

Two tellers from the Hixson branch of the Bank of America testified Tuesday they are positive that Walter Frank Rice is the individual who robbed them at gunpoint last July 25. General Sessions Court Judge Lila Statom bound a bank robbery charge against Rice, 36, of 4734 Sabrina Lane, Hixson, to the Grand Jury. She raised his bond on the bank robbery charge to $250,000, calling ... (click for more)

Arming teachers with guns in the classroom, as Bill Lee proposes, would be the single most dangerous thing to happen to students in Tennessee history. Students and teachers in close proximity to loaded firearms daily? Across this state, in middle schools alone, there are probably hundreds of student/teacher conflicts a day. What if a student got hold of gun in a struggle with ... (click for more)

It’s easy for me to say that I either know, or know about, almost every person running in November for the state legislature. Yet when I describe Lemon Williams as the most exciting of the bunch, that’s because he's the only guy I had never heard of when he picked up his qualifying papers. He just turned out the best political aspirant I have had a conversation with in the last ... (click for more)