LOCAL NEWS

Two robberies, one gunshot victim A store clerk at a Knoxville convenience store was shot Sunday night in a robbery at the Tazewell Pike store. The robbery occurred at a Breadbox convenience store just a few hours before a man with similar a description allegedly held-up the Weigel’s store on Merchant’s Road. Witnesses of the Weigel’s robbery say that the suspect fled in a blue van. By the descriptions provided to police, authorities are looking for a man in his 20s who was wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt and bandana at the time of the robbery. ORNL supercomputing gets a boost Supercomputing researchers at the Oak Ridge National Laboratories are working on plans to quadruple the speed of its Cray XT-3 computer. If the goal is accomplished, the ORNL supercomputer will be able to perform roughly 100 trillion calculations per second, or, 100 teraflops. The Cray supercomputer is already ranked as the 10th fastest computer in the world. The proposed updates will expand its current set-up of 56 cabinets to 120 cabinets, nearly doubling the number of processors in the machine. Student paper seized Some Oak Ridge High School students are protesting the censorship of the school newspaper. Last week, all printed copies of the latest edition of the Oak Ridge Leaf were confiscated by school officials because of an article relating to birth control and another article featuring a student’s tattoo. The birth control article reportedly included tips for obtaining birth control without a parent’s permission. Student’s protested the school’s move by wearing homemade tee-shirts against the censorship. Man sentenced in shooting of ATF agent A Hamilton County man was sentenced to 74 years in prison for the attempted murder of a federal agent. Terry Penney was charged for shooting a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Agent, Paris Gillette in the face with a shotgun. Two Hamilton County Sheriff’s deputies were also injured in the shooting, but escaped with only minor injuries. The ATF was accompanying local Soddy-Daisey police officers in an investigation into Penney’s alleged role in a narcotics trafficking ring when the incident occurred. On top of Penney’s prison sentence, he faces a $25,000 fine in the court ruling. Cocke Co. flood warning A flood warning is in effect for areas surrounding the Pigeon River, calling for possible minor flooding in Newport for Tuesday night. Though rain had mostly ceased in the area by Tuesday afternoon, run-off from adjoining tributaries is expected to on into Wednesday and push the river just barely past its brim. According to the warning the river is expected to rise above flood stage at about midnight Tuesday evening, lasting until Wednesday afternoon.