A state prosecutor and the defense attorney for former Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin presented their opening arguments in Chauvin’s murder trial Monday morning.
Chauvin is accused of killing George Floyd during an arrest in May of last year. The trial is being live-streamed from inside the courtroom.
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Severe weather crossed Tennessee Saturday and brought two rounds of heavy rain, high winds, flash flooding, and tornado warnings. Tennessee Emergency Management Agency (TEMA) officials on Sunday afternoon reported four weather-related fatalities in Davidson County.
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With the wave of executive orders and legislation coming from the Biden administration, and the cultural antics of his woke supporters, Biden’s war on fossil fuels has received insufficient attention. Yet energy is the lifeblood of our economy, and making traditional energy sources vastly more expensive is the single most destructive aspect of Biden’s policies. If this country does not successfully mobilize against these policies, the vast majority will experience a dramatic drop in their standard of living.
Supposedly the assault on fossil fuels — via regulation; cancellation of pipelines; concocting a huge, wholly imaginary “social cost of carbon”; taxes; and solar and wind mandates — is necessary to save the planet from imminent catastrophe produced by man-made global warming.
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Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson (R-Ark.) signed a bill into law on Thursday that banned so-called “transgender” athletes from competing in sports for women and girls, as reported by ABC News.
Hutchinson’s office released a statement addressing the new law, declaring that “this law simply says that female athletes should not have to compete in a sport against a student of the male sex when the sport is designed for women’s competition…I agree with the intention of this law. This will help promote and maintain fairness in women’s sporting events.”
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One of the scant few House Republicans who voted to impeach President Donald Trump last year is receiving backing from former Speaker of the House John Boehner ahead of a primary challenge from a pro-Trump candidate.
Boehner next week will appear at a Zoom fundraiser for Ohio Rep. Anthony Gonzalez, according to Politico. Gonzalez, who is up for reelection in 2022, was among the 10 Republicans in the House to vote to impeach Trump on charges of having “incited” the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
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Red states are leading economic growth in the U.S., a new report by the U. S. Commerce Department shows, with South Dakota, Texas and Utah reporting the highest growth.
The report is based on 2020 fourth quarter gross domestic product (GDP) data and February 2021 unemployment rates.
Real GDP increased in all 50 states and the District of Columbia in the fourth quarter of 2020. Real GDP for the U.S. as a whole increased at an annual rate of 4.3%. The percent change in real GDP in the fourth quarter ranged from 9.9% in South Dakota to 1.2% in the District of Columbia.
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The Pentagon’s views on political violence following the Black Lives Matter (BLM) and Capitol riots are not biased despite rank and file concerns, a Department of Defense (DoD) spokesman said.
Service members have expressed concerns regarding DoD’s different responses to the political turmoil in the summer of 2020 and the Capitol riot, believing that the Pentagon should take a balanced view on violence in both cases, according to McClatchy. A DoD spokesman said judgements are not based on the causes of political violence when providing military assistance to states and the federal government.
“If a request for assistance is received from state or federal authorities, the Department of Defense reviews it, and considers what support it can provide that would meet the requirements of the request,” Lieutenant Colonel (LTC) Chris Mitchell at DoD, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “In doing so, the Department does not make distinctions or judgements about the events that led to the request.”
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A lengthy column by a professor that critiques critical race theory and the concept of “whiteness” and “blackness” was removed by an online intellectual magazine after it generated controversy.
Alaric Naudé, a linguistics professor at Suwon Science College in South Korea and head professor of its English Department, said his essay “Blackness, Whiteness and Other Mythological Creatures” was removed by the UK-based online magazine Res Publica.
The publication bills itself as providing “an academic platform where ideas and concepts can be praised and challenged.” It did not respond to requests from The College Fix seeking comment on the matter.
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Disney has announced that the beloved “National Treasure” film franchise will be rebooted into a TV series that will feature a young female DREAMer as its main character, as reported by Breitbart.
The new series will premiere on Disney’s exclusive streaming platform Disney+, with the show’s description declaring that the story will be told “from the point of view of Jess Morales, a twenty-year-old DREAMer who, with her diverse group of friends, sets off on the adventure of a lifetime to uncover her mysterious family history and recover lost treasure.”
“DREAMer” refers to the failed amnesty bill known as the DREAM Act, which Barack Obama tried to get passed through Congress while he was in office. When the bill could not garner bipartisan support to pass, he took the highly unconstitutional action of implementing most of the DREAM Act via executive order, which came to be known as the “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals,” or DACA order. This order pledged to give blanket amnesty to illegal aliens who arrived in the United States as minors, and since the signing of the executive order, has become a legal and political football that has bounced from one court to another trying to determine its legality.
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China has delayed the release of a World Health Organization report on the origins of the coronavirus pandemic as it reviews the document, according to a World Health Organization advisor.
A team of scientists led by the WHO was expected to release the report this week, after an investigation in Wuhan, the Chinese city where the first known cases of COVID-19 were found.
“Just received confirmation that release of the @WHO-organized int’l committee/Chinese gov’t report on #COVID19 origins has again been delayed, apparently as the Chinese side fights tooth & nail over each sentence. Anyone believe this compromise report can possibly be credible?” World Health Organization advisory committee member Jamie Metzl said Friday in a tweet.
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A suburban Minneapolis theater company has cancelled a production of “Cinderella” because its cast was “too white.”
Chanhassen Dinner Theatres was scheduled to stage Roger & Hammerstein’s classic play later this year before its artistic director stepped in to criticise its lack of racial diversity, twincities.com reported.
“It was 98 percent white,” Michael Brindisi, the theater’s artistic director, told the Twin Cities Pioneer Press on Wednesday after looking at the actors who had been cast. “That doesn’t work with what we’re saying we’re going to do.”
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Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) introduced a bill on Thursday seeking to ban critical race theory from being taught in the United States military, referring to such a practice as “anti-American,” as reported by the Washington Free Beacon.
Senator Cotton said that such teachings, which essentially claim that America is an “inherently racist” country and that White people are automatically racist and “privileged,” would only “demoralize and divide” members of the armed forces. In his statement announcing the bill, Cotton declared that “our military’s strength depends on the unity of our troops and the knowledge that America is a noble nation worth fighting for.”
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The CEO of Gallup has publicly warned President Joe Biden that approximately 42 million people south of Texas want to migrate into the United States.
In a blog post published on Wednesday, Jim Clifton, the chairman and CEO of the Gallup polling company, warned Biden as he and his administration struggle to deal with the surge of migration at the border:
Here are questions every leader should be able to answer regardless of their politics: How many more people are coming to the southern border? And what is the plan?
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A bill that will give local school boards the sole authority to close schools was approved Thursday by the Tennessee House and is on its way to Gov. Bill Lee.
Senate Bill 103, which passed the House, 85-2, makes it clear local school boards can close public or charter schools in the state, not the governor through executive orders or local health departments.
The bill, sponsored in the House by Rep. Kevin Vaughan, R-Collierville, aimed to clarify who had the authority because during the COVID-19 pandemic, it was unclear in some locales whether the county health department or local school board held the authority.
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MISSOULA COUNTY, Mont. — A mountainous, 2,600-square-mile region with a population of approximately 119,600 does not seem like your prototypical setting for machine politics. Yet a recent audit of mail-in ballots cast there found irregularities characteristic of larger urban centers — on a level that could have easily swung local elections in 2020, and statewide elections in cycles past.
The Biden administration, the Democrat-controlled Congress, and the Democratic National Committee are collectively pressing to both nationalize, and make permanent, many of the extraordinary pandemic-driven voting measures implemented during the 2020 election —particularly mass mail-in voting.
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Texts allegedly linking the U.S. Secret Service to Hunter Biden’s 2018 gun case were uncovered by the New York Post on Friday.
In a Jan. 29, 2019 text message, Biden reportedly wrote that his former sister-in-law turned girlfriend Hallie Biden stole the gun from the trunk of his car and told law enforcement authorities, including the Secret Service, that she disposed of it over fears Biden would use the gun to harm himself, the Post reported. The purported texts appear to contradict the Secret Service’s denial of involvement in the incident.
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The Republican Party of Virginia announced Friday that the filing deadline had passed for the 2021 Republican Party of Virginia unassembled convention, creating a scramble for the wide open Governor’s race. The unassembled convention is scheduled for Saturday, May 8th, with over 30 polling locations across the Commonwealth of Virginia. According to the Republican Party of Virginia, all but two announced candidates for Governor filed for and paid their filing fee.
The following candidates have properly filed with the Republican Party of Virginia and will appear on the Republican Party of Virginia 2021 Statewide unassembled convention ballot.
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Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel this week defended Georgia Senate Bill 202, which Democrats nationwide have described as a form of voter suppression. As The Georgia Star News reported Saturday, this new voter reform law requires the following:
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Virginia businesses will benefit from the federal government extending the deadline to apply for Paycheck Protection Program forgivable loans, according to associations representing industries.
With bipartisan support, federal lawmakers passed legislation to extend the loan application from March 31 to May 31 and give the Small Business Administration an additional 30 days to process the applications. The legislation is expected to be signed by President Joe Biden.
The loans allow businesses economically harmed by the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent economic restrictions to borrow money from the federal government. If businesses use the money in accordance with federal guidelines, the loans will be forgiven, meaning that the businesses will not have to pay the money back.
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A bipartisan bill claims it would reduce the cost of prescription drug costs to save taxpayers a potential millions – if not billions – of dollars.
Sen. Michelle Benson, R-Ham Lake, held a Friday news conference with Rep. Mike Howard, D-Richfield, highlighting the bill
SF 2178 would allow the state to share bid information submitted by pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) for public employee contracts. The reverse auction process incentivizes PBMs to compete against each other by submitting lower offers in bidding rounds to win a contract, which is meant to achieve cost savings without impacting the quality of state health benefit plans.
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Seven gubernatorial candidates successfully filed for the Republican Party of Virginia (RPV) nomination convention to be held May 8, the RPV announced Friday. Six candidates filed to run for lieutenant governor, and four candidates filed for the attorney general race.
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Eighty-three days into 2021, Grand Rapids-based Above and Beyond Catering owner Kim Smith said she hasn’t recorded a dollar of revenue in 2021 thanks to COVID-19 restrictions enacted by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
Catering isn’t alone.
Wedding and funeral owners are pushing back on COVID-19 restrictions killing their business for the last year.
Smith has been in business for 45 years, she told the House Oversight Committee Thursday. Although she’s “done everything to keep afloat” since the state forced her business closed in March of 2020, her revenue is down 93.6%.
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Ohio State University recently announced it plans to hire 50 faculty members focused on addressing social equity and racial disparities.
The news comes as an economics professor and higher education watchdog calculated that the public university currently employs 150 diversity officials at a cost of $12 million annually.
In a 2021 state of the university address, President Kristina Johnson stated last month that she was encouraged by the Task Force on Racism and Racial Inequities to hire 150 new faculty within a new initiative called RAISE, which stands for race, inclusion and social equity.
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Former White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders has endorsed Virginia gubernatorial candidate Pete Snyder. On Thursday, the Snyder campaign posted a video call between Snyder and Sanders on YouTube.
In the video, Sanders said Snyder was a strong Trump supporter who would fight for schools and businesses to be open.
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A Georgia Institute of Technology professor accused of using the college’s J-1 Visa Program to “arrange for Chinese nationals to fraudulently obtain and maintain J-1 Visas” was arraigned in a federal court in Georgia, the Department of Justice announced on Wednesday.
Gee-Kung Chang, who was indicted by a grand jury on March 18, pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit visa fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and wire fraud, according to a press release. Chang’s alleged co-conspirator, Jianjun Yu, was also arraigned, joining him in what U.S. Attorney Kurt Erskine called “The first step toward holding them accountable” for running a tightly orchestrated scheme that placed Chinese nationals at ZTE USA in New Jersey.
ZTE USA is a subsidiary of ZTE Corporation, a technology company partly owned by the Chinese Communist Party. On March 3, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the Chinese Communist Party represents America’s “biggest geopolitical test of the 21st century.”
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Left-wing activists groups are targeting the state of Georgia after Gov. Bill Lee (R) signed an election integrity bill into law last week.
One of the most high-profile targets of the boycotts is the Augusta National Golf Course, home to the Professional Golf Association’s (PGA) Masters Tournament, the most storied professional golf tournament in the United States.
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The General Assembly is considering whether schools should notify parents about sexual orientation or gender identity curriculum. HB0529/SB1229 would require this. It would also allow parents to opt their children out of that curriculum, review the materials, and confer with school officials about the curriculum or materials.
Schools would have to notify parents about the curriculum 30 days in advance, at minimum. It wouldn’t require any notification about responses to in-class questions from students, or about references to the sexual orientation or gender identity of historic figures. It also wouldn’t require schools to adopt this type of curriculum.
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