President Joe Biden announced this week that the White House will allocate a portion of the funds from the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act toward public safety, including $350 million for state and local law enforcement agencies.

It's not often these days that we get to read some really uplifting news - especially uplifting news about Black history.

Last week, all of us — especially workers and businesses — scored a big victory when a federal judge in Houston, Texas, told a registered nurse in the Houston Methodist hospital system that if she thought her freedom was threatened by her employer insisting that she be vaccinated against COVID-19, well — she was free to go work somewhere else.

It was inevitable.

To hear Newsmax tell it, Southern Baptists have taken a "dangerous turn left."

What's the best insurance policy for our city's growth? Any city's growth? Any county's growth? Any state's or country's growth?

Tennessee used to be a state with a centrist temperament, a state where in election after election voters cast ballots for moderate politicians of both political stripes - Howard Baker, Fred Thompson, Zach Wamp, Ned McWherter, Bill Frist, Al Gore, Phil Bredesen, Lamar Alexander and Bill Haslam to name a few.

The idea that Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn is accusing anyone of being "in cahoots" with anyone or "trying to create" a narrative by "cherry-picking information" is jaw-droppingly, knee-slapping funny.

Plenty of the local news of late is trumpeting some version of "pandemic easing."

In the summer of 2017, Chattanooga lost one important asset and gained another.

We cannot be lulled by our successful COVID-19 vaccines or by the fact that our coronavirus case numbers are down.

Facebook announced Friday it will no longer automatically give politicians a pass when they break the company's hate speech rules. Glory hallelujah! But it is so past time for this.

It's been a good week for polar bears.

Finally someone has said exactly what's needed about Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee's shameful and cruel attack on vulnerable migrant children caught up in the middle of a senseless GOP feeding frenzy.

The headline is enticing: "When will Harriet Tubman adorn the $20 bill."

There isn't just one "big lie" with some Republicans. There are several. Especially in the South among some Republicans.

We'll have no Jan. 6 probe

The South's obsession with romanticizing the Confederacy was making national news again last week after the Stone Mountain Memorial Association — the board overseeing Stone Mountain Park near Atlanta — voted unanimously to relocate Confederate flags from a walking trail and to begin telling the truth about the park's racist history.

President Joe Biden made a good decision this week when he decided to roil the political waters by publicly disclosing a division within the intelligence agencies about the possible origin of COVID-19.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee needs a rather large handkerchief this week - one large enough to wipe a significant amount of egg from his face.

Tennessee businesses beware. You are now subject to being spied on and reported to the state bathroom police.

Too many House Republicans are quick to preach personal responsibility, but clearly not so quick to take that responsibility - let alone model it.

Almost five years ago we wrote on this page: "It is truly mind-numbing to comprehend the vast waste of [electricity] ratepayer and taxpayer money lost on the siting, building, scrapping, building again and now abandoning Bellefonte Nuclear Plant."