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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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. -
The state of Tennessee executed Oscar Franklin Smith Thursday morning. It was the first lethal injection since 2019, and comes on the heels of a third-party investigation into the state’s protocol that found failures in testing the drugs used during executions. -
Tennessee is scheduled to resume executions this month, and some victims’ rights advocates are arguing there are better ways to spend state money than administering capital punishment. -
Rural Tennesseans already have limited access to labor and delivery services, and a recent study shows the problem could get worse. -
Tennessee’s measles vaccination rate is much lower than it needs to be for community protection -
A lawsuit is accusing the Tennessee Department of Human Services of mismanaging nutrition assistance benefits so badly that the agency is breaking federal law.
