Catherine Sweeney
WPLN Health ReporterCatherine Sweeney is WPLN’s health reporter. Before joining the station, she covered health for Oklahoma’s NPR member stations. That was her first job in public radio. Until then, she wrote about state and local government for newspapers in Oklahoma and Colorado. In her free time, she likes to cycle through hobbies, which include crochet, embroidery, baking, cooking and weightlifting.
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Tennessee has a new law on the books guaranteeing access to in vitro fertilization and birth control, but conservative lawmakers could have the policy in their crosshairs in the upcoming legislative session. -
A court ordered the Tennessee Department of Correction to release a cache of execution records, but it’s unclear whether the agency will have to comply. -
Tennessee law protects lethal drug seller identities. A judge will decide how broad that secrecy is.Tennessee is set to execute Harold Wayne Nichols. His attorneys want to confirm the state's lethal injection drugs are safe. -
The Tennessee Supreme Court has scheduled four more executions, even as questions linger about a lethal injection in August. -
For the first time since Tennessee adopted a new lethal injection protocol, a post-execution autopsy has been released. It shows that Byron Black developed pulmonary edema — a form of lung damage. -
The state of Tennessee carried out the execution of Byron Black on Tuesday morning. The 69-year-old was convicted of killing his girlfriend and her daughters in 1988. The execution was carried out despite uncertainty about Black’s heart implant. -
Tennessee’s highest court says the state can execute Byron Black without deprogramming a heart implant. It’s a tension that has intensified because of ethical codes in medicine. Black's execution is scheduled for Tuesday. -
The story of a Tennessee death row inmate’s heart implant, and attempts to get it disabled before his execution, has gotten even more complicated. -
A Tennessee judge has ordered the state to disable a death row inmate's heart implant before he undergoes a lethal injection. Byron Black is scheduled to be executed in early August. -
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — which helps more than one in 10 Tennesseans get groceries — is already in legal trouble in the state for delayed benefits and other mismanagement concerns. It could be soon be undergoing massive cuts.
