John Schnatter, the founder of Papa John’s pizza, headlined a unique event for cryptocurrency supporters and investors on Thursday, ahead of the Bitcoin 2021 conference in Miami.
Schnatter was selected as the featured speaker because the first physical purchase in history made with Bitcoin was the purchase of two Papa John’s pizzas in 2010 with 10,000 Bitcoins.
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Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) traveled to Memphis on Thursday to tour the damaged I-40 bridge and met with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to discuss infrastructure spending to meet the logistical needs of Tennessee.
“The I-40 bridge closure affects not only Memphis and the Mid-South region, it affects the entire nation. I-40 is a coast-to-coast federal interstate highway crossing our nation from North Carolina to California,” Blackburn described in a statement. “This bridge situation deserves to have the full and immediate attention of the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Biden administration.”
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The Supreme Court’s decision to take up Mississippi’s petition to reinstate their landmark ban on late-term abortions has brought forth an outpouring of both giddiness and trepidation from the pro-life community. Pro-life Americans are by turns hailing the opportunity for the greatest legal victory for the unborn in decades and declaring the case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a litmus test on the usefulness of the entire conservative legal movement.
I don’t want to downplay Dobb’s importance. Mississippi’s law, protecting the lives of unborn children after 15 weeks, is both one of the bravest acts on behalf of mothers and children by any American legislature and striking in its common sense and humanity. That every one of America’s 50 states is, by judicial fiat, one of the very few places on earth that allow children to be aborted on-demand this late into pregnancy, is a disgrace whose correction is long overdue.
Furthermore, the Supreme Court merely agreeing to hear Mississippi’s appeal after lower courts struck the law down, represents a victory unto itself. To get to this point, at least four justices had to have agreed that this area of the law is in need of clarification and perhaps correction. Amicus briefs from many of the country’s leading pro-life lawyers will introduce arguments at the highest level of American jurisprudence that may seed future legislation and lawsuits even if Mississippi’s law is not allowed to go into effect.
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On a recent congressional trip to the Darién Gap in Panama, where tens of thousands of migrants begin their trek to the U.S. southern border, U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, R-Wis., noted something remarkable.
Western Union outlets were stationed near migrant camps on either side of the gap, making it easy for relatives of migrants who are already in the United States to wire funds. Security officials say some of those funds are then used to pay off smugglers and members of cartels at various points along the migrants’ trip to America.
Tiffany said he fears the COVID-19 stimulus payments approved by Congress may be driving some of the flow of money.
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Two children who escaped from a children’s home broke into a house, stole firearms and opened fire on responding police officers in Volusia County, Florida, Tuesday night, police officer’s body-worn camera video shows.
Nicole Jackson, 14, aimed a shotgun at officers and was shot and wounded while Travis O’Brien, 12, carried an AK-47 and eventually surrendered to officials, the Volusia County Sheriff’s Department announced Wednesday. The children ran away from the Florida United Methodist Children’s Home before breaking into an empty house where the homeowners told officials they had multiple firearms and a large amount of ammunition.
“Female has a shotgun in her hand, standby,” one officer said, video released Thursday shows. “Put the gun down now!” an officer told Jackson, “they’re shooting at me.”
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Friday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, guest host Christina Botteri welcomed all-star panelist Crom Carmichael to the studio who outlined the many errors in Ibram Kendi’s false narratives receipted from the 1619 Project.
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How long will the Biden gerontocracy, also known as Geezer’s Palace, continue to indulge Anthony Fauci’s mendacious reign of medical terror?
Gain-of-function research is a field in which an organism or pathogen is altered genetically in a way that increases its performance. To speak of “performance” in this context, of course, raises the question, “performance of what?” Performance is based on a goal, and in medical science, long cut free from the moorings of intelligible ideas about the good, that means viability.
When the organism in question is a pathogen, viability means new qualities of pathogenesis, transmissibility, or the types of hosts the pathogen can infect, leading to the greater propagation of the pathogen.
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The U.S. economy reported an increase of 559,000 jobs in May and the unemployment rate declined to 5.8%, according to Department of Labor data released Friday.
Total non-farm payroll employment increased by 559,000 in May, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report, and the number of unemployed persons dropped to 9.3 million. Economists projected 671,000 Americans would be added to payrolls prior to Friday’s report, according to The Wall Street Journal.
“We think it will take several months for frictions in the labor market to work themselves out,” Barclays chief U.S. economist Michael Gapen told the WSJ. “That just means we shouldn’t be expecting one to two million jobs every month. Instead, it will be a more gradual process.”
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Dr. Peter Daszak, the director of the New York-based non-profit that funneled hundreds of thousands of American tax dollars to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, reportedly orchestrated “a behind-the-scenes bullying campaign” to make sure the Covid-19 outbreak was not linked to the Wuhan lab.
Daszak got more than two dozen other scientists to sign off on the letter he wrote to the highly respected British medical journal, The Lancet, the Daily Mail reported. The idea, according to the emails, was to put forward a statement from “a community supporting our colleagues.”
Emails released through a Freedom of Information Act request show that Daszak considered not signing the letter himself, although in the end he did.
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Tennessee’s Republican U.S. representatives urged House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to hold China accountable for causing the COVID-19 pandemic. The representatives signed onto the four-page letter last Friday, along with 202 other Republican representatives.
Two Republicans – Illinois Representative Adam Kinzinger (R-IL-16) and Virginia Representative Morgan Griffith (R-VA-09) – didn’t sign onto the letter. The House Republican representatives that did sign onto the letter derided Pelosi for dismissing previous President Donald Trump’s speculation of China’s involvement in the COVID-19 outbreak last year. Sources say Pelosi hasn’t responded to the letter yet.
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After a lengthy court battle, the government of the state of California backed down in its efforts to enforce coronavirus restrictions on a church that continued hosting in-person worship services, and has now agreed in a settlement to pay the church’s $2 million worth of legal fees, Breitbart reports.
When the state repeatedly attempted to enforce strict capacity limits, mask mandates, and other “social distancing” requirements on the San Diego-based Pentecostal church, the church’s lawyers filed suit with the United States Supreme Court, winning all three suits. This ultimately led to lawyers on behalf of the state of California agreeing to the settlement, which was approved by a federal judge.
Responding to the settlement, an attorney with the Thomas More Society, a legal group that represents churches facing suppression of their First Amendment rights, pointed out that while businesses such as Costco were limited to 50 percent capacity, while churches were forced to stay as low as 25 percent, and sometimes even lower.
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Facebook announced Friday that former President Trump will continue to be suspended from the platform for at least two years, through Jan. 7, 2023.
“We are suspending his accounts for two years, effective from the date of the initial suspension on January 7 this year,” said Nick Clegg, Facebook’s vice president of global affairs, according to Politico.
“Given the gravity of the circumstances that led to Mr. Trump’s suspension, we believe his actions constituted a severe violation of our rules which merit the highest penalty available under the new enforcement protocols,” Clegg said.
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Friday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, guest host Christina Botteri welcomed Fox Nation’s ‘No Interruption’ host Tomi Lahren to the newsmakers line live from California where she detailed the homelessness issues plaguing the state.
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A group of realtor organizations asked the Supreme Court to block the federal eviction moratorium that has been in effect throughout the pandemic and prevents landlords from evicting tenants who skip rent payments.
The group, led by the Alabama Association of Realtors, asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to issue an emergency order blocking the moratorium, which had been crafted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), according to court filings. The moratorium has resulted in more than $13 billion in unpaid rent per month since it was introduced, the coalition wrote to the high court.
“Congress never gave the CDC the staggering amount of power it now claims,” the groups’ filing said.
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A former volleyball player at the University of Oklahoma, Kylee McLaughlin, is suing the school and her coaches because she claims they excluded her from the team after McLaughlin voiced conservative viewpoints.
The lawsuit filed in Oklahoma City federal court alleges that the former high school volleyball player of the year was forced by coaches to redshirt and undergo “diversity” training.
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Friday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, guest host Christina Botteri welcomed Tennessee star investigative report Corinne Murdock to the newsmakers line to discuss her findings in regards to Lipscomb University’s Christian Scholar Conference to feature premier speaker on racism, Ibram Kendi.
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Members of the Georgia Board of Education voted Thursday to formally oppose teaching Critical Race Theory (CRT) in the state’s K-12 classrooms. Board members, according to their resolution, described beliefs such as CRT as “concepts that impute fault, blame, a tendency to oppress others, or the need to feel guilt or anguish to persons solely because of their race or sex.”
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Facebook announced it will likely scrap its highly debated policy regarding moderating the speech and content posted on its site form politicians. Previously, politicians were subject to suspension or permanent ban under a different set of rules compared to regular Facebook users.
This decision comes on the heels of former President Donald J. Trump being permanently banned from Facebook, but no decision has come regarding whether to resurrect Trump’s Facebook account. Facebook’s Oversight Board is giving Facebook time to determine if Trump will be allowed back on the platform.
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Last month, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill to expand school choice and education options. Some have said it could be the largest school choice expansion among any state in the country.
The bill will expand eligibility to for school vouchers to low-income students and students with unique abilities. Approximately 60,000 Florida students, including military kids, foster children, and adopted students, will now be eligible to receive vouchers to attend private, charter, or other home schooling.
Spotsylvania restaurant Gourmeltz 90’s Music Bar and Drafthouse announced that its health department permit has been restored and a lawsuit against the restaurant has been dropped.
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Georgia Agriculture Secretary Gary Black became the most prominent Republican to enter the GOP primary for U.S. Senate in an attempt to take on Sen Raphael Warnock (D-GA).
Black is currently serving his third term as the Agriculture Secretary and has spent decades in the farming industry. Through his past experiences, Black has developed a strong coalition of rural voters.
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King George County is evaluating a plan to move a Confederate memorial from the lawn in front of the courthouse to a cemetery. On Tuesday evening, the Board of Supervisors went into a closed meeting with the county attorney and county administrator for about an hour. When they came out of the closed meeting, Chairman Ann Cupka read a brief statement before the meeting adjourned.
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Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms will soon sign an administrative order directing the city’s Department of Enterprise Assets Management (DEAM) to designate all single-occupancy restrooms within city facilities as gender neutral. This, according to the order that Bottoms will sign later this month. The Georgia Star News obtained a copy on Friday from Atlanta Director of LGBTQ Affairs Malik Brown.
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Riots and protests broke out on Thursday after city officials began taking apart George Floyd Square to reopen the section for traffic. At the same time, a wanted man was killed in an officer involved shooting.
Protests had already been occurring at George Floyd Square where workers were busy dismantling barriers and opening the roads again for traffic. There was pushback from those who were there protesting and some barriers were replaced.
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Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) will not allow full capacity at high school graduation ceremonies this year, despite rapidly declining COVID-19 cases and deaths nationwide.
Thursday, she vetoed legislation that would have exempted high schools from the state’s 50 percent capacity limit on indoor gatherings, according to Detroit News.
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According to Fox News, the City of Minneapolis began removing barriers and trying to reopen the intersection on Thursday, after over a year of the section of street being occupied by protesters.
George Floyd Square, which has been occupied by protesters since the death of George Floyd in May 2020, was “a makeshift shrine and focus of protests” and “a semi-autonomous, pedestrian territory symbolizing community resistance.”
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Ohio House Republicans have proposed $1000 bonus checks for first responders who worked throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
Using federal relief money from the American Rescue Plan, the last economic stimulus law, firefighters, emergency medical technicians (EMT), and police officers would receive the bonus, which is expected to cost around $83 million.
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In a Thursday letter to Deb Haaland, secretary of the U.S. Department of Interior (DOI), Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber asked the federal government to reject the newly-signed gambling compact between the state of Florida and the Seminole Indian tribe.
“I support the goals of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (’IGRA’), namely, to provide Native American tribes with a pathway to greater independence and economic vitality. But the Florida Compact you are considering was not crafted in pursuit of those goals,” Gelber wrote in the letter.
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A man, Winston Smith, 32 with multiple warrants out for his arrest was fatally shot on Thursday in Minneapolis after pulling out a handgun while being stopped by police. Riots broke out against police brutality again, due to the race of the man shot.
This instance took place while the city of Minneapolis was removing barriers at the monument that had been erected to honor George Floyd, the man killed by former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin last May.
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Metro Nashville Community Oversight Board’s (COB) submitted their hiring recommendations, including diversity increases and bias history requirements, on Friday.
The COB made the decision to adopt and formally submit the report to the Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) during their meeting last Wednesday.
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