This year’s sales tax holiday in Tennessee started at 12:01 a.m today (Friday) and ends at 11:59 p.m. Sunday.
Among the items that are tax-free are clothing that is $100 or less per item, school supplies of $100 or less per item, and computers that are $1,500 or less. [Read more…]
Bill Haslam
NASHVILLE—Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam this week recommended 19 Appalachian Regional Commission grants, including $200,000 for Anderson County sewer improvements and another $200,000 for a Tech 20/20 project.
The grants are meant to help state and local agencies, governmental entities, local governing boards, or nonprofit organizations with infrastructure improvements, a press release said. [Read more…]
The Oak Ridge Community Band will perform at 7 p.m. Sunday at the A.K. Bissell Park Pavilion. (File photo)
The Oak Ridge Community Band has a free Summer Concert at A.K. Bissell Park on Sunday.
The band will perform a program of swing, jazz, classical, movie themes, marches, and novelty pieces, a press release said.
The concert starts at 7 p.m. at the park’s pavilion at 1403 Oak Ridge Turnpike. [Read more…]
Robert Jubin
Robert Jubin of Oak Ridge National Laboratory has received the 2013 Robert E. Wilson Award from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, or AIChE.
The AIChE recognized Jubin’s contributions in the areas of nuclear fuel reprocessing and radioactive waste treatment, and his chemical engineering achievements in the nuclear industry.
Jubin works in ORNL’s Nuclear Security and Isotope Technology Division.
Mikhail Sokolov
Mikhail Sokolov of Oak Ridge National Laboratory has received the Award of Merit from the American Society for Testing and Materials International. The award includes the honorary title of fellow and is ASTM’s highest organizational recognition for individual offerings to standards activities.
Sokolov was honored for his contributions to successful symposia on nuclear technology and applications and for his work on transition range fracture toughness standards. [Read more…]
Oak Ridge Associated Universities has won a five-year, $6.5 million contract from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s Department of Health to manage peer and performance reviews. (Photo courtesy ORAU)
Oak Ridge Associated Universities has won a five-year, $6.5 million contract from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s Department of Health to manage peer and performance reviews.
As part of this contract, ORAU will assist the Department of Health in meeting its mission to fund Pennsylvania research organizations to conduct biomedical, clinical, and health services research projects using peer review as part of the grant selection process and performance reviews to assess ongoing and completed grants. [Read more…]
Lamar Alexander
Mark Udall
U.S. senators Mark Udall, a Colorado Democrat, and Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican, on Thursday reintroduced a bipartisan plan to create an independent advisory panel to help Cold War workers from Oak Ridge and other nuclear weapons facilities get the help they need to treat cancer and other illnesses they developed as a result of exposure to radiation, a press release said.
“The panel would oversee the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program, which has been plagued by procedural inconsistencies and delays, preventing former nuclear workers from accessing the benefits they are owed,” the release said.
It said about 600,000 workers were unknowingly exposed to radioactive and toxic substances while employed at U.S. atomic weapons program facilities during the Cold War era. Because of this exposure, thousands of Americans now have developed debilitating—and often terminal—diseases. [Read more…]
Arthur Pais
Holocaust survivor Arthur Pais will speak at a program sponsored by federal workers in Oak Ridge next week.
The free Aug. 8 program is open to the public. It’s co-sponsored by the Oak Ridge Federal Women’s Program, or FWP, and the Federally Employed Women Oak Ridge Chapter.
It’s scheduled from 10:30-11:30 a.m. Aug. 8 at the American Museum of Science and Energy at 300 South Tulane Ave. in Oak Ridge. [Read more…]
The Oak Ridge Civic Center Gymnasium is pictured above during a Christmas ceremony in December 2011.
The Oak Ridge Civic Center Recreation Building will be closed for floor and swimming pool maintenance from Saturday, Aug. 2, to Wednesday, Aug. 7.
The building and pool will reopen on Thursday, Aug. 8, but the gymnasium will not reopen until Monday, Aug. 12.
The Civic Center Recreation Building is at 1403 Oak Ridge Turnpike.
The Oak Ridge Tennis Club is accepting applications for its Fall 2013 leagues. (Submitted photo)
The Oak Ridge Tennis Club is accepting applications for its Fall 2013 leagues.
Play begins on Sept. 9, and applications are due by Aug. 12. There will be singles, doubles, and mixed doubles play. In addition, ORTC is offering a “Scramble” in which a coordinator will combine individuals into different combinations of partners and opponents for doubles play each week. [Read more…]
A black bear investigates a backyard grill in north Oak Ridge in May 2012. To encourage bears to move on, the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency recommends trying to eliminate outdoor food sources such as dog and cat food, bird seed, and grease traps. (Photo by George Ostrouchov)
Oak Ridge and Knoxville are surrounded by very good bear habitats—including the largest black bear preserve in the world—and it’s not unusual to see up to a half-dozen bears come through the Oak Ridge area each year and at least that many in the Knoxville area, Tennessee wildlife officials said this week.
Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency Sgt. Roy Smith of Morristown said the bear seen in Oak Ridge on Monday was not the first in the area this summer, and there have also been a few in Anderson County.
“It’s not an isolated incident,” Smith said. “We have bears moving through Oak Ridge from time to time.” [Read more…]
Megan Rice, left, was convicted on two federal charges in May after breaking into the Y-12 National Security Complex on July 28, 2012, and vandalizing a uranium storage building with two other protesters. She was temporarily released last week to attend her brother-in-law’s funeral. Rice is pictured above outside U.S. District Court in Knoxville with Michele Naar-Obed, wife of one of the other protesters, Greg Boertje-Obed.
U.S. and Georgia officials did not respond to requests for comment on Tuesday and Wednesday on whether peace protester Megan Rice, who has been convicted of destroying government property at the Y-12 National Security Complex, returned to prison in the Peach State this week after a five-day release to attend the funeral of her brother-in-law in New York.
But on Tuesday, Ralph Hutchison, coordinator of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, said he assumed Rice had returned to the Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Ga.
“I assume she reported, or we’d have heard from someone trying to locate her,” Hutchison said in a Tuesday evening e-mail. “I know she was returning to Atlanta last night en route to Ocilla. That’s the last I heard.” [Read more…]
