Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee said this week that protecting public safety while also protecting the state’s small businesses during COVID-19 is his administration’s primary “balancing act” and it was “heartbreaking” to watch small businesses close.
Lee also said he and other state officials used stimulus money to help the state’s business owners.
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There was a time when a kind of nobility still existed among our leaders. In Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, delivered March 4, 1865, while the nation was still riven by a bloody Civil War, he envisioned a future of national healing. In words now carved in the marble of the Lincoln Memorial, he pledged, “With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right,” to go on “to bind up the nation’s wounds,” and to “do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves . . .”
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In testimony to the Joint Ad Hoc Committee to Study Emergency Powers Thursday, retired Tennessee Supreme Court Justice and president and dean of Nashville School of Law William C. Koch, Jr. said Governor Bill Lee’s executive orders are entirely consistent with the inherent power in his office and granted to him in state statute.
The 17-member ad hoc committee, consisting of five senators and 12 representatives, was established by the respective speakers of each house at the request of members in light of the emergency status caused by COVID-19.
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The state of Michigan has agreed to pay $600 million to Flint, Michigan residents in a settlement stemming from the 2014 water crisis.
The settlement established a court-monitored compensation fund, which will send payments Flint residents, CNN reported Thursday. The majority of the money, about 80%, will be paid to residents who were younger than 18 at the time of the crisis.
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Facebook’s effort to build a landing site in a village on the Oregon coast for a fiber optic cable linking Asia and North America has run into serious trouble.
First, a drill pipe snapped under the seabed. Workers left 1,100 feet of pipe, 6,500 gallons of drilling fluid, a drill tip and other materials under the seabed as they closed down the site, aiming to try again next year.
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The Democratic National Convention on Tuesday featured a panelist who identifies as a “nonbinary/gender transcendent mermaid Queen-King” and who called for the abolition of the police, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and prisons.
According to the panelist’s Wake Forest University bio, J Mai is a “Black-Vietnamese, transgender nonbinary/gender transcendent mermaid Queen-King,” who recently became a “licensed minister in the Progressive National Baptist Church.”
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Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Tennessee Star’s Senior Reporter Laura Baigert to discuss state Representative John DeBerry’s new opponent Torrey Harris.
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Indicted Tennessee state Sen. Katrina Robinson has traveled extensively to conferences on the state’s dime during her time in office, costing Tennessee taxpayers $17,934.56 in the past 20 months – nearly 10 times the average amount of state spending on conference travel for her Senate colleagues.
A federal grand jury indicted Robinson, D-Memphis, last month on 24 counts of embezzlement involving government programs and 24 counts of wire fraud.
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Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Breitbart author Susan Berry to discuss the state of public education.
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Facebook announced Wednesday that it will take further action against pages, groups, and Instagram accounts associated with anarchist groups and other groups “tied to violence.”
The social media website said it will expand their “Dangerous Individuals and Organizations policy” to censor groups who reportedly pose a “significant risk” to public safety, such as QAnon, the company said in a statement. Facebook is also taking action against “offline anarchist groups that support violent acts amidst protests,” the statement said.
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Fall hasn’t even arrived yet, but some US schools are already announcing closures during the sixth month of the coronavirus pandemic.
On Sunday, news broke that a Georgia school district announced it will close a third high school after 25 students tested positive for the coronavirus.
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U.S. Attorney General William Barr this week announced that federal agents have arrested several people in Memphis on federal charges as part of Operation Legend.
This, according to a press release that U.S. Department of Justice officials published on their website Wednesday.
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Thursday morning on the Tennessee Report, host Leahy welcomed Jon Berlau to the show to talk about his book George Washington Entrepreneur and Washington’s many unknown accomplishments.
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With the COVID-19 pandemic, racial justice protests and the looming presidential election dominating the headlines, the upcoming Supreme Court case, Google v. Oracle, has been all but forgotten.
It may seem like an inconsequential lawsuit between two Silicon Valley rivals fighting over a coveted piece of technology. But that analysis is wrong. The case has enormous potential consequences, not just for the two companies in dispute, but for countless Tennesseans and the state’s economy.
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On July 2, Ohio Republican Governor Mike DeWine introduced the Ohio Public Health Advisory System (OPHAS). The color-coded map assigns a color to each of Ohio’s 88 counties that is supposed to be indicative of each county’s COVID spread.
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Thursday morning on The John Fredericks Show, host Fredericks was joined by Virginia House Delegate member Glenn Davis to speak about the Democrats move to Zoom meetings and keeping their per diem.
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While the House continued its quick, procedural sessions, the Senate and the Senate Judiciary Committee continued to advance bills centered around criminal justice reform and policing.
Before the Senate convened in-person in its new home for the 2020 special session at the Science Museum of Virginia, the Judiciary Committee held a meeting where it reported and referred more bills.
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Local Virginia Trump supporters have high hopes for the presidential election in November and believe that Trump will secure another four years in office.
At a gathering set up by the Trump Virginia campaign, people from various towns and counties surrounding Richmond came to show their support for the campaign and form a collective focus on the highly important last stretch before the election.
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Some scholars argue more parental choice could provide the best value for students as public schools across Virginia offer virtual learning or a combination of in-person and virtual schooling to curtail the spread of COVID-19.
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam will allow schools to reopen with a phased-in approach, which can lead to in-person schooling, but only if schools can maintain social distancing. Because of limited space, many schools are unable to provide in-person schooling for every student five days a week.
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The Ohio Department of Health (ODH) banned students last week from wearing face shields as a substitute for masks, according to Fox 19.
The ODH cited a CDC report that said “there is currently not enough evidence to support the effectiveness of face shields,” and the health organization also said it “does not currently recommend use of face shields as a substitute for masks.”
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A northern Virginia congressman is pursuing legislation to remove Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s name from the official designation at the historic mansion where he lived before the Civil War.
The home, overlooking the nation’s capital and surrounded by Arlington National Cemetery, is a National Park Service site officially known as “Arlington House, The Robert E. Lee Memorial.”
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The Richmond City Council chose to delay a vote on an amendment to its firearms ordinance. The council heard over an hour of public comments and discussion in the virtual meeting on Thursday afternoon. Eventually, the council members concluded they needed more time to clarify questions about vague wording in the amendment.
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The latest report from the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) reveals that all schools are safe to reopen for in-person learning models, according to county case numbers. The MDH released this information as part of an updated report published every Thursday.
Many elementary and high schools are scheduled to begin their fall semesters in several weeks’ time. Schools are required to submit their learning model plans to families the week before their start date. Models reflect one of three options: in-person learning, distance learning, or a hybrid of the two. All models are subject to change throughout the semester, depending on county case levels.
Wednesday morning on The John Fredericks Show, host Fredericks talked to Richmond mayoral candidate Kim Gray about Mayor Levar Stoney’s recent $1.8 million bid to remove statutes and how that money could have been better allocated to students in need.
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Ohio will be allowing all sports this fall.
Governor Mike Dewine said in a press conference Tuesday that sports instill “discipline, brings order, structure in the lives of student-athletes, and certainly brings joy to those athletes and certainly to their families as well.” Other concerns mentioned were the mental health of students not allowed to play sports, and the importance of a final season for many student-athletes graduating next year.
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Thursday morning on The John Fredericks Show, host Fredericks welcomed Virginia Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax to discuss special session reform priorities.
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If Joe Biden and his new running mate Kamala Harris get their way, millions of high-paying American energy jobs will be eliminated and entire industries will be cut to the bone.
Ohio, like a number of other states across the country, has enjoyed tremendous benefits from the shale energy revolution. The shale boom was a crucial lifeline following the 2008 financial crisis, which cost Ohio more than 2 million jobs.
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Against the pleas of numerous citizens who spoke publicly at the meeting, the Sumner County Board of Commissioners voted Monday to advance The Meadows 1,115 mixed-used housing development in north Gallatin and to spend $500,000 on the Comer Barn.
The backdrop for the meeting was a mandatory mask order extended to August 29 by County Mayor Anthony Holt and forced social distancing through benches where every other one was taped off and the remainder were marked for six-foot spacing.
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