Wednesday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael to the studio who outlined the politicization of the COVID vaccine and government run education.
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Parents and children across America breathed a sigh of relief when it was announced that “A Charlie Brown Christmas” would air on public television after all. This classic favorite seemed ready to disappear like everything else in 2020 when Apple TV obtained the rights and planned to air the program on its streaming service, instead of broadcast TV as has been done since 1965.
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The number of Americans filing new unemployment claims decreased to 803,000 last week as the economy continued to suffer the effects of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, according to the Department of Labor.
The Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS) figure released Thursday represented a decrease of new jobless claims compared to the week ending Dec. 12, in which there were 885,000 new jobless claims reported. Roughly 20.4 million Americans continue to collect unemployment benefits, according to the BLS report Thursday.
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Four convicted felons in west Tennessee have additional legal problems this month after federal officials said they somehow obtained firearms, with one man allegedly using his gun to assault a federal employee. Federal and state laws prohibit felons from possessing firearms.
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President Trump on Wednesday followed through on his threat to veto the National Defense Authorization Act, calling it a “gift” to China and Russia that also lacks the reforms he sought to rescind legal liability shields for technology companies provided by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
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Wednesday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael to the studio to discuss the success of Operation Warp Speed under President Trump and circumventing bureaucracy.
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The Trump Administration has purchased an additional 100 million doses of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine, the drugmaker announced Wednesday.
The new agreement means that Pfizer will supply 200 million doses to the United States, according to the company’s statement, which will be distributed through July 2021. Also included in the deal is the option to purchase an additional 400 million doses.
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President Donald Trump on Tuesday authorized the Department of Justice to use classified information in grand jury proceedings connected to a special counsel’s investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia probe.
In a memo released through the White House, Trump authorized the attorney general “to use classified information as he deems necessary in connection with his review, including in a grand jury or other proceeding.”
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Dr Anthony Fauci has revealed that he and his wife won’t be spending time with their three adult children for Christmas this year and urged other Americans to do the same as coronavirus cases continue to surge in the U.S.
The nation’s alleged top infectious disease expert told The Washington Post it would mark the first Christmas not spent with his three daughters since they were born.
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Police footage of the domestic abuse allegations against Democratic candidate Raphael Warnock by his ex-wife, Ouleye Ndoye, surfaced late Tuesday night. Fox News released clips of the footage during a segment of Tucker Carlson Tonight.
Warnock’s ex-wife, Ouleye Ndoye, explained to police that Warnock had run over her foot while attempting to drive away with their two children. Warnock and his ex-wife, Ouleye Ndoye, stood in front of police, each giving their account of what occurred. Warnock claimed that he believed Ndoye wasn’t near his car and “didn’t believe” what Ndoye was telling police.
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The Virginia Beach City Public Schools (VBCPS) postponed its decision Tuesday on whether to cancel the divisions’ high school winter sports season this year because of current COVID-19 data of the area.
Last week, Virginia Beach Superintendent Aaron Spence wrote in a letter to families that if either the percent positivity or the 7-day daily average of cases – two indicators used in the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s K-12 School Metrics – does not improve to the “yellow range” by Tuesday, the winter sports season would be cancelled.
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Voting Systems Manager Gabriel Sterling revealed on Tuesday that a woman used his address to vote in the general election and request an absentee ballot for the runoff election. Sterling learned of the fraudulent voting after he received a flier from a voting organization reminding the woman, Meron Fissha, to return her absentee ballot.
“The Lord moves in mysterious ways,” remarked Sterling on the matter.
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Roughly 140,000 doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine are expected to arrive in Virginia on Wednesday after the state had initially placed an order with the company last week, the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) said in a news release.
Shipments of Moderna’s vaccine, approved for emergency use by the Food and Drug Administration on Friday, as well as Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine are being delivered to healthcare facilities and health departments across the Commonwealth this week. The two vaccines are going to 96 “geographically diverse locations” in the state, according to the release.
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If you’re anything like us, there’s somebody on your Christmas list who you still need to buy a gift for. The Virginia Star spoke with local businesses across the state to see what their most popular gifts were. Here’s what they told us…
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Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Tuesday announced programs aimed at assisting the state’s restaurants and bars as well as families facing evictions.
The announcement came as the governor is facing mounting criticism over her administration’s penalizing businesses alleged to have violated epidemic orders imposed by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.
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When Ohio college students return to campus after the holidays, they will be able to speak their mind freely.
Gov. Mike DeWine signed the Forming Open and Robust University Minds Act that protects individuals’ First Amendment rights and prohibits “free speech zones” on public college and university campuses in the state.
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A North Carolina man has pleaded guilty in federal court in Minneapolis to a charge of conspiring to provide material support to Hamas, a designated foreign terrorist organization.
U.S. Attorney Erica H. MacDonald and National Security Division Assistant Attorney General John Demers announced last week the plea by Benjamin Ryan Teeter, 22, to one count of conspiracy to provide material support and resources, namely property, services and weapons, to Hamas.
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Ohio purchased 2 million doses of arguably the most controversial drug being touted as an effective therapy in treating COVID – the spend totaled $602,629.
Consequently, when the rumor that the American Medical Association (AMA) reversed course on their April joint statement warning about the prescription of HCQ, Ohioans took note – especially since a review of clinical studies found that early dispensation of the drug may help keep patients form worsening in their battle with COVID, which would alleviate pressure on hospitals concerned about capacity.
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The Tennessee Department of Health is setting aside a portion of its COVID-19 vaccines for communities that are poorer and have more people of color, but one minority leader says that is not good enough.
After this current first phase, the state will reserve 5 percent of the vaccine for areas that are poorer and have higher numbers of minorities, CBS News reported.
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It is the policy of The Star News Network that we will publish no stories about calls for martial law in the United States by public figures or private individuals at any of our online news websites, which currently consist of The Tennessee Star, The Ohio Star, The Michigan Star, The Minnesota Sun, The Georgia Star News, and The Virginia Star.
At the federal level, the imposition of martial law is exceedingly rare. It has only ever been imposed once by a sitting President, by Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War, and even in that instance martial law was only applicable to Confederate soldiers.
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A group of Georgia voters filed a lawsuit in Fulton County Superior Court earlier this week against the individual members of the Fulton County Board of Elections and individually against Richard Barron, Fulton County Elections Director. The lawsuit focused on the security footage presented by Trump’s legal team during the Georgia Senate hearing, popularized as the “suitcase ballots” video.
The plaintiffs alleged that the group of workers seen on video illegally scanned thousands of mail-in ballots hidden underneath skirted tables. They also claimed that those ballots may be fraudulent. Voters Organized for Trusted Election Results in Georgia (VOTERGA), a nonpartisan and non-profit election integrity coalition, organized the aggrieved voters into a group of plaintiffs.
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In the weeks before he landed a deal with a Ukrainian gas company in 2014, Hunter Biden strategized with his business partner on how to leverage an upcoming official trip to Kiev by his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, to clinch the lucrative arrangement, according to emails obtained a year ago by the FBI.
The communications reviewed by Just the News show that the younger Biden referred to his father as “my guy” and took credit for “adding value” because the vice president made comments to Ukrainian leaders about natural gas production that might benefit his new client.
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The New York Times bungled an attempted hit piece on The Star News Network and the Georgia Star News, and was forced to make several corrections within hours of the story’s publication on Tuesday.
The Times, however, failed to make all the factual corrections requested by Star News Digital Media, which owns and operates the Georgia Star News, part of its Star News Network.
“Misinformation ‘Superspreaders’ Target Georgia Senate Races,” said a hyperbolic headline in the once-serious “paper of record.”
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Joe Biden and his allies have condemned Donald Trump’s refusal to concede the election as an attack on democracy, the latest, most extreme violation of our most sacred “norms” by a tyrant and a party of traitors in his thrall.
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An anti-Trump group funded heavily by Reid Hoffman, a liberal billionaire tech titan who’s bankrolled political disinformation peddlers, contributed $620,000 to a legal fund for Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm behind the controversial Steele dossier, financial filings show.
According to IRS filings, The group Integrity First for America (IFA) made the contribution in 2018 for the legal defense fund of Bean LLC, the holding company for Fusion GPS.
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President Trump on Tuesday night threatened to veto a $900 billion COVID-19 relief bill adopted by the U.S. House and Senate, calling it an unfocused “disgrace,” loaded with foreign aid and unrelated expenses that go far beyond a narrow focus on relief for pandemic-related pain.
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The CEO of BioNTech, the German drug maker who partnered with Pfizer in developing the world’s first approved coronavirus vaccine, said that he was “confident” it will be effective against a mutated strain of the virus found in the United Kingdom.
“The likelihood that our vaccine works… is relatively high,” Uğur Şahin told reporters during a Tuesday press conference, explaining that the mutated strain still shares approximately 99% of the original strain’s spike protein.
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President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani said Tuesday morning that the Arizona legislature will attempt to pass a resolution this week demanding a joint session to certify President Trump as the winner of the 2020 election.
During an interview on Steve Bannon’s “War Room: Pandemic” podcast, Giuliani noted that Arizona lawmakers did not have the votes to declare Trump the winner on Monday, but was hopeful that they would be able to do it on Wednesday.
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After winning the vote in the Electoral College last week, former Vice President Joe Biden said the election process “should be celebrated, not attacked.”
Biden derided what he called “baseless claims about the legitimacy of the results” of the presidential election and said, “Respecting the will of the people is at the heart of our democracy, even if we find those results hard to accept.”
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President-elect Joe Biden is poised to select Miguel Cardona, the current Connecticut education commissioner, to lead the Department of Education in his administration, CNN reported.
Miguel Cardona, who has served as head of the Connecticut State Department of Education (CSDE) since August 2019, will be President-elect Joe Biden’s choice to lead the federal government’s education department, multiple sources told CNN. Cardona would be the latest Latino to receive a high-ranking position in the incoming Biden administration.
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Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Tuesday that Alex Padilla, California’s Secretary of State, will succeed Vice President-elect Kamala Harris in the Senate.
Padilla, 47, will be the first Latino senator in California’s history. His selection was first reported by The Los Angeles Times.
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Knox County Commission voted to strip the county’s board of health of its powers to issue mandates on Tuesday. Instead of having the power to impose regulations, the Knox County Board of Health will be limited to serving as an advisory group. After a heated, divided exchange lasting eight hours, the commission voted 6-4 in favor of diminishing the board’s authority, with one commissioner abstaining their vote.
The decision followed the board’s latest regulations limiting social gatherings and in-person dining. At the beginning of this month, the board imposed a social gathering limit of 10 people within 360 square feet, with limited exceptions including nursing homes. Two weeks later, the board elected to limit restaurants and bars to 50 percent capacity, and impose a curfew limiting in-person services lasting from 10 pm to 5 am.
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Zaosong Zheng, who worked in research at Harvard-affiliated Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, pleaded guilty to lying to customs officials about his attempt to take biomaterial to China.
According to a Department of Justice press release, Zheng was arrested in December 2019 at Boston’s Logan International Airport, where he had attempted to board a flight to China. Federal officers found 21 vials of biological research material stuffed into a sock in one of his bags.
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Few people realize that the Moderna vaccine against COVID-19—which the FDA has finally declared “highly effective,” and which is now being distributed to Americans—has actually been available for nearly a year.
But the government wouldn’t let you take it.
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Maury County Mayor Andy Ogles formed a Facebook group called “Andy’s Army TN” for “patriots and Fans of Andy Ogles who believe in taking a stand for our Constitution and Liberties.”
The private group’s page is here. Since it is a private group, people have to request to join. Facebook showed the membership to be approximately 1,800 as of Monday.
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Planned Parenthood is preparing its wish list for former Vice President Joe Biden’s prospective administration, but pro-life forces are gearing up for a fight.
In a Roll Call interview, Planned Parenthood Action Fund President and CEO Alexis McGill Johnson said her organization’s top goal in 2021 is abolishing the Hyde Amendment, which for 40 years has prohibited federal funding for most abortions.
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Tuesday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed all-star panelist Clint Brewer to the studio to speculate to whom the first round of COVID vaccines will go to and when it will be available to the general public thereafter.
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Tuesday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy and all-star panelist Clint Brewer took calls from Tennessee listeners who advocated that new transplants embrace the culture or leave it.
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The Virginia General Assembly 2021 regular session is right around the corner on January 13 and the Democrats will again be calling all the shots for the legislature thanks to their majority in both the Senate and the House of Delegates.
This means that the agendas and priorities of Democrats in the Senate – as well as their counterparts in the House – have quite a good chance of passing through each chamber if broadly supported. Yet, what exactly are Senate Democrats focusing on?
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The Georgia House of Representatives’ House Governmental Affairs Committee arranged another election fraud hearing for Wednesday morning.
Apart from issuing a brief press release sharing a time, date, and vague purpose for the hearing, the committee didn’t share any further explanation for calling the meeting or who would testify.
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After months of infighting, Congress passed a coronavirus relief bill late on Monday night, prompting Ohio legislators to praise bipartisan measures to provide relief during the novel coronavirus pandemic.
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The director of St. Olaf College’s Lutheran Center for Faith, Values, and Community echoed a call for the school to “repent” of systemic racism.
Deanna Thompson wrote an article for the Minnesota school’s blog entitled “Uncomfortable Grace: Drawing on St. Olaf’s Lutheran Identity to Guide Our Path to Anti-Racism,” in which she argued that “racism is embedded deep within institutions across the United States, including St. Olaf College.”
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Virginia is again ramping up its Checkpoint Strikeforce campaign, a program aimed at reducing drunk driving through increased police activity and sobriety checkpoints. Through December 8, 2020, there were 253 alcohol-related traffic fatalities in Virginia, up from 249 in the same period in 2019, according to a press release from Governor Ralph Northam’s office.
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Reports from independent data analysts state that nearly 50,000 voters who didn’t vote in the general election have voted in the runoff election. The data culled from the Georgia Secretary of State’s office issued a stark contrast to the total number of votes cast in the runoff, which are currently lower overall than in the general election.
According to Georgia Votes, the 50,000 voters make up nearly 3 percent of the registered voters who didn’t vote in the presidential election. There are 21 percent less mail-in ballots than the general election, and a 5 percent increase of early votes. The site reflected that Monday marked five consecutive days of lower in-person voting turnout than the general election. Additionally, Democratic-leaning districts had stronger turnouts this past weekend than their Republican-leaning counterparts.
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Fairfax Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano (D) announced Monday that he would not be seeking cash bail for non-violent offenders, formalizing a policy he and his prosecutors have been practicing since Descano took office in January 2020. “I’ve long said that the laws on the books should match the values in our hearts. Cash bail is unjust, racially biased, and doesn’t make our community safer,” Descano said in a Twitter announcement. “That’s why my office won’t request it and why I call on the legislature to end it.” In a Washington Post op-ed Descano said, “Simply put, cash bail creates a two-tiered justice system: one for rich people and one for everyone else. People who sit in jail risk losing their jobs for nonattendance, which, in short order, could lead to the loss of their housing, and in some cases the loss of custody of their children. Facing these rippling consequences, many people simply opt to plead guilty in exchange for their immediate release, often plunging them into a cycle of increased contact with the criminal justice system.” Descano is part of a growing list of Virginia prosecutors who are moving away from cash bail. Norfolk Commonwealth’s Attorney Greg Underwood…
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A seven-state coalition announced a $2 million settlement with online retailer Cafepress.
The settlement resolves a 2019 data breach that compromised 22 million consumers, Attorney General Dana Nessel announced Monday.
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Members of the Georgia Republican Party on Tuesday said the media is “turning a blind eye” to Democrat Jon Ossoff’s ties to the Chinese Communist Party. Ossoff wants to represent Georgia in the U.S. Senate.
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Secondary students attending Arlington Public Schools (APS) are earning more failing grades during the coronavirus pandemic than in previous years, new data shows, further highlighting the negative impact virtual learning can have on certain students.
The data was presented in an internal report released online on Thursday that compared APS middle school and high school student’s quarter one grades from 2020-21 to quarter one grades from 2018-19 and 2019-20.
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Attorneys in Tennessee’s child welfare system chose to attend a series of politically-oriented trainings earlier this year that discussed, among other things, implicit bias, structural racism, and microaggressions. The training series asked these attorneys a series of multiple choice sessions.
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While the Tennessee Titans and Nashville Mayor John Cooper are talking about renovating Nissan Stadium and extending the team’s lease, a price tag for taxpayers has not been disclosed.
The franchise and the city announced their discussions last week, The Tennessee Star reported. The negotiations have been going on for some time, but the team said it was making the process public, citing a story by The Tennessean. Something should be known in about six months.
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