Citing stronger economic growth, the Federal Reserve announced it is not making any changes to its monetary policy.

As the AP reported earlier, economists were expecting this wait-and-see approach because they figured the Fed would want time to assess whether its policy from August and September was spurring growth.

        Governor Haslam is not backing down after a federal judge temporarily blocked his efforts to clear protesters off of Legislative Plaza.

          Protesters were granted a restraining order Monday, barring the state from making further arrests after more than 50 of their number were taken into custody on the Plaza over the weekend by State Troopers.

          In a news conference yesterday, Governor Haslam did not admit defeat or to any mistake, saying that deteriorating safety and sanitary conditions on the plaza required a response.

          A big job fair underway at this hour here in Murfreesboro.

          Nissan is interviewing for 1,100 new workers at their Smyrna Plant.

          The Tennessee Department of Labor is hosting the event at the Embassy Suites on Conference Center Boulevard in Murfreesboro. The positions need to be filled by the end of February.

          Nissan will also be hiring for other warehouse and production-support jobs over the next 18 months.

          Today’s job fair continues until 2 this afternoon.

          The multimedia experience Freedom Sings opens this afternoon at 2:20 in the Tucker Theater here on the Middle Tennessee State campus.

          Freedom Sings is a celebration of America’s protest music, banned and censored songs. The show debuted at the Bluebird Café in 1999 and now tours nationwide.

          Before the show, you can take a look at some of the original mediafeatured in the program courtesy of MTSU's Center for Popular Music. 

The schedule for the first four Republican presidential caucuses and primaries appeared officially set Wednesday with New Hampshire announcing that it would hold its first-in-the-nation primary on Jan. 10.

That would come exactly seven days after the Iowa caucuses, which were moved to Jan. 3, the first Tuesday of the new year, and which will kick off the process by which Republicans will choose their party's nominee to contest President Obama for the White House.

Nothing is more basic and simple than food. Yet it comes to us courtesy of a long, complicated supply chain that spans the globe.

That chain delivers food cheaply — but it can break. Four years ago, it blew up in most spectacular fashion, affecting hundreds of millions of people who rely on rice for sustenance. That crash — the great rice crisis of 2008 — was a true disaster for some of the poorest people in Asia and West Africa.

The news today that Pakistan's cabinet has moved to normalize trade with India — giving its neighbor "Most Favored Nation" status — is being viewed as a positive first step toward the possible normalization of diplomatic relations between the two nuclear rivals.

The debate over requiring voters to show photo ID at the polls has been a heated one. Democrats accuse Republicans, who support such laws, of wanting to suppress the votes of minorities, the elderly and the poor. Republicans accuse Democrats, who oppose ID rules, of condoning voter fraud.

It's a sharp partisan divide. But a few people have gone against the tide — and they're getting some political heat for doing so.

A Democrat Criticized For Fraud Concerns

          An anti-Shariah conference has been moved to a suburban church after a downtown Nashville hotel canceled the group's reservation.

          The Nov. 11 event billed as "The Constitution or Sharia? A Freedom Conference" will now be held at the Cornerstone Church in Madison.

          The gathering was set to meet at Nashville’s Hutton Hotel, but lost that venue when the hotel owners decided that the scheduled speakers were too controversial.

          The state of Tennessee has agreed, at least temporarily, to stop enforcing a new curfew used to dislodge Occupy Nashville protesters from the grounds around the Tennessee Capitol.

          The protesters went to federal court yesterday seeking a temporary restraining order against Gov. Bill Haslam saying the curfew and arrests of dozens of supporters violated their rights to free speech and freedom of assembly.

          Protesters were represented in court by the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee.