Local News

A heavy blanket of snow prompted Tennessee to declare a state of emergency Monday. Tennessee Emergency Management Agency called in additional staff to monitor the winter storm that dumped 6 to 8 inches of snow across Roane County by Monday morning — with more on the way.

Staff at TEMA's facility in Knoxville and Jackson were placed on duty, and a number of TEMA staff and emergency service coordinators from the Departments of Safety  and Transportation reported to TEMA's headquarters in Nashville.

The Internal Revenue Service has released instructions to help employers implement the 2011 cut in payroll taxes, along with new income-tax withholding tables that employers will use during 2011.
Millions of workers will see their take-home pay rise during 2011 because the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010 provides a 2-percentage point payroll tax cut for employees, reducing their Social Security tax withholding rate from 6.2 percent to 4.2 percent of wages paid.

A strong chemical smell tends to be an obvious sign of meth activity.

Deputies detected the smell at a home on River Road last Tuesday.

“We talked to the people there and saw signs and evidence that meth was being cooked and being used,” Roane County Sheriff Jack Stockton said. “We took four people into custody and actually found the components of the lab where they had recently been cooking.”

A church building once touted as Harriman’s oldest has fallen into a sad state of disrepair.

“It’s just falling in on itself,” said Pat LaDue, who lives in the historic Morgan Street area shared by the rotting wooden structure that originally housed Harriman First Christian Church. “It’s terrible. The pigeons are flying in there all the time. The whole inside of the church is filled with pigeon waste.”