Senators OK school voucher expansion bill

NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee Senate lawmakers on Thursday approved the expansion of an education voucher program that allows public tax dollars to be given to families to pay for private schooling.

The Republican-dominant chamber voted 19-6 to approve the legislation to expand the voucher program to Hamilton County, with only Democrats voting against. Four Republican lawmakers declined to cast a vote. The bill must still clear the House chamber.

The GOP-led Statehouse narrowly approved the voucher program — known as education savings accounts — in 2019. Under the law, eligible families are given around $8,100 in public tax dollars to help pay for private school tuition and other preapproved expenses.

At the time, many Republicans lawmakers agreed to enact the program after receiving assurances that it would only apply to Davidson and Shelby counties, which are Democratic-strongholds in ruby red Tennessee.

Multiple legal challenges were filed by Nashville, Memphis and civil rights leaders to stop the program, but ultimately, a Tennessee judicial panel upheld the law in 2022.

“Whether you like the ESA bill or not, it’s here and it’s passed its legal challenges,” said Republican Sen. Todd Gardenhire, adding that he wanted to give families “a choice and not be trapped in failing schools.”

Gardenhire previously told The Associated Press that he had been unsure if the school voucher law would survive legal challenges, so he supported Hamilton County not being included in the original 2019 law.

Senate Speaker Randy McNally said he’s unsure if legislation means the voucher program will continue to expand across the state, saying it’ll “depend on the counties and whether their senators want to do it.”

Jim Boone, founder of Boone newspaper chain dies at age 87

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (AP) — James B. “Jim” Boone Jr., the founder and chairman of the board of Boone Newsmedia, Inc., a media company which operates newspapers, magazines and websites in a dozen states, died Monday. He was 87.

Boone followed his father, Pulitzer Prize winner Buford Boone, into the newspaper business, and then created a media company that now owns or manages 91 newspapers, websites, magazines and shopping guides across the country. The company, which had operated under Boone Newspapers, Inc., was renamed Boone Newsmedia, Inc., in 2022 to reflect its expansion into digital-centered media. Boone remained chairman of BNI until his death.

“Jim Boone, by his example, set the highest bar for so many for how to lead and serve a community, civic organization, church, a business organization or his family. Put simply, he made doing the right thing the main thing and that guided his every choice and decision,” said Todd Carpenter, president and CEO of Boone Newsmedia and Carpenter Newsmedia, wrote in a statement provided by the company.

Boone was born in Macon, Georgia, on Nov. 25, 1935. He graduated from the University of Alabama in 1958. He worked at newspapers in Texas and Virginia before succeeding his father as publisher of The Tuscaloosa News.

BNI acquired newspapers across the country and now owns or operates publications in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee and Texas.

He earned numerous civic, industry and business awards, including a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Alabama Press Association, the Henry and Julia Tutwiler Distinguished Service Award from the University of Alabama and the Casey Award from the University of Minnesota for leadership in the newspaper industry. Boone also served on the Board of Directors of Regions Financial Corporation.

Boone is survived by his wife, Carolyn, and five children. The funeral is planned for Saturday in Lowndesboro, Alabama.

Former officer pleads guilty to hitting man he arrested

MEMPHIS. (AP) — A former Memphis officer has pleaded guilty to violating the civil rights of a man who was in his custody by hitting him in the head with his gun, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.

Armando Bustamante faces up to 10 years in prison at sentencing in June after pleading guilty to one felony count of deprivation of rights under color of law, the U.S. attorney’s office in Memphis said in a news release.

Prosecutors said Bustamante arrested a man in January 2021 and struck him in the head with his service weapon and his hands without legal justification, injuring him.

Bustamante was hired in 2015, Memphis police said in a statement. He resigned in 2021 “in lieu of potential termination” on internal police department charges of using excessive or unnecessary force,and violating a personal conduct policy, police said.

The guilty plea comes as the U.S. Justice Department investigates the actions of Memphis officers involved in the Jan. 7 arrest of Tyre Nichols, who was punched, kicked and hit with a police baton after Nichols fled a traffic stop.

Five Memphis officers already have been fired and accused of state charges of second-degree murder and other alleged offenses in the arrest of Nichols, who died Jan. 10.

Stax offers free soul music event for Black History Month

MEMPHIS (AP) — The foundation associated with the Stax Museum of American Soul Music and the Stax Music Academy says a new multimedia presentation celebrating Black History Month is now available for viewing online.

The Memphis-based Soulsville Foundation said its third virtual Black History Month presentation became available for viewers Feb. 3.

Stax Museum and the youth music academy were born from the former Stax Records, the Memphis recording studio where Otis Redding, the Staple Singers, Isaac Hayes, Carla Thomas, Booker T. and the M.G.s and other soul legends cut classic songs during the 1960s and 1970s.

Entitled “Soul of America: The Evolution of Soulsville,” the presentation is free of charge and would be of interest for students, educators, schools and other youth organizations, the foundation said.

The presentation consists of music videos resembling a low-budget 1970s film, the foundation said. It includes video by academy students covering Stax hits.

The film comes with study guides covering Blaxploitation films, the 1968 Memphis sanitation workers strike, Ida B. Wells, civil rights movement photography and other topics, the foundation said.

The virtual presentation began in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Registration for the presentation can be found at https://staxmusicacademy.org/news/stories/stax-music-academy-gears-up-for-virtual-black-history-month-2022-soul-of-america-an-exploration-black-music/.