AP/WMOT

DETROIT (AP/WMOT) — Franklin based Nissan North America, one of Middle Tennessee’s biggest employers, is reporting its best sales ever during the month of March.

Nissan says sales were up a full percentage point in March year-over-year. The company says the all-electric Nissan LEAF now being built at the company’s Smyrna plant, saw sales jump by more than 280 percent year-over-year.

Nissan's Bryan Brockman says a recent drop in the price of the new LEAF seems to be getting a lot of attention.

WASHINGTON (AP/WMOT) — Congressional inaction could end up costing college students an extra $5,000 on their new loans.

The rate for subsidized Stafford loans is set to increase from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent on July 1, just as millions of new college students start signing up for fall courses.

Lawmakers passed a bill postponing the rate increase last year, but Megan McClean of the Washington based National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators says she’s not hearing any buzz on Capitol Hill about passing another extension.

WASHINGTON (AP/WMOT) — Federal statistics out Thursday show the nation’s economy grew at a decidedly anemic pace last year, but the economic news is much better for one at least one mid-state county.

The Commerce Department says the U.S. economy grew at an annual rate 0.4 percent in last year’s final quarter. Analysts think the nation's economy is growing at much faster clip in the current quarter; perhaps as much as 2.5 percent.

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (AP/WMOT) — Is the section of the federal Defense of Marriage Act that says marriage is between only a man and a woman constitutional?

The United States Supreme Court will be taking up that issue Wednesday.

Justices are looking at the case of a New York woman who sued to challenge a $363,000 federal estate tax bill after the woman she married died in 2009. Had Edith Windsor married a man, the estate tax bill would have been zero.

The case is being followed closely by Tennesseans on both sides of the issue.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam has announced that he will not pursue expanding the state's Medicaid program to help cover the uninsured as part of the federal Affordable Care Act.

Haslam says he made the decision knowing that it will have serious consequences for the state’s uninsured citizens, and some of the state’s smaller hospitals.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) —  The Tennessee House has passed an updated version of the state’s controversial voter photo ID bill.

The House approved the new measure on a 65-30 vote Monday evening. Last week a House committee removed public university student photo ID from the measure’s list of approved voter ID.

Rep. Glen Casada of Franklin says he worries about the integrity of student documents.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP/WMOT) — The Middle Tennessee State Lady Raiders lost their first round NCAA tourney game Sunday afternoon.

The MTSU women fell to Louisville 74-49.

Kortni Jones led Middle Tennessee with 14 points, and Icelyn Elie added 13. Ebony Rowe had her 21st double-double with 12 points and 12 rebounds.

MTSU Coach Rick Insell is already looking ahead.

“We’ll have three that’ll be graduating, then ten will be coming back and we’ve got four incoming freshmen right now. So we’ll reload and we’ll have another good team next year.”

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP/WMOT) — This may be the week that Governor Haslam announces whether he will support expanding Medicaid in Tennessee.

Proponents say the money for expanding Medicaid on offer from the federal government is too good a deal to pass up. But detractors point to Tennessee’s failed experiment to expand TennCare in the 1990s as evidence that Washington is an unreliable partner.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP/WMOT) — Tennessee's unemployment rate for February was 7.8 percent, up a tenth from January’s figure.

The state's jobless rate has risen the past two months, up from 7.6 percent in December.

The Department of Labor’s Jeff Hentschel says at least some of the increase can be attributed to seasonal factors.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A new report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin ranks the relative health of people living in Tennessee's counties.

The report — out today — lists Williamson County as the healthiest among the state's 95 counties. Rutherford County came in second.

Grundy County on the southern end of the Cumberland Plateau came in last.