Certainly, all of us are horrified at what our state endured on Saturday and are heartbroken at the loss of life, homes, businesses, automobiles, electrical power, and on it goes.  First of all, please be praying for those who were impacted, but also pray for those who are rushing in to restore power, clean up, etc.  A number of folks are still in the hospital and need our prayers too. Below are some links that may be helpful if you need help or if you can provide help in any way with the restoration. 

IF YOU NEED HELP, DIAL: 211

Blood Assurance opens donation center in Clarksville following severe weather.

A THOROUGH REVIEW:
Gov. Bill Lee surveys damage across Middle Tennessee after deadly tornado outbreak

PHOTOS: Aftermath of deadly tornado outbreak in Middle TN 

Tennessee Supreme Court blocks decision to redraw state's Senate redistricting maps

The Tennessee Supreme Court has temporarily blocked a lower court’s decision that lawmakers must redraw the state’s Senate maps, a move that means the districts will likely remain in place for the 2024 elections

ByKIMBERLEE KRUESI Associated Press  December 8, 2023, 4:10 PM

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Tennessee's highest court on Friday temporarily blocked a lower court's decision that lawmakers must redraw the state's Senate maps in a ruling that means the current legislative districts will likely remain in place for the 2024 elections.

Late last month, a panel of judges ruled that the Republican-drawn map violated the state Constitution because lawmakers incorrectly numbered the seats in left-leaning Nashville. The numbers are important because they determine the years those seats are on the ballot.

The same trial judges ruled to temporarily block the Senate map in 2022, but the Supreme Court reinstated the districts then as well, reasoning that it was too close to the election.

In response to the November ruling, the state's attorneys quickly moved to seek a pause of the decision, arguing that the plaintiffs had no standing to sue and that the state wanted to exhaust all of its appeals options before having to reconfigure district lines.

The Tennessee Supreme Court sided with the state in its Friday ruling. Doing so means the maps will remain in place as the appeals process plays out, which is typically a lengthy process and could easily bleed past the 2024 general elections.

Republicans celebrated the decision, including Senate Speaker Randy McNally, who has repeatedly defended the Senate map as legally sound.

“(McNally) is grateful the court recognized the clear and convincing need for a stay in this case," said Adam Kleinheider, the speaker's spokesperson. “He remains optimistic the state will ultimately prevail on appeal.”

The state has argued that because lawmakers reconvene on Jan. 9 and have a Jan. 31 deadline to draw a new Senate map, there's not enough time to proceed under that timeline.

MORE GOOD NEWS!!!

Thousands of Tennessee victims now get real-time updates on sexual assault evidence

BY: ANITA WADHWANI - DECEMBER 11, 2023 5:01 AM

For years, lengthy delays in testing sexual assault kits left victims in limbo — unable to learn whether evidence that passes from nurses to police to labs and back has made it through the system or slipped through the cracks. 

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation now reports a new database giving victims real time updates on sexual assault evidence is fully operational, logging 3,036 kits since going online in July of last year.

The agency has yet to train all of the state’s 600 law enforcement agencies in the new database, a web portal that requires police, hospitals and laboratories to log dates to mark the path of a rape kit throughout the chain of command. 

But Donna Nelson, a TBI crime lab regional supervisor based in Jackson who spearheaded implementation of the so-called SAMS-Track system, said lab personnel ensure that each time an officer brings a kit to a state labs without having entered it into the database, training is immediately offered at the lab. Thus far, 248 law enforcement agencies have submitted kits using the SAMS-Track system since the 2022 law creating the database.

“In my personal opinion, this has been a success,” Nelson said. “We’re just encouraging victims to report their crimes and know that we’re here and we are doing our absolute best to make sure their kits are processed in a timely manner.”

Moms for Liberty and Knox County School Board members challenge school district on books in school libraries

The school district said it already allows parents, students and staff members to challenge books in school libraries

Author: Vinay Simlot   Published: 7:01 PM EST December 5, 2023

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Knox County Schools Superintendent Dr. Jon Rysewyk responded to questions about books in school libraries at the Knox County School Board workshop on Monday, Dec. 4. 

At the KCS Board meeting last month, the organization "Moms for Liberty" read passages from books they believed needed to be removed from school libraries.

"We are not book banners. We just want to have some kind of policy that can either label these books, segregate these books, have parental opt-out options, or in the event that some of them are too graphic—be removed from the schools," Chair of the Knox County Moms for Liberty Sheri Super said.

The Southern Poverty Law Center considers Moms for Liberty a far-right organization, that "opposes LGBTQ+ and racially inclusive school curriculum, and has advocated books bans."

At the beginning of the school board workshop on Monday, Rysewyk told the board KCS already has a policy for parents, students or staff to challenge books in school libraries. They can fill out a form, and challenge books at a school level. If people are unsatisfied with the result—they can appeal to the school district. 

"That is a very comprehensive, and I believe, very effective process for us to be able to get that done," Rysewyk said on Monday. 

Knox County Schools Chief of Communications Carly Harrington said since the 2021-2022 school year, KCS had four book challenges. Harrington said Rysewyk brought it up in the board meeting because he had gotten questions about the process, not because many people had challenged books. 

"I don't agree with the way it's currently done," said school board member Steve Triplett. 

Triplett said he spoke with Rysewyk about changing the district policy on books and the two "agreed to disagree."

In 2021, the Tennessee General Assembly allowed local political parties to turn school board races partisan. Knox County's school board has three Republican members, with Triplett being the most outspoken against the district's policy on removing books. 

Harvard University President Accused of Plagiarizing Ph.D. Thesis with Material Written by Dr. Carol Swain

December 10, 2023 Kaitlin Housler

Rufo, through a thread posted on X Sunday afternoon, displayed photos of Gay’s 1997 thesis next to the material Rufo asserts she used without attribution.

Rufo accuses Gay of plagiarizing her thesis by pulling material written by scholar Swain as well as material written by Lawrence Bobo and Franklin Gilliam, Richard Shingles, Susan Howell, and Deborah Fagan.

Rufo said Gay’s plagiarism is a violation of Harvard’s policy and called on her to resign.

“Gay’s use of Swain’s material is a straightforward violation of the university’s rules, which state that one “must give credit to the author of the source material, either by placing the source material in quotation marks and providing a clear citation, or by paraphrasing the source material and providing a clear citation”— neither of which Gay followed,” Rufo wrote on X.

“I earned a master’s degree from Harvard’s night school — not nearly as prestigious as the graduate school — but, if I had committed these kinds of violations, I would have been expelled. As an alumnus, I am calling on Claudine Gay to immediately resign from her position,” Rufo added.

Harvard’s policy on Plagiarism and Collaboration reads as follows:

It is expected that all homework assignments, projects, lab reports, papers, theses, and examinations and any other work submitted for academic credit will be the student’s own.

Students who, for whatever reason, submit work either not their own or without clear attribution to its sources will be subject to disciplinary action, up to and including requirement to withdraw from the College. Students who have been found responsible for any violation of these standards will not be permitted to submit course evaluation of the course in which the infraction occurred.

Swain responded to Rufo’s thread on Gay’s thesis, writing on X, “I just learned of @realchrisrufo analysis of #ClaudineGay’s work and the allegations of plagiarism. I have not read the articles or books in question. However, two things come to mind: imitation is said to be the highest form of flattery and secondly Dr. Gay’s committee, reviewers, and colleagues should have caught these transgressions. I will issue a statement after I have more information. Right now it seem like she is a victim of the “Adversity of Diversity.””

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