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The department that operates Tennessee’s State Court System, the Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts, is meeting with representatives of State Finance and Administration to discuss budgetary concerns.

According to the department’s spokesperson, Laura Click, Tennessee’s court system has seen a combined 21 percent cut in its operational budget over the last two fiscal years.

A MTSU Professor says that a federal internet plan could have a profound impact on Tennessee.

Federal regulators are announcing today that they've cobbled together a consortium of businesses and non-profit organizations to cut the number of U.S. homes that don't have broadband internet service, now at one third, or about 35 million homes.

As part of a federal project cable companies will offer Internet service for $9.95 per month to poor homes with children eligible for the school lunch program.   The plan will be available starting next summer.

WMOT News has learned today that court cases will move ahead against two Ft. Campbell soldiers.

Within the past hour, Ft. Campbell announced in a press release that the Army will court martial Sgt. Brent Burke for the murder of two Kentucky women in 2007. A trial date for early February has been set.

Burke faces court martial for the  slayings of his estranged wife and her former mother-in-law. Efforts to try Burke, a military policeman at Fort Campbell, in a Kentucky civilian court for the shooting deaths ended in two hung juries and two mistrials.

A nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System will take place today.

State and federal authorities are partnering to conduct the test this afternoon at 1 pm Central Standard Time.

The test will be aired simultaneously on every radio and television station across the country, as well as cable and satellite channels.

Today’s test will be unusually long, lasting a full three minutes.

Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander is offering a bill that would make the EPA's clean air rules governing cross-border air pollution standards into law.

Republican Alexander and Democrat Mark Pryor of Arkansas are offering the bill as an alternative to a measure up for a vote Thursday.  That bill is being offered by Tea Party favorite Rand Paul.  Paul’s legislation would eliminate the cross-border pollution regulations all together.

Alexander and Pryor have introduced a bill that would convert the EPA rules into law, but give utilities an extra year to implement it.

Tennessee lost more than 56 hundred manufacturing jobs over the past year, and that’s actually good news.  The state lost four times that number of industrial jobs in the previous year.

The business directory, the Tennessee Manufacturers Register, says the state lost about 1.5 percent of its manufacturing jobs. The register says Tennessee is now home to just over 7200 manufacturers employing right at 375,ooo thousand workers.