Keep us strong. You power public media.Donate todayWednesday, April 29, 2026Good morning! Emily SinerWhen Allie Phillips was 18 weeks pregnant, she learned the daughter she was expecting had developed a heart with only two chambers instead of four, among other abnormalities.

Phillips’s doctor said she had two options: wait until she miscarried, or get an abortion. But she couldn’t do the latter under Tennessee’s near-total abortion ban.

She and her husband raised enough money through GoFundMe to cover an abortion in New York City. During the procedure, she learned learned the fetal heartbeat had stopped and that she was at risk for sepsis.

This is the story Phillips was going to tell at a trial this week in a high-profile lawsuit challenging Tennessee’s abortion law.

Instead, the trial was cancelled — just days before it was set to begin.

So how did that happen?

WHAT TO KNOW

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti.
Credit: Marianna Bacallao / WPLN News (file)Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti took advantage of a new tool created by the General Assembly this year: When someone challenges a state law, the attorney general can now file an appeal at any time, rather than wait for a trial decision in a lower court.

Last week, that’s what Skrmetti did.

“There’s nothing unusual about appealing an appealable order,” he said in a pre-recorded statement. “The state law that allows this pretrial appeal mirrors federal law that has been in place since 1949.”

But the plaintiffs who brought the lawsuit, like Phillips, call the last-minute appeal “disgusting.”

“The trial was set over a year ago,” Phillips said. “The fact that we were two business days away, and just by the snap of a finger, it’s done, we’re taken off the calendar. This is like a game to them.”

The case is moving on to an appeals court, but without a public trial in Davidson County. Nicolas Kabat, one of the attorneys representing Phillips and the other plaintiffs, says the appeals court will likely need several months to catch up on all the paperwork and history for the case.

“These women have been fighting to tell their stories since 2023, when they filed this case,” he says. “They’ve just been strung along for years by the state.”

WPLN’s Catherine Sweeney reports that lawmakers have already amended the abortion ban to clarify which medical exceptions are allowed. Critics in the medical community said that did create more flexibility, but it also highlighted how little most lawmakers understand about pregnancy complications.

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Are escaped exotic animals becoming a Midstate trend? First there was Ed the Zebra, then an oryx on the loose. This time, a woman walking her dog got a little too close of an encounter with an animal you just don’t expect to see in this part of the world. Plus the local news for April 29, 2026, and this week’s edition of What Where Whens-day.

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MORE TO KNOW

A UT student was sitting near President Donald Trump when chaos erupted at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Gail Fanning, a senior from Kingsport studying journalism and political science, won an invitation to the group’s glitzy annual dinner at the Washington Hilton. Fanning tells WUOT’s Pierce Gentry that she heard a loud clatter during the first course, as thousands of dinner guests dropped their forks and knives. People began to shout. She had no idea what was happening while she was under the table, or even as she was ushered out. It wasn’t until she got back to her hotel room that she learned someone had tried to break into the ballroom and shoot the president.
The Tennessee General Assembly passed nearly a dozen anti-immigration bills before the session wrapped up last week. Republican state lawmakers have been open about wanting to collaborate with the Trump administration’s mass deportation strategy. We’ve kept you up to date incrementally, but WPLN’s Marianna Bacallao has the full recap on what the new policies do, including mandating all local law enforcement agencies to partner with ICE.
But … Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell is raising doubts about whether that’s legal. The new law says all the police and sheriff’s offices in the state have to sign a contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It would say ICE can use their jails, and also deputize officers. Such an agreement would come with additional duties, but not extra money — a setup often referred to as an “unfunded mandate,” which typically creates conflict with local governments. [The Tennessean]

FROM WNXP

The Tennessee Live Music Support Act,which would have given over $1 million a year to split among independent venues, promoters and artists in Tennessee, was voted down in the legislative session that concluded last week.

The bill received bipartisan support earlier in the process but failed in the House Finance, Ways, and Means Committee after six legislators changed their votes.

Proponents of the bill say that secondary market reseller StubHub pressured Republicans in a last-minute lobbying campaign to influenced votes. The proposal would have put a 5% tax on all concert tickets sold on the secondary market.

Stubhub did not deny lobbying, and said in a statement to WPLN’s Justin Barney: “We back programs that support small, independent venues and artists, but they only work if they are part comprehensive reforms that improve transparency and protect fans’ rights to buy, sell, and transfer tickets.”

But the proposal is likely to come back in some form in the coming years.Get more: Live Music Support Act

FROM THIS IS NASHVILLE

We kick off another season of NextAge, our special series featuring stories and information about growing older in the 21st century — and how Middle Tennesseans are reframing aging. Today, we review some of the stories and topics from last year and how they helped us keep falling in love with others — and ourselves.