Top Stories

MURFREESBORO, Tenn (WMOT)  --  Best-selling author, journalist and documentarian Sebastian Junger was on the Middle Tennessee State campus
Tuesday to talk about his wartime reporting.

Junger is the acclaimed author of the book “The Perfect Storm,” which became a major motion picture. But he's also an accomplished journalist and filmmaker best-known for the war documentary "Restrepo."

MURFREESBORO, Tenn (WMOT)  --  Best-selling author, journalist and documentary filmmaker Sebastian Junger and Academy Award winning actress Marlee Matlin will both speak here on the Middle Tennessee State campus this week.

Junger is perhaps best known as the author of the book “The Perfect Storm,” which became a major motion picture. Junger is also an accomplished journalist and filmmaker known for the war documentary "Restrepo."

WASHINGTON, DC.  (AP/WMOT)  --  Tennessee is improving its high-school graduation rate faster than any state but Texas, according to a new report.

The report is being presented today in Washington at the Grad Nation Summit organized by the children's advocacy group America's Promise Alliance (APA).  The group was founded by former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

From 2001 to 2009, graduation rates increased in the United States by three-and-a-half percentage points. Over the same period, Tennessee’s graduation rate increased by about 16 percent.

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (WMOT)  --  The Tennessee State Senate will consider a bill Monday that critics say will “gut science education” in the state’s public schools.

Senate bill SB0839 would allow classroom teachers the freedom to “analyze, critique, and review…the scientific strengths and weaknesses of existing scientific theories.”

ACLU Tennessee state chapter Director Hedy Weinberg said in a press release Sunday that the bill is simply another attempt by Christian conservatives to provide legal cover for teachers who want to teacher Creationism.

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (WMOT)  --  A Middle Tennessee gallery is modeling its new arts initiative on the latest fad in sustainable agriculture.

Community Supported Agriculture matches the people who eat food with the people who grow the food. Customers pay farmers, in advance, to deliver fresh produce and other items every week or two.

SeedSpace art gallery in downtown Nashville is now applying that same concept to art. Saturday evening at 6 p.m., SeedSpace will hold what it calls an "art pick-up party." It’s part of a program called CSArt; short for Community Supported Art.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — This is Sunshine Week in Tennessee, a celebration of efforts to keep government business transparent. Sunshine Week is observed annually by news organizations and open government advocates.

The statutes that regulate public and media access to government information are often referred to as Sunshine Laws.  Tennessee’s sunshine law was adopted in 1974 in reaction to the Water Gate scandal.