Gov. Gretchen Whitmer extended the emergency and disaster declaration on Friday, pushing the orders back until September 4.
Whitmer’s previous emergency declaration was set to expire on August 11.
Read the full storyGov. Gretchen Whitmer extended the emergency and disaster declaration on Friday, pushing the orders back until September 4.
Whitmer’s previous emergency declaration was set to expire on August 11.
Read the full storyMetro Nashville Police Chief Steve Anderson has vacated his position much sooner than he previously stated he would — without explaining.
Nashville Mayor John Cooper in a press release this week announced Anderson’s departure.
Read the full storyJoseph Bryant, a 61-year-old man, was arrested in downtown Nashville Wednesday evening for not wearing a mask.
Bryant was approached by police in the downtown area of Nashville at approximately 6:40 PM for not wearing a mask, according to News Channel 5. The police cited Bryant for violating Nashville’s standing mask mandate.
Read the full storyThe Republic is in grave danger.
There, I said it.
Does anyone really doubt it? America is stumbling and the vultures are circling. What is the nature of these perils that afflict us?
Read the full storyWhile there were 115 Tennessee General Assembly seats open for Thursday’s primary, most went uncontested. In fact, there was just a fractional 36 primaries yielding some surprising results.
In the Senate, all of the incumbents won their primary bid.
In the House, Representatives Micah Van Huss and Matthew Hill both lost their primaries. Coupled with Representative Timothy Hill leaving the House to run in the U.S. House District 1 Republican primary, which he also lost, the representation of the northeast corner of the state will undergo dramatic changes.
Read the full storyAt about 9 p.m. Dr. Manny Sethi gave his concession speech to several hundred people just down the road from where he grew up in Coffee County, telling supporters three separate times to continue the fight.
With 15 people in the Republican primary for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Lamar Alexander, Sethi got about 240,000 votes or 40 percent of the vote against the winner Bill Hagerty with just over 300,000 votes or 50 percent.
Read the full storyTwitter partially suspended President Donald Trump’s campaign Twitter account on Wednesday for posting a tweet containing a video of Trump suggesting children are “almost immune” to coronavirus.
The post contains an interview Trump gave to Fox News Wednesday morning in which the president made the claim relating to children and the ongoing pandemic, The Washington Post reported Wednesday. Facebook removed a post Wednesday that contained the same video, marking the first time the social media platform has nixed a Trump post over coronavirus misinformation.
Read the full storyU.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) this week announced she is co-sponsoring a bill that, if passed into law, would allow current and retired law enforcement officers to carry concealed firearms.
As written, this bill, the Protect Our Prosecutors and Judges Act, would also apply to current and retired local, state, and federal prosecutors, as well as retired judges.
Read the full storyPrivate sector job creation for displaced workers slowed in July, with private payroll increases not meeting the growth expected by economists, CNBC reported.
Economists who were surveyed by Dow Jones expected private-sector employment to increase by 1 million, yet reported an increase of 167,000, CNBC reported. The report was issued by Dow Jones economists and Moody’s Analytics.
Read the full storyVirginia has rolled out a smartphone app to automatically notify people if they might have been exposed to the coronavirus, becoming the first U.S. state to use new pandemic technology created by Apple and Google.
But hopes for a nationwide app that can work seamlessly across state borders remain unrealized, and there are no known federal plans to create one. State officials say their new app won’t work as well outside Virginia, at least until a group of coordinating public health agencies gets a national server up and running and other states join in.
Read the full storyThursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed all-star panelist Carol Swain to discuss a recent Gallup survey showing Black Americans’ support for police presence.
Read the full storyThe Department of Labor reported Thursday that over 1.19 million Americans filed additional claims for unemployment last week, a slight decline from the approximately 1.4 million in each of the past two weeks.
Though the number of Americans filing for unemployment was less than the 1.4 million expected to do so this week, CNBC reported, the recent news release marks the 20th week in a row that new unemployment claims have been above one million.
Read the full storyMayor of New York City Bill de Blasio announced Wednesday COVID-19 checkpoints will be established on tunnels and bridges leading into the city in order to enforce Governor Cuomo’s quarantine order.
The mayor tweeted, “New Yorkers worked too hard to beat back COVID-19 — we cannot lose that progress. 35 states have dangerously high infection rates. We won’t let the virus spread here.”
Read the full storyPolice and protesters in Portland, Oregon, have clashed for the second night in a row and the city’s police chief says the ongoing violence is harming the city’s image.
The high-profile clashes outside a U.S. courthouse in Portland, Oregon, have largely stopped since Democratic Gov. Kate Brown reached a deal that called for the draw down of federal agents sent by the Trump administration to protect the building.
Read the full storyNew York Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit Thursday that seeks to have the National Rifle Association dissolved, saying the gun rights organization has been engaging in “illegal conduct” by funneling charitable donations to its leaders.
James accuses longtime NRA leader Wayne LaPierre and a number of other executives at the nonprofit advocacy organization of diverting “millions of dollars away from the charitable mission of the organization for personal use by senior leadership, awarding contracts to the financial gain of close associates and family, and appearing to dole out lucrative no-show contracts to former employees in order to buy their silence and continued loyalty.”
Read the full storyIn the death of George Floyd, the State of Minnesota has charged former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin with second-degree murder and former officers Thomas Lane, J. Alexander Kueng, and Tou Thao with aiding and abetting that murder. But, as will be shown in detail below, the physical, scientific, and electronically recorded evidence in the case overwhelmingly and conclusively proves that these defendants are not guilty of the charges and, in fact, played no material role in bringing about Floyd’s death.
Read the full storyPresident Donald Trump on Thursday ordered a sweeping but unspecified ban on dealings with the Chinese owners of consumer apps TikTok and WeChat, although it remains unclear if he has the legal authority to actually ban the apps from the U.S.
The twin executive orders — one for each app — take effect in 45 days. They call on the Commerce Secretary to define the banned dealings by that time. While the wording of the orders is vague, some experts said it appears intended to bar the popular apps from the Apple and Google app stores, which could effectively remove them from distribution in the U.S.
Read the full storyMinnesota’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) filed a complaint against Democratic challenger Antone Melton-Meaux, claiming that his campaign created LLCs to shield the identity of several consultants and donors. The DFL filed the complaint exactly one week before the upcoming primary on August 11.
Read the full storyNew unemployment claims in Michigan reported for the week ending August 1 continue to dip slightly under the previous week’s numbers.
According to data compiled by the U.S. Department of Labor, Michigan registered 17, 029 new unemployment claims for the week ending August 1, a drop of 6,901 new claims for the week ending July 25, during which the state added 23,219 new claims.
Read the full storyNew unemployment claims in Ohio reported for the week ending August 1 continue to dip slightly under the previous week’s numbers.
According to data compiled by the U.S. Department of Labor, Ohio registered 25,279 new unemployment claims for the week ending August 1, a drop of 2,754 new claims for the week ending July 25, during which the state added 28,033 new claims.
Read the full storyBoth children and staff are required to wear face coverings while at child-care centers and day camps, according to a new executive order signed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Thursday.
The order requires all staff and children ages 2 and up to wear a face covering on a school bus or other transportation. It also requires staff and children ages 4 and up to wear a face covering in all indoor common spaces. Staff and children ages 12 and up are required to wear a face covering in classrooms, homes, cabins, or other indoor small-group settings.
Read the full storyThe University of Minnesota released a report Thursday in which all 500 Twin Cities healthcare workers tested in their study were negative for COVID-19. Their test subjects were the healthcare workers who have been tending to patients for months.
Considering the recent surge of cases, this is good news for the frontlines.
Read the full storyA judge ruled Wednesday that the 10 p.m. last call order will stay in place during a lawsuit to determine it’s legality, according to WTRF.
NBC reported that a lawsuit filed by a number of Ohio restaurants and bars sought an emergency restraining order against the state’s order. The Ohio Liquor Control Board approved the emergency order at Governor Mike DeWine’s request, which mandated bars and restaurants to cut off liquor sales at 10 p.m. This emergency order went into effect last weekend.
Read the full storyNew unemployment claims in Minnesota reported for the week ending August 1 continue to dip slightly under the previous week’s numbers.
According to data compiled by the U.S. Department of Labor, Minnesota registered 12,659 new unemployment claims for the week ending August 1, a drop of 2,652 new claims for the week ending July 25, during which the state added 15,311 new claims.
Read the full storyThe Minneapolis Charter Council on Wednesday blocked the controversial ballot proposal to disband the police.
In a 10-5 vote, the city’s Charter Council opted to take an extra 90 days to review the proposal. This means that voters will not have the opportunity to vote on the proposal in November. In an online meeting, the Charter Commission members complained that the new measure was vague, might run afoul of state law, and put the council in charge of the proposed department, according to Forbes.
Read the full storyGovernor Mike DeWine was headed to Cleveland to meet President Trump who is visiting the state today. During his ride to the Burke Lakefront Airport, he took a rapid response test which returned a positive result for the coronavirus. DeWine is headed back to Columbus after his positive test. Currently, the 73-year-old has not experienced any symptoms, according to the Governor’s statement. The positive test raises several questions, the most apparent is whether the positive test result is accurate. The gold standard in COVID-19 testing is the molecular test. The rapid test is an antigen test with rapid return technology, which does not detect the COVID-19 virus, instead the test measures viral proteins – a less accurate measure of infection. Earlier in the week Governor DeWine discussed the state’s need to ramp rapid testing to alleviate a burden on state labs working to process nearly 20,000 tests a day. The tradeoff favoring speed opens the door for increased false positives associated with antigen tests. When DeWine and First Lady Fran get back to Ohio’s capital, they will both take another coronavirus test. The governor will follow COVID-19’s protocol and quarantine for two weeks, DeWine’s statement says. Governor DeWine has…
Read the full storyBy a large margin, Tennessee Republicans elected Bill Hagerty their nominee in Thursday’s GOP primary to compete against a Democrat in November’s general election.
Hagerty and Sethi competed against one another to replace the retiring U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN).
Read the full storyThursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed TN US Senate Candidate Bill Hagerty to discuss why he is the clear conservative choice to represent Tennessee in the US Senate.
Read the full storyA sworn complaint was filed against State Sen. John Stevens to the state’s Registry of Election Finance alleging the improper use of campaign funds for the August 6 Republican primary.
Stevens is finishing up his second term as senator for the state’s 24th district, having first been elected in 2012. District 24 includes the counties of Benton, Carroll, Gibson, Henry, Obion and Weakley.
Read the full storyIf you haven’t gotten your fill of “cancel culture” yet, tell you what: I have over 80 companies you can cancel right now. Nike, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google among others should be facing the wrath of the social justice warriors, but I’ve barely heard a peep from them about these corporations.
Read the full storyThe vast majority of Americans consider news bias to be “a major problem,” but more than half believe the issue is with the news other people consume, according to a survey from Gallup and the Knight Foundation released Tuesday.
Nearly half of the adults surveyed believe there’s “a great deal” of “political bias in the news,” while 37% believe there’s “a fair amount,” according to the survey. Nearly three-fourths, 69%, note they’re more worried about bias in others people’s news than their own.
Read the full storyA total of 1,102 people were denied handguns in Virginia in July, following the implementation of a new law that prohibits more than one pistol purchase per 30 days.
Roughly 59% of Virginia’s 1,877 total firearm denials were attributed to confusion about exactly when the first 30-day period began, according to data obtained by the Richmond Times-Dispatch. The policy, which Democratic Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam signed into law in April along with other gun regulations, took effect on July 1. However, the state had been tracking handgun purchases since June, the Dispatch reported.
Read the full storyU.S. Senate candidate Manny Sethi on Wednesday accused opponent Bill Hagerty of accepting a donation from U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) and then discretely returning it.
This, according to a press release that the Sethi campaign emailed this week.
Read the full storyDemocratic presidential nominee Joe Biden on Wednesday denied ever taking a cognitive test—even though he recently bragged that he takes them “constantly.”
After scoffing at the idea, Biden, who was appearing at a virtual forum at the 2020 National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) and National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) Joint Virtual Convention, compared the question to asking if black CBS reporter Errol Barnett had taken cocaine before the interview.
Read the full storyAccording to recently released NYPD complaint data, less than 13% of excessive use of force complaints filed against New York Police Department officers is substantiated.
The raw data was published by ProPublica, which obtained it from the New York Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB). The database includes every complaint against active-duty officers who’ve had at least one complaint substantiated.
Read the full storyKansas Rep. Roger Marshall won the Republican primary Tuesday, beating Kris Kobach in the race for the state’s open senate seat.
Marshall, a second-term congressman from the western part of the state, won with 37.2% of the vote, compared to Kobach’s 25.6%, according to the New York Times. He now faces former state Sen. Barbara Bollier, a former Republican who cruised to victory in the Democratic primary, in a competitive race to replace retiring GOP Sen. Pat Roberts.
Read the full storyFormer Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in a Tuesday interview that the “problem of the left” is that it assumes how black people should think.
Rice spoke with The New York Times’s Peter Baker during an Aspen Security Forum interview in which the former secretary of state said she does not believe the U.S. will ever become truly colorblind. She said she hopes Americans will stop making assumptions about one another based on race.
Read the full storyIt is former Vice President Joe Biden, and not President Donald Trump, who has a political problem due to ongoing riots in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd as public backlash against the political left has begun seeping into public attitudes concerning the race for president in 2020.
On July 28, as attention was focused on attempts by radical leftist mobs led by Antifa to burn a federal courthouse in Portland, Oreg. to the ground, Biden issued a weak statement unbelievably blaming President Donald Trump and federal law enforcement for the riots.
Read the full storyOn Wednesday, one day before Thursday’s GOP primary, U.S. President Donald Trump held another tele-town hall for U.S. Senate candidate Bill Hagerty, whom he endorsed last year.
“I went to Bill. I said we need your help. I want you to be on our transition team. I appointed him as ambassador to Japan. And he was truly one of our best. He was an incredible ambassador to Japan. They still talk about Bill. He really became legendary over there, and that is why we are doing this next step,” Trump said during a six-minute call.
Read the full storyJoe Biden will not travel to Milwaukee to accept the Democratic presidential nomination because of concerns over the coronavirus, party officials said Wednesday, signaling a move to a convention that essentially has become entirely virtual.
It is the latest example of the pandemic’s sweeping effects on the 2020 presidential election and the latest blow to traditional party nominating conventions that historically have marked the start of fall general election campaigns.
Read the full storyWednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed Tennessee Star National Correspondent Neil W. McCabe to discuss his recent interview with famed attorney Lin Wood.
Read the full storyWednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael to the studio to discuss Google’s search results regarding the recent Axios-Trump interview.
Read the full storyVirginia Attorney General Mark Herring joined an amicus brief Tuesday that disputes the Trump administration’s new rules pertaining to asylum seekers’ employment authorization. The Trump administration announced in June that asylum seekers must wait a year before applying for employment authorization rather than 150 days. Also, the administration eliminated the rule that employment authorization forms be processed in 30 days, according to Herring’s press release. These new rules will take place on August 25, according to Fox News. Chad Wolf, who is the secretary of Homeland Security, said that asylum claims have been used by illegal aliens to obtain work authorization” for far too long. “This abuse of the system is unfair to legitimate asylum seekers, diminishes job opportunities for Americans, & disrespects the rule of law,” Wolf said on Twitter. For too long, frivolous & fraudulent asylum claims have been used by illegal aliens to obtain work authorization. This abuse of the system is unfair to legitimate asylum seekers, diminishes job opportunities for Americans, & disrespects the rule of law. https://t.co/SLhpNGC23k pic.twitter.com/SNJr8fKaRq — Acting Secretary Chad Wolf (@DHS_Wolf) June 23, 2020 However, Herring does not see it like this. The attorney general said that “individuals” who come to…
Read the full storyPresident Trump will be visiting Ohio Thursday for the first time since the pandemic started. Governor Mike DeWine has moved his scheduled Thursday COVID-19 brief to the following day to make room for the president, WKBN reports.
The visit comes as the election continues to heat up between the president and Democratic challenger Joe Biden. Polls are mixed but poll averages from 270towin.com show President Trump up in Ohio by a narrow margin over Biden.
Read the full storyMichigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer created the Black Leadership Advisory Council on Wednesday, declaring racism a “public health issue.”
The council — the first of its kind in Michigan — will give advice to the governor and help recommend policies to combat systemic racism. This includes identifying state laws that create or perpetuate inequities, promoting legislation that seeks to correct racial inequality within Michigan, helping community groups serve Black communities and promoting the cultural arts within Black communities, according to the governor’s office.
Read the full storyGovernor Whitmer has ordered that her recent and controversial mask mandate be enforced like any other law.
The new executive directive, ED 2020-8 states the “Department of State Police must enforce violations of COVID-19 executive orders and epidemic orders in the same manner as it would enforce any other violation of law, using enforcement discretion as appropriate.”
Read the full storyAmerica’s working families need allies, not obstacles.
As a mother and a Michigan small business owner, I vividly recall the anemic “recovery” we experienced under the Obama-Biden administration, which increased regulatory costs to a historic high of nearly $2 trillion a year — a tab paid in large part by hard working entrepreneurs like me.
Read the full storyGovernor Mike Dewine announced Thursday that the Ohio Department of Health will soon release a new order mandating K12 students to wear masks as they return to school.
This announcement came after the Ohio Children’s Hospital Association (OCHA) and the American Academy of Pediatrics Ohio Chapter (AAPOC) issued a letter showing support for “face coverings/masks in our hospitals, schools, and communities.”
Read the full storyRepublican candidate for MN’s 3rd Congressional District Kendall Qualls has outraised incumbent Dean Phillips (DFL-MN-03) once again. According to the Federal Election Commission’s (FEC) July pre-primary reports released last Thursday, Qualls accumulated significantly more campaign contributions and cash-on-hand than Phillips.
In total, Qualls raised over $106,000 more than Phillips, and has about $68,000 more cash-on-hand. Representative Phillips’s $250,000 debt from his previous campaign was also listed on the report.
Read the full storyKanye West, the popular rapper and social icon, has officially filed to appear on Ohio ballots for the 2020 presidential election, according to Fox 5.
West, who announced he would run for the presidency on July 4, submitted paperwork to the state on August 5.
Read the full story