MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — A federal judge in Memphis, Tennessee, has denied a request to modify a decades-old order barring the city from engaging in surveillance of protesters and activists.

U.S. District Judge Jon McCalla’s ruling Wednesday responds to a sealed motion by the city of Memphis seeking to change a consent decree issued in 1978. The decree followed disclosures that the Memphis Police Department had spied on civil rights activists, violating their First Amendment rights.

MURFRESSBORO, Tenn. (AP) — Human remains have been found during the search for a Tennessee teen who vanished in 2017.

News outlets report the remains were found Wednesday near the Barfield Crescent Park in Murfreesboro. Rutherford County Sheriff Mike Fitzhugh says the remains found in a heavily wooded area have not been medically confirmed to be that of Devin Bond, who was 16 when he disappeared.

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (AP) — Middle Tennessee wide receiver Zeke Cobb has been suspended from the program as he faces rape charges.

Murfreesboro police spokesman Larry Flowers said Tuesday that Cobb has been served a sealed indictment on two counts of rape stemming from an incident in 2018. Flowers didn't have any additional details on the case.

Rutherford County sheriff's spokeswoman Lisa Marchesoni said the 21-year-old is being held at Rutherford County Adult Detention Center on $60,000 bond. A court hearing is set for Nov. 26.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Nashville's mayor has released an emergency cold weather plan for sheltering the city's homeless community, weeks after reversing a decision to close the winter overflow facilities.

In a plan obtained by news outlets Thursday, Mayor John Cooper announced the overflow shelter will be located in a vacant Davidson County Sheriff's dormitory that accommodates 150 people. The plan will be initiated when the National Weather Service records temperatures below 29 degrees and when other shelters hit capacity.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A Tennessee death row inmate has selected electrocution for his upcoming execution, a move that would make him the fourth person in the state to choose that method over lethal injection since last year.

The Department of Correction confirmed Thursday that Lee Hall, formerly known as Leroy Hall Jr., requested the electric chair for the scheduled Dec. 5 execution.

RUTHERFORD, Tenn. (AP) — A former political campaign treasurer and Tennessee Republican Party committeewoman is accused of stealing more than $65,000 from her father's campaign and pocketing insurance money from policyholders who used her family's insurance company.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The Associated Press released a correction to this story Nov. 7. at 8:58 a.m. The amount Kelsey Ketron is accused of stealing from her father's campaign fund is $65,500, not the $133,000 originally reported.

  NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee's new restrictions for registering voters aren't scheduled to face trial until February 2021, likely keeping the penalties blocked through the 2020 elections.

U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger scheduled the trial for two challenges of the law that fines groups with paid workers for submitting too many incomplete registration forms , considered a first among states.

It also criminalizes intentional infractions of other new rules with misdemeanor charges.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (OSBORNE) -- Gov. Bill Lee is asking the Tennessee Department of Human Services to cut its budget, even as revelations surface that the state is holding more than a billion dollars in unspent welfare funding.

Commissioner Danielle Whitworth Barnes on Monday proposed a reduction of $2.4 million in the DHS budget for the coming fiscal year. Her presentation came during Gov. Lee's annual departmental budget review.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (OSBORNE) -- Tennessee Department of Corrections officials say the state’s probation officers are quitting at an alarming rate.

Governor Bill Lee is holding budget hearings on Capitol Hill this week. During TDOC’s presentation Monday, officials noted that one corrections worker in four leaves state employment each year.

Even more concerning, TDOC HR Director Brian Hughes told the governor the rate of attrition for probation officers is accelerating.