Blake Farmer
Blake Farmer is WPLN's assistant news director, but he wears many hats - reporter, editor and host. He covers the Tennessee state capitol while also keeping an eye on Fort Campbell and business trends, frequently contributing to national programs. Born in Tennessee and educated in Texas, Blake has called Nashville home for most of his life.
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When rural hospitals go out of business, they're frequently gone for good. But now, some comebacks are a welcome sign for communities that have been without easy access to health care.
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When rural hospitals go out of business, they're frequently gone for good. But now, some comebacks are a welcome sign for communities that have been without easy access to health care.
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A probe found troubling lapses in the country's organ transplant system. Blood types mismatched, diseased organs accidentally transplanted and donor organs lost or damaged in transit. -
Some rural hospitals are in such bad shape, they're selling for next to nothing. One company is snapping several distressed or closed hospitals in rural Tennessee, hoping to turn a profit.
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Festival promoters are allowing lifesaving medication as fentanyl deaths surge, but volunteers are often left to distribute it, and more controversial forms of harm reduction aren't openly allowed.
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Reproductive rights proponents worry about the risk of counseling those who seek medication abortions, though they've published online support techniques and guides for safe use of the drugs.
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The Southern Baptist Convention offered commitments at its closely watched two-day annual meeting in Anaheim, Calif., to address sexual abuse problems kept hidden for years.
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At the Southern Baptists annual meeting, church leaders made modest commitments to address sexual abuse, after a recent bombshell report detailed how the denomination silenced sexual abuse survivors.
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FEMA has a pool of cash set aside to reimburse burial costs — even retroactively — to the families of COVID victims. But clerical challenges and slow outreach have stymied the application process.
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ECMO machines became a last-ditch treatment for COVID. But only half of the patients who got ECMO survived, raising questions about whether this expensive and hard to access treatment is worth it.
