Charters and MNPS are at loggerheads over attrition rates.

Prince Edward was at the Governor's Mansion handing out awards.

There were speakers of the Tennessee House before Jimmy Naifeh and one was Dick Barry, who died Thursday at 89. Some great stories at the link.

The State Board of Medical Examiners made Scott DesJarlais pay $500 for complaints against him.

The Daily Show is planning yet another segment on Tennessee.

The future of TVA, by Bob Corker:

Corker said he isn't pushing to sell TVA to try to cut the federal debt, as President Obama proposed last month in his fiscal 2014 budget plan. With nearly $25 billion in debt, TVA probably wouldn't fetch enough from buyers to pay what it owes, Corker said.

But new approaches for TVA, including converting the agency to a nonprofit corporation or transferring ownership to TVA distributors and customers, might help improve the utility, Corker said.

"I've not been comfortable with the federal government involvement with TVA and thinking that that is going to lead TVA to a great place," Corker told the Times Free Press in a telephone interview Wednesday. "I worry that over time the fact that TVA is controlled by the federal government but in a laissez-fair manner could leave it less and less as an identity to drive economic growth in our state."

A committee has approved the first rules for fracking in the state.

Fracking has been going on in Tennessee for about 40 years, but has always involved relatively small operations that use only a small amount of water and nitrogen gas, he said. The permit required has been no different from that needed for a standard oil drilled oil well.

In other states, fracking operations sometimes pump millions of gallons of water deep underground. The rules anticipate the possibility of such operations in Tennessee by putting extra requirements on operations involving more than 200,000 gallons of water.

In those cases, testing of water wells within a half mile of the site would be required and operators would have to disclose chemicals they use, except for protection of "trade secrets." The undisclosed information would become open only in special circumstances, such as an accidental release of the fluids.

Ron Ramsey will be honorary race director for the Coca-Cola 600 for some reason.

The Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development announced today it has collected $15.3 million of fraudulent unemployment insurance benefits as a result of the federal Treasury Offset Program.

The TOP allows garnishment of IRS refunds and other federal payments from those who have collected unemployment benefits fraudulently.

“The ability to reclaim these funds that were fraudulently collected is extremely important to the business community because the health of the Unemployment Trust Fund affects the amount of taxes an employer pays,” Burns Phillips, the labor department’s acting commissioner, said in a release.

The total amount of funds intercepted from the IRS since the beginning of the 2013 tax season is $15,378,715.