When multiple pharmaceutical companies objected to Tennessee using their drugs to kill death row inmates several years back, the scramble to find lethal injection chemicals needed to carry out state-sanctioned executions grew frantic.

“What are your thoughts on acquiring it through a veterinarian?” an unidentified official wrote in a 2017 text. “They sometimes have better access to it since it’s widely used for euthanasia in animals.”

“How would that even work?” asked a separate employee.

“They buy the stuff by the case,” the first official later responded.

These text messages emerged among hundreds of documents released this week as part of a blistering independent report on Tennessee’s lethal injection system. The communications span years, depicting a state determined to push forward with executions despite roadblocks to obtaining the drugs and questions about whether revamped procedures would keep inmates from feeling pain as they are put to death.

The result: The state put a single employee with no medical background in charge of procuring the drugs, and the state’s own flawed lethal injection rules and communication lapses meant one of the required tests for the drugs wasn’t conducted during any of seven executions since 2018 — two by lethal injection, five by electric chair. Under Tennessee’s rules, the drugs need to be tested regardless of the method selected.

Additionally, the protocol offered no guidelines on basic precautions needed to keep the chemicals from going bad, like temperature or thawing requirements.

Earlier this year, Gov. Bill Lee paused all executions after confirming the state failed to ensure its lethal injection drugs were properly tested before the scheduled execution of Oscar Smith. Lee halted Smith’s execution an hour before he was supposed to die.

The governor later called for the third-party investigation and report, which was released Dec. 28.

That independent review also found no evidence the state provided the pharmacy in charge of testing the drugs with a copy of its lethal injection protocol. Nor was there any evidence the state ever told the pharmacy it had to test for endotoxins on all injection chemicals until the night before Smith’s planned execution, the report said.

Other revelations about the typically secretive execution process included:

• A text exchange showing the state spent more than $1,000 for an overnight shipment of a key sedative for the lethal injection of Donnie Johnson in 2019.

• A separate text exchange between the state’s lethal drug procurer and the owner of the supply pharmacy showed them chatting about whiskey and beer as they conferred on key details about testing execution drugs.

• An unidentified state official, sending a text message hours before the Smith execution was paused, warned: “We are preserving everything so don’t throw anything away or alter any stuff.”

The report showed that the state ultimately opted not to buy pentobarbital from a veterinarian in 2017, but did consider importing the barbiturate internationally before scuttling that over logistical concerns.

Following the review, Lee says he plans leadership changes in the department and will hire a permanent commissioner in January to replace the interim one. The new leaders, he says, will rework the lethal injection protocol in cooperation with the governor’s and attorney general’s offices. They’ll also revise training specifics.

TVA under fire for fossil fuel double down

A federal utility’s decision to resort to rolling blackouts after coal and natural gas units went offline during dangerously cold conditions has intensified questions about the Tennessee Valley Authority’s recent decision to double down on fossil fuels.

TVA experienced its highest ever winter peak-power demand Dec. 23 as an arctic blast brought blinding blizzards, freezing rain and frigid cold from Maine to Seattle.

The Tennessee Valley Authority said in an email that a combination of high winds and freezing temperatures caused its coal-burning Cumberland Fossil Plant to go offline at one point when critical instrumentation froze up.

A second coal-burning plant, Bull Run, also went offline, TVA spokesman Scott Brooks said in an email, although he did not provide details. The utility “had issues at some of our natural gas units” as well, Brooks said.

“The Tennessee Valley Authority’s coal and gas plants failed us over the holiday weekend. People across the Tennessee Valley were forced to deal with rolling blackouts, even as temperatures plunged into the single digits,” Southern Environmental Law Center Tennessee Office Director Amanda Garcia said in an email. “Despite this obvious failure, the federal utility is still planning to spend billions to build new gas plants and pipelines.”

TVA provides power to 10 million people in parts of seven Southern states. The federal utility issued a statement Dec. 28 saying it takes full responsibility for the rolling blackouts Dec. 23-24, just as many customers were preparing for Christmas.

“We are conducting a thorough review of what occurred and why. We are committed to sharing these lessons learned and – more importantly – the corrective actions we take in the weeks ahead to ensure we are prepared to manage significant events in the future,” the statement read.

Reports finds human error in ballot switch

Nashville election officials made erroneous updates to voter lists for November’s election and failed to follow steps to make sure they were accurate, leading more than 430 Tennessee voters to cast ballots in the wrong races, the state’s elections coordinator determined in a review released Friday.

A report by state Elections Coordinator Mark Goins cited “human error” as a main cause of the problem in Nashville. The Davidson County Election Commission confirmed in the report that more than 3,000 voters were assigned to one or more of the incorrect districts. Hundreds cast wrong ballots before the issue was flagged.

The contests affected included state legislative races and congressional races, in which Republican state lawmakers had just carved the left-leaning city three ways during once-a-decade redistricting early this year, cutting in and out of some neighborhoods. Republicans ultimately succeeded in their map-drawing push to flip a Democratic seat, contributing to the GOP takeover of the U.S. House of Representatives.

The report determined that none of the errors were egregious enough to affect any of the races in which erroneous ballots were cast.

TN death toll climbs to 8 following deep freeze

Tennessee officials say eight people died due to recent extreme weather conditions.

The Tennessee Department of Health said in a news release that two people have died in Shelby County and six others in Cumberland County.

Meanwhile, more than 30 of the state’s 95 counties are reporting water system issues, which include several boil water advisories.

Blinding blizzards, freezing rain and frigid cold that stretched from Maine to Seattle over the Christmas holiday weekend is blamed for dozens of deaths across the country. The National Weather Service says about 60% of the U.S. population faced some sort of winter weather advisory or warning during the widespread arctic blast.

Tennessee, Georgia, Texas and North Carolina sustained the most storm damage in the recent storm, with freezing temperatures, which can result in infrastructure disruptions and burst pipes, accounting for the vast majority of loss.

TN remains high for inbound moves

North American Van Lines, Inc., a household, international, corporate, and long distance professional moving company, this week released their annual migration map that details where Americans moved this past year.

The map uncovered a sizable trend of Americans leaving high cost-of-living areas for warmer climates with more reasonable housing conditions, noting southern states received the largest amounts of movers.

The map highlights the association between southern states lessening COVID-19 restrictions first in 2020, as well as lower tax rates, which Americans, coupled with warmer temperatures, may find appealing.

Top inbound states uncovered within the map include South Carolina (66%), Tennessee (64%), North Carolina (64%), Arizona (57%), and Florida (56%). Top outbound states include Illinois (65%), California (62%), New Jersey (61%), and Michigan, Pennsylvania, and New York (59% tie).

Top inbound cities uncovered within the map include Raleigh, North Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina, Tampa, Florida, Jacksonville, Florida, Tucson, Arizona, and Nashville. Leading similarities among the cities include costs-of-living and reasonable housing prices.

“Across the board, a clear trend of Americans leaving expensive, highly taxed, and cold states for warmer states with lower tax burdens can be observed, at both the state and city level,” says Ryan Cox, Director of Consumer Channel at North American Van Lines. “It’s a continuation of what we saw in 2021 and 2020. We’re interested to see if these trends continue throughout 2023.”

Complete map

Redfin: Luxury home sales down 38%

Sales of luxury U.S. homes fell 38.1% year over year during the three months ending Nov. 30, the biggest decline on record, according to a new report from Redfin, the technology-powered real estate brokerage. That outpaced the record 31.4% decline in sales of non-luxury homes. Redfin’s data goes back to 2012.

The luxury market and the overall housing market have lost momentum this year due to many of the same factors: inflation, relatively high interest rates, a sagging stock market and recession fears. But the high-end market has slowed at a sharper clip for a handful of reasons, including:

Luxury goods are often among the first to get cut from budgets during times of economic stress.

Luxury properties are frequently used as investment properties, and with home values and rents poised to fall in 2023, investment prospects are lackluster.

High-end home sales saw outsized growth during the pandemic, so they have more room to fall.

Affluent buyers often have significant funds stored in the stock market, which has been losing value.

Expensive coastal markets led the decline in high-end home sales. In Nassau County, NY (Long Island), luxury-home sales plummeted 65.6% year over year during the three months ending Nov. 30, the largest decline among the most populous U.S. metropolitan areas.

Next came four California metros: San Diego (-60.4%), San Jose (-58.7%), Riverside (-55.6%) and Anaheim (-55.5%). These markets are prohibitively expensive for most buyers even when the economy is thriving, so it’s not surprising more buyers would back off during a downturn.

There are early signs that overall homebuyer demand is starting to creep back as interest rates decline, which may ultimately cause the decline in luxury sales to ease.